The Stanford Cardinal look to close out their season opening homestand at 3-0 as they face the Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions. The Golden Lions are 0-3 with losses to Colorado State, Nebraska and Northwestern. Stanford is coming off a strong victory over the Virginia Cavaliers. Stanford was keyed by a 39-16 advantage in bench points and 18 Virginia turnovers. Jeremy Green reached 20 points for the 12th time in his career and head coach Johnny Dawkins has to hope Green and junior forward Andrew Zimmerman can emerge as leaders on this very young Cardinal team.
Arkansas-Pine Bluff is in the midst of a 12-game road trip to start the season that will include Hawaii, Missouri, Auburn, and UTEP. Daniel Broughton leads the Golden Lions with 12 points per game to go with 6.3 rebounds per game. APB has struggled on defense thus far as they gave up at least 80 points in each of their first two games and then 71 against Northwestern.
While a win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff won't tell us a ton about the Cardinal, any style points in a blowout would be beneficial for this young Stanford basketball team. Good teams generally will beat up on lesser opponents, particularly when they're big underdogs. This one isn't even on the boards given the disparity in talent. Stanford needs to avoid playing down to their competition and their young guys need to learn how to win running away. The Cardinal feature a strong recruiting freshman class and they'll have their ups and downs. Today is a chance for these freshmen to gain some confidence.