When this trip was first planned a couple of weeks back, I had expected to see the Arizona Cardinals visiting the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday afternoon. But on Friday night, I had a look at the NCAA basketball schedule and discovered that another Cardinal team would be in action, namely the Stanford Cardinal, who would be hosting #5 Kansas in a marquee noon matchup. I initially dismissed the idea as Stanford is in Palo Alto and I was staying in LA, but after sleeping on it, I decided to investigate. A quick check on flights revealed that prices were not unreasonable, despite being the day before. I was able to use miles to get to San Jose in the morning and then fly back on American that evening, arriving in plenty of time to get to Galen Center for USC. As it would be my first, and likely only, true two-city doubleheader with a plane ride, I took the plunge and hoped that everything would work out.
I happened to be staying within walking distance to LAX and so left my hotel at 6:15, reaching my gate at 6:45, far too early for the 7:40 flight. There were no issues with weather or mechanics, and we left on time, landing just 50 minutes later. San Jose is a better airport for access to Palo Alto, and buses were free on this Sunday, so I took the 60 to Santa Clara Transit Center and switched to the 522 Express, getting to Stanford at about 10:45, where I was greeted by the billboard above.
Cardinal basketball plays at Maples Pavilion, which is about a 10-minute walk from the corner of El Camino and Embarcadero/Galvez. You pass by Stanford Stadium, which held the 1985 Super Bowl. Along the way, I saw the informative sign titled "Home of Champions". There would be a lot of that talk today.
That's because Stanford has the most NCAA championships of any school. If you only follow football (Rose Bowl trophies above) and basketball, this might be surprising, but there are 24 sports contested at the college level and they all rank equally when it comes to success, at least in the eyes of the NCAA. So to honour their teams and stars, Stanford opened a separate venue known as the Home of Champions back in 2017. It is right across from Maples Pavilion and free to the public. Let me just say that it is impressive. I know many fans look down on the less popular sports, but every single college athlete has worked hard to get where they are. When you see all the trophies and records set here, both my teams and individuals, you realize the commitment necessary to achieve success, even at this level. The Cardinal have won the Director's Cup (below) for 25 straight seasons and lead the current race as well, with titles in water polo and women's soccer. Make sure to visit this museum if you are ever on Stanford's campus.
Getting back to the task at hand, Maples Pavilion opened in January 1969 and underwent a significant renovation in 2004. It is a fairly flat, non-descript building hidden behind some trees.
Tickets were outrageously priced for this battle, not surprising given the wealth in the area. Lower chairback seats were $299 at the window, while the cheapest was $49. I spent a few minutes to see if anyone had extras, but that was fruitless, and as I wanted to tour the venue, I forked over $41 on the secondary market.
The northwest entrance was relatively busy, but the northeast, where students also enter, was empty (below). As you can tell by these photos, there were a lot of Kansas fans in attendance. As you can also tell, wearing basketball jerseys over collared shirts is not a good look.
Inside, the concourse is wide and circles the entire floor. Concessions are found along each side, with each offering some sort of specialty item along with typical arena fare.
At each section, there are doors that take you to the seating bowl. There is a student section here, known as the 6th Man, along the sidelines that was quite empty on this winter holiday weekend.
That's the 6th Man at halftime in the right foreground in the shot below. You can see all the white towels indicating that seats were not taken during the first half.
The shot below was taken before the game and shows that those lovely white towels were only given to those fans in the lower seats. The rich get richer and all that.
I imagine the sign below gets updated quite often. The 149 national championships includes the 123 NCAA ones as well. The other 26 were won before the NCAA formed. Their only basketball title was in 1942, although they claim the 1937 championship as well via the Helms Athletic Foundation.
The seating bowl is quite compact, with a walkway between the two levels. The shot below is of one baseline section. You can see how the sideline section extends past the court so if you are sitting in the last few seats, you will have to turn your head to watch the action.
The shot from behind the net illustrates just how compact this place is. Capacity is 7,392, a good size for a Power 5 venue.
This is from just below the camera bank. The scoreboard is four-sided, with video on each side, and stat boards are located in the corners of the seating bowl.
My seat was in Section 4, Row T, which is the second row from the top. Face value for this was $99, the most I have seen for a regular season college basketball game. The view is below, showing that even the nosebleeds aren't really that far away, and certainly it wasn't worth an extra $200 to get in those first few rows.
Overall, Maples Pavilion is a simple venue, with little fanfare or features of note. This is to be expected with the Home of Champions right across the way housing all the silverware and other memorabilia. A visit to any Stanford venue would not be complete without a stop here first to see that success comes in all sports at the college level, not just those that ESPN covers.
The Game
Stanford came in at 11-1 with their only blemish a 1-point defeat at the hands of Butler, and there were high hopes that they could contend with Kansas. Those hopes were dashed early. Both teams were brutal to start, with Kansas slightly less so. The Jayhawks led 11-0 when Stanford scored their first points, on a free throw from Oscar Da Silva at 12:11. It wasn't until there was 8:08 left that Stanford scored their first basket that made it 15-4. The rest of the half saw the teams finally pick things up as it finished 28-18 Kansas.
I moved down behind the basket that Kansas was attacking for the second half and was rewarded with some impressive shooting. Stanford was down 33-24 when Isaiah Moss sank 3 consecutive treys for Kansas to double the lead and pretty much end any chance of a comeback.
Udoka Azubuike had a late dunk for his only two points (that's him above about to miss one of his five free throws) to put the icing on the cake that was a 72-56 Jayhawk beatdown. Bleacher Report has a good article on Azubuike from 2018, when Kansas made the Final Four.
Hard to believe, but the score reflects favourably on Stanford, who were simply outclassed from start to finish. It was Stanford's 5-23 shooting in the first half that did them in; both teams shot over 50% in the second half but Kansas had 15 offensive rebounds to just 4 for Stanford to make the game a laugher. Still, I was glad to get to see a marquee game at Maples, even though it turned out to be quite the opposite.
Notes
Condoleezza Rice was the honourary captain for Stanford. They probably should have put her in for a few plays.
Near the end of the game, some Kansas fans walked around carrying a "Beware of the Phog" sign. A gentleman sitting close by asked a female Kansas fan what that meant. The fan, being devious, said it related to the fog in San Francisco. The gentleman believed her, suggesting that he does not follow my blog.
I use the term true doubleheader to signify that both games in two venues are seen start to finish (similarly, a true tripleheader involves 3 games in 3 venues and all must be seen from beginning to end). Often, scheduling circumstances or weather quirks force chasers to leave one game early to get to another (or arrive late). This has happened to me in the past, such as at the beginning of 2019 when there was a tripleheader in Charlotte but I had to miss the first period of the hockey game due to the schedule. So it did not count as a "true" tripleheader. Thankfully, everything worked out on the first half of this one, check the next post to see if I made it back to LA in time to compete the true two-city plane ride doubleheader.
Best,
Sean
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