Stanford Basketball 1999 Pac-10 Champions
Stanford Story
One of the best teams in school history, a high national ranking, excellent team chemistry, talent and depth ... It added up to another highly successful season for the Stanford Cardinal ... The 26 wins was third-best in school history and only four short of the school record set by the NCAA Final Four team in 1997-98 ... For the first time in school history, Stanford captured the Pacific-10 Conference championship, tying a school record with 15 conference wins ... For the fifth straight season, Stanford won at least 20 games ... During that time, the Cardinal has chalked up a record of 108-37 ... Stanford ended the year ranked seventh in the nation by Associated Press, and ninth by USA Today/CNN.
Stanford University Conference Championships
1919-20 Pacific Coast Conference
1920-21 Pacific Coast Conference
1935-36 Pacific Coast Conference
1936-37 Pacific Coast Conference
1937-38 Pacific Coast Conference
1941-42 Pacific Coast Conference
1962-63 (tie) AAWU
1998-99 Pacific-10 Conference
Cardinal Corner
The Cardinal of Stanford was the 1999 Pacific-10 Champion ... The Cardinal chalked up a 15-3 conference mark, and a two game advantage over second place Arizona ... The conference title was the school's first Pac-10 title, and the first conference crown since the 1962-63 season ... Stanford led by one game at the halfway point of the league race ... Since the league expanded in 1979, the leader at the mid-point of the conference had gone on to win the Pac-10 title in all but two seasons (1985-86 and 1993-94) ... The trend continued in 1998-99 with Stanford winning the title ... Previous to the 1998-99 season, since the conference went to ten teams in 1978-79, only four teams had won the title (UCLA, Arizona, Washington, Oregon State) ... Previous to the 1998-99 season, Arizona and UCLA were the only schools to win the league title since the 1990-91 campaign ... Add Stanford to both lists ... Previous to the 1998-99 season, Stanford had not finished first in the conference since the 1962-63 season when the team shared the title with UCLA at 7-5 in the five-team AAWU ... Previous to Stanford winning the league title in 1998-99, the last time Stanford won the league title outright was during the NCAA championship season in 1941-42 with an 11-1 record in the southern division of the Pacific Coast Conference.
Charity Catalogue
Free throws saw a marked improvement for Stanford in the last nine games of the 1998-99 season ... The Cardinal hit 239 of its last 304 free throws for 79 percent ... After an early season slump, Stanford jumped to third in the Pac-10 in free throw percentage at .706 ... Arthur Lee finished first in the conference and fifth in the nation in free throw percentage at .886 (140-158) ... Tim Young placed fifth in the conference in free throw percentage at .825 (94-114) ... Lee hit 31 straight free throws during the latter part of the season, and made 74 of his last 78 free throw attempts for 95 percent.
Schedule Story
Stanford's schedule was the toughest in school history ... Included were games against nine teams that were ranked in the top 25, #1 & #3 Connecticut, #5 & #9 St. John's, #5 & #8 Maryland, #12 Gonzaga, #12 & #16 Arizona, #13 & #18 North Carolina, #14 Temple, #15 & #21 UCLA, and #24 Southwest Missouri State.
Starter Story
Consistency was a trademark of the starting lineup for the Stanford Cardinal ... Over the last 38 games, Stanford marched out a starting lineup of Peter Sauer and Mark Madsen at forward, Tim Young at center, and Arthur Lee and Kris Weems at guard ... Fifty-seven times, this quintet of players started together, and during that time, Stanford chalked up a record of 47-10 over the past two seasons.
Stanford Starters (Lee, Madsen, Sauer, Weems,Young, 47-10)
First eleven games of 1997-98 season (11-0)
Games 22-to-29 of 1997-98 season (6-2)
Games 31-to-35 of 1997-98 season (4-1)
Games 1-to-33 of the 1998-99 season (26-7)
Cardinal Chatter
The Cardinal gave up only 60.8 ppg, #1 in the Pac-10, and #15 in the nation ... This year's defensive points per game average was the best since the 1962-63 season.
Record Review
Four school records were broken in 1998-99 ... Tim Young played in 132 career games, breaking the old mark of 125 by Adam Keefe (1988-92) ... Young also started 125 consecutive games ... Young ended his career with 167 blocks ... The 15 home sellouts was a single season record.
Attendance Analysis
Stanford Basketball is popular ... At Maples Pavilion, Stanford's home floor, all 15 games were soldout (7,391) during the 1998-99 season ... The Cardinal played before 100 percent capacity, tops in the Pac-10 ... The Cardinal played 33 games and played before 332,900 fans ... The Stanford-Maryland game at the BB&T Classic at the MCI Center in Washington D.C. attracted 20,544 fans ... The next night, 18,244 watched Stanford play George Washington ... Two games against St. John's and North Carolina at the pre-season NIT at Madison Square Garden attracted a total crowd of 28,671 ... At the Pete Newell Classic, the Cardinal played Temple before a crowd of 19,657, the largest crowd to ever watch a collegiate basketball game in the state of California, and the largest regular season crowd in the history of West Coast basketball ... The Stanford-California game at Oakland drew 15,269, the largest crowd to watch these two teams play in the 233-game history of the series.
Tough Ticket
Enthusiasm for the Stanford basketball team is at an all-time high ... Every home game in 1998-99 was sold out, a first in school history ... The capacity crowd of 7,391 for the Stanford-UC Davis (11/14/98) game was the first sellout season-opening crowd in Mike Montgomery's tenure at Stanford ... Stanford has played before 24 straight home sellout crowds ... For the first time, the school held Cardinal Chaos, Stanford's version of Midnight Madness ... The event attracted more than 2,500 fans ... Before Midnight Madness, students started waiting in line to buy tickets two weeks before they went on sale, with about 60 tents springing up around Maples Pavilion ... At one time or another, approximately 1,600 students waited for 1,200 available seats ... Many well-known faces attended Stanford games in 1998-99, including Chelsea Clinton, former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, former Cardinal All-Americans Todd Lichti, Adam Keefe and Brevin Knight, University president Gerhard Casper, singer Vanessa Williams, golfers Tiger Woods and Casey Martin, Golden State Warriors head coach P.J. Carlesimo, numerous NBA scouts, Hall of Famer Jerry West, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa, former 49ers and Stanford head football coach Bill Walsh, NBA all-star Gary Payton, and rapper Jay-Z.
Maples Memo
Stanford is 62-7 at Maples Pavilion since the 1994-95 season ... During that time, the Cardinal has won games by an average of 18.8 points per game ... Stanford was 13-2 at home in1998-99 ... The Cardinal has won 36 of its last 40 games at Maples Pavilion, and 48 of the last 53 ... Stanford is 25-3 over Pac-10 schools at Maples Pavilion in the last three seasons.
Defensive Data
Stanford's defense was sharp in 1998-99 ... The Cardinal held the opposition to .380 shooting (#1 in the Pac-10, #10 in the nation), 60.8 ppg (#1 in the Pac-10, #15 in the nation), and outrebounded the opposition, 40.7 to 32.1 rpg (#1 in the conference) ... Stanford outrebounded its opponents in 28 of 33 games, and 35 of 40 games over the last two seasons ... Stanford's rebound margin of 8.6 was #1 in the Pac-10, and #8 in the nation ... The Cardinal grabbed 40 or more rebounds in eight of the last ten games ... Stanford's scoring margin of +12.7 was #1 in the Pac-10, and #13 in the nation ... Stanford beat seven opponents by 25 points or more ... When Stanford scored a 94-45 victory over Washington State (1/21/99), that was the biggest margin of victory (49 points) in 1998-99 ... The 49-point win was eighth-best in school history, the biggest win over Washington State ever, the largest over a Pac-10 opponent, and the second biggest win ever in the 30-year history of Maples Pavilion ... When Stanford scored a 44 point win over Nevada (12/17/98), that was the second biggest margin of victory for a road game in Stanford basketball history ... Only 12 opponents shot 40 percent or better ... Stanford gave the opposition only a .380 shooting percentage, #1 in the Pac-10 and #10 in the nation ... Only 12 opponents scored 60 or more points ... Stanford established a first in school history when the Cardinal scored more than 100 points in a road game ... The Cardinal won at Nevada (12/17/98), 101-57.
Medical Monitor
The injury bug hit the Cardinal roster ... Four players on the 13-man roster were sidelined a total of 76 games ... Jason Collins was ruled out for the season after undergoing surgery to repair a dislocated right wrist in the game against George Washington (12/7/98) ... Michael McDonald suffered a sprained foot in the season opener against UC Davis (11/14/98) and missed 16 games ... Ryan Mendez suffered from a stress reaction in his left knee, and only played in five games ... The latest addition to the list was Jarron Collins, who suffered a sprained left ankle against Oregon (3/4/99) ... Collins missed the final three games of the season, including the two NCAA Tournament games.
Honors Hoopla
Mike Montgomery was the 1999 Pacific-10 Conference Coach of the Year, the 1999 NABC District-14 Coach of the Year, and the 1999 USBWA District-9 Coach of the Year ... Montgomery was one of six finalists for the Claire Bee Award, honoring the active Division I college basketball coach who has made the most significant contributions to the sport ... In his 13th season at the helm, Montgomery guided the Stanford Cardinal to its first conference title since 1963 ... Arthur Lee and Mark Madsen were named honorable mention All-American by Associated Press, the All Pacific-10 Conference first team, the NABC All District-14 first team, the USBWA All-District 9 first team, and the All-West first team by Basketball Times ... Madsen was a finalist for the Chip Hilton Player of the Year Award, given to a player who has demonstrated personal character on-and-off the court ... Madsen, who was a third team All-American by the NABC, was a finalist for the John Wooden Award ... Lee, an All-America candidate, was a candidate for the John Wooden and the Naismith Awards, symbolic of the nation's best player ... Lee was also one of 30 candidates for the Oscar Robertson Trophy, selected by the United States Basketball Writers Association, for college basketball Player of the Year ... Madsen was named a first team All Pacific-10 Academic selection, while Tim Young was named a second team All Pac-10 academic choice.
Minute Memo
Eight players played at least 10 minutes per game ... Cardinal starters averaged 28.6 minutes per game ... All-America guard candidate Arthur Lee led the team in minutes per game at 32.6, while his backcourt mate, Kris Weems, averaged 31.5 minutes per game.
Stanford Stat
Arthur Lee is the current NCAA Tournament record holder for free throw percentage ... In 12 NCAA games, Lee made 58-of-62 free throws for .935 ... That broke the record of Bill Bradley of Princeton, who hit 87-of-96 free throws for .906 in nine games from 1963-65, and Steve Alford of Indiana, who hit 58-of-64 free throw attempts for .906 in ten games from 1984-87 ... Arthur Lee made 58-of-62 free throws in seven NCAA Tournament games during the past two seasons, including a string of 46 straight (35 straight two years ago in five games, and a string of eleven straight during two games of last year's tourney) ... Arthur Lee was the 1999 Pacific-10 free throw percentage champion for a second straight year (.886, #5 in the nation) ... Lee is only the third conference player in the league since 1959-60 to win the free throw title back-to-back ... The others are Rod Foster of UCLA (1980-81, 1981-82) and Stanford's Dion Cross (1994-95, 1995-96).