Aug. 31, 2011
Cardinal Looking Forward To Spain
STANFORD, Calif.- The most recent foreign trip for the Stanford men's basketball team took place four years ago, as the Cardinal traveled to Italy.
The seven-game, 11-day tour in August of 2007 included stops in Rome, Florence and Milan. Off the court, the Cardinal toured The Colosseum, Vatican, Lake Como and attended a social at the residence of U.S. Ambassador Ronald P. Spogli.
After playing almost exclusively in a reserve role as a freshman, Anthony Goods was coming off a sophomore season in which he led the Cardinal in minutes per game (33.6), ranked second in scoring (12.8) and drained a team-best 60 three-pointers.
Goods was progressing as expected, and primed for a breakthrough season in 2007-08. The coaching staff viewed the 6-3 guard from Corona, Calif., as another weapon in an already-solid starting lineup that included future NBA draft picks Brook Lopez and Robin Lopez.
Stanford would finish 28-8 that season, recording the third-best win total in program history while advancing to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 for the first time in seven years. Goods made 30 starts, ranked third on the team in scoring, led the club in three-pointers and was named All-Pac-10 Honorable Mention.
That summer's Italy trip served as a springboard for Goods, who emerged as a fixture in the Cardinal's starting lineup while earning All-Pac-10 accolades in both in his junior and senior seasons.
With Stanford scheduled to depart on Saturday, Sept. 3, for an 11-day trip to Spain, we look back at Goods' foreign tour experience in 2007.
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What were your first impressions of Italy?
Goods: " That summer was my first time going overseas. It was unexpected, just seeing all the houses stacked on top of each other. You have all these different types of shops and stores, and of course, all the restaurants close at midday so sometimes you can't find any food. That was an experience in itself, aside from touring the country."
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Stanford was coming off an NCAA Tournament season in 2006-07, but with basically everyone returning, expectations must have been even higher for 2007-08.
Goods: "We were pretty set. We knew it was the same team coming back, so just wanted to use the trip as an advantage to get one leg up on the rest of the teams out there. We wanted to treat the games like real games, so by the time the season came around, we had already done this before. You get to practice the week before you leave. Then you're playing and practicing on the road out there, so you get to go over your offense and defense. We spent a lot of time working on defense. A lot of the basic principles you may not get into until October, now you could knock that all out of the way. The trip made everything a lot easier for us. Practices were a lot smoother in the preseason. We were able to get a head start."
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 Stanford wrapped up its Italy trip with a 4-3 record.  | |
What do you remember about the competition level ?
Goods: "We played a few teams that were really good. I remember one team had Kevin Pinkney (Nevada), Troy Bell (Boston College) and B.J. Elder (Georgia Tech) all together. Another team had Taquan Dean (Louisville). It was a group of older college guys who you had watched play ball prior to coming to college. Now they were out there playing and trying to make a living. It was a lot of good competition because the guys are older, stronger and faster. I also remember it was a little different adjusting to the rules. They called a lot of traveling, and they called it a little different."
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Was it difficult for you guys to approach these games, since the results and statistics did not count?
Goods: "You know, Coach J (former head coach Trent Johnson) was always serious and focused. It definitely was not a `guys, let's roll the balls out and play' mentality. I remember one game he was about to strangle one of the refs. He treated everything like a regular season game, as did we. "
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Was there a specific area you guys were trying to work on?
Goods: "Up until that summer, we had never really played with both twins on the floor at the same time. Brook was hurt during his freshman year, and once he came back, Robin moved to the bench a little more and we played with Lawrence (Hill) at the four during my sophomore year. So that time in Italy was actually the first time we went out with both twins on the floor. It was good to adjust, in that sense. I was just going out there playing hard."
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Any memorable stories off the court?
Goods: "Brook (Lopez) lost his hat on a boat trip across Lake Como, so he flipped out about that. Will (Paul) got his camera stolen on the way back to the hotel one night, but he actually ended up getting it back. There was one night we were out as a group and lost Mitch (Johnson) and Da'Veed (Dildy) for a few hours. Had no idea where they were."
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Any expert travel tips you can pass along to our guys during their time in Spain?
Goods: "Definitely being without the phone was tough. If you get lost or are just walking by yourself somewhere, there's no Google Maps. You're just lost. You can't talk to anyone. Also, we were always rushing over to the little Internet shops around the corner of the hotel, trying to check our emails, Facebook and all that. The time change wasn't bad. I just tried to stay up the whole night before the flight and then slept all the way there since we landed in the morning. It didn't hit me too bad, but it will hit you eventually in some way, shape or form."
How important is this summer's Spain trip when you look ahead to 2011-12?
Goods: "Very important, especially with this team. Now they have to find out if there is a go-to guy or will they all have to kind of pitch in and average like 10 points. They need to find their identity and get into a rhythm, so I think this will definitely be a great test for them. It's soul-searching, in a sense. They are young and nobody has really had to step up and be that 15-20 point scorer, but you have to generate points somehow. Now there are plenty of guys over there who are capable, so hopefully this becomes a chance to define roles, sort of like our summer trip. Then you can carry that into training camp and move forward as a team."
by Brian Risso, Athletics Communications/Media Relations. Photos by Kyle Terada.