Cardinal Forward Fouls Up Strategy to Keep Him Away From the Line

In the early moments of the Stanford-Georgia game, Bulldog Coach Ron Jirsa was jumping up and down, imploring his players not to foul Cardinal forward Mark Madsen.

Apparently, Jirsa hadn’t seen the stat sheet. If he had, instead of yelling, “No foul! No foul,” he would’ve been yelling, “Foul! Foul.”

Before Saturday’s game, Madsen was shooting .952 from the floor and only .629 from the free-throw line. He made eight of 14 field-goal attempts and seven of 10 free throws Saturday.

Madsen played all but three minutes Saturday, but the three he missed were in the final five of the game when Georgia was rallying to take the lead.

“It wasn’t anything Mark did wrong,” Stanford Coach Mike Montgomery said. “It’s just that nothing was happening. We couldn’t get the ball to him in a comfortable place and he looked a little blank-faced.”

Madsen returned with 1:45 to play and scored three of Stanford’s final four points.

“He had a huge game for us and we still didn’t get him the ball nearly as often as we would’ve like to,” Montgomery said.

Jirsa: “Madsen’s the ultimate blue-collar guy. He just keeps working and playing his game and he’s very good at it.”

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Montgomery said he considered going with a three-guard lineup to counter Georgia’s advantage in quickness, but was glad he decided to stick with his regular big men.

The player who would have been left out?

Forward Peter Sauer, who had 15 points, eight rebounds, seven assists and just one turnover.