Stanford's Fields-Green duo one of best scoring tandems in the country

Landry Fields (2)/AP Photo by Paul Sakuma

After Stanford’s Landry Fields and Jeremy Green combined to average 19.0 points last season, no one could have anticipated that they would become the top scoring combination in the Pac-10 this season.

But after Fields scored a career-high 32 points and Green added 25 points in Saturday’s 84-69 victory over Oregon at Maples Pavilion, it had become impossible to ignore the impact those two are having.

Fields is now averaging 21.8 points and Green 17.5, and their 39.3 combined average is the highest two-man scoring average in the Pac-10, just ahead of the 37.1 average of Washington’s Quincy Pondexter and Isaiah Thomas.

What’s more, Stanford is one of just six Division I teams in the country that have two players averaging 17.5 points or more, the others being Washington, IUPUI, Duke, New Mexico State and South Florida.

But none of those tandems has done more for his team than Green and Fields, who have lifted the short-handed Cardinal (10-9, 4-3 in the Pac-10) into a five-way tie for second place after being picked to finish last.

The Cardinal won their two games this week despite being down to six scholarship players primarily because of the offense of Fields and Green.

Jarrett Mann and Jack Trotter have contributed to the success, but Fields and Green have been far and away the biggest reasons for Stanford’s surprising success so far.

Despite facing defenses designed to stop them, Fields and Green have been remarkably consistent. Fields has scored at least 14 points in every game this season, and after being held under his season average in each of Stanford first six Pac-10 games, he erupted for the biggest game of his career against the Ducks, surpassing his previous career high by five points.

He scored his 32 points on just 15 field-goal attempts, only one of which was a three-point try (which he missed). Fields scored nearly half his points on free throws, and when he is getting to the foul line it indicates he is being aggressive and driving toward the basket, which is when he is most effective. His free-throw attempts had diminished in recent games, so when he took 19 foul shots on Saturday, it was a good sign for Fields and the Cardinal.

For the season, Fields had attempts 159 foul shots, the most in the Pac-10 and seventh most in the country. And that helps the team in several ways, not only giving Fields and Stanford chances for easy points but also putting opposing teams in foul trouble and in the bonus.

Fields might make even better use of his trips to the foul line if he could improve his percentage. His 71.7 free-throw shooting is not bad and is an improvement over last season, but he has the shooting stroke to shoot considerably better.

Green should be able to improve his foul shooting too. His 75 percent free-throw percentage is not bad, but a guy with Green’s long-range accuracy should be hitting better than 80 percent from the line. But that’s nit-picking, because Green has scored 23 points or more in four of the Cardinal’s first seven conference games. In Stanford’s past 14 games, he has been held under 13 points only once, and it’s no coincidence that the Cardinal got clobbered in the lone exception – a seven-point game by Green in the 33-point loss to Washington.

Green is hitting 41.3 percent of his three-pointers, which is pretty good, but it seems like his percentage is higher. Perhaps that’s because he attempts shots from so far out, often making shots from the 28-foot range without effort.

He made 3 of 4 three-point attempts against the Ducks, and said afterward that his range begins as soon as he crosses halfcourt.

Stanford can expect to see more gimmick defenses over the remainder of the Pac-10 season in an attempt to shut down Fields and Green. James Madison had success with a triangle-and-two defense when it played the Cardinal, and Stanford may have to learn to deal with those kinds of defenses if it hopes to continues its surprising success.