Andrew Mather
Andrew Mather served as a sports editor and as the Chief Operating Officer of The Daily. A devout Clippers and Iowa Hawkeyes fan from the suburbs of Los Angeles, Mather grew accustomed to watching his favorite programs snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. He brought this nihilistic pessimism to The Daily, where he often felt a sense of déjà vu while covering basketball, football and golf.
Men's Basketball

Mather: Grading Haase’s first season

Stanford basketball's first regular season under Coach Jerod Haase is finally in the books. There were plenty of good moments, although barring a miracle the team will miss the postseason for the program's second consecutive year. With the Pac-12 Tournament starting today, let's break down how everything went for Haase and the Cardinal this year:
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Sports

Mather: In basketball, Pac-12 refs are pretty much like the others

Whenever there’s a controversial foul called in any college football or basketball game, it doesn’t take long for people on Twitter to start assigning the blame. And, whether these whistles occur during some #Pac12AfterDark showdown, March Madness regional, or, heck, the NBA playoffs, the officiating in our conference has become synonymous with ridiculous, over-zealous penalization.
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Football

Mather: Emotional Pac-12 power rankings, part 2

This column reflects the opinion of the writer and does not in any way reflect the views of The Stanford Daily.   You’ve read part one. Now it’s time for the second half of my annual Pac-12 power rankings, the bottom (and perhaps more interesting) half of the conference. No. 7: Utah After its emergence from…
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Football

Mather: Emotional Pac-12 power rankings, Part 1

Welcome to the second edition of Andrew Mather's annual power rankings, an assessment of how things should happen in the upcoming college football season while trying as hard as I can to ignore things like the 10-year history of how a program did in the past.
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Sports

Mather: College Football Playoff made a hard choice easy

Under the BCS system, which for so long determined the college football champion, computers and analysts had to answer one deceptively complex question: Who are the best two teams in the country? Simple as it seems, that question would be practically impossible to resolve this year. It’s not because selecting the top team is particularly…
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Men's Basketball

Mather: Pac-12 basketball power rankings

Any avid readers of my column out there probably know this spiel already, but traditional media polls and preseason power rankings have never done all that much for me. Most analysts don't give much more than a cursory glance to teams before the season begins, and as a result most rankings end up reflecting past seasons more than they do the unique circumstances of the upcoming year.
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Football

Mather: The Pac-12 should expand (again)

Up until about two years ago, there was a pretty consistent narrative about how the Pac-12’s 2011 enlargement had gone. The conference’s two expansion teams, Utah and Colorado, had been uncompetitive in the league’s highest-grossing sport, and the disparity seemed so significant that there were even suggestions that the Buffaloes might leave the conference in search…
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Men's Golf

No. 1 men’s golf disappoints at NCAA championships

For the second straight season, a promising Stanford men’s golf team saw its season come to an early end after it failed to make the first cut at the NCAA championships. The Cardinal finished in 28th place in the 30-team tournament, accruing a team score of +44 over the course of three days after hitting above par…
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News

Mather: What I’ve learned about sports writing

Two years ago, I somewhat tentatively signed up to be a sports writer for The Stanford Daily. I was a Cardinal fan who had been radicalized by two years on this campus, and I figured that The Daily might be a good way to put my interest in Stanford Athletics to good use. Two years…
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Featured

One with the wind: Marion Lepert goes all in on Olympic dream

If there’s such a thing as an average Olympian, it probably isn’t Marion Lepert. America’s premier female windsurfer has dedicated much of her life to a sport which she describes as like “playing chess while running a marathon.” Since she was 11 years old, Lepert has been racing her board under sail number 143, a digit…
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Sailing

La Dow, sailing prepare for championships

For Stanford sailing’s coed and team racing squads, the next week will offer them a chance to get a crack at their first ever program national title. For sophomore skipper Will La Dow, the regatta also means a trip back home. La Dow grew up sailing at San Diego Yacht Club — the championship host…
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Women's Golf

Women’s golf falls barely short of repeat national title

For every unbelievable comeback story, there are inevitably at least a few that fall short. That was the case for Stanford women’s golf on Wednesday, as the team turned the almost worthless cards they held in the NCAA Championship into a real shot, only to end up leaving empty-handed. A spectacular approach shot from Washington’s Julianne Alvarez…
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Women's Golf

Women’s golf to face Washington in NCAA Finals

For the No. 12 Stanford women’s golf team, the past two days could hardly have gone better. On Monday, the final day of the NCAA individual championship, the team moved up three spots into second after collectively posting a tournament-best round of 9-under 279. Junior Casey Danielson played herself into a tie for the sixth-best individual…
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News

Mather: What’s fanatical about fandom?

When I was 13 years old, my dad took me to a Lakers game which happened to be against the Miami Heat. Though it wasn’t quite as thrilling of a matchup as it sounds – both teams would get eliminated in the first round of the playoffs that year – it still seemed pretty tense…
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