When things have gone wrong in the last two years — when Stanford lost five of its final six games last season or snapped its streak of 11 consecutive NCAA Tournaments in 2005 — Cardinal fans have often saved much of their vitriol for Mitch Johnson and Taj Finger.

Sure, the average fan salivates over the high scorers and tends to overlook the team-first, defense-first players. Even so, the criticism was not entirely without merit.

A thin depth chart pressed Mitch Johnson into the starting point guard role, the team’s driver’s seat, the moment he stepped foot on the Farm in the fall of 2005. Despite a royal pedigree — his father J.J. won an NBA Championship in 1979 with Seattle — the younger Johnson was not mentally ready. He was tentative with the rock and his 31 percent shooting allowed defenders to sag, making it much tougher for Mitch to set his teammates up with passes.

Meanwhile, Finger (one of two Cardinal seniors) came to Stanford a stick-thin 6’8”, 185 pounds — and coaches must have weighed him after Thanksgiving dinner. Finger was not physically ready for the Pac-10 paint and it showed. Defenders muscled him to under 35 percent shooting his freshman season and under 50 percent his next two seasons.

But the duo worked as hard as anyone, and, like college players often do, improved from one season to the next. Last year, Finger shot a big-man-best 79 percent from the line and grabbed as many offensive rebounds as he had his sophomore year, despite the Lopez twins cutting his per-game minutes from 20 to 13. His defense was such a boost that Trent Johnson started to substitute him in during close games, when he needed a player he could trust to make the stop.

Johnson, meanwhile, began to find a stroke and raised his shooting percentage from 31 percent to 36 percent last year. That may not sound like much, but it forced defenders to begin to guard him honestly, and opened up that many more scoring opportunities for his teammates. In a year when Stanford was literally the last team named into the NCAA Tournament, Johnson’s improvement was significant in keeping Stanford from an NIT encore.

“They’re probably two of the most competitive guys, and they work so hard,” Trent Johnson said. “Taj and Mitch both are players, regardless of what’s going on with the time or score, whether they’re in or out, you feel good having them around.”

Numbers can only tell part of the story, however. The team saw the rest, the qualities that can’t be quantified. They saw Finger’s hustle, chasing down seemingly every loose ball last year. They saw Johnson’s dedication to the game, devoting this past summer to workouts and pickup games in his hometown Seattle.

Ultimately, the squad spoke with its ballots. Though every other starter (Brook and Robin Lopez, Anthony Goods and Lawrence Hill) will likely play basketball at the next level, the two Stanford basketball captains this year are Mitch Johnson and Taj Finger.

“It’s about the team, and not themselves,” Trent Johnson said. “That’s what college athletics is all about.”

But just when you thought their improvement, their seniority, their captaincy and their selflessness might finally inure them from criticism, Johnson and Finger were forced through the spin cycle yet again before this season. With preseason expectations the highest in years, so too were the doubts: Stanford would only go as far as Brook and Robin Lopez carried them. If only they had any front court depth, they would be preseason top-10, many believed.

Throw in Goods, Fred Washington and Hill on the wings and the two through five positions are solid. If only Stanford had a Pac-10-caliber point guard, they might even be preseason top-five.

Funny how things work out, though. Stanford’s two most consistent players this year might also be the squad’s most maligned.

Let’s not oversell the pair: Johnson still is not where he wants to be with his turnovers and his shot, and Finger will never be the offensive threat that the Lopez twins do, a threat that has made them the team MVPs to date.

Still, no one has improved more than Johnson and Finger. Johnson’s assist-to-turnover ratio, the ultimate measure of a point guard, is north of two for the first time in his career. His Achilles heel does not lurk so prominently either: after shooting 31 and 36 percent his first two seasons, his accuracy has jumped to 41 percent this year, one point higher than Goods, the starting shooting guard.

“He’s just taking care of the ball and making the right decisions,” Finger said. “If he has an open shot, he’s taking advantage. He’s taking it to the rim a little harder, a little stronger.”

Finger’s improvement is perhaps even more drastic yet. He’s now making 55 percent of his shots, after shooting at 34, 49 and 48 percent clips his first three seasons. But more importantly, given the recent stretch where a different player has an off night every single game, Finger is one of the only men who is playing consistently.

“The thing about Taj is you always know what you’re going to get,” Mitch Johnson said. “So much of his game is hustle and efficiency, so it’s pretty clear, he’s not going to take 10 shots this game and not enough the next. You can insert him with any combination and he’s going to do great.”

Only Johnson can speak to the reasons for his improvement, but Finger made this same jump to take his game to the next level, and this is most likely what Goods, Hill and Landry Fields need to snap out of their funks.

“It’s the experience and maturity that gives you confidence in your game to not second-guess yourself, but know that your game is good enough,” he said. “It’s the confidence to be yourself, just play your own game and not do things you don’t necessarily need to do.”

Sure enough, this newfound confidence is working for Finger. If you’re only as good as your last game, Taj is the best player on the team not named Brook. Had his teammates followed his 2-of-3 overall and 5-of-6 free-throw shooting against Oregon, Stanford would be celebrating a comfortable win over the Ducks, instead of swallowing the bitter aftertaste of a narrow loss which saw the team go 13-for-25 from the free-throw line.

“The only way I play is with passion,” Finger said. “I feel like if I play hard, I get everyone to play hard and the team fires up its intensity.”

Fans and reporters knew all along the Finger-Johnson tandem would play this hard, but certainly not this well. We foresaw the 13-3 start, but no one in their wildest dreams saw Taj and Mitch making such key contributions to the ‘W’ column.

So, on behalf of the Sixth Man and the fourth estate, sorry guys. We underestimated you badly.

But on second thought, maybe I should take that back. After all, you both seem to be at your best just when no one thinks you will ever get there.