Coming off of an 85-50 rout of the CSU-Bakersfield Roadrunners at Maples
Pavilion Tuesday night, the Stanford Cardinal were looking to gain some
confidence from the blowout win and use it against the California Golden Bears
as they opened up a three-game road trip in conference play. After running
out to a 47-25 lead after 16 minutes of play, the Cardinal blew the lead over
the next 22 minutes to succumb to the Golden Bears by a final score of
82-75 on Valentine's Day afternoon. Stanford is now 15-8 overall, but 4-8 in conference play, while Cal
moves to 19-6 and 8-4 in league action.
At the onset, both teams were taking a lot of good, open shots, with Landry Fields
and Anthony Goods both nailing shots from long distance, while the Bears found seams
inside the Stanford D to find a lot of open looks inside, leading to layups from
Jamal Boykin and a long jumper from Patrick Christopher. After the first
media timeout Stanford was up 12-11, but they weren’t done as they ran off eight
more in a row after a Fields three, causing Cal coach Mike Montgomery to call a
3-second time out with the Cardinal up nine, 20-11. Cal would score then
next five points, but Stanford would be up 22-16 with 11:56 to go at the second
media break.
The hot shooting that Stanford displayed versus the Roadrunners continued
during the middle portion of Saturday’s game as the Cardinal continued to rain
down three-pointers and long jumpers on the Bears, extending the lead to as much
as 21 after back-to-back threes from Goods, one from the right wing and one from
straightaway to double up Cal, 42-21. After pushing the lead to 22, 47-25,
after a Lawrence Hill layup with 4:33 remaining in the half, Stanford’s offense began to
break down late in the half, fumbling away a couple of opportunities, making a
few bad passes, and shooting too early in the shot clock with the wrong folks,
leading Cal to close the lead to 16, 47-31, with 1:22 left. A Jeremy Green three
off an inbounds play under the basket would be the last points for Stanford as
Cal scored five in a row, including a Christopher right wing three to go into
the half with some momentum of their own, closing the gap to 14, 50-36.
Stanford was led at the half by Green’s 11 on 3-3 shooting from beyond the
arc. Goods and Fields both had 10, while Mitch Johnson had zero points,
but did have a team high five assists. California was led by Boykin’s nine
(in only 11 minutes due to foul trouble), along with seven from Christopher and
six by Jerome Randle.
The Cardinal shot 68% from the field, 63% inside the three-point line, 75%
from beyond the arc (9-12), and was 3-4 from the charity stripe. Cal shot
47% from the field, 41% inside the arc, 67% from long distance (2-3), and was
6-8 from the free throw line. The Bears outrebounded Stanford 14-13,
including 5-0 on the offensive glass, leading to a 7-0 advantage in second
chance points. Stanford dished out 13 assists and turned the ball over
just five times, including three late in the half. Cal tallied eight
assists and seven turnovers. The Cardinal were outscored in the paint
20-10, but had a 12-4 edge in the points off turnovers department.
Could Stanford reverse the momentum Cal seemingly had in their favor to end
the first half or could the Cardinal continue to shoot lights out from the
field? In the first 1:54, both teams had their answer as a couple of long
shots turned into easy buckets for Cal, including a Christopher dunk over Fields
on a fast break which brought the nearly-full Haas Pavilion to their feet,
screaming to the top of their lungs as they cut the lead to single digits for
the first time since the middle of the first half, 50-42. The Bears
continued their assault on the Cardinal lead, cutting it to five before a
driving layup by Hill over a shorter Harper Kamp bumped the lead back to seven,
53-46, just before the first media timeout. Cal completed a remarkable
28-5 run on a Kamp reverse layin to get within one, 53-52, before a Hill
put-back dunk got Stanford back up a full possession with just under 14 minutes
remaining in the game.
Over the next seven minutes, both teams would continue to battle back and
forth, but the Cardinal would continue to hold the lead. A Will Paul
three-pointer made it 64-58 for Stanford with 8:48 to go. A long
Christopher three-pointer from the left wing, though, got the Bears within
three, 66-63, just before the media timeout. Stanford would extend the
lead to six again after two free throws by Goods as the Bears, but a floater by
Randle would bring the lead back to four, 71-67, as Montgomery called a time out
with 4:14 to go. After a miss by Stanford, Randle hit a long three-pointer
in Johnson’s face to cut the lead to one. Then, a turnover by Goods led to
a driving layup by Randle which went high off the glass and in to give the Bears
their first lead of the second half, 72-71. A shot by Hill from the right
baseline would bounce high off the rim and Randle would find Christopher near
the right corner for a three-pointer that would send the crowd into further
pandemonium as Cal was now up four, 75-71, with 2:30 to go in the contest.
After Fields hit two big free throws to halve the lead, Jorge Gutierrez, one
of Cal’s two freshmen, made a big shot for Cal over a late arriving Goods to
push the margin back to four. Hill would attempt a three-pointer from the
left corner, but it would rim out, effectively ending Stanford’s chances.
Down four after two Fields free throws with 33 seconds left, Hill nearly stole a
long inbounds pass from Randle, but Kamp ultimately came down with it and made
two free throws. A Goods miss was the final nail in the coffin and the
rise and ultimate fall of the Cardinal was complete.
For the game, Fields ended the contest with 16 points on just six shots to
lead Stanford. Hill had 15, Goods finished with 13, and Paul and Green
both tallied 11. For Cal, Christopher had 21, Randle scored 18, Boykin and
Kamp finished with 11, and Gutierrez ended the game with 10.
For the game, Stanford shot 52% from the field, 52% from inside the arc, 53%
from beyond the three-point line, but just 1-7 in the second half. The
Cardinal would finish 11-15 from the free throw line. Cal shot 48% from
the field, 47% from inside the three-point line, 56% from outside, and 79% from
the charity stripe. Stanford was outrebounded 37-25, had 18 assists to
Cal’s 16, and had 14 turnovers to Cal’s 10, but three of those for the Bears
after the half, compared to nine for the Cardinal.
There’s not much to say after what is the worst loss of the season for the
Cardinal. Up 22 on your rival’s home court, making every shot under the
dark roof of Haas Pavilion, looking like they would finish it off the first
half, and then just seeing the lead get chipped away for nearly 22 minutes
before the Bears finally got over the hump and not have an answer was probably
the ultimate death blow to the 2008-09 season in regards to getting to the NCAA
Tournament. In fact, Stanford will have to play over .500 basketball the
rest of the way to potentially get themselves a chance to play in the NIT as a
consolation to a season which started off so promisingly at 10-0 before heading
into the Pac-10 schedule.
The Cardinal, led by head coach, Johnny Dawkins, must find a way to get his
team refocused on the remaining games in the season, but it is going to be very
difficult trying to do so with four of the remaining six games on the road and
the LA schools coming into Maples. The Cardinal will have a chance to lick
their wounds and hopefully get healed before heading to Corvallis to take on the
Oregon State Beavers at 7:00pm on Thursday.
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