The Stanford Cardinal opened the 2009-10 Men’s Basketball season by traveling
down to San Diego to take on the University of San Diego Toreros, a team voted
by the media to finish sixth in the West Coast Conference. While the
Cardinal took an early second half lead, a late run by USD finished off
Stanford’s efforts to win a second consecutive road opener, as the Toreros won
going away, 77-64, in front of a raucous crowd at the Jenny Craig Pavilion.
The contest started out with both teams looking to make some early headway
and grab an advantage from the get go. The Toreros scored seven of the
first nine points and maintained a lead of at least a bucket until Jeremy Green,
recently reinstated from his suspension, hit a three-pointer to give Stanford a
13-11 advantage a little less than six minutes into the game. San Diego
and Stanford would trade the lead over the next couple of minutes before USD
went on a 14-5 run over a 5:11 span to give them their biggest lead of the half,
eight, at 31-23 with 4:43 remaining in the half. Both teams traded baskets
over the remainder of the first 20 minutes of play, before Landry Fields made a
jumper with five ticks on the clock to cut the Toreros halftime lead to three at
35-32.
Stanford started off the second half by stepping up their pressure on the
Toreros, forcing them into five turnovers in the first three minutes of play,
but could not finish off a majority of shots, relegating them to just a
one-point lead, 38-37, after the first media timeout. San Diego would take
back the lead at the 15:09 mark on a jumper by Brandon Johnson and push that
margin to as many as seven over the next eight minutes before the Cardinal made
one last run at the Toreros. Baskets and free throws by Fields and Green,
two of the only three Stanford players to score in double-figures, got the lead
down to one, 57-56, with exactly eight minutes left in the game.
Unfortunately, Stanford was not able to convert on three more opportunities for
points over its next two possessions and Johnson countered with a three-pointer
at the 7:02 mark to get the lead back up to four. It was a lead San Diego
would not allow to get under that mark the rest of the way as the Toreros
concluded the game on a 20-8 run to seal the win.
For the contest, Stanford shot just 37.5% from the field, including just 29%
from the three-point arc. The Cardinal did make a beeline for the free
throw line, getting 26 attempts for the game, but they made just 17, finishing
the contest at 65%. San Diego made a blistering 53% of their shots
overall, despite making just 21% (3 of 14) from beyond the three-point
line. The Toreros finished the game making 70% of their tries from the
charity stripe. San Diego outrebounded Stanford by seven, 40-33, and had
two less turnovers than the Cardinal (14-12) on the evening. Each team
dished out 10 assists.
The Cardinal were led by Fields, an All Pac-10 Conference candidate, who
scored 25 points on 8-18 shooting from the field and was 9-15 from the free
throw line in 36 minutes of play. Green was next in line with 13 points,
but he made just four of his 15 attempts from the field in 28 minutes.
Senior Drew Shiller was the only other player who scored in double-digits,
getting 10 in 30 minutes of action. The Toreros high scorers for the
evening, the aforementioned Johnson and De’Jon Jackson, had 18 points
each. Forward Chris Lewis played just 19 minutes, but nailed seven of
eight shots from the floor, helping him finish with 15 points for the
evening. Big man Chris Manresa had 10 points on 5-6 shooting.
Stanford, led by head coach Johnny Dawkins, begins their home slate on
Sunday, November 15th, versus Cal Poly at 7:00pm.
Are you fully subscribed to The
Bootleg? If not, then you are missing out on all the top
Cardinal coverage we provide daily on our award-winning website. Sign up today
for the biggest and best in Stanford
sports coverage with TheBootleg.com (sign-up)!