Huskies dominate early, pull away from Stanford

After last weekend’s home victories against the Southern California schools, Stanford headed north to face Washington last night with momentum on its side.

The Huskies (11-5, 2-3 Pac-10) sat dead last in the Pac-10 Conference before the matchup, with three straight losses tarnishing their opening day win; and even with a good overall season record, they needed a positive result to stop the bleeding.

The Cardinal (8-8, 2-2 Pac-10), despite beginning the day in a three-way tie for the top spot in the conference, had its own problems to overcome, and the Huskies exposed many of them. Stanford is now 1-6 away from Maples Pavilion so far this season, with the solitary win coming against Virginia in Mexico.

The game was back and forth at the start, with Stanford trailing 7-6 after three minutes. Washington then took charge, scoring the next 15 points and holding the Cardinal scoreless for nine minutes.

The Huskies had their way on the glass, leading 6-1 in offensive rebounds at one point, while Stanford made 13 turnovers to Washington’s eight in the first half. Perhaps worse was the fact the Huskies were much better at capitalizing on these exchanges, taking 13 points from these turnovers to the Cardinal’s lowly two.

Once Stanford finally broke the run and started scoring again, the teams began to trade blows more equally, but the Cardinal could not close the gap, trailing 41-22 at halftime.

Stanford’s top scorer, and second in the Pac-10, senior Landry Fields seemed to be having a good game, scoring over half of the team’s points in the first half, more than any of the Huskies individually, and leading his teammates in most other statistics. But without his fellow players making an impact, it was going to be a long night.

Early in the second half, Stanford began to trim the lead, getting it down to 16 points, but this momentum did not last as senior Quincy Pondexter began take control for the Huskies. In the first six and a half minutes of the second half, he added 14 points to his haul, looking like he would certainly be the man of the match.

When freshman forward Tyreese Breshers committed his fourth foul, there seemed to be a glimmer of hope for the Card, as Washington had a number of players in foul trouble.

As several of the Cardinal’s players had started to register on the score board, it seemed that maybe there would still be time for them to make the final result look respectable, even if the chance of fully getting back into this game looked increasingly remote. But at the same time, Fields had been neutralized and did not score again for seven minutes, removing Stanford’s main threat.

Credit, though, has to go to Fields for being the lone Cardinal player ranked alongside a trio of Huskies — Pontdexter, sophomore guard Isaiah Thomas and junior guard Venoy Overton — as the top performers in the match.

In the last few minutes, it was pretty clear the game was settled, and both coaches were probably already looking ahead to Saturday, resting key personnel while sending players out from the bench to gain experience in a conference game.

The road trip continues tomorrow afternoon, with a 2 p.m. tip off at Washington State.