Saturday’s 88-70 loss to Arizona State left Stanford feeling like it just wanted to go home, but the Cardinal will not even have that luxury in its next two games.
The Sun Devils (15-7, 5-4 Pac-10) jumped out to a shell-shocking 54-22 lead at halftime, which put them well on their way to handing Stanford (10-11, 4-5) its eighth road loss this season. That number only reveals its true meaning when compared to the number of games the Cardinal has won on the road this season: zero.
This game was already over after the first 10 minutes. The offensive execution on each side of the ball could not have been more disparate, as the Sun Devils jumped out to a 54-17 lead, led by the hot hand of Ty Abbott. Abbott hit six straight three-pointers in the first 10 minutes and finished the night with 29 points and 12 rebounds. The most telling statistic, though, may have been that the Sun Devils recorded assists on their first 18 baskets.
“They were ready to compete and they played very well,” head coach Johnny Dawkins told the San Francisco Chronicle. “You can tell by how many connecting plays they made. They had a lot of baskets assisted on, with 19 assists in the first half. I haven’t seen anything like that in the college game.”
Another development for Stanford has been its dependence on senior forward Landry Fields and sophomore guard Jeremy Green, a trend that showed no sign of stopping on Saturday. Fields went for 22 points and five rebounds on seven-of-18 shooting, while Green had 20 points to show for on seven-of-21 from the field. Senior point guard Drew Shiller did not start, but got most of the minutes at the position over sophomore Jarrett Mann. Shiller went only two-of-10 from the floor, but finished the game with a career-high seven assists.
Despite those contributions, Stanford seemed to be nothing more than a deer in the headlights for much of Saturday’s contest. The Cardinal shot an anemic 25 percent from the floor in the first half, compared to 65 percent for Arizona State.
“We got a little overwhelmed,” Dawkins said. “We showed our youth.”
The Cardinal did end up clawing its way back into the game, cutting the Sun Devils’ lead to just 12 points with four minutes remaining. Dawkins’ team did outscore the Sun Devils 48-34 in the game’s final 30 minutes, but that was not nearly enough to overcome the staggering first-half deficit.
Former Cardinal quarterback Tavita Pritchard, a swingman back in his high school days in Tacoma, Wash., made his first collegiate basketball appearance Saturday. However, he did not record a single statistic in his two minutes of play.
Stanford will now try to pick up the pieces from a lost weekend in the desert, which pushed the team toward the back of the conference race. At a record of 4-5, Stanford is in a five-way tie for fifth place — two games behind first-place Cal and Arizona, but only one game ahead of last-place Oregon State.
Things will not get any easier for the Cardinal either, as it will take to the road again this coming week to face UCLA and USC in Los Angeles. Stanford swept those very same teams just three weeks ago at Maples Pavilion, but home-court advantage seems to be even more important this year in a conference defined by parity and mediocrity. The Cardinal will be hard pressed to get its first road win of the season against two teams poised to redeem themselves.
Dawkins has remained composed despite the many challenges he has faced in his first two years on the Farm. The Cardinal faithful is cautiously optimistic about the future under the former Duke assistant — especially with a ranked recruiting class coming in next season — but this weekend’s games will be a pivotal moment for a Cardinal team fighting to stay afloat (and above .500) in the Pac-10.