Stanford falls to ASU, slips to 7-9 in Pac-10

Stanford (12-15, 7-9 Pac-10), fresh off a sweep of the Oregon schools, started the night, barely alive for the Pac-10 crown, while Arizona State (20-8, 10-5), which had won five of its previous six, entered as one of two Pac-10 teams with even a shot at an at-large NCAA Tournament bid. For both, the margin of error was exactly zero.

Happenstance, then, was not welcome. The sting of Fields’s fluke play was thus all the more damaging–trailing by four with 50 seconds left, Fields appeared to corral an Arizona State miss over center Eric Boateng, but in trying to secure the ball, he knocked it back up and in, pushing the deficit to six. A quick Jeremy Green miss at the other end cemented Stanford’s fate–the Sun Devils made all eight of their foul shots in the final minute.

“Can’t do anything about that,” said Stanford head coach Johnny Dawkins. “The game can be cruel. He made the right play to go for the ball over a 6’11” guy.”

But it was not simply a shortage of luck that hurt the Cardinal. Boateng, a transfer who played at Duke when Dawkins was an assistant there, was a perfect 11-11 from the field and led all scorers with 24 points. He helped the Sun Devils to a 30-18 advantage in the paint–all of his shots, it seemed, came from within only a couple of feet from the basket. Even when Stanford ganged up on him, he was able to find his teammates for open looks.

“Eric Boateng had a terrific game, one of the best I’ve ever seen him play in the low post,” Dawkins said.

For Arizona State, it was a necessary lift, as their three main scorers–Derek Glasser, Rihards Kuksiks and Ty Abbott–combined to shoot just 8-27 from the field. Glasser did finish with 20 points, as he made six free throws in the final 33 seconds to ensure no last-second heroics would occur for the Cardinal, but was otherwise fairly quiet.

“Can’t say enough about the performance of Eric Boateng. 11-11, so many hustle plays, big rebounds–he wouldn’t let us lose today,” said Sun Devils head coach Herb Sendek. “He really put the team on his back and carried us through.”

That said, the game was a marked change from the Cardinal’s trip down to Tempe in January, when Arizona State won by 18 and led 54-22 after the first 20 minutes. This time around, Stanford came out gunning and established a 35-28 halftime lead on 52 percent shooting.

The Cardinal found contributions from a variety of players in the first half. Senior guard Drew Shiller was particularly locked in, as he hit a trio of early three-pointers to give Stanford an initial advantage. He led all scorers with 13 points at the break. Senior guard Emmanuel Igbinosa had a solid game off the bench, netting five points and hustling down a number of loose balls. Fields added nine in the early going, and Green had six, including a bucket from behind the arc with five seconds to play to give the Cardinal its seven-point advantage. That shot also gave Green the school’s single-season three-pointers made record (85), as he surpassed Casey Jacobsen in the history books.             “Stanford came out and hit us between the eyes and had us on our heels. Our team didn’t come out with the requisite passion that we need to play with,” Sendek said.

That fire did not hold. Green, who shot just 2-14 and had a number of threes rim out, would be held scoreless in the second half, and Shiller would tack on just three more points to his total. Fields was one of the lone sources of offense in the second half. He would add 10 more points to finish with a Stanford-high 19 on 75 percent shooting–and in the process, he became just the fifth Cardinal player to drop more than 600 points in a career. He currently stands at 618 points.

But even with production from Fields and sophomore forward Jack Trotter–seven of his nine points came in the second half–the Cardinal as a team nailed just 10-28 takes from the field and was a woeful 2-15 from behind the arc in the final 20 minutes. Arizona State, meanwhile, was a model of consistency, shooting 12-27 in both halves.

“They defended well, but we had some good looks,” Dawkins said. “Sometimes the ball just doesn’t go in.”

The disparity in play prompted a quick turnaround; Arizona State retook the lead with 12:32 to play, and pushed it to 10 by the 6:33 mark. Stanford was able to cut the margin down to four with plenty of time remaining–2:34, to be exact–but neither team scored for nearly two minutes. For the Cardinal, the opportunities to tie the game presented themselves, but missed free throws and three-pointers abounded before Fields’ fateful tip-in.

Stanford maintained its position in the conference–seventh–despite the loss, but to ensure that it escapes the Pac-10 Tournament’s play-in game, the Cardinal will likely have to take at least one of its remaining two games. A share of the regular season title is out of the question–it was even before the game went final, as Cal beat up on Arizona to eliminate Stanford from contention. The Wildcats (13-14, 7-8), currently sixth, come to Maples on Saturday.

They are now the only priority for Dawkins and his team, who will have to rebound quickly from a painful loss.

“We’re not looking at seeding, only Arizona for us,” Dawkins said. “If we play well, the rest of the stuff will take care of itself.”

“We can still play for something,” he added.

The Cardinal will take on Arizona at Maples Pavilion on Saturday at 4 p.m.