Stanford saw its chance at victory, and perhaps at the back door of the NCAA Tournament, evaporate in just a seven-minute stretch.
The Cardinal (15-13, 8-9 Pac-12) fell to the Arizona State Sun Devils (15-15, 5-12) by a 74-64 margin, and in turn fell back under .500 in conference play.
With seven minutes left in the first half, the game was well within reach for the Cardinal, who found themselves at an 18-19 deficit. However, things got out of hand from then on in the rest of the half, as the Sun Devils used a rejuvenated three-point offense and pesky defense to get the crowd into the game and effectively take Stanford out of it.
Stanford came out in the second half with slightly more firepower. The Cardinal came back to life with just a couple of minutes remaining in the game, pulling within eight at one point due to some well-timed three-point shooting from Michael Humphrey. Ultimately, the last-minute heroics were not enough to overcome a hot-shooting Sun Devils team, and Stanford instead saw its momentum from a strong homestand vanish.
For Arizona State, junior forward Savon Goodman came off of the bench to lead the team with 16 points and a series of highlight-worthy dunks. The Sun Devils actually had five players in double figures, but the most telling stat of the night was Arizona State’s astounding 15 offensive rebounds.
The Sun Devils stretched the perimeter on offense, taking a large number of threes and coming down with a large number of long rebounds as a result. The hustle from the Arizona State bigs resulted in a series of second-chance opportunities that drained the energy out of the Cardinal defense.
For Stanford, sophomore Arizona-natives Dorian Pickens and Humphrey shined in their homecoming performances, leading the team with 19 and 15 points, respectively. Both played in front of a decent-sized hometown cheering section, but the energy was clearly on the side of the Sun Devils, and the momentum seemed to always go their way.
The Cardinal will finish their Arizona road trip, and their regular season, with a game against the No. 18 Arizona Wildcats (23-7, 11-6) on Saturday.
Arizona is coming off of a thriller at home, as the Wildcats edged out Cal at home last night. Arizona found itself down by five with a minute-and-a-half left before Gabe York hit back-to-back threes to put the team on top and keep the race for second place in the conference interesting.
The Wildcats have the upper hand on Stanford this season, having beat the Cardinal on Jan. 21 at Maples Pavilion 71-57. It was a game in which Stanford stayed even with Arizona for the first half, before running out of gas after the break and having no answer to the Wildcats’ hot shooting.
York had a team-high 19 points in the contest and will certainly be a factor yet again on Saturday, and Stanford was out-rebounded by a 41-29 margin. In order for the Cardinal to have a chance on the road against a tournament-bound Arizona lineup, they’ll have to control the boards much better, as well as counter the Wildcats’ shooting ability with some timely outside shooting of their own.
Stanford will most likely once again be playing without usual starting point guard Christian Sanders, as Dawkins announced before the Arizona State game that Sanders had been suspended indefinitely due to a violation of team rules. Malcolm Allen figures to get the start in Sanders’ place after filling his shoes in Tempe.
The game will tip-off in Tucson, Arizona at 1 p.m. on Saturday.
Contact Sandip Srinivas at [email protected].