Stanford men’s basketball (10-8, 2-4 Pac-12) captured its second straight conference win and a weekend sweep of teams from the Evergreen State with a win 76-69 over the Washington Huskies (8-9, 1-4 Pac-12) at Maples Pavilion Saturday night.
The Cardinal avoided blowing a 43-24 halftime lead with a late run led by junior forward Michael Humphrey. He had eight points in the final 3:36 after the Huskies tied the game 63-63 with 4:15 remaining in the game. Humphrey finished with a team-high 18 points and 10 rebounds.
“I’ve played that way in stretches this season,” Humphrey said. “Somebody hit my arm, and it got me upset. I have to have that kind of attitude.”
Freshman guard Markelle Fultz was as prolific as advertised for the Huskies, making contested jumpers and NBA threes look easy on his way to 34 points, 25 of them coming in the second half.
“[Fultz] got good looks and started shooting over everybody,” head coach Jerod Haase said. “We all know he’s a heck of a player.”
The two teams traded buckets early, and Stanford held only a two-point lead when Fultz subbed out with 8:43 left in the first half.
But the Huskies proved just how much they rely on their freshman star, and the Cardinal went on a 11-2 run while he sat out, giving them a 30-19 lead and more importantly, momentum.
Stanford would use that momentum to outscore Washington 13-5 for the rest of the half to bring the score to 43-24 at halftime, even while playing without its leading scorer, junior forward Reid Travis, who went out with a right shoulder injury with five minutes left in the first half.
Travis did not return to the game and is day-to-day, according to Haase.
Stanford shot 60 percent from the field compared to Washington’s 33-percent shooting in the first half, but the shots did not fall so easily for the Cardinal in the second. They missed 11 of their first 13 attempts to open the second half, allowing the Huskies to make a run that culminated with a three-pointer from sophomore guard David Crisp that tied the game 63-63 with 4:15 left.
“That’s a total collapse of the offense,” Haase said. “We were getting out of the flow and that carried over to defense.”
But Stanford, powered by strong play by Michael Humphrey, surged late to get a lead Washington ultimately could not overcome, closing out the Huskies 76-69.
“We scraped and scrapped our way back into the game and gave ourselves a chance to win,” Washington head coach Lorenzo Romar said. “The frustrating part is knowing that we came out flat in the first half and dug ourselves such a hole.”
Stanford will now prepare for a trip up north, as they visit Oregon State on Thursday and Oregon on Saturday, while the Huskies will look to get back on track when they host Colorado on Wednesday.
Contact Samuel Curry at currys ‘at’ stanford.edu.