I had to attend to some things last night and was only able to catch the the second half, but Stanford's already slim NCAA Tournament hopes were dashed (save an improbable Pac-12 Tournament run) with a 67-62 loss to Arizona State. Stanford erased a 14-point halftime deficit to tie things up at 47 midway through the second half, but the Cardinal faltered down the stretch.
To make matters worse, Michael Humphrey suffered an ankle injury in the first half and missed the remainder of the game. Humphrey was seen coming out of the locker room on crutches and with will be reevaluated today.
As for the game, the same issues that have plagued Stanford down the stretch were the cause of their struggles on Thursday night. Though he did hit a few late three-pointers to make his statline look a bit better, Chasson Randle struggled yet again. This was his eighth straight subpar shooting night. (He's been below 32 percent in all eight games.) It's hard to know if Randle is just battling fatigue (the other seniors have had their struggles down the stretch as well, though not to the extent of Randle), if he's hurt, or what. But it's hard to envision Stanford making any sort of a run in the Pac-12 Tournament with its best player struggling like this.
The two bright spots (at least in the second half and box score) were Stefan Nastic and Reid Travis, who seems to have found his pre-injury form. Travis pulled down six offensive rebounds (Stanford had 16 offensive boards as a team) and scored eight points. Nastic had 16 points on 5-9 shooting. If there was one criticism - and it's not of Nastic, as much as the team's offensive approach - it's that Arizona State's posts were in all sorts of foul trouble early in the second half. Plus, Stanford was in the bonus at the 13:46 mark of the second half. In hindsight, perhaps Stanford could have exploited ASU's foul trouble/Nastic's edge in the post a bit more.
On a different note, and not at all related to Stanford/ASU, but a pretty decent NBA player apparently played some pickup at Stanford yesterday.
Stanford will conclude its regular season at 1 p.m. on Saturday with a visit to Arizona.
Here are some postgame comments via GoStanford.
Stanford Head Coach Johnny Dawkins
"You hate to see a young man with any team go down the way he did. Hopefully it's not a severe injury. We've grown accustomed to him impacting the game on both ends of the court for us with his shot blocking, as well as his ability to score. It's a tough blow and it came at an inopportune time for us."
"We're just trying to get our rotations down. We're finally getting everybody back and now Michael may be out. We're bringing Rosco (Allen) back in there, he was playing so well before he left so we're trying to re-insert him. Reid (Travis) was doing the same thing before he got hurt so we're trying to re-insert him and now Michael is back out again. So we're trying to get our chemistry and continuity back that we had before these guys all started missing some games."
"Arizona is a good team, but all of the Pac-12 is. There are terrific teams all across this entire conference and we're going to face another good one on Saturday."
Arizona State Head Coach Herb Sendek
"I am as proud of our team's effort tonight as I have been all season. I thought our defense in the first half was terrific, notwithstanding the second chance shots we gave up. I thought our poise and composure was equally outstanding in the second half. Stanford closed the gap on us, and we got some key defensive stops down the home stretch. I thought Shaq really leas the way offensively for us. In a game that wasn't always pretty, I really admired our team's toughness, competitive spirit, and passion."
"We played hard tonight and beat a really good team. That is a talented basketball team and that is a heck of a win for us tonight. They have three prolific scorers. Those guys can single-handily dismantle a defense one at a time. They command tremendous respect and attention. We weren't going into a game were we would outscore them. We had to rely heavily on defense. I think for the most part we did that better the first half then we did in the second half."
"We were in immediate and serious foul trouble. We committed five fouls by the first media timeout. Savon and Eric were in terrible foul trouble from the very beginning. We even had to play Willie at five and obviously that is not his position, and that is not in our favor."
To make matters worse, Michael Humphrey suffered an ankle injury in the first half and missed the remainder of the game. Humphrey was seen coming out of the locker room on crutches and with will be reevaluated today.
As for the game, the same issues that have plagued Stanford down the stretch were the cause of their struggles on Thursday night. Though he did hit a few late three-pointers to make his statline look a bit better, Chasson Randle struggled yet again. This was his eighth straight subpar shooting night. (He's been below 32 percent in all eight games.) It's hard to know if Randle is just battling fatigue (the other seniors have had their struggles down the stretch as well, though not to the extent of Randle), if he's hurt, or what. But it's hard to envision Stanford making any sort of a run in the Pac-12 Tournament with its best player struggling like this.
The two bright spots (at least in the second half and box score) were Stefan Nastic and Reid Travis, who seems to have found his pre-injury form. Travis pulled down six offensive rebounds (Stanford had 16 offensive boards as a team) and scored eight points. Nastic had 16 points on 5-9 shooting. If there was one criticism - and it's not of Nastic, as much as the team's offensive approach - it's that Arizona State's posts were in all sorts of foul trouble early in the second half. Plus, Stanford was in the bonus at the 13:46 mark of the second half. In hindsight, perhaps Stanford could have exploited ASU's foul trouble/Nastic's edge in the post a bit more.
On a different note, and not at all related to Stanford/ASU, but a pretty decent NBA player apparently played some pickup at Stanford yesterday.
Stanford will conclude its regular season at 1 p.m. on Saturday with a visit to Arizona.
Here are some postgame comments via GoStanford.
Stanford Head Coach Johnny Dawkins
"You hate to see a young man with any team go down the way he did. Hopefully it's not a severe injury. We've grown accustomed to him impacting the game on both ends of the court for us with his shot blocking, as well as his ability to score. It's a tough blow and it came at an inopportune time for us."
"We're just trying to get our rotations down. We're finally getting everybody back and now Michael may be out. We're bringing Rosco (Allen) back in there, he was playing so well before he left so we're trying to re-insert him. Reid (Travis) was doing the same thing before he got hurt so we're trying to re-insert him and now Michael is back out again. So we're trying to get our chemistry and continuity back that we had before these guys all started missing some games."
"Arizona is a good team, but all of the Pac-12 is. There are terrific teams all across this entire conference and we're going to face another good one on Saturday."
Arizona State Head Coach Herb Sendek
"I am as proud of our team's effort tonight as I have been all season. I thought our defense in the first half was terrific, notwithstanding the second chance shots we gave up. I thought our poise and composure was equally outstanding in the second half. Stanford closed the gap on us, and we got some key defensive stops down the home stretch. I thought Shaq really leas the way offensively for us. In a game that wasn't always pretty, I really admired our team's toughness, competitive spirit, and passion."
"We played hard tonight and beat a really good team. That is a talented basketball team and that is a heck of a win for us tonight. They have three prolific scorers. Those guys can single-handily dismantle a defense one at a time. They command tremendous respect and attention. We weren't going into a game were we would outscore them. We had to rely heavily on defense. I think for the most part we did that better the first half then we did in the second half."
"We were in immediate and serious foul trouble. We committed five fouls by the first media timeout. Savon and Eric were in terrible foul trouble from the very beginning. We even had to play Willie at five and obviously that is not his position, and that is not in our favor."
