Neither 46 combined points from the Lopez twins nor a 26-2 run midway through the second half was enough for No. 7 Stanford to leave Tempe, Ariz. with a win last night. The Cardinal fell 72-68 in overtime to the Arizona State Sun Devils on Thursday night after squandering a 14-point lead in the final 7:28 of regulation.

“We had the opportunity to close the game out in regulation,” Stanford coach Trent Johnson said. “With free throws, blocking out, things we’ve been doing all season, things we’re capable of . . . . [Our performance] on the glass wasn’t going to cut it, but you have to give Arizona State credit. They’re a good team.”

Although Stanford (20-4, 9-3 Pac-10) is third in the nation in rebounding margin — out-rebounding opponents by more than 10 boards per game — Stanford grabbed only 37 rebounds to the Sun Devils’ 35. Arizona State junior forward Jeff Pendergraph corralled 12 rebounds, 6 of them offensive, before fouling out. Most of the team’s 16 offensive rebounds resulted in second-chance points, and one, by Duke transfer Eric Boateng with 53 seconds left in overtime, helped seal the victory.

“They got big-time rebounds, a lot of second possessions,” said sophomore center Brook Lopez, who notched his second 30-point game of the season in the loss.

Johnson put his analysis more bluntly: “they made plays — we didn’t. They grabbed loose ball — we didn’t. They got rebounds that led to offensive plays — we didn’t. They nailed jump shots — we didn’t.”

Who got hot when decided the contest. Arizona State (16-7, 6-5) jumped out to an early 7-0 lead as Stanford entered the game flat. The Cardinal battled back to a four-point deficit as Kenny Brown hit a jumper from the baseline heading into the break. Then, after going down 35-25 on a Pendergraph dunk three minutes into the second half, Stanford reeled off 26 points to the Sun Devils’ two.

Sophomore Landry Fields punctuated the run with a breakaway dunk; his foul shot to complete the three-point play gave him 8 points during the nine-minute stretch and put Stanford ahead 51-37.

But Arizona State fought back behind freshman phenom James Harden. Harden, who earned Pac-10 honors early in the season for his late-game heroics, took over towards the end of regulation. He scored ASU’s final four points of regulation, including a putback off his own miss to send the game into overtime. He scored eight in the extra period to finish with 23.

“My feeling going into overtime,” Johnson said, “was that we need to play better. We didn’t play well the last three or four minutes.”

Whether Stanford assigned Landry Fields, Lawrence Hill or Anthony Goods to cover Harden made no difference — Sun Devils’ coach Herb Sendek curled Harden off a screen on the right elbow and the freshman responded time and again, repeatedly forging his way to the basket. Fred Washington shut Harden down when Stanford beat Arizona State at Maples Pavilion on Jan. 19, but Johnson kept Washington on the bench during the Sun Devils’ end of game run. Washington played only 12 minutes despite starting the game.

“One of the things I noticed was that [ASU] scored a lot more against us than other teams,” sophomore Robin Lopez said. “We had defensive breakdowns. We’ve got to keep our composure — we kind of lost our heads at times . . . . We should be confident but not overconfident — when we were up 14, we may have been a little passive.”

Besides his brother, Robin was the only Stanford player to score in double digits. Thursday marked the first time the twins each scored over 15 points in the same game. The rest of the team, however, struggled mightily on the offensive end.

Goods and Hill, Stanford’s second and third-leading scorers, respectively, shot a combined 2-15 from the floor for a total of six points. Even though Mitch Johnson hit a three from the right baseline with 35 seconds left in overtime to cut the Stanford deficit to one, neither he nor Goods could connect from beyond the arc in three combined chances in the final 17 seconds.

Trent Johnson, dispirited after the game, suggested only one bright spot in his team’s disappointing loss.

“After the first half, we showed our ability to come from behind on the road, which I thought, for the most part, we did,” he said. “That’s it.”

Arizona State improved to 4-0 in overtime games this year, 3-0 in Pac-10 play. The win moved them into a three-way tie with USC and Arizona for fourth place in the conference at 6-5.

Stanford, who briefly held a first place tie with UCLA, saw its seven-game winning streak come to an end as they fell to 20-4 and 9-3 in conference play.