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NewsvineStanford started off slow before finishing strong in Saturday’s 60-53 victory over No. 22 Washington State, setting up a de facto Pac-10 title game this Thursday at UCLA. But the game’s trajectory was nothing new for Taj Finger, Fred Washington, Peter Prowitt or Kenny Brown on Senior Day. It was a perfect microcosm for their four years on the Farm.
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Brook Lopez celebrates during Stanford's comeback win over Washington State on Saturday. Lopez scored a game-high 25 points.
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Sophomore Robin Lopez drives over Washington State’s Caleb Forrest in the second half of Stanford’s comeback win in the Cardinal’s last home game of the 2007-2008 season. Lopez finished the night with 11 points.
Big man Brook Lopez started alongside those four seniors, and though the projected top-five pick in this June’s NBA Draft is only a sophomore, it was almost assuredly his final home game too. He certainly played like it, scoring 19 of his 25 points in the second half as Stanford tallied 43 of the game’s final 65 points to crawl out of a 31-17 first-half hole.
“I just didn’t want to let the seniors go out like that,” said Lopez, who finished with 11-of-16 shooting, six rebounds and four blocks. “We wanted to stay in the race for a Pac-10 championship. I was just trying to go as hard as I could possession by possession, score, get a stop, score, get a stop.”
He did just that when the game mattered most, throwing down a dunk off junior guard Anthony Goods’ missed three to give Stanford (24-4, 13-3 Pac-10) the lead for good, 54-53 with 2:54 left. His two free throws extended the lead to 56-53 a minute later, and four free throws by Goods (10 points) off intentional Washington State (22-7, 10-7) fouls iced the contest.
“It’s probably as good of a win in terms of emotion, in terms of what we were playing for, as we’ve had all year,” said coach Trent Johnson. “I thought from the 10-minute mark on, we were as good as we’ve been all year defensively. If we can keep it in the halfcourt, regardless of who or where we play, I think we have a chance.”
Stanford went into halftime down 33-22 after a Robin Lopez alley-oop dunk, and came out of halftime with a 10-4 run that cut WSU’s lead to 37-32 with 14:54 left. Washington State held on to its narrow lead until Finger (eight points) drained his first three-pointer of the season, pumping both fists above his head in celebration after tying the game at 51-all with 4:06 left. Then, a Goods free throw gave Stanford its first lead of the afternoon. After two Kyle Weaver free throws for WSU, Brook Lopez’s dunk gave the Cardinal the lead for good.
UCLA (25-3, 13-2), 68-66 winners over Arizona yesterday, holds a one-game lead over Stanford heading into their 8 p.m. Thursday tilt at Pauley Pavilion; Washington State is four games back in third. Assuming UCLA wins its season finale versus California (15-12, 6-10) on Saturday, Stanford needs a win at Pauley and a win Saturday at USC (18-10, 9-7) to split the Pac-10 title with the Bruins. It would be Stanford’s first piece of the Pac-10 championship since winning it outright in 2003-04.
“At the beginning of the year, we laid out goals to achieve and I’d say we’ve achieved about all of them, all the possible goals at this point,” said sophomore center Robin Lopez (11 points). “The Pac-10 championship is just one more goal.”
Early on against the Cougars, this week’s game with UCLA game looked like it would be a mere formality, not a title-deciding bout. That’s because Washington State scored the game’s first nine points, and pushed that lead to 14-3 on a Derrick Low three. Low, who terrorized Stanford in the team’s meeting four weeks ago alongside fellow senior guard Weaver, scored 14 first-half points as Washington State shot 50 percent overall (13-of-26) and from deep (4-of-8) to build a 33-22 halftime lead.
But Low would not score in the second half, and Weaver finished with just four points.
“You can’t play the No. 8 team in the country on their home court and expect to win if you don’t play your best the entire 40 minutes,” Cougars coach Tony Bennett said. “It was frustrating for us because we played such a great first half, but we couldn’t hold them off.”
Stanford breakdowns in defense and rebounding, for the fourth straight game, allowed the Cougars to take the early advantage. The Cardinal players really lost their cool during a 3:30 stretch in the late first half that saw them whistled for eight straight fouls, including a technical on Trent Johnson, just his second this year.
“I’ve got six technicals in four years, and one of them this year was for I don’t know, jumping up and down,” he said postgame of his ability to stay in control on the bench. “I don’t measure it in terms of technicals, I measure it in terms of keeping my composure.”
Stanford finishes the season with a home record of 16-1. Now, the team will likely spend the next three weekends (the end of the regular season, the Pac-10 Tournament and the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament in Anaheim, Calif.) in the greater Los Angeles area, where they’ve lost their last seven games, dating back to the 2004-05 season. Before that stretch though, Stanford had won its last nine in the City of Angels.