February 11, 2004

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Palo Alto Online

No time to enjoy the party

by Rick Eymer

Here's all you need to know about the Stanford men's basketball team and its quest for a deep run into the NCAA tournament: on Saturday night following the Cardinal's biggest victory of the season to date, junior All-American candidate Josh Childress was spotted doing laundry in his campus dorm.

Childress, who sank a game-tying 3-pointer to set up Nick Robinson's buzzer-beating, game-winning 3-pointer in the Cardinal's 80-77 win over Arizona, was approached by a fellow student.

"Hey Josh, you should be out celebrating shouldn't you," asked the student.

"You can go party for me," said Childress. "Man, we got a long way to go before I start partying."

Stanford (11-0 in the Pac-10, 20-0 overall) is one of two unbeaten teams in the country with St. Joseph's (also 20-0), matched a school record for most wins at the start of the season and longest winning streak, and beat one of its fiercest conference rivals in the most dramatic fashion and Childress figures he can't take a break.

The Cardinal don't even play again until Saturday at California at 7 p.m. and Childress still can't let loose. No wonder coach Mike Montgomery thinks this team is special.

Here's one of the top collegiate players in the country, and the guy is doing his own laundry at 9 p.m. on a weekend! The dude is focused.

The moment Robinson sank that long shot to beat the Wildcats in front of a national television audience was the moment this season suddenly became something tangible.

During Dick Vitale and Brent Musberger's post-game wrap, Stanford students chanted "We want Duke," and as Vitale left the court, someone ran up to him and told him to "tell America that we're No. 1."

Every week there's someone else predicting Stanford is about to fall from the ranks of the undefeated and every week Stanford finds a new way to win.

Let's review. Childress can't start the season because of a stress reaction in his left foot, misses nine games, and Stanford wins, including an upset of then-No. 1 Kansas. Sophomore point guard Chris Hernandez sits out a couple of games and Stanford wins. Heck, even coach Mike Montgomery misses a game because of a suspension and Stanford wins.

Davis missed his second game and Stanford wins. Haryasz is out and, well, you get the idea. Stanford, which beat Arizona State, 81-51, on Thursday, doesn't have spare parts so much as parts to spare.

Now comes Stanford's next big game - an appointment with its Bay Area rival in Berkeley. The Bears (7-4, 11-9) are in second place in the Pac-10 and are coming off their own sweep of the Arizona schools.

Stanford has not won in Haas Pavilion during the Childress era, losing its past two trips there. The Cardinal are 16-5 in their past 21 games against Cal, but all five of those losses have come in Berkeley.

The 12th-ranked Wildcats were supposed to be Stanford's biggest threat, and Arizona played like a nationally-ranked team. Somehow, even after blowing a 13-point lead and failing behind by four points in the minute, Stanford found the will and a way to win.

"That was just an unbelievable game," said Montgomery. "In the course of our rivalry, they've beaten us on occasion when it tore our hearts out. This had to be that way for them."

Nobody was going to argue the point.

"It's a difficult game to sit up here and talk about," said Arizona coach Lute Olson. "As happens so often in this series, it seems like most go down to that last possession and they made the plays."

Salim Stoudamire sank a 3-pointer to give Arizona a 77-73 lead with a minute to play. The Wildcats never attempted another shot.

"I knew we had to do something special to win this game," said Stanford center Rob Little, who scored 16 points and grabbed six rebounds in another solid outing.

And so the final minute unfolded, with Matt Lottich missing a 3-point attempt with 46 seconds left. Josh Childress - 18 points, 10 rebounds - got the offensive rebound and was fouled by Hassan Adams. Childress made one of the two foul shots to bring the Cardinal within 77-74.

Childress, as smooth a player as they come, turned in a sensational effort against Arizona. He was 6-of-11 from the floor and added four assists and a blocked shot. While most players create space with their bodies, Childress creates space with his long, rubbery arms as he seemingly picks off an errant ball in mid-air.

The Wildcats worked the clock after taking a five-point lead with 2:37 remaining to play. Somehow Lottich managed to reach in and knock the ball loose from Mustafa Shakur with 30 seconds left and that led to Childress' game-tying 3-pointer from the corner seven seconds later on an assist from Chris Hernandez (20 points, five assists, only two turnovers).

"We hadn't applied full-court pressure the whole game so they may not have been prepared for that kind of pressure," said Hernandez. "It worked to our advantage."

Stoudamire kept the ball for 20 seconds looking for a lane to drive. He never got the chance. With three seconds left, and under pressure from Little, Robinson and Lottich, Stoudamire had the ball slapped loose by Robinson, who then picked it up and made his mad dash to destiny with his long range shot.

"Matt was playing good defense on Salim and all of a sudden the ball was loose," said Robinson. "As soon as I caught it, I turned to look at the clock and saw two second left. I went as hard as I could and let if fly. We needed to get a shot off."

It was the first time Stanford beat the Wildcats in Maples in four years, and it was the first regular-season sweep of Arizona since the 1995-96 season.

"Frankly it meant a lot to me," said Montgomery. "There will always be a question of what we're not and I didn't want to answer those anymore."

Weekly correspondent Nathan Kurz contributed to this story.

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