Dorian Pickens found himself back in the starting lineup and rewarded the team with yet another top scoring effort.
Pickens followed his career best with a 20-point effort and Stanford’s men’s basketball team returned to the win column, beating visiting Sacramento State, 70-60, on Monday night.
Michael Humphrey turned in a career-high 21 points to go with nine rebounds and Rosco Allen secured his second double-double with 11 points and a season-high 12 rebounds.
The Cardinal (6-4) has won four of five entering its final nonconference game at 6 p.m. Sunday against visiting Carroll College, which plays in the Frontier Conference.
Pickens, who started the first four games of the season, will start again against the Fighting Saints.
“We have a lot of confidence in Dorian,” Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins said. “I told him to be ready for anything we throw at him.”
Pickens has scored 60 of his 130 points in the past three games and reached double figures for the seventh time. It was also his third 20-point game.
“He showed good poise,” Dawkins said. “He missed his first few shots and a lot of younger guys might have stopped shooting.”
Something clicked for Pickens, who is shooting just over 55 percent from the field (16-for-29) over his past three games after going 9-of-36 (5 percent) in the previous five games.
Humphrey drew his fourth foul with 11:19 remaining to play in the contest and still managed to stay aggressive enough to finish the game with four points, on layups, four rebounds, two offensive, and his only assist over the final six minutes.
“All we talked about was winning,” Humphrey said. “Even if I did foul out, I have confidence in my teammates.”
Dawkins liked the response.
“The last four minutes, we were at our best,” Dawkins said. “We turned up the intensity on defense.”
Grant Verhoeven hit 1 of 2 free throws midway through the second half to put the Cardinal ahead 52-42.
The Hornets rallied to tie the game at 56 with 5:47 left but Stanford went on a run to pull away.
Stanford went on a 14-2 run to rebound from a nine-point, first-half deficit and eventually took a 36-33 advantage at halftime.