Cardinal men turn it around in second half for hoops win

Stanford men’s basketball coach Jerod Haase didn’t recognize what his players we’re doing during the first half of an eventual Stanford 78-62 nonconference victory over visiting Eastern Washington on Saturday.

“He told us we made up our own imaginary game plan,” said Daejon Davis of the first half. “It was a complete lack of focus. We followed his more in the second half.”

That proved a good idea as the Cardinal outscored the Eagles by a 51-30 margin. Oscar da Silva scored 13 of his 16 points in the second half, making four of his six shots. Stanford shot nearly 68 percent from the field over the final 20 minutes.

Davis scored 19 points and Cormac Ryan added 12 points, all on three pointers, for the Cardinal (5-4), who avenged last year’s loss to the Eagles. KZ Okpala had 10.

“We knew we didn’t play our best half of basketball,” Ryan said. “We came back out with better attention to detail and played with fire.”

Five different Eagles combined to make their first six shots, helping them open a 17-5 advantage midway through the first half. Eastern Washington was 6 of 19 the rest of the half, allowing Stanford, 3 of 12 from long range, to close the gap.

Davis converted a three-point play in the final six seconds and the Cardinal drew within 32-27 by intermission.

“We played harder as the game wore on,” Haase said. “We followed our game plan more effectively as the game wore on. When we deliver a message, telling them here’s what’s going on and here’s what we need to do to fix it, they tend to take that to heart.

Ryan hit a 3-pointer about five minutes into the second half to give Stanford its first lead of the game and its first lead over Eastern Washington since early in the first half of last year’s contest.

Stanford hosts San Jose State on Tuesday at 7 p.m.