Jeremy Green scored 21 points but it wasn’t enough as the Stanford men’s basketball team dropped a 78-69 Pac-10 decision to visiting No. 21 Arizona on Thursday night.
“It was a big game,” Green said. “They’re in the top of our conference, ranked in the nation. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the win.”
Josh Owens finished with 13 points and nine rebounds for Stanford (4-6, 11-10), which is suddenly struggling at home.
After winning their first eight at Maples Pavilion, which included a victory over Washington, this season, the Cardinal is 1-3 since.
“They did have more girth than us,” Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins said. “Our kids were smaller. But, you know what? Their heart was in the right place. I thought they competed and gave us what they had.”
The Wildcats (8-2, 19-4) moved into sole possession of first place in the conference as the Huskies lost at Oregon State earlier in the evening.
“We had a problem rebounding, but we put together a couple of good shots and got a key rebound or two, and kind of broke the game open in the last four minutes,” Arizona coach Sean Miller said.
The Wildcats slowly built a lead after Owens missed a chance to tie the score, going ahead 68-62.
Lamont Jones, who had 15 points, finished the Cardinal with some strong free throw shooting in the final minute.
“In certain places you feel a groove,” Jones said. “This is one of those places. I don’t know why; it’s just one of those places that fuels my fire. The crowd does that to me also.”
The Cardinal showed some fight early, scoring eight straight points in a run punctuated by one of freshman John Gage’s three 3-pointers in the opening half.
“We’ve been playing a number of our freshmen all season long, so I wouldn’t really consider them freshmen any more,” Dawkins said. “I thought they gave us good minutes. One guy that we really haven’t played that much that I was really impressed with and that gave us a spark was John Gage. He really stepped it up.”
Stanford started the second half on a 12-1 run to go ahead 45-40, but the Wildcats quickly tied the game and things stayed close until they flexed their muscles at the finish.
“It was an exciting game, and going into it we knew we had to have it,” Green said. “We didn’t execute. We didn’t get the stops there down at the end.”
By Palo Alto Online Sports/AP
By Palo Alto Online Sports/AP
By Palo Alto Online Sports/AP