By Jeremy Harness

Stanford is quickly showing college basketball that last year’s NCAA Tournament run may not have been a fluke.

The Cardinal are quickly emerging as a threat in the Pac-12, and that grew even more after they downed No. 21 Washington in overtime, 68-60, at Maples Pavilion. With the win, Stanford is off to a 2-0 start in the Pac-12 and have two quality wins on their resume, which could prove crucial should their name come up for possible seeding in the big dance.

Prior to opening conference play, the Cardinal was coming off a huge win on the road over No. 9 Texas, so the confidence of this team is obviously very high.

This was a far cry from a month ago, when they were struggling to beat teams such as Loyola Marymount, and the thought was that the Cardinal, fresh off a Sweet Sixteen appearance in last year’s NCAA tourney, would return to the middle-of-the-road team that has been all too familiar in the Johnny Dawkins era.

To keep the momentum going, Chasson Randle scored 24 points on 9-of-21 shooting, to go along with five assists and three rebounds.

Neither team shot the ball very well overall, as the Cardinal squeaked by with a 39 percent performance while the Huskies shot 38 percent from the field.

The game was knotted at 28-28 at halftime, but Stanford emerged from the locker room and opened up a seven-point lead in the first four minutes of the second half. However, it took just as much time for Washington to tie the game back up, as two free throws by Shawn Kemp, Jr. evened things up at 37-37.

From there, it was a back-to-back affair, as the game saw a total of five lead changes in the final 10 minutes of regulation. Stanford trailed for the final two minutes but was able to battle back and send the game into overtime on Chasson Randle’s layup with two seconds left.

In the overtime period, it was all Stanford, as Washington could not find the bucket at all during the extra period – the Huskies were 0-for-3 from the field, as all of their four overtime points came from the free-throw line.

Meanwhile, the Cardinal only missed one shot in overtime, and that proved to be the difference.