By: Ben Leonard
Follow @ben___leonard

photo credit: USA Today Longhorns Isaiah Taylor hits the game winner vs. Stanford

STANFORD, Calif. —A native of nearby Hayward, Texas guard Isaiah Taylor is no stranger to the Bay Area. For a Texas Longhorns team (8-3) that hadn’t played a true road game all season long, Taylor looked right at home in Palo Alto while “settl[ing] the team down” in the words of his coach, Shaka Smart, carrying his team to a nail-biting 75-73 win over the Stanford Cardinal (5-4) with 26 points. 

Taylor was lights out all night long, making 11 of his 17 field goal attempts while driving into the paint for bucket after bucket, especially in the first half. He dropped 16 in the first half, including 12 in the first 11 minutes to help his team break out to an early 11-4 lead. As Smart put it, he was the “one guy on the team who played with a constant poise.” 

Stanford struggled in the early going, turning the ball over four times in the first five minutes. As Stanford guard Dorian Pickens put it, the team came out “lack[ing] energy.” Texas was employing a full-court press that forced Stanford’s turnovers, preventing a team suddenly without forward Reid Travis from working the ball down low. As forward Rosco Allen put it, “we let it affect our game. We had to swing the ball around the perimeter because of the pressure.” 

Travis, the team’s leading rebounder, who is sidelined indefinitely with a stress reaction in his left leg, was sorely missed on Saturday. Head coach Johnny Dawkins told the media that the injury will be a “tough lesson” for Travis, who was the hardest worker Dawkins has ever seen — too much extra work spelled doom for Travis.

Without Travis, no one could stop Taylor in the paint in the first half — Stanford was outscored 20-6 in the key in the first half. However, after the sluggish start, Pickens and Stanford started to turn it around. Pickens dropped 15 points in the first half, propelling the Cardinal to cut the Longhorns’ halftime lead to 41-35. The sophomore guard came off the bench and finished with a career-high 24 points on 6 of 7 shooting from beyond the arc.

Dawkins expressed a lot of confidence in his guard, whether he comes off the bench or starts. For Dawkins, he’s “starting to find out how good he can be. As a young player, he can build off of that.” 

But Pickens’ career night ultimately wasn’t enough, mostly because of Taylor’s dominant play. After being down for about ten for most of the first and second half, Stanford came storming back. After Michael Humphrey forced a steal and had a breakaway thunderous dunk to light up Maples Pavillion, Stanford had cut the Longhorns’ lead to just two with 29 seconds remaining. The crowd was back in it, and it felt like Stanford was going to take it.

But after three made free throws from Taylor and Javan Felix, Stanford found itself down by three with 17 seconds left. Pickens nearly saved the day for the Cardinal, nailing a three, but it was to no avail. As he did all night long, Taylor sped down the court and knocked down a driving left-handed layup, giving Texas the win. Dawkins said he was the fastest guard he had seen in the past few years — hours upon hours of watching his film couldn’t get the Cardinal adjusted to it.

Notes: Travis had an MRI on Friday, and there is no timetable for his return….Stanford won the last meeting (2014) between these two squads in an overtime thriller, an upset victory on the road over the then-ninth-ranked Longhorns…The Cardinal will move on and play Sacramento State on Tuesday….