By Ben Leonard
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AP photo: Stanford’s Rosco Allen (25) is defended by UCLA guard Aaron Holiday at Maples Pavilion on Saturday night

STANFORD, Calif —

When Michael Humphrey is on, there’s nothing stopping him (except for the free-throw line!). For the lanky sophomore forward, Saturday was one of those days — and UCLA (15-14, 6-10) paid the price. Humphrey only missed two shots while scoring 24 points, helping the suddenly scorching Stanford Cardinal (15-12, 8-8) knock off the Bruins 79-70 in their final regular season home game. Rosco Allen also chipped in with 19 points and 9 rebounds to help carry Stanford to the victory.

Humphrey made 12 of his 14 field goal attempts in all kinds of traffic, but somehow missed all four of his free throw attempts. He didn’t even know why his hot shooting didn’t translate to the free throw line: “I don’t know why. I’ve been working on my free throw shot a lot. Pregame, I shot some free throws to try to get it right and it was working, so my shot felt right once I got to the line, but then it was all over the place….I’ll probably be in here with coach shooting a few hundred of them.”

Despite his struggles at the line, Humphrey exploited the Bruins down low, pulling down nine rebounds while helping the Cardinal outscore UCLA in the paint 32-18.

One of those moves in the paint helped put the game on ice for Stanford, giving them a 75-64 lead with 1:47 to play. Surrounded by a sea of three UCLA defenders with the shot clock about to expire, Humphrey went to his right and jumped off his left foot and nailed the off-balance jumper, whipping Maples Pavillion into a frenzy.

Humphrey said he had good touch on that shot today because he worked on a similar shot with assistant coach Tim O’Toole before the game on Saturday. The shot was part of a ridiculous second half for the Cardinal, in which employed stellar ball movement to shot 70.8% from the field to help close out the win.

Humphrey, a Phoenix native, had been playing like Jekyll and Hyde this season, with three games of 20+ points but also five scoring under five. His head coach, Johnny Dawkins, seemed excited about Humphrey’s future: “We’re just starting to see what he can become. Right now, when a player [like Humphrey] is still developing, these moments come every now and then. When he becomes the player we envision him becoming, you’ll see them on a more consistent basis.”

Despite the Cardinal’s best efforts, the lowly Bruins put up a good fight, only down 34-33 at halftime. Guards Isaac Hamilton and Bryce Alford, UCLA’s two best scorers, combined to score 23 points on 5 of 8 shooting from behind the arc, helping UCLA stay competitive. Dawkins had gameplanned heavily around stopping the duo, but he gave them credit for their creativity in finding a way to score. Without that hot shooting in the second half, the Cardinal would likely have found themselves squarely in the loss column.

The Cardinal is clicking at just the right time, winning its fourth game in five tries right at the end of the regular season, picking up its first home sweep of the year. Stanford will travel to Arizona play two more conference games before the Pac-12 tournament starts, and Humphrey believes the Cardinal are well prepared for the task ahead: “Everyone is really understanding their role in the offense, and it’s so great to play at home. I thought we had a really great crowd this weekend.”