gostanford.com photo: Stanford’s Travis Reid throws down against the Cal Bears on Wednesday afternoon at the T-Mobile Center in Las Vegas in the Cardinal’s first win in the Pac 12 Tournament

By Daniel Dullum
Sports Radio Service
Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Reid Travis helped No. 5-seed Stanford get off to a rolling start against No. 12 California in the opening round of the Pac-12 men’s basketball tournament in Las Vegas.

Travis led the Cardinal (18-14) with 19 points and 13 rebounds on 7 of 11 field goal shooting in Stanford’s 76-58 defeat of the Golden Bears. Dorian Pickens was next on the Cardinal scoring list with 16 points. “We’re certainly excited to be able to move on,” said Stanford head coach Jerod Haase “I think in tournament situations, you do build momentum once you’re in the tournament. So we feel like we have some momentum moving forward. We were able to catch Cal on a cold night. They didn’t shoot the ball great, but I thought our defense was for the most part active. We executed the game plan how we wanted.” Haase told gostanford.com.

Josh Sharma and Daejon Davis each scored 12 points for the Cardinal, and Oscar da Silva added nine points and eight boards. Stanford held a 51-41 rebounding edge.

By winning the rubber game of their season series, Stanford ousted Cal from the tournament. The Bears beat Stanford in their first meeting at The Farm for one of Cal’s two Pac-12 wins. The Cardinal won the rematch in Berkeley.

Stanford dominated the Bears at both ends of the floor. The Cardinal defense held Cal to 28 percent shooting while maintaining a 30-18 advantage on points in the paint.”A big emphasis for me is playing with the motor and just trying to get us started the right way when we start the game,” Travis said. ”So the more I can do that, the more guys got to start helping down and trying to make the right reads, the right passes.”

Travis had the hot hand early, scoring 11 points in the opening 10 minutes as the Cardinal built a 12-point lead. As a team, Stanford connected on 16 of 29 shots in the first half and led 29-28 at halftime.

In the second half, the Cardinal led by as many as 24 (63-39). Though, Stanford isn’t quite on the bubble for the NCAA tournament, the possibility remains alive after defeating Cal. But the Cardinal must defeat No. 4-seed UCLA in the second round.