Category: Stanford Cardinal

By DANIEL DULLUM
Sports Radio Service
Friday, November 21, 2014

Chasson Randle did all of his scoring from behind the 3-ppoint arc Friday, and Stanford rolled to an 89-60 win over Nevada-Las Vegas in the semifinals of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Randle finished with 18 points, all on 3-pointers – five of them in the first half as the Cardinal improved to 3-0 overall. Stanford faces Duke in Saturday’s championship game, setting up a coaching matchup between Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins, a former standout player for the Blue Devils.

UNLV, meanwhile, missed 11 of its first 14 shots and never recovered after falling behind 12-0 early.

Anthony Brown also scored 18 points and Rosco Allen added 15 for Stanford, which shot 57 percent from the field in the first half as the Cardinal built a 23-point lead.

Christian Wood led the Runnin’ Rebels (2-1) with 12 points. Rashad Vaughn, who averaged 22 points in UNLV’s first two games, was held to seven points.

Led by Randle, the Cardinal sank 9 of its 14 3-point attempts in the first 20 minutes while building a 23-point halftime lead. Stanford also had a 47-29 rebounding edge.

Stanford jumped to a 36-10 lead with 9:16 remaining in the first half after Randle sank his third and fourth 3-pointers. Randle’s six treys were one shy of his personal best.

by Jeremy Harness

PALO ALTO CA–Stanford Men’s (2-0) head coach Johnny Dawkins came up under Duke University head coach Mike Kryzewski and Dawkins has the same expectations that Kryzewski has for his team that he had at Duke. He’s been trying to build a winner at Stanford and some years have been more successful than others.

Even though they were able to make it to the lead eight where they eventually fell to Dayton, more often than not year after year they fell off into the middle of the pack and never really make any noise and at this point you have to wonder when this team is going to finally break out. Hopefully we’ve seen a little bit of that based on what we’ve seen from the NCAA Tournament.

When you look at it it was really a surprise even going into the basketball tournament they were still middle of the road so nothing had really changed from that point in time. They somehow got into the NCAA tournament and got hot. The Cardinal won their first two games of the season and their expected to win those games.

Anytime your a Pac 12 team your expected to take care of business with those mid major teams and actually lower than that. Their first semi-test will be this coming Friday in Brooklyn vs. UNLV. From that point the next real test after that is next month in December when they go to Texas on the 23rd.

At that time we’ll see what kind of team that the Cardinal really are, they don’t really have the strengthened schedule they’ve had in the past few years. They played UConn and Syracuse and those types of teams you don’t really see that other than the Texas game. The Cardinal went to the NCAA Tournament and made it to the second round.

Anytime you face a 2-0 team they have a winning streak going on there’s something that goes along with it. The feeling of winning the conference is great and this is a tournament that you have to be prepared for. Thankfully for Stanford they have enough returning players where they should be equipped to deal with that.

Some of the key Stanford players thus far are Stefan Nastic who is a classic post up center he has a lot of skills and has great passing skills, guard Chasson Randle can get really hot he’s a scoring machine, he can go for 20 and there was a game in the NCAA Pac 12 Tournament a couple years ago against Arizona State where he scored in the 37-40 point range. Anthony Brown is a much improved player at the guard-forward position, he’s got long arms and he makes a lot of noise on defense he a great player and he’s an up and comer.

Jeremy Harness is filling in for Michelle Richardson for the NCAA commentary and covers Stanford basketball on http://www.sportsradioservice.com

By Matthew T.F. Harrington

STANFORD, Calif. – The Stanford Cardinal continued it’s early undefeated season, topping the University of South Dakota 84-73 in the second game of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic at Maples Pavilion Sunday. The Cardinal (2-0) also beat the Wofford Terriers 74-59 Friday night to open the season.

The Cardinal open this season missing two-thirds of its lethal front court, with standouts Josh Huestis and Dwight Powell leaving the Farm for the professional ranks after last season’s surprising run to the Sweet 16. They’ll be counting on returning fifth-year senior Stefan Nastic and the front court tandem of Anthony Brown and Chasson Randle to shoulder the load offensively.

Friday, Nastic took major strides in revving the offense, scoring a career-high 26 points. Sunday against the Coyotes proved much the same, as the Six-foot-Eleven center scored 14 points despite battling foul trouble late. Nastic’s goal for the season as Stanford’s lone returning big man is to avoid finding himself on the bench late in games to protect from fouling out.

“He’s one of the best big men in the country,” said Stanford head coach Johnny Dawkins. “I think that’s evidenced by how he’s been playing, not just now but the end of last year. Of course we want him as much as we can possibly have him.”

Randle pitched in with game-high 23 points on 5 of 11 shooting against South Dakote (0-2), but the real star offensively was someone both familiar and unfamiliar to Cardinal fans; Rosco Allen.

“He gave us a lift,” said Randle. “He came out ready to go from the gates. That’s something we need him to do going forward. He’s a great player, a lot of potential. He’s our x-factor. He can do that night in and night out if he wants to.”

The junior Allen scored a career-high 17 points in just his second game since suffering a shin injury last October that caused him to miss all but one game last season. The Hungarian-born forward averaged 3.2 points a game, playing 391 minutes his freshman season of 2012-13.

“I’m so happy,” said Allen when asked how it felt to be back on the court. “I loved being a part of the team last year, see those guys go so far. It’s a different feeling to be out on the court instead of on the sidelines.”

After South Dakota hit one of two free throws for the first point of the game, the Cardinal never trailed. The Cardinal led its visitors 40-26 by the half, but failed to put the game entirely out of reach over the final 20 minutes.

“I give South Dakota a ton of credit,” said Dawkins. “They came in to compete. They made it a 40 minute game.”

“They played great as a team for 40 minutes,” echoed Randle. “You have to give them credit. They really locked in at times offensively and defensively. Offensively, they got into a rhythm, made shots and got offensive rebounds.”

The Coyotes cut the Cardinal lead as close as six points with 12:34 to play, thanks largely in part to Stanford’s inability to stop South Dakota defensively in the second half. The Coyotes hit 46.9 percent of their second half field goal attempts, but sent Stanford to the free throw line 26 times. Stanford hit 22 second-half attempts from the charity stripe to keep distance from its opponents. In total, the Cardinal went 38 for 46 from behind the charity stripe.

“We shoot free throws relatively well in practice,” said Dawkins. “We talked about it before. Some of our guys who haven’t had as much experience in game situations are getting that experience now in front of our eyes. They’re growing up, they’re playing those roles now. I have all the confidence in the world that they’re going to be very good free throw shooters. I think it’s evident by how we shot it tonight.”

Next up for the Cardinal is a high profile match-up against UNLV in another Coaches vs. Cancer classic match-up. This time, play moves to the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, a site familiar to the Cardinal after a pair of stops there last season.

“The Pizza,” replied Randle with a smile when asked what he’s most looking forward to on the road trip. “Really, I’m just looking forward to an opportunity to play against UNLV. We’ve watched film on them, we know they’re a pretty good team.”

By: Ben Leonard

–PALO ALTO, CA

In the season opener for both Stanford and Wofford, both squads were clearly full of anticipatory energy before and during the game. In the all-time first meeting between the two schools, the favored Cardinal prevailed 74-59 behind strong play in the post. Center Stefan Nastic led the way for the Cardinal, with twenty-six points and five rebounds.  The media-poll favorite in the Southern Conference for 2014-15, Wofford finished 20-13 in the 2013-14 season, despite being the third smallest Division One School in terms of enrollment. On the other hand, Stanford went 23-13 in the superior Pac-12 Conference.  Friday’s lightly-attended game was a part of the regional round of the 2014 Northwestern Mutual Coaches vs. Cancer® Classic, which will culminate in the Championship Rounds at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

The Terriers put up a strong fight early, taking an early 17-13 lead with 10:56 left to go in the first. This was due to several missed opportunities by the Cardinal, who struggled at the free-throw line in the incipient stages of the game. Stanford converted  three of their first eight attempts, including an fruitless trip by center Reid Travis, missing both of his tries. Dawkins attributed these misses to inexperience and jitters, as the “guys who missed free-throws had limited experience” and were still “trying to find their way.” Dawkins appreciated their numerous trips to the line (28), but they simply “had to convert.”

Wofford’s strong three point shooting in part gave them the early advantage, as they converted on three of their first five attempts. In addition, their bench players took a vital role, scoring eleven points against the Cardinal’s two points off the bench with 7:57 left in the first. It was a very physical, hard-fought game early, with players fighting for rebounds and diving on the floor for loose balls.

After the first ten minutes, forward Stefan Nastic started to physically overpower an undersized Wofford squad down low.  He led Stanford to an 18-7 run, starting with 9:07 left and stretching to halftime. The 6’11”, fifth-year senior bodied up Wofford players down low, and the Terriers simply had no answer for him. He dominated the glass, burning the Terriers’ zone defense for twenty-six points. As Dawkins put it, he “stepped outside and knocked down shots” like “one of the best centers out there.” Wofford’s lower three players in the zone were all of 6’1″, 6’4″, and 6’1″, creating an easy matchup for the Canadian center to exploit. Combining with the freshman forward Travis down low for forty points and nine rebounds, Nastic overcame his tendencies to fall into foul trouble and was able to play thirty-two minutes. Nastic praised Travis’ work ethic, a player who “brings it every day and works really hard.”

After taking a 36-27 halftime lead, Stanford continued its success into the second half, going on a 16-7 run to start the period and pulling away to take a 58-34 lead, effectively icing the game for the Cardinal. Despite an uncustomary off game from star guard Chasson Randle, Stanford found a way to come together and beat, as Dawkins put it, “a good team.” Randle had a poor shooting game, as he made just four of thirteen attempts and gathered just twelve points. Four starters were in double figures for the Cardinal, and their success was, as Nastic put it, because every player “knows what their role is.”

Wofford’s star player, Karl Cochran, also struggled, making four of his twelve attempts from the field and scoring just eleven points. He now needs just 179 points this season to enter Wofford’s all-time top ten scoring list. His struggles came mostly from behind the three-point arc, where he made just one of six attempts, despite being sixth on the school’s all-time list in three pointers made. While holding a big lead at the end of the game, Dawkins elected to rest his starters, clearly looking ahead to their next game this Sunday against North Dakota. The game will be aired on the Pac-12 Networks at 3 PST, a far cry from the 9 PST start in Friday’s game, the latest at Maples Pavillion since 1998.