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By Jeremy Harness

 

STANFORD – Stanford athletics had quite a bit to be thankful for on this holiday weekend. But now it’s time for the hard stuff.

 

A day after the football team edged out a win over a very good Notre Dame team in preparation for next Saturday’s Pac-12 championship game, the basketball team shook off a disheartening loss to blow out an overmatched South Dakota State squad, 92-60, in a regional round game of the seventh-annual Progressive Legends Classic at Maples Pavilion Sunday night.

 

The win ran Stanford’s record to 6-2 and was much needed after suffering a 88-67 loss to Pittsburgh in the Progressive Legends Classic’s championship game in Brooklyn, during which the Cardinal shot 50 percent from the field but nonetheless had its four-game winning streak snapped.

 

Simply put, Stanford had it pretty easy all night and were never really challenged. The Cardinal were frequently able to get whatever shot they wanted while as South Dakota State really struggled from the field against what figures to be one of the better defensive teams in the Pac-12.

 

The Jackrabbits, on the other hand, did not present a similar defense. The Cardinal went to the basket early and often with minimal resistance and racked up plenty of foul calls and continuation plays.

 

Stanford scored the first 13 points of the game and jumped out to a 58-24 halftime lead, and in the second half, the Cardinal led by as many as 39 and had all of its starters resting peacefully by the midway point of the second half.

 

The fact that the game was such a blowout from the outset allowed Stanford to get more guys into the action. In addition, Dwight Powell, one of the main cogs of the Stanford machine, wasn’t one of the top scorers on Sunday with only nine points on 4-of-8 shooting.

 

Chasson Randle, on the other hand, didn’t miss a beat, scoring 21 points while making seven of his 10 shots, including three of his five 3-point shots. Anthony Brown, who has had his role on offense expand a lot this year, was 7-of-11 from the floor and had 19 points to go along with eight rebounds.

 

For South Dakota State, the leading scorer was Jordan Dykstra, who had 20 points while making seven of his 14 field-goal attempts, including two of his three 3-point attempts, while Brayden Carlson scored 16.

 

It’s a good thing that the Cardinal didn’t have much stress on Sunday, because they figure to have plenty of that for the next two weeks. See, up next for the student-athletes (more emphasis on the student part here) are the dreaded final exams, for which they will be off the court for 12 days and are not scheduled to play again until Dec. 14 at home against UC Davis.

 

 

By Jeremy Harness

 

STANFORD – It didn’t look pretty, but No. 8 Stanford – as all elite teams are able to do – found a way to get another big win.

 

Stanford’s offense was steady early but sputtered down the stretch, only to watch senior cornerback Wayne Lyons thwart Notre Dame’s late rally by intercepting quarterback Tommy Rees twice in the fourth quarter, allowing the Cardinal to escape with a 27-20 win over the No. 25 Fighting Irish at Stanford Stadium.

 

Now the Cardinal will prepare to take on No. 12 Arizona State in the Pac-12 championship game, which will be held in Tempe, Ariz., next Saturday for the right to play in the Rose Bowl. The Cardinal won the head-to-head matchup Sept. 21 , by a 42-28 score, during which they out-rushed the Sun Devils, 240-50 and held a commanding 39-7 lead after three quarters before Arizona State mounted a fourth-quarter comeback.

 

The running game is how the Cardinal won Saturday’s game as well, racking up 261 rushing yards to Notre Dame’s 64. That is almost always a recipe to winning big football games, and that has been Stanford’s calling card during David Shaw’s tenure as its head coach.

 

Despite the dominance in running the ball, however, the Cardinal made some uncharacteristic mistakes in the second half that swung the momentum in Notre Dame’s favor and put the Cardinal in danger of having the game get away from them.

 

“They’re really good up front,” Shaw said of Notre Dame. “We knew we had to keep pounding. We knew we had to keep fighting. We knew they were going to come back. They’re that good of a football team.”

 

Stanford gained the upper hand early in the half, but Notre Dame started to get back into the game in the second quarter, converting on key pass plays to keep drives going. While the Cardinal were much more effective on the ground, the Fighting Irish actually held a slight advantage in time of possession in the first half.

 

One of Shaw’s biggest points of emphasis is scoring touchdowns instead of field goals once the offense gets into the red zone, and that was the difference between the two teams in the first half; the Cardinal converted both of their red-zone opportunities into touchdowns while Notre Dame was forced to settle for field goals.

 

The direct evidence of this was on the schools’ first possessions of the game. Notre Dame took the ball first and drove all the way to the Stanford 11, eventually taking a 3-0 lead on Kyle Brindza’s 31-yard field goal.

 

Stanford got into the red zone as well, but unlike Notre Dame, found the end zone as Kevin Hogan’s 16-yard strike to Devon Cajuste gave the Cardinal a 7-3 advantage.

 

 

 

 

In beginning the second half, Stanford again established its ground-game dominance and, as a result, extended its lead when Anthony Wilkerson scampered up the middle for a 20-yard touchdown to give Stanford a 21-6 lead.

 

Notre Dame responded by again getting into the red zone on its first possession of the second half, thanks to a pair of defensive penalties against the Cardinal. This time, however, the Irish were able to cash in, as Tommy Rees hit T.J Jones to narrow Stanford’s lead to eight.

 

From that point, the roles completely reversed in terms of red-zone conversion.

 

Stanford marched down the field, getting to Notre Dame’s 5-yard line. However, Tyler Gaffney’s 5-yard touchdown plunge on third-and-four was nullified by a holding penalty. The penalty, which was only the second holding call on Stanford’s offensive line all season, forced the Cardinal to settle for a 37-yard field goal.

 

The Irish then further cut into Stanford’s edge, converting on a pair of pass plays on third-and-long to keep their drive going until Rees finished it off with a 14-yard scoring pass to Davaris Daniels to bring the Irish to within four late in the third quarter.

 

The Cardinal’s ensuing drive resulted in another field goal to give Stanford a 27-20 lead early in the fourth quarter, and a defensive struggle ensued.

 

Stanford’s defense forced a three-and-out but gave the ball right back when Hogan’s third-down pass was intercepted by cornerback Bennett Jackson. Lyons, however, returned the favor by picking off Rees with 5:15 remaining.

 

But the Cardinal’s offense again failed to pick up a first down, and Notre Dame got the ball back with one timeout left and 3:35 to work with. Rees, however, decided to test Lyons one more time and failed, as the senior’s second interception allowed the Cardinal to run out the clock and escape with the win.

 

“We knew it was going to be a tight ballgame,” Shaw said. “This is a really good Notre Dame football team. We knew it was going to come down to the end.

 

“(Now) we have to rest up, get all our bruises healed and get ready for one heck of a football game next week.”