If you happened upon the halftime score of the Stanford men's basketball team's 75-62 win in Pullman last night, you probably did a double-take. As reader Cardinal&Orange commented in the GameThread, "There must be something wrong with GameTracker. It says Stanford has scored 45 in the 1st half, is 7-8 on 3s, 3-3 on FTs, and has 7 fastbreak points. I mean, really, that is just not possible."
But it was possible, and a wacky Pac-10 season got wackier. The Cardinal got big games from Jeremy Green, Dwight Powell, and Anthony Brown, and shot 50% from the field as a team, holding off Washington State's second half rally with some uncharacteristically good free throw shooting. Stanford pulled into a three-way tie for fourth place in the conference with the Cougars and Cal, which got hammered at Washington.
Green was the offensive star for Stanford. He finished with 24 points on 7-for-9 shooting, making all five of his 3-pointers and all five of his free throws. In the Cardinal's last two games, Green has 47 points on 13-for-17 shooting. Including the 3-pointer he made in the final minute of Stanford's loss to Arizona, the junior has connected on his last 11 shots from beyond the arc.
Stanford (13-10, 6-6 Pac-10) took a 17-point lead into halftime, but watched it evaporate over the first 10 minutes of the second half. The Cougars pulled to within one point with less than 9 minutes remaining before a jumper by Brown sparked a 16-5 Stanford run. Stanford was 7-for-8 from the free throw line in the final 4 minutes and 16-for-19 in the game. Jarrett Mann dished out a career-high 11 assists and is averaging more than 7 assists over his last four games.
Grady Clapp has additional analysis of the game over at CougCenter.
Back at Maples Pavilion, the No. 3 Stanford women overcame a slow start with a 28-7 run to start the second half in a 100-59 win against Washington State. The win was Stanford's 49th straight against Pac-10 foes, which breaks the record set by the Cardinal from 1995-98.