Cardinal stun UCLA behind Pickens’ threes
On the night Stanford’s four freshmen came of age, senior Dorian Pickens gave them plenty of assistance, firing the clutch three-pointers in a double-overtime victory over UCLA.
Against an 11-3 team that had knocked off Kentucky two weeks ago, the Cardinal came back from 13 points down with a little over nine minutes left in regulation and outlasted the Bruins 107-99 in a 50-minute marathon at Maples Pavilion.
“Over and over and over again, we had adversity — and responded,” head coach Jerod Haase said after the biggest win of his two years at Stanford. After the Cal game Saturday, he said the plan wasn’t to weather adversity; it was to “attack” it. And that’s what his players did Thursday.
Pickens, playing just his fourth game of the season after sitting out with a foot injury, hit 6-of-11 three pointers on his way to a career-high 26 points. He also grabbed 10 rebounds.
He then raved about freshmen Daejon Davis (22 points, seven assists), Kezie Okpala (13 points), Oscar da Silva (eight points, six assists) and Isaac White, who scored his two points in the final flurry.
“I don’t think we can call them kids anymore,” Pickens said. “At this point in the season, they’ve got so much good experience in our non-conference schedule; they played huge.”
It’s too bad that Stanford’s student body is on its winter break between quarters. Otherwise, there would have been more than 4,497 on hand to see a thrilling duel that led to the Cardinal’s seventh win against eight losses. They are 1-1 in the Pac-12.
Memories of the losses to Eastern Washington and Portland State and of squandering a 17-point lead against Cal disappeared as the Cardinal showed all the poise they needed down the stretch. They hit 60 percent of their field-goal tries in the second half.
“The guys had to believe in something bigger than themselves when there wasn’t a whole lot to hold onto,” Haase said. “There was a belief for the first time since I’ve been at Stanford that we can get this done. That’s what I’m going to remember from this game.”
UCLA’s Aaron Holiday forced a second overtime with a three-pointer at the buzzer. But in the second overtime, Pickens was at it again. He sank two foul shots to bring Stanford within one point, then hit a huge three for a 101-99 lead with just under two minutes to go. The Cardinal scored the final nine points of the game.
Stanford’s Reid Travis, who fouled with two minutes left in regulation, had 18 points and 11 rebounds. Michael Humphrey scored 14 points before fouling out in the first overtime.
Holiday scored 26 of his career-high 31 points after halftime to lead the Bruins (11-4, 2-1). Kris Wilkes had 18, Prince Ali 16 and Gyorgy Goloman 14. Wilkes and Goloman fouled out in overtime.
UCLA head coach Steve Alford called his team’s 19for-35 foul shooting “atrocious,” a word he also used to describe the Bruins’ defense after halftime.
“You’re not going to win road games defending like that,” he said. “I told them that you might have nights where the free throw doesn’t go in, but the tenacity and nastiness was not there in the second half.”