Stanford hopes to make a run in the NIT.
As the Stanford men’s basketball team sees it, the NIT isn’t a booby prize. The Cardinal wanted desperately to make the NCAA Tournament, but they say there’s nothing wrong with a chance to continue playing.
Besides, if the chips fall right, they could earn a trip to New York City.
“It’s another chance to grow the team,” forward Michael Humphrey said. “As a senior, I want to leave these freshmen with a good legacy, a winning legacy. It’s something they can build on going forward. The NCAA would have been a great way to do that, but this is still a lot to play for and a lot we can build on.”
Humphrey, along with senior Dorian Pickens and redshirt juniors Reid Travis and Robert Cartwright, played on Stanford’s 2015 NIT champions. Stanford, which also won the NIT in 1991 and 2012, is 18-5 all-time in the tournament.
The Cardinal (18-15), seeded third in their eight-team bracket, play sixth-seeded BYU (24-10) on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Maples Pavilion.
Depending on whether you look at history as part of a trend, the signs are not good for the Cardinal. BYU has won six of eight previous meetings, including the most recent, a 97-79 Cougar romp in Provo, Utah, in 2014.
The last time the Cougars played at Maples, they lit the nets on fire. Tyler Haws scored 31 points and Matt Carlino 26, and BYU shot 54 percent in a wild 112-103 win. Stanford’s Chasson Randle had 33 points and Dwight Powell 28, and it wasn’t nearly enough.
In Jerod Haase’s final game at UAB before being hired as Stanford’s head coach in 2016, his Blazers were whipped by BYU 97-79 in the first round of the NIT.
Like Humphrey, Haase is happy that his team is still playing.
“We want to be in the NCAA Tournament,” he said. “That’s going to be the standard for my tenure here.” But, he said, “I think the way we’ve performed in 2018 is pretty special. We’ve overcome adversity and continue to grow as a team, so to put ourselves in position to play in the NIT is a real positive.”
After finishing third in the WCC, BYU dealt St. Mary’s NCAA hopes a blow with a defeat of the Gaels in the tournament semifinals, then lost to Gonzaga in the title game.
“They don’t shoot a ton of threes,” Haase said. “They’re good at dribble penetrations. … It’s an older team. We’re going to have to play a physical game and be able to keep the ball out of the paint and really guard the basketball well.”
As has been the case in recent years, the NCAA uses the NIT to experiment with rules changes. This year the event will use a deeper threepoint line, a wider lane, 10minute quarters and a 20second shot clock after offensive rebounds.
“It’s a great time to try these changes,” Haase said. “For the most part, I have good feelings about the intent of what we’re trying to do. … In general, spacing is a good thing. If you move the three-point line back and widen the lane, you inherently get more spacing on the floor, which is good for dribble penetration, freedom of movement, all those things.”
Briefly: The Stanford-BYU winner will play at secondseeded Oklahoma State (20-14), an 80-68 winner over No. 7 seed Florida Gulf Coast (23-11) on Tuesday night.