Cardinal blitz extends winning streak
Stanford has ended January on a bit of a roll. Cal has ended January by getting rolled again.
At Maples Pavilion on Saturday night, the Cardinal overwhelmed the Bears 75-46.
Forward/center Maxime Raynaud led Stanford (9-12, 3-7 Pac-12) with 15 points. Forward Harrison Ingram added 14 points. Stanford outrebounded Cal 46-30. Raynaud and forward Spencer Jones each pulled down nine boards.
“We don’t like Cal,” Ingram said. “It was a great all-around game. This is a team effort.”
Forward Sam Alajiki came off the bench to lead the Bears (3-18, 2-8) with 13 points and 11 rebounds. Cal went 17-for-56 (30.4%) from the floor, including 5-for-21 (23.8%) from beyond the arc.
In the teams’ previous meeting, Cal tied a school record with 16 3-pointers in a 92-70 romp at Haas Pavilion on Jan. 6. The Bears have lost five straight since then, the last three of which have come by a combined 78 points.
Said Cal head coach Mark Fox: “Are we wearing down? Are we giving in a little bit? Maybe — but our defense has not been good enough.”
The Cardinal’s loss to the Bears was part of a five-game skid. Since then, Stanford has won four straight, all at Maples, including a 72-65 decision over Chicago State on Wednesday.
On Saturday, DeJuan Clayton’s 3-pointer with 13½ minutes left in the first half cut Cal’s deficit to 12-11.
At that point, the proverbial lids went over the baskets. The teams went scoreless for nearly seven minutes. Eighteen field goals — jumpers, 3-pointers, layups, follows — and a free throw were attempted without success.
Lars Thiemann finally ended the drought by dropping home a hook shot to put the Bears up by one. That was Cal’s last lead of the night.
Stanford responded with a 12-0 run. Michael Jones’ bucket began that stretch. A three-point play by Raynaud ended it.
That made it 24-13, Cardinal, with 3½ minutes left in the half. Stanford was up 31-20 at the break.
The Cardinal led by as many as 37 and maintained a doubledigit lead for the entire half. One highlight of the second half for Stanford fans came when Ingram bolted down the lane and posterized ND Okafor with a slam.
“Everyone’s saying I’m unathletic and I can’t jump. I’m trying to disprove that,” Ingram said. “When that happened, I blacked out. Didn’t get back on defense, gave up a layup. I’ve never done anything like that before.”
Did he say anything to Okafor?
“Yeah, he did,” Raynaud said with a laugh in the postgame news conference. “I’m not sure we can say it in here.”
Stanford fans also got treated to a late-game dunk by 6-foot-4 guard Isa Silva.
Cal is winless in eight games away from Haas Pavilion this season. Six of those were true road games and two were neutral-site matchups.
“We haven’t in the last few years been a very good road team because we haven’t been very good,” Fox said. “You have to get good first.”
Stanford appears to be improving, but still sits in 10th place in the Pac-12.
“We’ve had a couple of games that we’ve kind of laid an egg,” Stanford head coach Jerod Haase said, “but for the most part, I feel like there’s been consistency with our improvement, which makes me optimistic moving forward.”
Final Four reunion: At halftime, Stanford honored its 1997-98 team that won its first 18 games, went 30-5 and made it to the Final Four.
Arthur Lee, the Cardinal’s leading scorer that season at 14.5 points per game, was Stanford’s honorary captain Saturday night. Lee had replaced Brevin Knight as the Cardinal’s starting point guard. Knight was a firstround pick of the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1997.
Lee, who’s now a teacher and adviser at a high school in Chicago, talked to the players at their shootaround about “embracing the present moment. Each moment matters and just enjoy it. They weren’t even alive when we made it” to the Final Four.
The signature win for that Mike Montgomery team came in the Midwest Regional Final, when Stanford overcame a sixpoint deficit in the final minute to shock Rhode Island 79-77. Lee sparked that comeback.
“I just remember reading so many articles and hearing so many pundits — quote/unquote — saying how Stanford would not be as good without Brevin Knight,” said Lee, who scored a game-high 26 points against the Rams. “So when I saw it slipping away, I just said, ‘You know what? Win or lose, I have to do something.’ Thank God it worked.”
Four players from that 1997-98 Stanford team — Jarron Collins, Jason Collins, Mark Madsen and Tim Young — made it to the NBA.
The season ended with an 8685 loss to eventual champion Kentucky in overtime in the Final Four.
“I wasn’t bitter at all. It was a fantastic experience. It was a fantastic game,” said backup guard Kamba Tshionyi, who’s now a fundraiser at Stanford. “I remember the totality of the experience. It was special, and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized just how special a group that was, how special a year it was.”
The only other team in program history to reach the Final Four was the 1941-42 squad, which won the national title. Briefly: Cal again was without leading scorer Devin Askew (15.5 ppg), who has missed eight games this season because of a foot injury and health and safety protocols. … Raynaud had four steals. … On Thursday night, Stanford plays at Utah and Cal is at Colorado.