San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Dons top Cardinal, off to best start in 17 years
Smothering defense key to USF win on Hilltop
USF is off to its best start in 19 years, and Stanford found out why Saturday afternoon. The Dons play defense with a capital “D.”
They held the Cardinal to 19 points on 27 percent shooting in the first half. Stanford made its run much too late, and the Dons finished with their first win in the series in 23 years, 74-65.
The attendance at soldout War Memorial Gym was listed as 3,005, but it sounded considerably louder than that as USF celebrated its second win over a Pac-12 team this season. It rolled 79-60 at Cal earlier this month.
Kyle Smith, USF’s third-year head coach, conceded he didn’t expect a 12-1 start. He said he tells his players, “I’ve never put a cap on what you guys can be.” He added: “To be 12-1 right now, that’s pretty good.” There were many strong performances. Guards Charles Minlend (19 points) and Frankie Ferrari (17) led the offense, while 7-footer Jimbo Lull grabbed a careerhigh 15 rebounds to go with 11 points.
Matt McCarthy came off the bench to score 10 points, and forward Nate Renfro and guard Jamaree Bouyea spearheaded a defense that thwarted Stanford (6-5) on its first trip to the Hilltop since 1987.
In the first half, Stanford committed 11 turnovers and hit just 7 of 26 shots as, according to Smith, the Dons played their best defense of the year. USF led 30-19 at the break and built a 48-31 lead in the second half.
The Cardinal improved considerably in the second half, but they didn’t make it close until a flurry of three-pointers, two by Bryce Wills and one by Daejon Davis, in the final 75 seconds.
“We’re extremely disappointed, both with the outcome and how we played, especially the first three quarters of the game,” Cardinal head coach Jerod Haase said.
He didn’t like his team’s overall intensity or its offensive pace. “As (the Dons) got aggressive, we came to a screeching halt,” he said. “If we’re not sharing the basketball, we’re not going to be very effective.”
Stanford had a 43-37 rebounding advantage, but that’s about the only thing the Cardinal did well.
“We got kind of lax,” said Davis, who scored 19 points. “We came out strong (taking a 6-0 lead in the first three minutes), and obviously they came back. We didn’t take the hit very well.”
The Cardinal, playing without starting guard Cormac Ryan for the second straight game because of an ankle injury, had 12 points from Oscar da Silva and 11 points and nine boards from KZ Okpala.
“We knew they were going to come with a flurry in the second half,” Ferrari said. “It kind of came later than I thought, because they made those threes so late. I knew if we made some free throws and got some stops, we could close it out. It’s a big win for us.”