OREGON STATE 62, STANFORD 50 Cardinal slide continues
In its final seven regularseason games, Stanford probably will be playing simply for as high a seed as it can muster in the Pac- 12 Tournament. So much for team goals.
The Cardinal absorbed a disheartening 62- 50 home loss to Oregon State on Thursday night, a reversal of a six- point Stanford win in Corvallis a month ago.
At this point, even the NIT looks out of reach.
Stanford ( 11- 11, 4- 7 Pac- 12) never led and fell into 10th place in the conference. Against OSU’s zone defense, it sank just five threepointers in 18 tries compared with OSU’s 8for- 20.
The Cardinal shot 52 percent in the first half but trailed 33- 29. Then the basket must have shrunk. They shot just 24 percent ( 6- for- 25) in the second half.
For the Beavers ( 15- 8, 6- 6), it was just their second win at Maples Pavilion since 1993 and their first Pac- 12 road win since January 2015. The paid crowd was announced as 4,519, but the actual turnout was far short of that.
Freshman Tres Tinkle, the son of coach Wayne Tinkle, scored 19 points for Oregon State, Gary Payton II had 14 and Malcolm Duvivier 11. Rosco Allen led Stanford with 12, and reserve Grant Verhoeven had 10.
Oregon State had a 51- 40 lead with 6 ½ minutes left, but in its efforts to kill the clock it wound up taking too many bad shots. That allowed Stanford to close to 51- 46 with just over three minutes left. But the Cardinal made too many bad passes and missed too many shots down the stretch.
A three by Stanford’s Dorian Pickens made it 54- 49 with 1: 07 left. But the Beavers broke the press for a Tinkle layup, and they salted away the win at the foul line.
Early in the second half, Oregon State pushed the lead to 39- 31 before Allen drove for a two- handed dunk. Not to be outdone, Payton flushed an alley- oop pass from Berkeley’s Langston Morris- Walker, who then nailed a three for a 44- 33 lead.
The Beavers, not a great three- point shooting team, jumped out to a 16- 9 lead with Duvivier and Tinkle each hitting a pair from long range.
Stanford played catchup the rest of the half, getting a big lift from Verhoeven, who sank all four of his shots for eight points. But the Cardinal trailed at the half 33- 29 despite shooting 52 percent from the floor.
With two minutes left in the first half, Payton was shaken up in a rebounding collision and had to leave. He would return at the start of the second half.