Justice sparks Broncos in victory
Any team and any player can have a bad half, right?
Santa Clara and senior forward Keshawn Justice struggled through the opening 20 minutes against San Diego at the Leavey Center on Thursday night. The Broncos — and Justice in particular — awoke in the second half to grab an 80-75 win. Santa Clara (18-8, 6-5 WCC) trailed by 12 late in the first half and was down 11 early in the second before it went on a 10-0 run.
Justice opened the stretch by draining consecutive 3-pointers. He had gone scoreless in the opening half, missing all six of his shot attempts, four from beyond the arc.
He connected on his first six field-goal attempts of the second half, all of which were from 3point range.
“I want to give credit to my teammates for keeping me involved throughout the game,” Justice said. “As a shooter, early if they’re not falling, that could set you back a little bit with your confidence and your teammates can maybe not rely on you so much, but my teammates kept coming to me.”
He finally missed in the second half when he had to launch an extremely long shot with the shot clock about to expire.
The Toreros had restored their edge to 10 midway through the second half before the Broncos really got in gear.
Guard Carlos Stewart scored 11 straight Santa Clara points in one stretch, then it was Justice’s run.
He scored nine straight Santa Clara points, all on treys, the last of which tied it 66-66 with just less than six minutes left.
“Sometimes when a player doesn’t have it going,” Santa Clara head coach Herb Sendek said, “it almost takes the next day to regroup, get squared away. To do it in the middle of the game takes a whole other level of belief, maturity, poise — whatever adjectives best describe that quality.”
On the ensuing San Diego possession, one of Stewart’s five steals led to a fast-break dunk by Christoph Tilly to give the Broncos their first lead since they were up 8-7 four minutes into the game.
Santa Clara stayed in front the rest of the way, but San Diego had two chances to tie in the final 30 seconds.
The Broncos led 78-75 when Sigu Sisoho Jawara missed a 3point try. Brandin Podziemski got the rebound, but was called for traveling with 6.4 seconds remaining.
The Toreros (11-15, 4-8) got the ball to Deven Dahlke in the left corner. He had a decent look, but his 3 was off the mark. Podziemski grabbed the board and got fouled with less than a second remaining. He hit two foul shots to close the scoring.
“Santa Clara earned the win,” San Diego head coach Steve Lavin said. “Our performance and fight-back were there all night, right to the end.”
Podziemski had team highs of 20 points, nine rebounds and four assists. Stewart had 19 points, 16 of which came in the second half. Justice had 18 points, all on those second-half treys.
San Diego’s Marcellus Earlington had a game-high 22 points.
Justice tied Josip Vrankic, Raymond Cowels III and Marc Trasolini for the most games played in Santa Clara history with 137. Justice figures to hold the record alone after the Broncos host Loyola Marymount on Saturday afternoon.
“It’s exciting to go into the record book for anything,” said Justice, who’s from Madison, Wisc. “I just want to say how much I love Santa Clara and how much this means to me . ... I take a lot of pride in wearing the Santa Clara jersey.”