Stanford stuns No. 4 Arizona 88-79
STANFORD — Spencer Jones scored all 18 of his points in the second half for Stanford and played a key role in neutralizing Pac-12 leading scorer Azuolas Tubelis, as the Cardinal stunned No. 4 Arizona 88-79 on Saturday night.
Stanford (11-14, 5-9 Pac-12) beat a ranked team for the first time this year and a top-five team for the second time in two seasons. Arizona (22-4, 11-4), hoping to stay a halfgame behind UCLA for the conference lead, had a seven-game win snapped.
Courtney Ramey scored a season- and game-high 26 points for Arizona, which could not overcome Tubelis’ worst game of the season. The junior forward, who had 40 points against Oregon on Feb. 2 and had averaged a near double-double this season (20.9 points, 9.7 rebounds) to lead the conference in both categories, was held to four points.
Tubelis did not have a rebound and committed four fouls.
Stanford’s Michael O’Connell scored a teamhigh 22 points, helping the Cardinal outshoot the Wildcats 61 percent to 46 percent from the field. Brandon Angel added 14 points for Stanford, Maxime Reynaud had 13 points and Harrison Ingram contributed 12 points and a game-high nine rebounds.
Pelle Larsson and Cedric Henderson Jr. scored 12 points apiece for the Wildcats.
Jones took command of a back-and-forth game a third of the way through the second half, scoring all 13 of Stanford’s points during a nearly seven-minute stretch that ended with a layup that gave the Cardinal a 67-66 lead with 7:35 remaining.
A 3-point play by Angel extended Stanford’s lead to 70-66 before a Ramey 3-pointer cut the lead to one.
But the Cardinal scored the next nine points, punctuating the run with a wide-open 3-pointer by O’Connell that extended their lead to 79-69 with 3:28 left.