On Thursday, #10 Stanford men’s basketball fell to #2 Arizona in the quarterfinals of the Pac-12 Tournament by a final score of 95-84. Arizona center Oumar Ballo (24 points & 6 rebounds), forward Cedric Henderson, Jr. (23 points), and forward Azuolas Tubelis (20 points & 8 rebounds) led the way for the Wildcats while Stanford senior forward Spencer Jones (22 points & 6 rebounds) and junior forward Brandon Angel (19 points & 7 rebounds) were the top performers for the Cardinal.
BOX SCORE: #10 Stanford vs. #2 Arizona
Video: Stanford Men’s Basketball Press Conference: Arizona | Pac-12 Tournament
“Yeah, the end of the season is always a tough one, and with my team this makes it a little bit more difficult because of the relationships and the ability to handle adversity and move on. These guys were phenomenal,” Stanford head coach Jerod Haase said after the game. “For this game Arizona was fantastic. We tried all of our tools in our toolbox on the defensive end, or at least most of 'em that we thought could work, and it was ineffective. Last time we played 'em a very, very similar game plan that we had and I thought we executed it very well.
“Again, credit to Arizona and their staff and their players for developing a game plan that countered what we were doing and it was extremely effective. I thought our guys played with a lot of heart, a lot of passion. Offensively, I thought we were extremely efficient, but on the defensive end we just couldn't get it done.”
Stanford got off to a solid start early on, leading 8-6 with 15:52 to go in the half. Brandon Angel and Maxime Raynaud each had 3 points for the Cardinal.
Arizona would then take the lead 15-10 with 13:57 to go in the half. Tubelis was up to 6 points for the Wildcats. The Cardinal needed to settle in.
Wirth 11:51 to go in the half, Arizona led 17-13. Spencer Jones got a much needed 3-pointer for the Cardinal. It was his first bucket of the night.
Stanford then closed the gap as it was a 27-26 lead for the Wildcats with 8:18 to go in the half. Oumar Ballo was up to 11 points while Spencer Jones’ 6 points was leading the Cardinal. Harrison Ingram was on the board for the Cardinal having made a nice step-back 3-pointer.
With 3:34 to go in the half, it was a 38-35 lead for the Wildcats. Ballo (13 points & 3 rebounds) and Tubelis (10 points & 4 rebounds) were leading the Wildcats while Angel (10 points & 4 rebounds) led the Cardinal. This one was a tight game.
Arizona would then lead 45-40 with 32.2 to go in the half. Spencer Jones was up to 11 points for the Cardinal. He was starting to get going.
At halftime, it was a 47-43 lead for Arizona. Pelle Larsson got his first points of the night for Arizona with a bucket inside while Michael Jones responded for Stanford with a corner three to beat the buzzer. Cedric Henderson, Jr. was up to 16 points for the Wildcats while Spencer Jones’ 11 points was pacing the Cardinal.
“Fantastic performance,” Haase said of Henderson. “He was really good. Throughout a season there's plenty of stats and film and tendencies for us to be able to watch and evaluate. I think our game plan was not centered around him.
“We certainly knew that he was an impactful player, a starting player on a top-10 team in the country. But he was able, we put our focus elsewhere to some degree and he made us pay for that. This is a team that's very deep, very talented, and he's one of those players.”
With 15:35 to go, Stanford led 59-58, doing a nice job of retaking the lead. Spencer Jones (16 points) and Brandon Angel (15 points) continued to lead the Cardinal while Michael O’Connell was up to 5 points of his own after making a huge triple. Ballo (22 points) was leading the Wildcats. This one was a real fight.
With 11:44 to go, Arizona led 68-66 as they once again had the lead. Tubelis was really starting to get in the zone as he had 18 points. Max Murrell was finally on the board for Stanford with a hue 3-pointer. Stanford was not going away.
Arizona then started to pull away, leading 79-68 with 7:40 to go. Arizona was on a 10-0 run over the last 2:31. Stanford was in some trouble.
Stanford then chipped away again as it was an 80-74 game with 5:37 to go. Spencer Jones was up to 20 points after making a pair of free throws and a tough bucket inside. The Cardinal were trying to get back in this.
“That's just kind of the growth of our team,” Jones said of their ability to keep fighting. “We've been talking about that throughout the season, our ability to handle runs like that. Each team's going to go on a run, and credit to Coach, he really instilled that in us, even though we were failing doing it at the beginning of the season. So we started hitting back and that was the key.”
Arizona then pulled away again, leading 90-78 with 2:24 to go. They made four of their last four field goals. It looked like they were pulling away for good.
In the end, Arizona won by a final score of 95-84. Stanford battled hard, made it a real contest but in the end wasn’t able to get over the hump. Arizona showed why they are one of the top teams in the nation. Arizona went on to defeat Arizona State in the semifinals on Friday and will face UCLA in the championship game on Saturday night.
For Stanford, this loss stings because it ends their season. They were hoping to make a magical run in Las Vegas to win the Pac-12 Tournament and they went out much earlier than they hoped. At the same time, looking at the draw, they had to know they had their work cut out for them. Had they gotten themselves a better seed in the tournament, maybe they would have found a way to stay in Vegas for at least at little bit longer.
Looking ahead to next season, Stanford will still be coached by Jerod Haase. That’s something CardinalSportsReport.com received confirmation of after the game. For more of my thoughts on that, check out the article below.
Jerod Haase returning to Stanford for 8th season
As far as other parting thoughts, I’ll see if I can write something up more substantial in the coming weeks that reflects on the season, but the skinny is Stanford needs to start strong and finish strong. They finished pretty strong this year, but they did not start strong at all and that really put them behind the eight-ball.
“Yeah, absolutely. I think these last couple games down the stretch we really showed what we're capable of offensively when we as players are able to execute the game plan given us,” Angel said. “At the beginning of the year we were all shooting, I know I was shooting 25 percent, which is unacceptable. It's downright unacceptable. It's quite bad for that stretch of time, and that hurt us.
“Once we started playing better individually we built momentum and we finished the season, offensively I felt this is the best game plan we've ever had. We all felt so confident going into each game. We're going to score the points, we're going to get looks, and at the end of the day we were playing for each other, which really speaks to the culture of this program, to play for each other, to move the ball, share the ball, and be selfless, which is one of our core values.”
If there’s one area where they most need to grow, it’s defense. The offense at peak form looked really good, hence the 84 points they put against Arizona. The problem was the defense, hence the 95 points they allowed. Stanford needs to figure out how to be team that can be efficient offensively while also being sound on defense. If they can take that next step next season with the strong incoming class that they have, they should be a team that makes the NCAA Tournament and finally gets the monkey off Haase’s back.
“Yeah, there's always a lot of ways to evaluate a season and a team and the reality is the number one way for everyone, really, is your record,” Haase said when asked how he’d evaluate the season. “And record-wise it's not good enough. That's on me to figure that part out. I think we made tremendous progress from the start of the season throughout the season.
“The schedule was tough early on, from really good teams to travel, etcetera, etcetera, but the reality is we didn't get the results we needed to early. Early in the year pressure just took us out of everything we tried to do.
“But I was really proud of the staff, proud of the players because we evolved, we learned, we grew and we turned into a really, really good offensive team. At the end of the day I think our defense was probably the weak link and what we'll need to figure out is a way to do better there. But bottom line, throughout this season I think we made a tremendous amount of progress. The disappointing part we started in a place that we wish we wouldn't have started.”
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