On Sunday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated Oregon 72-69 on a last second 3-pointer made by senior forward Jaiden Delaire. Delaire led the way for Stanford with 20 points and 6 rebounds while freshman forward Harrison Ingram (16 points, 8 rebounds, & 5 assists) and sophomore guard Michael O’Connell (15 points & 3 assists) were the main players providing support. Junior forward Quincy Guerrier (18 points & 9 rebounds) and senior guard Will Richardson (15 points) were the top performers for Oregon. Stanford improves to 5-3 overall and 1-1 in the Pac-12 while Oregon falls to 5-5 overall and 0-2 in the Pac-12.
“With the team, we had a tough loss before finals at Colorado and I left that game proud of the work we’ve been putting in,” Stanford head coach Jerod Haase said after the game. “Proud of the way the guys are progressing, staying together, and I think the guys understand that we have a long way to go, but we’re making progress. Today, I guess my number one takeaway is I’m glad the guys were rewarded for their work over finals. It’s not an easy thing to go through finals at Stanford and then come in and have good hard practices. The guys were fantastic over the two week period. I think we had one practice that I would label that wasn’t good enough. And other than that, they were really good practices and I love the fact that guys were rewarded.
“I thought we competed from the beginning. I thought our poise wavered a little bit in the second half from time to time, but we were always able to get the guys back. Oregon as we know is extremely well coached, they’re very very talented. As we know, they’re going to get better throughout the year as well. But for us it was a big win where we rebounded the ball well, our transition defense needs to get better, our half-court defense I thought was pretty solid and offensively we need to continue to have organization and poise, but against Oregon sometimes that’s tough.”
Stanford got off to an 11-7 lead with 15:04 to go in the first half. Jaiden Delaire was off to a hot start for the Cardinal with 6 points on 3-3 shooting from the field. Stanford came out with great energy and it was paying off in the early minutes of the game.
With 11:49 to go in the half, Stanford would lead 17-14. Stanford was shooting 7-13 (53.8%) from the field while Oregon was shooting 5-13 (38.5%). Both teams were shooting 2-6 from 3-point range, not yet really establishing much of a groove from the perimeter.
Oregon would soon take the lead to go up 21-18 with 9:41 to go in the half. Richardson was starting to heat up a bit for the Ducks with 6 points on 2-2 shooting from 3-point range. Stanford needed to respond.
Oregon would lead 25-23 with 7:00 to go in the half. Oregon had made 7 of their last 8 field goals. Stanford needed to tighten up their defense. Thanks to a 3-pointer from Noah Taitz rattling home, Stanford was only down by two points. With momentum possibly shifting Oregon’s way, it was huge for Stanford to get that shot by Taitz to fall.
Stanford would then be up 29-27 with 5:07 to go in the half. Max Murrell and Harrison Ingram had a couple of huge threes to get Stanford the lead again. The game was shaping up to be a battle.
Stanford and Oregon would be tied 30-30 with 3:30 to go in the half. Richardson was pacing Oregon with 9 points and 2 rebounds while Ingram was pacing Stanford with 7 points, 3 rebounds, and 3 assists. Both players were doing their part for their team.
Stanford ended the half on a 7-0 run punctuated by a transition slam by Ingram right before the buzzer sounded to lead 37-30 at halftime. Ingram was now up to 11 points to go along with his 3 rebounds and 3 assists.
“Our guys get bonus points if they say what I said in the huddle,” Haase quipped when asked about the end of the first half. “30-30 with 3:30 I believe left on the clock. In practice this week we had four different scenarios that we put it end of the half situation four minutes left 30-30. We never won it 7-0, but we did win each of those segments. So at that timeout we talked about just executing the game plan. It wasn’t rocket science, but it was kind of comforting to our guys to say we have been through this I think four times in the last three days about this literally, that exact score. I had to make sure they know that I predicted the score at four minutes left in the half. But I think it did give them a little bit of poise, that we know that this is kind of the situation, we try and execute, and good things can happen.”
Stanford got off to a really good start in the second half to lead 45-34 with 16:28 to go. Delaire had a pretty bucket inside. He was up to 13 points on 6-8 shooting from the field. It was a pretty balanced attack from the Cardinal as Delaire and Ingram were the only guys with 10+ points. Such scoring balance has been part of Stanford’s modus operandi all season along. Or as Marv from Home Alone would say, it’s been their “calling card.”
With 14:57 to go, Stanford would lead 47-36. Oregon was trying to attack the rim more and get going in that way. After getting down early to start the second half, they were trying to climb back in the game. The question now was how would Stanford respond?
Stanford would still lead by 11 points with 11:54 to go as the score was now 54-43. Delaire (15 points) and Ingram (14 points) were leading the way for the Cardinal while O’Connell was up to 10 points. All things were going Stanford’s way.
“I was just doing what coached asked me,” O’Connell said of his performance. “I was just going out there playing my game. Just throughout the game, the flow the game, I saw some opportunities right to take a shot, I took’em, and thankfully they fell. But I mean, my teammates were just getting me in the right spots to make my midrange, so that’s really it.”
Over the next three minutes, Oregon started to make their run as Stanford would lead 58-53 with 8:54 to go. Oregon was starting to come back, forcing a turnover off an inbounded pass from Stanford that didn’t go as planned. Stanford needed to stay calm and not get rushed. Guerrier was up to 18 points for Oregon while Delaire was up to 17 points for Stanford.
With 3:56 to go, Stanford was now up 63-60 as they were starting to unravel. They really needed to find a way to regain the momentum after committing some really costly turnovers in the past few minutes.
The game would soon be tied 69-69 with 1:05 to go. Will Richardson tied up the game with a 3-pointer after two free throws from Harrison Ingram and a tip-in from Spencer Jones gave Stanford a 69-66 lead.
Oregon would call for time with 13.5 to go and having possession after Stanford was unable to score on their last possession. It was now time for the Cardinal to get a stop.
Will Richardson would attempt a 3-point shot and have it fall just a bit short. Harrison Ingram would get the rebound and with 2.8 to go, Stanford called for time, hoping to draw up a miracle finish.
“We were tied up and we were on the defensive end; we had to get a stop first,” Delaire said. “I’m not sure who was guarding ball. Harrison or Spencer was either guarding Richardson that last shot that he airballed. And they played great defense on him and tried to throw him off a little bit, he airballed, and they gave us three seconds left on the clock and were able to do something with it.”
Out of the time out, Jerod Haase drew up a beautiful play involving Jaiden Delaire setting a screen before popping out to catch the inbounded pass from Harrison Ingram, taking two dribbles, and draining the game winning 3-pointer.
“We had really two options,” Haase explained about the game winning play. “A lot of it was going to be predicated on how much time was on the clock. We had Noah and Spencer in the corners. If we had a situation where we took a dribble and somebody helped, and so we had shooters in the corners and that also provided spacing. And then what we wanted to do is we had Michael as an emergency outlet if the play broke down but really it was a two man play with Jaiden and Harrison. Really had two options. Jaiden could pitch it back to Harrison and then based on the clock we told him how many dribbles and what kind of shot to take. If not, Jaiden could kind of take it, three seconds one-on-one and see what kind of shot he could get.
“But to be honest with you, the credit wholly and all the way goes to Jaiden. That’s a big time shot by a senior that’s been in the program who’s had some really high highs in our program and has struggled at times whether it’s injury or playing time. I’m really proud of him to produce today and then have a moment like that.”
“Going back to pee wee, like that, nah, that was the first one, first buzzer beater like that,” Delaire said of the shot. “Coach drew up a quick play in the huddle, I’d never seen it before, but we had two shooters coming off, I set screens for Noah going to the corner and Spencer going to the opposite corner and then I flashed hard to the ball. Harrison threw it into me and then made a cut off. He was kinda little behind half court, I think he was open, I coulda threw it to him, but by that time I had already made my decision. Like, I had two, probably two dribbles with three seconds on the clock and then just turn around, saw the line, saw the rim, let it go.
“I’m still going through the emotions right now. But yeah, definitely a little stressed out. The last two, three minutes of the game, it wasn’t perfect. We didn’t execute everything as we should have and we’ll definitely learn and get better from that. But yeah, I was kind of blank poker faced the last play and then when the shot go in, it’s just all my energy, all the guys, all the work we’ve put in that entire game just paid off.”
For Stanford this is a huge win. While Oregon has not been up to the standard that they hoped to be at when they were ranked #13 in the country to start the year, they’re still a talented team. After a tough loss at Colorado to start Pac-12 play, to bounce back at home in this fashion is huge for the Cardinal and hopefully will give them the kind of boost that they need.
“It feels good,” Delaire said of the win. “We put in a lot of work and the work is paying off. So, we have a day off tomorrow, and we’re going to have a practice on Wednesday. We’re gonna get right back to it and work hard. But the guys were coming off, we all were coming off a loss at Colorado two weeks ago. And this was the only second game of Pac-12, it’s a long Pac-12 season, so we just want to make sure we’re putting our best foot forward each and every night and we did that tonight. And just glad to get out of here with a win. The Pac-12 is competitive, a lot of games are going to be close, so this one is big for us and gaining experience down the wire and stuff like that. So, feels good.”
As for Oregon, this loss stings. They’re now 0-2 in the Pac-12 and come away needing to do a lot of soul searching about what kind of team they’re going to be going forward. This is not the start that they envisioned at all.
Up next for Stanford is a home game against Dartmouth on Thursday, December 16th. That game will tipoff at 7:00 PM PT on Pac-12 Networks and Cardinal Sports Network radio.
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