On Thursday, Stanford men’s basketball fell to Washington on the road in Seattle by a final score of 86-69. Washington center Braxton Meah led the way for the Huskies with 21 points and 9 rebounds while forward Keion Brooks, Jr. had 19 points and 11 rebounds. Stanford forward Spencer Jones was the top scorer for the Cardinal with 12 points while Max Murrell and Ryan Agarwal each had 10 points. Washington improves to 10-8 overall and 2-5 in the Pac-12 while Stanford falls to 5-11 and 0-6 in the Pac-12.
Stanford got off to a 7-0 lead with 17:23 to go in the first half. Michael O’Connell had a nice floater, Maxime Raynaud had a little hook shot inside, and Spencer Jones had a 3-pointer. Things were looking good for the Cardinal.
With 12:53 to go in the half, it would be a 11-7 lead for Stanford. Harrison Ingram had a nice tear drop inside and 6 rebounds. Stanford was out-rebounding Washington 12-5 doing a nice job on the glass. Both teams were struggling with their shooting. Stanford was shooting 5-14 from the field while Washington was shooting 3-11.
Stanford would lead 13-11 with 11:40 to go in the half. Brandon Angel was up to 4 points for Stanford after a wide open dunk. Stanford did a nice job breaking the press, finding Angel for the easy transition slam.
With 7:56 to go in the half, Washington led 26-17, currently on an 8-0 run. Meah was up to 9 points and 4 rebounds, going to work inside. Stanford was shooting 8-25 from the field while Washington was shooting 10-19.
Washington would lead 39-25 with 3:06 to go in the half. Stanford was settling for too many threes, shooting 3-14 from deep. They needed to get back to attacking the zone inside and get to the foul line where they were 0-0.
At halftime, Washington’s lead grew to 47-29. Meah was leading the way for the Huskies with 11 points & 5 rebounds while Brooks had 10 points & 5 rebounds. Murrell was leading the Cardinal with 7 points. Stanford was really in a hole.
Coming out of halftime, Washington led 60-40 with 15:09 to go. Brooks, Jr. was up 14 points and 5 rebounds for the Huskies. He was balling out. Ingram was doing his part for Stanford with 9 points.
With 13:36 to go, it was a 60-46 game as Stanford had scored six unanswered points. Agarwal was up to 9 points for the Cardinal on 3-5 shooting from 3-point range. He was giving the Cardinal a much-needed offensive boost. Washington called for time hoping to prevent Stanford from further creeping back in the game.
Washington would get back on track, leading 67-46 with 11:21 to go. Spencer Jones was up to 8 points but doing so on 3-14 shooting from the field and 2-7 shooting from 3-point range. As for Michael Jones, he had 0 points.
To paraphrase legendary soul band Tower of Power: “Keeping up the with Jones’s was not a hard course for Washington. They were building their own road as they were getting easy buckets. It was all so simple. It really was. Stanford was finding out that it’s a well-known fact that what you put out is what you get...when you play such a sloppy first half, the only thing you win is a crying shame…it all comes back.”
In the end, it would be an 86-69 victory for Washington. Washington did a nice job of fending Stanford off, not allowing them to get back in the game. They got off to a strong start in the first half and finished the job.
To give Stanford some brownie points, they did outscore Washington in the second half 40-39, so they figured some things out in the second half. Last year’s game at Washington went very similar. Stanford got down 43-25 at halftime and outscored Washington 39-24 in the second half to lose 67-64. Obviously Stanford didn’t have the same kind of second half success this time around, but the same basic pattern followed. Stanford got blown out in the first half and played much better in the second half.
At this point, all that Stanford can do is try to pick up the pieces and salvage this season as best they can. Stanford head coach Jerod Haase has been in this situation before. In the 2016-17 season, Stanford dropped their first four games of league play and went on to win six of their final 14 games to finish 6-12 in league. They also had a narrow 75-73 loss to #6 Oregon at home down the stretch and the road trip at the Arizona schools were both single digit losses after Stanford played them tight in the first half. Had Stanford won those three games, they would have finished 9-9 in league.
Looking ahead at the rest of their schedule, of their remaining 14 games, there are a lot of winnable games out there that Stanford can get starting with their next game at Washington State on Saturday. The next homestand against the Oregon schools are winnable, the home game against Cal is winnable, a split in the Rockies at Utah and Colorado doesn’t seem likely, but it’s not impossible to conceive of, and when you consider they won at USC last year, it would be foolish to totally rule out the possibility that they win there as well. And then there’s other games as well that they could win if they play their best basketball.
This isn’t to say that Stanford is going to magically heat up and win 12 of their remaining 14 games or anything crazy like that. But, could they turn an 0-6 start into an 8-12 league record like last year or maybe even a 9-11 record? Perhaps. Their backs are against the wall, but it’s not impossible.
Whether such a finish to the season would save Jerod Haase’s job for next season is an entirely different matter and a topic for another day, but such a finish would certainly be way better than having the season completely blow up in their face. Stanford needs to take things one game at a time, take a deep breath, and not try to salvage this season all in one game. That can’t be the way they approach things. Otherwise things will just spiral out of control even worse.
If there’s one player who I would like to see more of from Stanford, it’s Ryan Agarwal. The freshman is one of the top shooters in the conference, shooting 47.1% from 3-point range on 34 attempts this season. Stanford needs all the 3-point shooting they can get and he’s been among their most reliable bucket getters from the perimeter. His defense needs work, but Jerod Haase needs to figure out a way to get as many minutes from him on the court as possible. His shooting is just that valuable.
Stanford’s next game against Washington State will be on Saturday at 5:00 PM PT on Pac-12 Networks. The Cardinal will hope to get their first league win and come back to The Farm with a bit of momentum.
To connect with CardinalSportsReport.com on Facebook and Twitter, click here.
To connect with Ben Parker on Facebook and Twitter, click here.
Email: slamdunk406@yahoo.com
