Stanford reverses several trends in win over Utah
Stanford head coach Jerod Haase called the Cardinal's 81-75 win over Utah Saturday one of the best of the season and it snapped a three-game losing streak.
It was also one of the best games in several weeks for Reid Travis, who battled with Utag bigs with toughness and finesse to score 26 points on 11-of-15 shooting.
"I thought we were engaged, I thought our guard play was really solid," Haase said. "Reid was – needless to say – very, very good. I thought we competed. And that has to be where it starts every game. And hopefully the crowd enjoyed it, and we can keep it rolling.”
The Runnin’ Utes are now 15-8, but they entered the game against Stanford with with close losses to UCLA (83-82), Oregon (73-67) and Cal (77-75) in the previous six games. Meanwhile, Stanford has struggled to keep opposing teams close when they go on runs and have been unable to respond.
Stanford trailed by five with less than two minutes left in the first half and recently that’s been a danger time for the Cardinal.
“Some games in the season it would be four points going into halftime and it would slip to eight, then 10 and 12, and we can never recover,” Travis said. "It’s just figuring out those points in the game that we feel it’s a breaking point. That’s when we have to put our foot in and demand we’re not going to go down by anymore than that and we’re going to take the lead. I feel like this game there were times that it could have slipped to bigger deficit, we definitely put our foot down and stopped the bleeding.”
Stanford did more than put their foot down before halftime, they reversed the trend and took a 32-31 lead into the break. Stanford led by as many as eight points in the second half, but Utah managed to stay within reach.
Travis led the way with 19 points in the second half and Robert Cartwright added 11 to keep the Utes at arms length.
“He did a great job,” Haase said of Travis’ effort. “He was attacking, went to the free throw line, getting some great buckets. I like some of the things we did in terms of disguising him -- kind of getting him in different positions at different timing in the shot clock.
"And he was able to attack from there as opposed to just throwing him the basketball and saying, ‘Go attack people.’ Because then, everyone is going to lock in on him. We were able to get him some different looks in different positions for him to attack. But the bottom line is that he’s very aggressive and very talented and very tough in finishing those plays.”
The defensive effort of the Cardinal produced 11 steals for the second straight game, but statistics can lie, as they did in the Colorado game when the Buffaloes had 23 turnovers but Stanford failed to take advantage. That wasn’t the case Saturday.
“I was really proud of how our guys competed, and the activity level on defense,” Haase said. “We’re not a team that goes out and denies every pass and pressures people the entire length of the floor. So when we get our steals, it’s usually by great activity, being in the right spots, trying to make the right reads. I really do feel like this was a byproduct of the energy and passion in which the guys played.”
It’s a steep climb for Stanford (12-11, 4-7 Pac-12) to even get back to .500 in conference, which is why the victory over Utah was critical to keep the flame of hope alive.
“We’ve taken too many losses this season, to be honest,” Travis said. “Every game is like a must-win for us. We feel like our backs are against the wall the rest of the season. There’s no cushion, there’s no leeway for us for the things we want to do at the end of the season. We know that every game, we have to fight like it’s our last.”