The Stanford Cardinal came into Wednesday night’s
Cancun Challenge game versus the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles knowing that they were
facing a stiff challenge from the representative of the Summit League, a team
which has tasted success throughout most of the past decade. The home team
needed to come out strong as it did against Cal Poly on Sunday evening and
that’s exactly the opposite of what happened as the Golden Eagles opened up an
early 14-point advantage before Stanford stormed back to tie it at the
half. Both teams elevated their play, giving the fans a basketball treat, but the
last shot attempted was the final nail in the coffin for Stanford as Oral
Roberts’ guard Roderick Pearson hit a heartbreaking, buzzer-beating shot to propel the
Golden Eagles to an 83-81 win over the host Cardinal.
Neither team got off to a particularly good start as both teams traded open
misses, but Oral Roberts started to attack inside while the Cardinal’s big men,
including Andrew Zimmerman and Jack Trotter opted for long shots from the
perimeter, leading to a Golden Eagles 6-2 advantage five minutes into the
contest. The ORU defense continued to give Stanford fits after the media
timeout, getting a three-point play off a steal and two long three-pointers
after a couple of long Cardinal misses to extend their lead to 17-4 with 11:43
remaining in the first half.
Stanford would come out of the next media break with some renewed focus on
the defensive end which paid immediate dividends as Landry Fields had a “dine
and dash” to the basket after feasting on a open court steal, cutting the Golden
Eagles’ lead to 17-8. However, Oral Roberts turned up their defensive
pressure as well, leading to another takeaway and fast break layup for the
visitors, concluding a quick 6-1 run that pushed their lead to 14, 23-9, before
head coach Johnny Dawkins called a 30-second timeout in an attempt to calm down
his troops.
Unfortunately, another empty possession came to pass after the stoppage, but
an open three-pointer drained by Fields gave the faithful reason to cheer as his
deep shot cut the lead back to 11, 25-14, with 7:48 left in the first
half. Drew Shiller finally would get on the board, hitting a right corner
three-ball, but ORU continued to make their shots, keeping Stanford at bay for
the time being. The defensive output was then raised to an even higher
level by the home team, forcing a series of bad shots and turnovers from the
visitors from Tulsa. Three-pointers by Fields and Jeremy Green, then an
offensive rebound off some confusion led to a Jarrett Mann-to-Fields connection
for an easy two, bringing Stanford all the way back to a 31-31 tie with 2:54
remaining in the opening stanza. Both teams settled in for the remainder
of the half, trading two shots made each to end the opening 20 minutes in a
35-35 tie.
At the half, Stanford was shooting 43% from the field (after a very rough
start), including 33% from outside, but did make a nifty seven of their eight
free throw attempts. Oral Roberts finished the half at an even 50%
overall, made two of their seven three-point attempts, and was a perfect
three-for-three from the charity stripe. The Golden Eagles held a big
rebounding advantage, 20-12, allowing the Cardinal just one offensive
rebound.
Stanford was led by Fields’ 14 points on 5-9 shooting, followed by Green with
seven and Shiller’s five. Damen Bell-Halter led the way for Oral Roberts
off the bench, netting 10 points in 10 minutes of play. He was followed by
Dominique Morrison who tallied seven for the Golden Eagles.
The second half started off with both teams out with their guns blazing as
each was hitting shots from inside and outside with regularity. Before the
first media timeout horn had blasted out over the half-filled Maples Pavilion,
Oral Roberts and Stanford had put up 26 points between the two programs, with
the Golden Eagles outscoring the Cardinal 14-12 over the first 4:01 of the
period. Both teams came out of the break a little more subdued, slowing
down the pace a bit on both ends of the court, before Oral Roberts got five
straight to extend a lead to seven with just under 14 minutes left in the
game.
Fields came back on the next possession to hit a three-pointer from the right
wing to nearly cut the margin in half, but a close blocking foul call on Trotter
seemed to deflate the Cardinal as ORU got the lead back up to eight, before a
Green right-side three-pointer cut the lead to 57-52 as the two squads headed to
their respective benches at the media stoppage. Stanford continued to chip
away at the lead, using a mix of defenses, free throws, and secondary transition
buckets to climb all the way back. Two free throws by Green concluded a
10-0 Stanford run, giving the Cardinal a 59-57 lead with just over eight minutes
left. After trading a basket and a free throw for a pair of freebies of
their own, Stanford came out of the second-to-last media timeout with a
one-point lead.
The game quickly turned into a battle as both teams
attempted to land knockout blows to the other. Another dose of mixing up
defenses and hitting some, but not all, free throws knotted the game up at 66
with 5:39 left in the game. Fields then faked a three-pointer and found a
wide open Zimmerman for an easy deuce. With the shot clock winding down
for the Golden Eagles against a funky looking zone from Stanford, Morrison
drained a three-pointer to put ORU back up one, 69-68. After a Zimmerman
free throw, Green hit a tremendous three-pointer from the top of the key to give
Stanford a 72-69 lead before the last media timeout.
Coming out of their last break, both teams put on a show for the Maples
Pavilion crowd, making big shot after big shot. Stanford managed to snare
a five-point lead with 1:52 left after Green hit a right-wing three
pointer. Oral Roberts, though, would not go quietly into the night as
Morrison used his body to create some space and make a three-pointer of his own
with 90 seconds left in the game. Green tried to counter that with a long
shot of his own early in the shot clock, but his try was off the mark.
Morrison came back with his own jumper that was good to tie up the score at
77-77.
Coming out of a timeout, Stanford drew up a play for Fields, but he missed
from the right baseline, giving ORU an opportunity to take back the lead they
had held for most of the game. Morrison came of his team’s last timeout to
hit a jump shot in the lane with 19 ticks left on the clock to get the lead back
for the visitors. A great look by Fields to Trotter got the big man to the
line as he was fouled while attempting a dunk with 10 seconds left.
However, Trotter was short on the first free throw, leaving Stanford down one
after making the second. Michael Craion hit two free throws with 9.4
seconds left and Oral Roberts decided to foul Mann as he was coming up the court
to prevent the tying three. Mann made the first, but intentionally missed
the second. Somehow, he found the ball easily off the miss and called
Stanford’s last timeout. Mann found Fields who came from the perimeter
streaking to the basket for the easy lay-in with five seconds left.
Unfortunately, this left too much time on the clock as Pearson went nearly the
length of the court to make a running, one-handed jumper from about 15 feet to
win it at the buzzer.
After the game, Dawkins seemed disappointed, but optimistic, when it came to
the team’s future after this tough loss, saying that “we’ll only get better” as
games like this are “part of the a process for us.”
For the contest, Stanford’s shot 48% of their shots from the floor, including
38% from outside. The Cardinal also made 21 out of 30 (70%) from the free
throw line, but seemed to miss at the most inopportune times in the second
half. Oral Roberts’ shooting finished the game making 49% of their
attempts overall, hitting 33% of their long balls, and shot 83% from the charity
stripe. The Golden Eagles dominated on the boards, outrebounding Stanford
38-28 (9-3 on the offensive end) and netting 12 second chance points to
Stanford’s six. The Cardinal did have a better assist-to-turnover margin,
dishing out 17 assists to Oral Roberts’ 13, but only turned the ball over eight
times while the Golden Eagles tallied 14 giveaways.
Stanford was led by Fields who had a career high 28 points on 10-19 shooting,
along with six rebounds and five assists. He was followed by Green (who
proclaimed himself at 80-85% after the contest) who scored 20 off the pine and
11 by Mann who was forced into extended play due to Da’Veed Dildy battling a
case of plantar fasciitis and was unable to play much during the evening.
Morrison led Oral Roberts with 31 points on 13-19 shooting (Fields after the
game was incensed with his own defense against ORU’s leading scorer) and also
had a team high nine rebounds for the Golden Eagles. Craion was next in
line with 13 points, while bench star Bell-Holter finished the game with 12
points.
The Stanford Cardinal will look to rebound from the hard
loss on Saturday afternoon at 1:00pm as they take on the Florida A&M
Rattlers at Maples Pavilion in their second game on US soil as part of the
Cancun Challenge.
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