Horns Basketball Falls to Stanford in Overtime

By Steve Habel/Associate Editor

AUSTIN – Anthony Brown and Chasson Randle combined for 47 points including Stanford’s final six in overtime as the Cardinal shrugged off a ragged end to regulation to beat ninth-ranked Texas 74-71 Tuesday night before a season-high crowd of 13,661 at the Erwin Center.

Texas led 68-64 with 3:34 to play in the extra period before the Cardinal (7-3) outscored the Longhorns 10-2 down the stretch, with the dagger coming on a jumper by Randle with 10.1 second to play.

The Longhorns (10-2) had three [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]shots, two of them good looks, with a chance to tie the game on their final possession but could not convert. The game was tied 11 times and had 19 lead changes, the last on Brown’s free throw with 1:42 to play.

“Our guys showed a lot of heart to beat Texas in this environment,” Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins said. “We stayed focused and made the winning plays. Texas is very good defensively, they are long and tall, and we wanted to take shots in our offense. We wanted to be balanced, and we were.”

Stanford forged a 31-31 tie at halftime on the strength of 12 points from Brown, all on 3-pointers.“The biggest thing for me was to be aggressive and let whatever happens, happen,” said Brown, who had 22 points .

The Cardinal hit six threes in the first half – which accounted for 18 of their points – but was also active on the boards, outrebounding Texas 16-13 and grabbing an 8-2 edge on the offensive glass.

Stanford also had nine second-chance points to zero for the taller and longer Longhorns, but Texas countered by outscoring the Cardinal 14-4 off the bench, with those points evenly distributed between guard Javon Felix and super-freshman Myles Turner.

“In the heat of the moment, we have to execute, and we didn’t,” Texas coach Rick Barnes said. “(This game) was a tough one. They played the way Stanford plays; we didn’t play the way we play. They out-executed us —give them all the credit. They flat out beat us.”

Neither team was able to pull away through the first 13 minutes of the second half. Stanford parlayed the hot shooting of Brown with timely baskets Randle, who had a breakaway layup and free throw and followed with a jumper to give the Cardinal a 55-54 lead with 7:12 to play. Randle led all scorers with 25 points.

Two baskets by Rosco Allen pushed the Stanford advantage to 60-56, the Cardinal’s largest lead in the game, and the Longhorns responded with a vengeance. Two jumpers by Felix tied the game and Brown’s subsequent jump shot was blocked by Texas’s Prince Ibeh, one of nine blocked shot for the Longhorns.

After a pair of free throws by Felix gave Texas a 62-60 lead, Stanford countered with a two from Stefan Nastic that ended a 3:15 scoring drought and tied the game at 62-62.

Randle then poured in a jumper at to give the Cardinal a two-point lead and Stanford played great defense on the ensuing possession, forcing Felix into a wild shot that was partially blocked by Robert Cartwright that rolled out of bounds off the Longhorns’ Turner.

But Jonathan Holmes drew a charging foul on Brown on the ensuing in-bounds play and then sent the game into overtime with a jumper from the right elbow.

Texas, which got 19 points from Felix and 14 each from Holmes and Kendal Yancy, outshot Stanford 44.6-43.3 percent and had 36 rebounds to the Cardinal’s 32. But Stanford had just six turnovers, three in each half, to the Longhorns 11 and scored 14 points off those turnovers.

The Longhorns return to action Dec. 29 when they face Rice in their final non-conference game of the season.

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