ASU Basketball: 2019 Pac-12 Week 17 Power Rankings
By Trevor Booth
11. Stanford Cardinal (14-13, 7-8 Pac-12) LW: 6
Similar to the Pac-12’s other Bay Area school, Stanford left the Grand Canyon State 0-2 this weekend. It all started with an 80-62 loss to Arizona State.
From the jump, the game was controlled by the Sun Devils, who held an eight-point lead at halftime. After that, they just extended their lead and eventually won by almost 18.
That game, Stanford was without possibly its best player, KZ Okpala. Without him, the Cardinal were noticeably stagnant on offense, shooting below 40 percent from the field.
Their clip from the 3-point line was much worse – Stanford finished 2-of-21 from deep (9.5 percent).
Of Stanford’s 10 players who entered the game, Josh Sharma was the only standout. The senior big man finished with 17 points on 7-of-7 shooting. He was the Stanford player who shot above 50 percent.
A game later, it was more of the same. Stanford fell behind Arizona early and eventually lost 70-54.
The offensive struggles from Wednesday’s loss lingered. Once again, the Cardinal shot below 40 percent as a team, and despite slight improvement from the preceding game, a 20 percent clip from deep was detrimental to Stanford’s fight.
Shooting wasn’t Stanford’s only issue; the Cardinal played sloppy basketball. They turned the ball over 15 times in the loss, six more times than Arizona did.
These back-to-back losses dropped Stanford lower into the Pac-12’s cellar, now ahead of just Oregon, Washington State and California. An at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament is an afterthought at this point, so Stanford hopes these final three games are just momentum boosters for the Pac-12 Tournament.
– Field