• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Stanford continues Arizona State's late-season swoon

Mar 6, 2009 - 6:41 AM TEMPE, Arizona (Ticker) -- Landry Fields scored 19 points and Anthony Good had 15 as Stanford posted its first Pac-10 Conference road win of the season with a 74-64 victory over Arizona State on Thursday.

Lawrence Hill added 13 points, Kenny Brown chipped in 12 for the Cardinal (16-12, 6-11 Pac-10), who have won two straight since a four-game losing streak. Stanford is 1-7 away from home in conference play.

It was the season-high, third straight loss for the Sun Devils (21-8, 10-7), who got off to a horrible start and only led when they opened the scoring with a free throw.

"I don't think we played well in any category," Arizona State coach Herb Sendek told the Arizona Republic.

"We struggled to score. We struggled to make shots. Even the most open shots of the night seemingly hit the rim and clanged out. To a degree, we allowed that to spill over onto the defensive end."

Arizona State missed its first six shots and committed five turnovers before finally connecting from the field on a James Harden layup with 11:55 to play in the first half.

The Cardinal led by as much as 25-13 before settling for a 32-26 advantage at the break.

However, that would be as close as Arizona State could get as Stanford scored the first eight points of the second half and maintained an advantage of at least seven the rest of the way.

Kenny Brown's 3-pointer from the right corner gave the Cardinal a 61-47 bulge with 3:55 to play and Stanford went 9-of-10 from the foul line in the final two minutes to seal the victory.

Stanford had lost the first meeting, 90-60, on January 2.

Harden scored 22 points and Jeff Pendergraph had 15 and 11 rebounds to pace the Sun Devils, who made 8-of-29 from the arc.

"We're kind of at the bottom right now," Pendergraph told the newspaper. "Losing is not good. I haven't lost this many in a row in a while. As a team we're disappointed in how we're playing right now, because this isn't us. Three in a row? It doesn't make any sense."