Stanford, fresh off their first road win of the season over the
Oregon Ducks on Thursday, end their final road swing in Corvallis
for a matchup against Oregon State on Saturday, Feb. 20 at 3:00pm
ET on FCS Pacific. While both teams have losing records, they have
much at stake, as they will look to make a splash in the Pac-10
tourney to get one of the few bids from that conference to make it
in the NCAA tournament.
Stanford (12-14, 6-8 Pac-10) ended their 10 game road-losing
streak in beating Oregon 72-65 on Thursday. Pac-10 leading scorer
Landry Fields, averaging 22.5 ppg, which is seventh best in the
nation, leads Stanford. With 583 points this season, Fields is on
pace to become the fifth different Cardinal to score 600 points in
a season, joining former All-Pac-10 performers Keith Jones, Todd
Lichti, Adam Keefe and Casey Jacobsen.
Landry Fields is also averaging a team-leading 8.7 rebounds
per game (second best in the Pac-10) and leads the conference with
10 double-doubles. Stanford is also helped by Jeremy Green, second
on the team in scoring with 17.6 ppg and Jarrett Mann leads the
team with 4.7 assists per game, second best in the Pac-10 in that
category.
The Cardinal is deadly from outside placing third in the
conference in 3-pointers per game with 6.4. However Stanford has to
get over their losing woes as they have dropped five of their last
seven games and are 1-10 on the road this season.
Oregon State (12-13, 6-7 Pac-10) is coming off two of the
biggest wins of the season as the Beavers won for the first time at
Arizona in 27 tries in defeating the Wildcats for the first time in
Tucson since 1983. Then on Thursday, Oregon State came out on top
over Pac-10 leader California, winning 80-64. OSU is now 10-0 this
season when leading at the half and their strong defense is a big
reason why.
Defensively, the Beavers have the best 3-point FG percentage
defense (.293) in the conference, steal the ball a league-best 8.1
times per game (led by Seth Tarver, averaging a league-high 2.4
steals per game) and are third in the conference in scoring
defense, limiting opponents to just 60.8 points per game.
For how strong the Beavers defense is, offensively it’s
the complete opposite. OSU has only two players scoring more than
10 points per game (Calvin Haynes leads the team with 12.9 ppg) and
rank last in the Pac-10 in scoring offense (59.6 ppg), last in
field goal percentage (.431) and 3-point FG percentage (.302) and
last in rebounds per game (31.4).
Oregon State leads the series 69-60 over Stanford but the
Cardinal has beaten the Beavers the last five times they played,
including a 59-35 rout over OSU at the Maples Pavilion back on Jan.
21.
