Photo credit: gostanford.com
By: Ana Kieu
In case you missed it, Stanford Cardinal men’s basketball throttled the Oregon State Beavers 83-60 for its third win in a row. Oscar da Silva matched his career-high with 23 points in the throttle. da Silva also recorded nine rebounds and a career-high seven assists.
da Silva told the media: “I tried to be aggressive right from the get-go. I tried to take it at their bigs, get into their zone from the high post, and that worked really well.”
Aside from da Silva, the Cardinal’s leading scorers featured the likes of Josh Sharma, who had 20 points and eight rebounds, and Daejon Davis, who added 11 points on three three-pointers. The Cardinal (12-10, 5-5 Pac-12) have won four of their last five games. The Ducks (14-9, 5-5 Pac-12) are just one step ahead of the Cardinal in the Pac-12 conference, but they’re carrying one win to the home court inside the Matthew Knight Arena, so the Cardinal should prepare for the conference matchup if they haven’t already done so.
The Ducks’ last win came at home versus the California Golden Bears, a rival of the Cardinal, on Wednesday, February 6 by a final score of 73-62.
As you can see from the two tweets above, da Silva’s a crucial part of the Cardinal roster. The 6’9″ German sophomore forward has room for growth, but he has been destroying it on the hardwood, like, say, at Oregon State, where he shamelessly attacked the Beavers defense along with the nation’s leading shot blocker, Kylor Kelly. Kelly had 17 points before the break.
I’d also like to note that the Cardinal went on a whopping 11-2 run that put them in the driver’s seat with a far-fetched lead 71-52 with 4:28 left in the game. That run, my friends, was capped off by a three-pointer from Marcus Sheffield, a junior guard and forward from Alpharetta, Ga.
“We’re growing up. Slowly but surely,” said Stanford head coach Jerod Haase. “Overall, we’re trending the right way. The guys are playing hard, they’re playing together, and they believe in what we’re doing.”
With that said, Stanford will stick around the Beaver State for a few more days before they travel to Eugene, Ore. to take on the Ducks, who will likely be a tough customer. But we’ll see what happens next, okay?
After that, Stanford returns home on Wednesday, February 13 to host the USC Trojans at Maples Pavilion. Tipoff set for 8:00 pm PT on ESPNU.
Sports Radio Service 