Stanford's talent beats Purdue

By Paul Trembacki
and Doug Healey

INDIANAPOLIS — No. 14 Stanford proved it has more than one talented player in its 78-62 win over the Purdue men’s basketball team Saturday evening in Conseco Fieldhouse.

Freshman Josh Childress had 21 points and junior center Curtis Borchardt had 13 points and 20 rebounds to supplement All-American guard Casey Jacobsen’s 26 points and 12 rebounds.

"What we’re trying to get Casey to understand is that he is getting so much attention that if we let the offense work for us, others are going to get great opportunities," said Stanford coach Mike Montgomery, whose team did not hit a three-point shot. "The bottom line is maybe Casey doesn’t get huge numbers but all of a sudden we’ve got a 20-point win and that’s really what you’re after."

Jacobsen said the emergence of Childress, a 6-foot-8, 190-pound forward and Borchardt, a 7-0 junior, takes some pressure off of him, because he's received the majority of attention from opposing defenses.

"Right now, I can barely breathe without someone hogging the air on the other team," Jacobsen said.

The trio of Jacobsen, Borchardt and Childress accounted for 77 percent of Stanford’s offense and 60 percent of the team’s rebounds.

"We knew they were capable of that, but we didn’t play good defense on ‘em," said Purdue senior Rodney Smith, who led the Boilers with 15 points and six rebounds.

Having beaten then-No. 1 Arizona in the same event in 2000, Purdue (2-1) was trying to upset a ranked Pac-10 team at the John Wooden Tradition for the second straight year, but a lack of defense, rebounding and smart shot selection on the part of the Boilers prevented that.

Borchardt’s 20 boards helped the Cardinal (3-0) out-rebound Purdue 57-37.

"Sometimes we'd block out, but they were so tall and big, they snatched it right over us," said Smith.

But the Boilers have had trouble rebounding the entire season. They've been out-rebounded in every game this season, including their two exhibition games.

Borchardt, a junior who missed the majority of his first two seasons at Stanford due to stress fractures in his right foot, and Stanford's front line dominated inside, outscoring Purdue 54-22 in the paint.

Part of that was because John Allison and Smith were in foul trouble. Each had four fouls, but Allison played only 18 minutes.

"John and Rodney have to stay out of foul trouble if we're gonna compete, 'cause without them our offense is really depleted," said Purdue coach Gene Keady. "We have some pretty good perimeter guys, but the inside game has a long ways to go, no doubt."

But there were plenty of opportunities for rebounds because Purdue hit only 20 of 66 shots, including just 7 of 24 3-point attempts. The erratic shot selection befuddled Keady.

"Our offense the first half was not anything I recognized," Keady said. "I don’t know what we were trying to do — play horse or what. It wasn’t what we had in mind."

Still, Purdue made a serious run at Stanford’s lead in the second half. The Boilers went on an 11-2 run that began with five straight points from senior Joe Marshall and ended with two free throws by senior Maynard Lewis. Those free throws made the score 52-50 in favor of Stanford with 9:25 to play, but Purdue’s reserves couldn’t keep the momentum going and Stanford gradually increased its lead and Purdue never made another serious challenge.

"That’s what we’ve got to learn — everybody’s got to give the same amount of energy," Keady said.

Although his team pulled away in the end, Montgomery said he was "shocked" by Purdue’s energy level at the start of the game.

"They really got after us, and we were kind of adjusting on the fly," he said. "I looked at my guys' faces, and they were kind of blank."

Besides Smith, two other Boilermakers scored in double figures. Willie Deane scored 13 points and had a team-high three assists, and Maynard Lewis had 10 points. Darmetreis Kilgore had eight points, but he was 3-of-12 from the floor.

Keady was just impressed with the way Stanford handled everything Purdue had.

"I’ve got to hand it to Stanford," said Keady. "My hat’s off to ‘em. They played smarter, played harder, played together better. It was one of those games that was good for us because we see now what we have to do to play at that level."

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Sports editor:
Paul Trembacki

Assistant sports editor:
Doug Healey

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