Written by Adrian Beecher
Lake Buena Vista, FL- Reid Travis had a double-double with 19 points and 12 rebounds to lead the Cardinal to a thrilling last second victory over Indiana State on day 2 of the 2016 Advocare Invitational. Dorian Pickens added 19 points,7 rebounds and hit the game winning shot down the stretch for Stanford.
Stanford won the tip and immediately get inside the paint for a score from Michael Humphrey. The Cardinal went up 4-0 before the Sycamores got their first basket of the game. Then Indiana State came back with two buckets of their own, a back and forth trend that continued throughout most of the 1st 9 minutes.
In total in that 9 minutes there were 4 ties and 3 lead changes ad Stanford went up 15-14 with 9:30 left in the 1st half. This aggressive play continued and a key play that showed the determination these two competitors came with 5:19 left in the 1st half as Reid Travis corralled 2 of his missed shots and finally got his bucket to fall on his 3rd straight shot attempt to tie the game up at 22 points. Then shortly after, Christian Sanders followed this up with a triple to give the Cardinal a 25-22 lead.
Brenton Scott again gave Indiana State the lead after making a jumper with just 41 seconds left in the half. However, Stanford was able to counter quickly as Dorian Pickens drew a foul and made both of his free throw attempts to give Stanford the 32-31 lead going into the half.
Just like the first half, it was Stanford’s Michael Humphrey getting the first bucket of the 2nd half to put the Cardinal up 34-31. Then it was Everett Clemons getting the Sycamores first basket of the half to cut it to a 1-point game. The Cardinal continued to apply pressure on the defensive side of the ball, forcing some bad shots from ISU as well as a few turnovers. With 15:06 left in the game Stanford was out to a 42-35 lead on Indiana State.
A 7-0 run by the Sycamores tied the game up at 42 with 13:37 left on the clock. 4 lead changed and two ties later, Indiana State was up 50-47 on the Cardinal with 7:55 left to play in the first half. Then Stanford hit three baskets to go up 53-50.
A inside layup from TJ Bell and a triple from Brenton Scott then gave the Sycamores the lead back at 55-53 with 4:35 left to play.
As the trend continued, it was Stanford and Indiana State again continued to trade leads. With just 2:27 left to play it was Indiana State out on top with a layup from TJ Bell. Just 18 seconds later it was Stanford tying the game and then overtaking the lead at the free-throw line. With 1:21 left to play, Reid Travis hit two more free throws to give the Cardinal a 3 point lead. After the Sycamores cut it to a 1 point lead, it was again Stanford coming through at the line to extend their lead back to three.
Then came the excitement. Indiana State’s Brenton Scott hit a triple with 6 seconds left to tie the game at 62. Stanford immediately passed it in and moved the ball up court to a wide open Dorian Pickens, who nailed his triple to give that gave the Cardinal the lead back at 65-62 with just two seconds left. ISU called a timeout to get things situated. On the inbound there seemed to be confusion and they were unable to get a shot off as the final buzzer sounded to signal the 65-62 win for Stanford.
Stanford head coach Jerod Haase spoke about the toughness of the battle after the game, "I promise at some point we are going to pretty good games. It was certainly a grind, but theres a lot of credit to be given to Indiana State for that, but a lot of credit to our guys that they did grind."