Adama Bal scored 16 of his 23 points in the second half to help visiting Santa Clara to an 89-77 upset of Stanford in a nonconference game on Tuesday night.
Carlos Marshall Jr. scored 20 points and Johnny O’Neil added 17 points and eight rebounds for Santa Clara (3-0), which shot 13-for-28 from 3-point distance (46.4 percent).
Maxime Raynaud scored 17 of his 26 points in the first half, Andrej Stojakovic added 18 points and Michael Jones finished with 14 points for Stanford (2-1), which played without Brandon Angel because of a hand injury. Angel averaged 18 points through the first two games.
The Broncos trailed by two at the half but regained the lead 53-52 on two free throws by Bal with 16:25 left in the first half.
After a layup by James Keefe put the Cardinal back in front 57-56 with 13:54 left, Bal and Jalen Benjamin sank back-to-back 3-pointers to give Santa Clara its biggest lead at 62-57 with 11:20 remaining.
Stanford twice rallied to tie the score, but another 3-pointer by Bal extended Santa Clara’s lead to 77-71 with 3:22 remaining.
Raynaud converted a three-point play to trim the lead to 79-75 with 2:14 left, but back-to-back layups by Christoph Tilly and Tyeree Bryan sandwiched around a missed 3 by Raynaud pushed the lead to 83-75 with 1:14 to go.
Jones sank his second straight 3-pointer to start the game to give Stanford a 12-5 lead 2:50 into the game.
Marshall matched Jones with his second consecutive 3-pointer to cut it to 14-10, but Jones answered with his third 3 to push the lead to 17-10 with 15:44 left. The basket also put Jones over 1,000 career points.
Stojakovic then got hot and scored nine straight points for the Cardinal over four straight possessions to increase their lead to 28-16 with 12:08 remaining.
The Broncos clamped down on defense, however, and followed with a 15-2 run and moved ahead 31-30 on O’Neil’s 3-pointer with 7:10 left in the half.
Raynaud grabbed the lead right back 13 seconds later with a jumper and he continued to stay hot in the closing minutes of the half, scoring seven more points over the final four minutes to help the Cardinal take a 46-44 lead into the break.
–Field Level Media
