[November 15, 2013]
STANFORD,
Calif. (AP) — Josh Huestis got into a shooting rhythm late in the first
half and carried it over into the second. He figured it was about time
his touch returned.
Huestis scored 13 of his team-high 18 points in the second half to
help Stanford beat Northwestern 71-58 on Thursday night.
"My shooting feels like it's coming around," Huestis said.
Huestis was a combined 5 of 20, including 0 for 6 from long range,
in the first two games. Against the Wildcats, he was 8 of 13 — 2 of
3 from 3-point range.
His biggest contributions usually come on defense. His offense is
normally a bonus.
Chasson Randle, who scored a combined 51 points in Stanford's first
two games, was held to 14 as the Cardinal (2-1) improved to 6-2
against the Wildcats (1-1). Dwight Powell, Stanford's second-leading
scorer, was limited to nine points.
"If you had told me that we would hold Powell to single digits and
Randle to 14 or whatever, I would have been really happy with that,"
Wildcats coach Chris Collins said. "Credit Huestis for stepping up.
Huestis was the main guy who made plays for them. He made a couple
big 3's, got a couple huge offensive rebounds, especially when we
cut it to nine and thought we had some momentum, and he made a
couple of back-to-back baskets which were really big and put the
game out of reach. He was the guy that hurt us."
Anthony Brown added 12 points and Stefan Nastic had 11 for Stanford.
JerShon Cobb scored 17 points for the Wildcats. Drew Crawford, the
active scoring leader in the Big 10, added 15 points, 13 in the
first half.
"At halftime we talked about Drew," Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins
said. "We had to contain him and stay with him. We made sure he
didn't get too many good looks. He's a big-time scorer and a
big-time shooter."
Huestis hit a 3-pointer with just over a minute left and Stanford
took a 29-27 edge into the intermission.
Stanford, which gave up 112 points in a loss to
BYU Monday, looked to be in synch against the Wildcats, who beat
Eastern Illinois 72-55 Saturday.
"We made it a point to come out and play defense," Huestis said.
"We were all disappointed in how many points we gave up Monday.
We had to get back to our roots and really work on defense."
Northwestern made seven of its first 27 shots (26 percent) in
the second half.
The Cardinal maintained its lead throughout the second half,
using an 18-6 run to pull ahead 50-36 with 9:10 remaining to
play in the contest.
"We hit a point where we hit a couple of baskets and got
energized," Brown said. "We started making plays.
The Wildcats made a run to cut the lead to single digits but
could never get all the way back as Stanford eventually opened
an 18-point lead.
"We were rushing things a little bit, settling for 3's too
much," Crawford said. "They were able to put on a run. That kind
of deflated us."
Stanford made its first four shots to take the early advantage
and then went 1 for 7, with four turnovers as the Wildcats built
a six-point advantage on a Crawford 3-pointer midway through the
first half.
Collins and Dawkins both are Duke grads who served as assistant
coaches under Mike Krzyzewski.
Randle and Wildcat Dave Sobolewski were teammates on an AAU team
in Illinois.
Huestis scored 13 of his team-high 18 points in the second half to
help Stanford beat Northwestern 71-58 on Thursday night.
