Dec. 21, 1999
By DENNIS GEORGATOS
AP Sports Writer
OAKLAND, Calif. - Stanford's basketball program was in existence 85years before attaining its first No. 1 ranking. Now that the Cardinal have it,they'd like to hold on to it for a while.
They passed the first test Tuesday night as David Moseley scored 22 pointsand Jarron Collins had 16 in Stanford's 76-56 victory over Mississippi State inthe opener of the Pete Newell Challenge.
"We wanted to show people that our ranking was warranted," Moseley said."And we've only had it for two days. We want to keep it longer than that."
It was the first time in their history the Cardinal (9-0) played with theNo. 1 ranking, which they assumed Monday after a weekend upset of previouslytop-ranked Cincinnati. The highest previous ranking for Stanford was No. 2, aposition it held last week.
"It's nice to be recognized nationally," Jarron Collins said. "We takepride in that. It's a tremendous achievement but to us, it's just playingbasketball. We enjoy doing it and we enjoy the competition. We feel we are verytalented but we still have a lot to work on."
Ryan Mendez added 14 points and Jason Collins had 10 for Stanford, whichheld the Bulldogs (7-3) to 31 percent shooting while converting 49 percent ofits shots. The Cardinal also blocked a school-record 12 shots, including fourby Curtis Borchardt and three by Jason Collins.
"We have people adept at timing and blocking shots," Stanford coach MikeMontgomery said. "With Jason, we always felt he was capable of doing this andCurtis has those long arms and great timing."
Tang Hamilton had 12 points to lead the Bulldogs, who had a five-gamewinning streak snapped. Antonio Jackson added 10.
"We were beaten by a very good Stanford team," Mississippi State coachRick Stansbury said. "Their size and strength wore us down. We got in somefoul trouble and they hit some 3s. We've got to take some positive things fromthis game. For 25 minutes, we played some quality minutes. I thought our kidswere working hard and gutting it out. We had trouble scoring over those bigkids."
Mississippi State outrebounded Stanford 43-31 but had little to show for it.
"That's a deceiving stat," Stansbury said. "We had a lot of reboundssmacked back at us. They had 12 blocked shots and they came right back at us.So we got a rebound. That was thoughtful of them."
Up by six at halftime, the Cardinal took control with a 15-0 run thatswelled the lead to 57-37 with 11:36 remaining.
After Marckell Patterson's 3-pointer narrowed the deficit to 42-37, Moseleyand Mendez hit successive 3-pointers and Jarron Collins scored seven straightpoints, including a three-point play and a layup off a fast break started by ablocked shot. Casey Jacobsen finished the flurry with a twisting layup.
Robert Jackson ended Mississippi State's 5:09 scoring drought when he madetwo free throws but the damage was done as Stanford maintained a double-digitcushion the rest of the way.
Moseley went 6-for-7 from the field, including three 3-pointers in the firsthalf, when Stanford took a 38-32 lead.
The Cardinal led by as many as nine points in the early going but Jacksonhit two 3-pointers around two free throws by Moseley and Tyrus Boswell had abreakaway dunk off a steal, pulling the Bulldogs to 32-30 with 1:02 left in thefirst half.
Moseley made his third 3-pointer of the period and offset a layup by QuentinSmith by dishing off to Mendez for another 3-pointer for Stanford.