March 13, 2010
LOS ANGELES (AP) -Quincy Pondexter scored 19 points and Washington defeated Stanford 79-64 in a matchup of poor shooting teams in the Pac-10 tournament semifinals Friday night.
The third-seeded Huskies (23-9) will play No. 1 seed California (23-9) in Saturday's title game, with the winner earning the league's automatic NCAA tournament bid.
Washington hasn't been to the championship game since 2005, when it beat Arizona for its lone tourney title. Cal reached its only final in 2006, losing to UCLA.
Isaiah Thomas added 17 points and Justin Holiday 11 for the Huskies, who led all the way in winning their sixth straight against Stanford - equaling their streak against the Cardinal from 1974-77.
Landry Fields led Stanford with 20 points. The seventh-seeded Cardinal (14-18) improved their shooting to 31 percent by game's end, but were just 26 percent from 3-point range.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
NOTES: Stanford wrapped up the 2009-10 campaign at 14-18 overall. For the first time since the 1992-93 campaign, the Cardinal will end the season with a losing record ... Stanford's string of 16 consecutive postseason appearances also comes to an end ... Despite multiple injuries, a considerable lack of depth and a projected last-place Pac-10 finish in the preseason media poll, the Cardinal reached the Pac-10 Tournament semifinals and finished with a better league record (7-11) than last year (6-12). An impressive feat considering Stanford's roster featured only seven true scholarship players, two returning starters and six walk-ons ... Johnny Dawkins is 34-32 over his first two seasons ... Stanford owns a 12-12 record in 24 Pac-10 Tournament games ... Landry Fields notched his 13th double-double of the season, scoring 20 points and grabbing 14 rebounds in 38 minutes. Fields wraps up his career with 1393 total points, good for 17th on the all-time list. His 704 points this year represented the third-best single-season total in school history, trailing only Adam Keefe (734 in 1991-92 and 709 in 1990-91) ... Fields scored in double-figures in all 32 games, reached the 20-point plateau in 22 contests and was awarded with a spot on the All-Pac-10 First Team ... Emmanuel Igbinosa reached double-figures for the third time this year, finishing with 11 points. Igbinosa averaged 11.5 points in two Pac-10 Tournament contests ... Washington swept the season series and has now won six straight and seven of the last nine meetings overall ... Stanford's 42 rebounds represented a season high ...Jeremy Green finished just 2-14 from the field and 1-7 from three-point territory. Green's 93 triples are a single-season school record and he now has 140 for his career to rank 12th on the all-time list ... Chris Ebersole scored his first career basket and Peter Abraham nailed a three-pointer late in the contest ... The final bucket of the game came from Elliott Bullock, who scored his first points since Nov. 21 against Florida A&M with a lay-up to snap a 0-13 drought.