STANFORD, Calif.- Anthony Brown notched a double-double, leading five players in double figures as Stanford coasted to a 97-71 victory over Texas Southern on Thursday night at Maples Pavilion in the first round of the Progressive Legends Classic.
Brown finished with a career-high 23 points and season-high 10 rebounds, compiling his third career double-double and first since totaling 15 points and 12 boards against Cleveland State in the NIT back on March 13, 2012. He was 9-13 from the field, 3-5 from beyond the arc and dished out three assists.
Josh Huestis poured in 18 points (7-11 FG, 4-5 3FG) and grabbed six rebounds while Chasson Randle (15), Aaron Bright (12) and Dwight Powell (11) also reached double digits in scoring.
Stanford (4-1) was highly effective offensively, shooting 47.4 percent overall and knocking down 13-26 from three-point territory. The Cardinal dished out a season-high 21 assists on 37 buckets, and owned a commanding 51-32 edge on the glass.
Texas Southern (2-4) was led by Aaric Murray’s 28 points while also receiving 24 from Jose Rodriguez.
The back-and-forth first half was extremely competitive, featuring five ties and 13 lead changes. Trailing 42-41, the Cardinal scored 10 of the final 12 points during a three-minute stretch before halftime. The dagger was a corner triple from Brown on the final possession of the period.
Stanford extended its lead to 70-49 with 10:55 remaining following a three-pointer from Huestis.
The Cardinal limited the Tigers to 30.0 percent shooting over the second half to preserve the victory.
Stanford next faces Houston on Monday, Nov. 25, in the championship round of the Progressive Legends Classic at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
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NOTES: Stanford and Texas Southern were matching up for the first time … The Cardinal last scored 50 points in the first half of a game on March 7, 2012, building a 50-30 cushion against Arizona State in the opening round of the Pac-12 Tournament … The last time Stanford grabbed 50+ rebounds was Nov. 15, 2012, when the Cardinal hauled down 51 against Alcorn State … 11 different players broke into the scoring column for Stanford … With three more swats, Josh Huestis moved past Matt Haryasz (2002-06) into fourth on Stanford's career blocks list with 133. Huestis added a career-high four three-pointers, eclipsing his previous best of three against San Francisco in last year’s season opener … Aaron Bright finished 4-5 overall and 3-4 from beyond the arc for 12 points. He entered the game shooting 3-15 overall and 2-9 from three-point territory … Stanford is shooting 70.8 percent (92-130) from the foul line … Freshmen Schuyler Rimmer and Malcolm Allen tallied their first career buckets … Stanford received a season high 28 points from its bench.
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Stanford Head Coach Johnny Dawkins
“Just looking at the stat sheet, I thought it was one of our best team efforts of the year. I thought our guys really did an excellent job of sharing the basketball, with 21 assists. I thought that was great. I thought 21 offensive rebounds showed our guys were capable of getting to the boards and making a lot of plays there as well. Those are some things that we’ve been emphasizing, so to see our guys do that tonight against a very good basketball team and a team that has a lot of talent and a lot of experience, I was really proud of our effort.”
“I’m going to say their play [kept it close in the first half]. Like I said before, I watched them on tape and scouted them quite a bit before we played them. They’re a very good basketball team, and they’re going to win a lot of games this year. And I thought in the first half, it was a game where they were going to their scorers. Those guys were producing. They were hitting some tough shots, but they’re capable of doing that, and I think over the course of the game we wore them down. We have a deeper bench; they’re only playing seven guys. We also made some adjustments at halftime defensively to kind of shore up a few things that we thought were hurting us. I thought our guys did a good job of adjusting on the fly.”
“I thought we did a good job of really spacing the floor and we were really sharp. I thought we ran our offense. There was no hesitation going into our offense. And it’s always good to make shots. When guys are knocking down shots, we had been pretty top-heavy over the last three or four games with Chasson and Dwight. It was good to see a lot of guys get involved that we realize are capable scorers. It’s good to see Anthony really have the game he had. Aaron, off the bench, was terrific. Josh did a really great job tonight. They all made open shots. Shots that they make in practice every day and that we know they’re capable of hitting.”
“I am really proud of Anthony, because having sat out a year you don’t expect a young man to come back and play the way he’s playing right now. The young man has done a great job. He’s been our best perimeter defender. He’s also scored the ball for us really well, and that’s coming back off an injury. I think he probably has career highs pretty much in everything right now, and he’s been out for a year. So absolutely, I’m very pleased with where he’s developed, and I think he shows a big upside. I still think he’s scratching the surface of what he could be as a player, but I’ m really proud of what he’s done considering how long he was out.”
Anthony Brown
“At halftime we went in, talked about our defensive adjustments. Gave up 44 points, talked about what we did last week, giving up 112, and saying that’s unacceptable. And from there, we came out in the second half and played with more intensity, I feel like, more energy, and that led to more layups for us, and everyone started making shots.”
“Our assist-to-turnover ratio has been low. We strive to get it almost a 1.5/1 ratio, and today we were making connecting plays. And I think when we make connecting plays, everyone makes shots, better rhythm, and it’s just more fun for everyone. I think five people scored in double-figures, so everybody is sharing the wealth, not just one person.”
“I thought they were a real athletic team. We knew coming in that they had played some teams really tough, and they had a couple guys that were averaging 20-plus, so we knew that we had to stop them … It took us 20 minutes to kind of get into the game. We kind of fell into their style of just playing up and down.”
“Aaron Bright gave us a huge lift, man. I was waiting for him to hit a couple 3s, like you said. We feed off of his energy, as you can see out there. He’s always hyping everybody up. He’s our point guard; he’s our leader. And when he gets going and the cylinders start rolling, he’s a big reason why we had 23 assists. He starts it, and then everyone kind of follows.”
Aaron Bright
“Well, in shootaround today, I was just lights out, so I was like, ‘I should shoot the ball, try and get that hump in my shot.’ I just felt really good tonight, and I just wanted to come in and be aggressive. And like you said, I take my role to kind of be an energy guy, so I try to come in and just bring energy and get these guys going, and hopefully get these guys some easy buckets.”
“I love having Anthony back. During the whole offseason, when we’d be working out together, I was always like, ‘Man, I can’t wait to have you back on the court this year.’ [Anthony] is, and is going to be, a huge part of our team’s success this year, and he just makes my job so much easier when he keeps knocking down those shots.”
Texas Southern Head Coach Mike Davis
“We just had no gas. They are just big guys. They're just so physical -- physical in a clean way. And they're long. When they're making shots like that it's hard. No. 21 (Anthony Brown) made three three-pointers at the end of the first half, and that No. 2 (Aaron Bright) came in and really hurt us. So they had two guys who stepped up and carried the load.”
“They're a nice team with a nice system. They drive you, they make the extra pass, they do a lot of high-low stuff and they did a great job on the offensive glass tonight. When they play with energy, it's hard to beat them. Coach Dawkins has done a wonderful job with this team.”
“This was a good opportunity for us to get better as a team. The first half we had against those guys spoke volumes about our basketball team. The takeaway for us is that we just want to get better for our conference. We won it last year. We're going to be okay; we just want to grow and improve from these situations. I thought we got better tonight.”
“I wanted our guys to play through it. I wanted them to play tired, because we're going to have some similar games in our conference from a fatigue standpoint.”