Verona, Italy – In another tightly-contest game during Stanford’s exhibition tour of Italy, the Cardinal dropped an 80-73 decision to Italy’s defending Serie A2 level (Italian professional league) Champion Tezenis Verona Wednesday night in Verona.
Wednesday’s contest was the finale of Stanford’s exhibition tour that saw the Cardinal play some of Italy’s top professional clubs in Rome, Bologna, Pesaro and Verona. Tezenis Verona finished the 2015 season 26-4 overall, capturing its league crown.
Stanford jumped out to an early advantage on Verona, leading by as many as 12 in the first quarter. Verona got it down to three by halftime and took its first lead of the game with less than four minutes left in the third quarter. It was a see-saw battle for much of the fourth quarter with Verona connecting on some key baskets down the stretch to come out on top.
Junior Marcus Allen finished with 17 points to go along with nine rebounds, four assists and five steals for the Cardinal. Senior Rosco Allen posted a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Sophomore Reid Travis added 18 points to round out Stanford’s double-digit scorers.
“I thought this was a great experience for us,” said Stanford head men’s basketball coach Johnny Dawkins. “This was a bigtime learning opportunity for us. We are in the process of developing guys in new roles, and learning who is going to close games for us. The guys were put in those positions where they had to make plays at the end. That is part of the development and I think our guys will learn from this experience and get better from this trip.
“We were fortunate to be able to play teams of this caliber over here in Italy because of when we start school,” Dawkins added. “Since we start school in the middle of September, we get the opportunity to play Italy’s best professional teams when they are finishing up training camp. It was a great chance to play against these men and grow from these experiences. I am very proud of my team, our effort and the way we played overall. This gives us an opportunity when we get back to campus to learn what we need to be able to do to become even better when our season starts.”
Aided by six points from Rosco Allen, Stanford opened up a 10-3 lead in the first five minutes of the contest and grew its advantage to 12 by the end of the first quarter. Rosco Allen and Reid Travis combined for 14 of Stanford’s 22 points in the opening period.
Verona opened the second quarter on a 7-0 run and continued to chip away at the Cardinal’s lead, getting within four at 30-26 midway through the period. A three-point play from Marcus Sheffield snapped the run and Stanford scored eight of the next 12 points to push the lead to 38-30. Verona captured the momentum back in the final four minutes, to pull within three points at 44-41 at the break.
Verona took its first lead of the game on a four-point play (56-53) with 3:41 to go in the third. Stanford responded as Dorian Pickens connected on a mid-range jumper and Rosco Allen took a rebound on the defensive end and drove coast-to-coast for the layup and put the Cardinal back on top. It was back-and-forth from there for the rest of the period, with Verona connecting on a three-pointer as the third-quarter buzzer sounded to take a 64-61 lead heading into the final period.
The teams continued to trade leads for much of the fourth quarter, before Verona built a seven-point advantage in the final minutes. Stanford got it down to four points with 37 seconds left, before Verona got a pair of stops and used free throws on the other end to seal the game.
With the exhibition portion of the trip to Italy concluded, the Cardinal will spend Thursday in Lake Como before traveling back to the United States on Friday.
“I learned this group plays with a lot of energy and has a lot of heart,” Dawkins said. “I thought in every game whether we were up or down, we played with a lot of energy and that was exciting to see. We have good depth on this team. That is very positive for our Stanford program going forward.”