On New Year’s Day, during my exhausted drive home from a truly spectacular Rose Bowl Game, my phone drew my attention to another very pleasant piece of news in the world of Cardinal sports: Stanford’s men’s basketball had come back from down 12 to force overtime against No. 21 Utah, and the team held firm to grab its first victory against a ranked team in almost a year.

Just two days later, the Cardinal were rolling again late in a game, this time against Colorado. Stanford’s staunch defense held its opponents to just 10 points in the final 16 minutes as the Cardinal tore apart a 16-point Buffaloes lead, ultimately falling one point short but still seriously testing a squad that currently looks bound for the NCAA tournament.

It has been a long time since a Stanford team had this much success late in games. Sure, a few impressive comebacks dot the Cardinal’s recent seasons, but performances like the 2013 Connecticut upset or last year’s victory over Washington in the Pac-12 tournament have been far outnumbered by games like the 2014 Arizona home defeat or the 2015 drop against UCLA. Stanford has been good at getting close, but it’s only in rare instances that it actually gets close enough.

At times, Stanford’s program seemed stuck in a rut because it couldn’t get over the hump in these key games. A signature victory was often only an arms-length away, but the Cardinal couldn’t convert on these opportunities to reestablish themselves as a program to watch in the Pac-12. There’s still plenty to be done before the team can reliably earn big wins, but it’s a huge step for this program to reduce this obstacle it has struggled with so much in recent seasons.

The Cardinal’s current problems seem to be a lot more manageable. Many of them simply will require experience to fix, something that many members of Stanford’s squad lack but seem to be improving upon.

Freshmen Marcus Sheffield and Josh Sharma both seem to be getting more comfortable on the floor, for instance, while sophomore Michael Humphrey is continuing to refine his skillset so as to better serve as an interior anchor. Once sophomore Reid Travis comes back from injury to shore up the team’s rebounding and help out in the key, these players may be able to focus on more defined roles and further bring this team forward.

Youth, after all, is really a long-term advantage for Stanford’s program. With Grant Verhoeven the only scholarship player totally without a chance to return in 2016-17, the Cardinal should be able to return next season with their enhanced clutch ability intact. Stanford has rarely had talent and momentum at the same time, but the stage is set for it to have more of both in the near future.

Obviously, getting optimistic about this season is a bit of a taller order. Stanford has already accrued six losses in its first 15 games, and even if the team can rally through the rest of Pac-12 play, it may not be able to earn anything more than a NIT berth. Merely replicating the result of last season would be a step forward for Johnny Dawkins and company, however. As great as it is to win the NIT, it would be a much bigger achievement to do so when you can return your whole starting lineup next October.

Perhaps even declaring the team capable of that much is excessively optimistic. The Cardinal’s shooting will need to improve for them to earn consistent victories in conference play, and they still haven’t proven that they can play competitively against the very highest level of competition.

But unlike in past years, there’s a lot more of a reason to be optimistic that Stanford can clear these hurdles. If the recent proliferation of one-year wonders in college basketball has shown anything, it’s that teams, not individuals, win basketball games. Fortunately, that seems to be where Stanford’s headed.

 

Give Andrew Mather a hard time for looking at his phone while driving at amather ‘at’ stanford.edu.