STANFORD, Calif. (AP) - Reid Travis made his first shot and then made another. His confidence grew and it led to a career night.
Travis matched his career-high with 29 points and had eight rebounds in helping Stanford win its third in four games, beating San Francisco 71-59 on Sunday.
“When I was able to get one early, I gained a little confidence,” Travis said. “I stayed in attack mode and got some early looks.”
Travis’ first basket of the second half, a layup 33 seconds in, gave him 1,000 points for his career. Josh Sharma added 13 points for the Cardinal and Michael Humphrey had nine points and nine rebounds.
“Josh brings a lot of energy,” Travis said. “The coach tells us when you come in, it should be like firecrackers going off and that’s what he’s doing. He ups the level.”
Chase Foster and Souley Boum each scored 14 points for the Dons (6-4), who had a three-game win streak snapped.
Boum, a freshman, scored all his points in the second half.
“We’re learning on the fly,” Dons coach Kyle Smith said. “We’re playing some young ones. He was definitely impacting the game in a real positive way.”
The Dons had a one-point lead with 8:23 remaining in the first half before the Cardinal slowly began to pull away.
“We got off to a really good start but they went zone and rattled us, for whatever reason,” Smith said. “They’re really good at the rim, so it’s hard to get layups in there. They were really flying out to our shooters, and then we didn’t make some, so it snowballed into us giving up transitions.”
Stanford (6-6) opened the second half with an 11-3 run and a 25-point advantage. San Francisco made just one of its first 11 shots in the second half.
The Dons had an 11-0 run that made it 51-40 and later added an 11-2 spurt to pull within eight points with 1:42 left but got no closer.
The Dons suffered through their worst shooting half of the season, scoring 21 points on 5-of-26 (19.2 percent) in the first half. They missed their last nine shots of the half.
Stanford outscored San Francisco 12-1 over the final 5:04 to take a 38-21 lead into halftime.
OH, THOSE TURNOVERS
Stanford coach Jared Haase was ecstatic about the way his team played overall, especially in the first half. San Francisco was able to turn 20 turnovers into 13 points, something that concerns the coach. “Twenty turnovers is probably not a recipe for success against Kansas,” Haase said. “We have to be aggressive and still value the basketball.”
BIG PICTURE
San Francisco: The Dons, who returned all five starters from last season, were picked to finish fourth in the WCC behind Gonzaga, St. Mary’s and BYU. … The Dons played their second road game of the season, also losing at Arizona State. … The Dons have been without one of their top scorers, Charles Minlend, still recovering from an offseason injury.
Stanford: The Cardinal is in a stretch of eight games all played in California. They last played outside the state on Nov. 26 in Portland. Stanford next plays out of state on Jan. 11 at Washington State. … Stanford remains without starters Marcus Sheffield and Dorian Pickens, both out with foot injuries.
UP NEXT
San Francisco: Hosts Radford on Tuesday.
Stanford: Meets Kansas in Sacramento on Thursday.
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