Barnes Adjusts, Stanford Wins

When Julius Barnes plays shooting guard he becomes a completely different type of player.

Barnes, who starts at point guard, scored 21 of his 29 points in the second half and No. 24 Stanford beat Washington, 78-69, on Thursday night at Palo Alto. Barnes scored 19 of his points while playing shooting guard.

“I didn’t expect to be as open as I was and I was a little surprised,” Barnes said. “My thought process is to shoot and that’s my only thought process.”

Rob Little had 12 points for the Cardinal, 18-6 overall and 9-3 in the Pacific 10 Conference. Stanford defeated Washington for the 10th straight time at home.

Doug Wrenn scored 23 points for the Huskies (8-13, 3-9), who fell to 1-7 on the road and lost for the fifth time in six games. Nate Robinson and Curtis Allen each had 16 points.

Washington, which had only seven rebounds in the second half, has lost 21 consecutive games to ranked opponents on the road.

“We knew if Barnes got hot we’d have a hard time stopping him,” Wrenn said. “Hardly anybody can stop him cold.”

The Cardinal, picked to finish seventh in the conference, has the same record after 24 games as last season when it was favored to win the title.

Stanford broke a 52-52 tie with a 15-2 run that began with Barnes’ jumper with 9:56 left. Barnes, who scored a career-high 33 points in his last game against Oregon State, had three three-point baskets as the Cardinal opened a 67-54 advantage less than three minutes later.

“When Jason [Haas] comes in, that puts Barnes in a completely different spot on the court and changes his thought process,” Stanford Coach Mike Montgomery said.

Wrenn scored Washington’s first 10 points and 12 of its first 14. He made seven of nine shots in the first half.

“We took ourselves out of the game in the second half,” Wrenn said. “We were trying to make big plays and it didn’t work. That first half was about as best as we can play.”

Stanford took a 28-16 lead in the first 12 minutes, but the Huskies roared back, making their last seven shots of the half and shooting over 59% from the field.

“The last eight minutes of the first half were the best minutes we have played on the road this year,” Washington Coach Lorenzo Romar said. “In the second half we just lost sight of Barnes. This is what he does, he finds an open spot and makes it from 25 feet if you let him.”

No. 22 California 63, Washington State 53 -- Joe Shipp scored 20 points and Brian Wethers had 16 and the Golden Bears (17-4, 10-2) scored the last nine points to defeat the Cougars (5-16, 0-12) at Berkeley for their 16th straight home victory.

Amit Tamir scored 14 points as California, off to its best start since 1960, won for the 11th time in 13 games. The Bears never held a large lead, but they withstood a late Washington State rally and never trailed.

Washington State played tough defense and often slowed the pace to a crawl in an attempt to stay with California.

Thomas Kelati had 12 points for the Cougars, who have lost eight in a row at Berkeley.

Despite another strong performance after last weekend’s narrow loss to Arizona, the Cougars have lost 12 in a row overall, all nine of their road games this season and 18 straight Pac-10 games, dating to last season.