Diogu Comes Up Big in Win

Stanford decided to let Arizona State’s Ike Diogu try to win the game single-handedly Thursday night.

Diogu obliged. He scored 20 of his career-high 39 points in the second half as the Sun Devils rallied for a 74-67 victory at Tempe, Ariz.

Diogu, drawing single-coverage until the final five minutes, made 16 of 26 shots and set career highs in field goals made and attempted. Other conference opponents had slowed Diogu by double-teaming him.

The rest of the Sun Devils made eight of 28 shots from the field as Diogu scored more points than in his past three games combined.

“Contrary to whatever everyone thinks, Arizona State is not a one-man team,” Stanford Coach Trent Johnson said. “We wanted to make him work for all he got.”

Diogu, who added 11 rebounds for his 12th double-double, told his teammates at halftime that he wouldn’t allow them to lose another close game at home to the Cardinal.

“I normally don’t say anything but after two years of losing the same way I couldn’t handle that for a third year,” said Diogu, who has nine career 30-point games. “We were off to a slow start, myself included. I just decided to turn it up.”

Arizona State, 16-6 overall and 5-5 in the Pacific 10 Conference, won for the third time in four games and swept Stanford for the first time since the 1993-94 season. The Cardinal (12-8, 6-4) had won 13 in a row against Arizona State before the Sun Devils’ 81-69 victory at Palo Alto on Jan. 6.

“You’ve got to win big games if you’re going to make it to the tournament,” Diogu said. “This was a big win for us.”

Nick Robinson scored 17 and Matt Haryasz and Chris Hernandez added 12 each to lead Stanford, which saw its season-best six-game winning streak stopped.

No. 14 Arizona 97, California 76 -- Channing Frye had 20 points and seven rebounds at Tucson and the Wildcats kept pace with Washington atop the conference standings.

Salim Stoudamire contributed 17 points and Hassan Adams had 15 for Arizona (18-4, 8-2).

Arizona won for the 15th time in 17 games, but the previous outing was one of its worst in decades -- a debacle at home against Washington State, which had lost 38 in a row to the Wildcats.

The Wildcats came in with an edge and it showed as they improved to 9-0 when scoring at least 80 points in a game.

Richard Midgley led the Golden Bears (11-9, 4-6) with 18 points and six rebounds.

Cal struggled early against Arizona’s zone defense, missing its first seven shots as the Wildcats raced to an 11-0 lead over the opening 4:06.