Stanford Unravels in Second Half

And then there were two.

Stanford joined the Pacific 10 Conference’s one-and-done list, losing to Mississippi State, 93-70, on Friday night in the opening round of the Austin Regional at the Charlotte Coliseum.

The ninth-seeded Bulldogs overwhelmed the eighth-seeded Cardinal in the second half, extending a one-point halftime lead to a 71-53 lead on Gary Ervin’s layup with 8:30 left in the last of four games played at the site. Mississippi State’s lead swelled to as much as 25, and Stanford gave up a season high in points.

Many in the day’s sellout crowd of 23,000 departed before Stanford (18-13) had become the second Pac-10 team to lose in the first round of the NCAA tournament, joining UCLA, which Texas Tech eliminated Thursday. Washington and Arizona play second-round games today.

It was a brief and frustrating experience for the Cardinal, whose streak of successive first-round victories ended in its 11th consecutive tournament appearance.

“They hurt us in transition, we got tentative and they shot it well,” said Coach Trent Johnson, who guided Nevada to the Sweet 16 last season.

“We were tentative because their defense gave us some problems. And there was a period there where we couldn’t stop them.”

Mississippi State shot 56.1% and outscored Stanford by 22 after halftime. Forward Lawrence Roberts, last season’s Southeastern Conference player of the year, had 23 points and 14 rebounds.

Guard Winsome Frazier had six three-point baskets and 20 points for Mississippi State (23-10), which faces top-seeded Duke (26-5) on Sunday in the second round.

Point guard Chris Hernandez scored 17 points to lead four Stanford players in double figures. The Cardinal shot 51.7% in the first half and led, 39-27, at the 5:28 mark. The Bulldogs, however, intensified their efforts in a zone defense, and the Cardinal couldn’t get it figured out, shooting 26.5% in the final 20 minutes.

Mississippi State closed the first half on a 17-4 run to take a 44-43 lead at halftime, and things would only worsen for Stanford.

Michigan State 89, Old Dominion 81 -- The fifth-seeded Spartans couldn’t pull away until the final minutes at Worcester, Mass., where Shannon Brown made a spinning layin to start a three-point play that helped Michigan State (23-6) avoid a second consecutive first-round exit.

The victory gave Coach Tom Izzo his 20th tournament win.

Alex Loughton had 22 points and 11 rebounds for 12th-seeded Old Dominion (28-6) after playing much of the second half in the foul trouble.

Duke 57, Delaware St. 46 -- Shelden Williams had 14 points and 11 rebounds, and the top-seeded Blue Devils held off 16th-seeded Delaware State at Charlotte to give Coach Mike Krzyzewski his 65th victory in the tournament. In 21 NCAA tournaments, Krzyzewski is 65-17, tying Dean Smith’s total for the most career victories.

This one certainly was expected, even though Duke (26-5) struggled with the 16th-seeded Hornets (19-13) despite having guard Sean Dockery back for the first time in seven games after he recovered from a knee injury.

Delaware State led 14-12 midway through the opening 20 minutes, and a putback by Tracey Worley tied the score, 23-23, with five minutes left.

Duke took control with consecutive three-point baskets by Daniel Ewing and Lee Melchionni.

*

Associated Press contributed to this report.