STANFORD 78, VANDERBILT 75
STANFORD, Calif. -- Anthony Brown scored a season-high 26 points and dealt a hard hit that sent 7-footer Luke Kornet to the locker room with a concussion midway through the second half, and Stanford held off Vanderbilt 78-75 on Tuesday night for a berth in the NIT semifinals.
Freshman Matthew Fisher-Davis hit a 3-pointer with 28.8 seconds remaining to pull Vanderbilt within 77-75 but missed a long 3 under pressure from well beyond the arc in the waning seconds.
Marcus Allen missed his first free throw with 22.3 seconds to go, giving the Commodores a chance to tie.
Fisher-Davis scored 18 points with a season-best 6 three-pointers for Vandy (21-14) in a testy, physical game that featured lots of flying elbows.
Stanford (22-13) will face the winner of Wednesday's quarterfinal game between Old Dominion and Murray State in the semifinals next week at New York's Madison Square Garden.
The Cardinal won the NIT in 1991 and 2012.
Chasson Randle hit a 3 with 1:16 left on the way to 16 points two days after a career-high 35-point performance in a second-round victory against Rhode Island. Randle moved into second place on Stanford's career scoring list, but will have a good chance to become the program's leader in his next game.
Stefan Nastic added 12 points and seven rebounds for Stanford and scored a key basket with 5:30 to play that ended a stretch of five missed field goals in a span of 6-plus minutes without a basket.
With 12:40 left, Fisher-Davis was whistled for a flagrant foul when he threw an arm up into Allen's face that sent him awkwardly backward. Then at the 11:01 mark, Brown was hit with his own flagrant after he clobbered Kornet with an elbow to the face and the dazed sophomore forward had to be helped to the locker room as he struggled to walk straight. He didn't return.
It has been a whirlwind week for the Commodores, who showed few signs of being wiped out from two games in the Bay Area in a six-day span. They won at Saint Mary's College in Moraga on March 18, then topped South Dakota State at home two days later before making another long trek out West.
Vanderbilt, the Southeastern Conference's top 3-point shooting team this season, knocked down 12 of 25 threes and kept it close late from long range.
Damian Jones, averaging a team-high 18.7 points in his three previous games for Vanderbilt, was held to eight points as the teams met for the first time since Dec. 30, 1988, in Nashville.
MIAMI 63, RICHMOND 61
RICHMOND, Va. -- Sheldon McClellan gave Miami its first lead of the game with just over a minute left and the Hurricanes rallied from 18 points down to beat Richmond to advance to the NIT semifinals.
Miami (24-12) heads to New York's Madison Square Garden to face the winner of the Louisiana Tech-Temple game on March 31.
McClellan scored seven consecutive points, including a game-tying 3-pointer with 2:04 left and his go-ahead short jumper with 1:01 remaining. Davon Reed added a pair of free throws to give the Hurricanes a 61-55 lead with 26 seconds left.
"We've been in this situation so many times this year," said Miami Coach Jim Larranaga, who is very familiar with the Spiders from his time as coach of their Colonial Athletic Association rival George Mason. "Our second game was at Florida and we were down 15 in the second half and we came back and won."
Miami trailed 30-18 at halftime against the Spiders.
"I told my team at halftime we just needed to play harder and faster and attack more than we did in the first half," Larranaga said. "We did not get a single free throw in the first half. In the second half, it was still much the same for about the first 10 minutes, and then finally we started to attack more."
The Spiders led most of the game and used a pair of 3-pointers to spread out their lead to 36-18 early in the second half. But a streak of Richmond fouls and mostly accurate free-throw shooting allowed the Hurricanes to slowly close the gap as Richmond's offense sputtered in the face of a withering Miami press.
McClellan felt the energy change in the arena as the Hurricanes cut deeper into the Spiders' lead.
"Once we made some big plays and got some turnovers, that kind of got the crowd out of it," McClellan said. "That crowd was fantastic. They feed off their crowd a lot, and I feel like we took their momentum the last two minutes."
McClellan led Miami (24-12) with 16 points. Davon Reed had 10 points and 12 rebounds as the Hurricanes dominated the glass 47-32, with 17 offensive boards.
Richmond was led by Terry Allen with 18 points and 11 rebounds. The Spiders made just 24 percent of their 3-pointers, 10 notches lower than their average.
"We played very well and with great energy," said Richmond Coach Chris Mooney. "Obviously we had a lot of opportunities with a nice lead that we didn't capitalize on enough. The biggest, the two biggest stats, would be Miami's offensive rebound numbers, which were far too big for us to overcome, and our 3-point shooting."
NAIA CHAMPIONSHIP
DALTON STATE 71, WESTMONT 53
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Jordan Bowling had 18 points and seven rebounds and Anthony Hilliard added 14 points as Dalton State (Ga.) College cruised to a victory over Westmont (Calif.) College in the NAIA national championship gam. Preston Earle contributed 13 points for Dalton State (32-4), and LaDaris Green grabbed 11 rebounds. Cory Blau had 17 points for Westmont (25-11)
Sports on 03/25/2015