ANAHEIM, Calif. — Stanford coach Trent Johnson missed an amazing ending.
In an emotional response to Johnson’s first-half ejection, the Cardinal rallied for an 82-81 overtime victory over Marquette in the NCAA’s South Regional on Saturday, advancing to the round of 16 for the first time since 2001.
Brook Lopez made a baseline leaner with 1.3 seconds left to win it for the third-seeded Cardinal (28-7). Lopez, one of Stanford’s twin 7-footers, finished with 30 points, one shy of a career high. The basket came on Mitch Johnson’s career-high 16th assist.
Trent Johnson, the Pac-10 coach of the year, was ejected with 3:36 remaining in the first half for walking on the court to argue a foul call. His ejection seemed to fire up the Cardinal, which trailed 36-30 at halftime.
“Basically, I was out of line,” Johnson said. “The bottom line, I was trying to fight for my kids. I put our team in a bad situation, and it’s unacceptable.”
But, it worked.
“We knew that we had to win that game from that point on,” said Robin Lopez, Brook Lopez’s twin brother. “We weren’t going out like that.”
Brook Lopez scored eight of Stanford’s 11 points in overtime as the Cardinal took advantage of a big size difference. The Golden Eagles (25-10) were hampered after their best big man, Ousmane Barro, fouled out with 1:44 left in regulation.
“When Ousmane went down with the fouls, there’s no question it changed for us a little bit,” Marquette coach Tom Crean said.
