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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- Casey Jacobsen, Mark Madsen and Stanford easily passed their first test.
Jacobsen, one of eight players who took final exams the day before in a Birmingham hotel room, scored 18 points and Madsen had 14 points and 13 rebounds as the Cardinal cruised past South Carolina State 84-65 on Friday night in the first round of the South Regional.
|  | | Stanford's Casey Jacobsen, who had 18 point, wouldn't let Arthur Carlisle and the Bulldogs hold him back. |
"It's really nice just to be able to focus on basketball," Madsen said. "It's nice to put the textbooks down."
Never before has a No. 16 seed won, and top-seeded Stanford made sure it did not happen this time.
The Cardinal (27-3) won its opening-round game for the sixth straight year. Next up is eighth-seeded North Carolina, an 84-70 winner over Missouri, on Sunday.
"It's nice to have that one under your belt. You have the potential burden of 16 vs. 1, which lurks somewhere in the back of your mind," coach Mike Montgomery said.
Stanford held a size advantage in every matchup, and even its tree mascot pushed South Carolina State's big-headed Bulldog to the floor at halftime. For good measure, the Cardinal hit 13 3-pointers -- a school record in the NCAA tournament.
Mike Wiatre scored 17 points for South Carolina State (20-14). The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference champions fell to 0-4 overall in NCAA tournament play.
A transfer from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, the 6-foot Wiatre was the only Bulldogs player to score for the first 10 minutes. By then, his teammates were an unstylish 0-for-12 and trailed by 13 points.
"It was a good experience for us," said Wiatre, a senior who was 10-for-10 from the foul line. "We played hard and hung in there and never gave up."
Jacobsen, leading Stanford with a 15-point average, scored the first basket of the game and it was 7-0 after two minutes. He later hit a long 3-pointer and soon it was 26-10.
The Pacific-10 team, ranked No. 1 in the nation for part of the season, started the night pounding the ball inside.
Stanford wound up making 17-of-30 free throws as the Bulldogs ran into foul trouble trying to stop their oversized opponents. South Carolina State tried to pack the inside and often left the Cardinal open from the outside -- Stanford shot 13-for-23 on 3-pointers.
David Moseley had 13 points and Jarron Collins and Ryan Mendez each had 10 for Stanford.
A day earlier, several of the Stanford students were clustered in a conference room at a local hotel. With the school on the quarter system, it was time for final exams, and three hours of tests took place before an afternoon practice.
Wiatre had half of South Carolina State's points at halftime, which ended with Stanford ahead 47-26. The Cardinal led the country with a 20.2-point margin of victory.
The Bulldogs made their third NCAA appearance in five years. They have typically faced formidable opposition, previously playing Duke, Kentucky and Kansas.
South Carolina State's season ended much like it started. In its opener, it fell behind 20-0 in a lopsided loss to Oregon State.
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ALSO SEE
Mens College Basketball Scoreboard
South Carolina St NCAA Team Report
Stanford NCAA Team Report
Chat: NCAA Tourney
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