For the second time in three years, Stanford is going to New York for the NIT semifinals.

It’s not the Final Four, but the Cardinal aren’t complaining. They’ll have a chance to duplicate the championship they won in 2012.

They won their third straight home game in the tournament Tuesday night, beating Vanderbilt 78-75 in a thriller as Anthony Brown scored 26 points.

“We’re excited to be headed to New York,” head coach Johnny Dawkins said, but he had to go through some anxious moments when the Commodores took his team down to the closing seconds.

“Every time they shoot the ball from behind the arc, you think it’s going in,” he said. Vandy was 12-for-25 from long range.

Stanford (22-13) will play in Madison Square Garden on Tuesday against the winner of Wednesday night’s game between Old Dominion and Murray State.

Freshman Matthew Fisher-Davis connected on six three-pointers. The last made it 77-75 with 28 seconds left. After Marcus Allen hit one of two foul shots, Vandy had a chance for a tying three.

Fisher-Davis (18 points) missed an off-balance try with five seconds left, and the ball went out of bounds. Allen went back to the line with 3.5 seconds to go and missed both chances this time, but Vandy ran out of time.

“It was a great game,” Dawkins said. “I could do without the last three minutes of the game. We made a lot of unforced errors. We weren’t as sharp mentally.”

Chasson Randle scored 16 points, passing Adam Keefe (2,319) to move into second place on the school’s all-time scoring list. Randle has 2,326 points, 10 behind record-holder Todd Lichti.

Regarding the possibility of setting the school record on one of the sport’s biggest stages, he said, “Of course you want to win the game, first and foremost, but to accomplish something like that would be amazing as well.”

He also passed UCLA’s Lew Alcindor (before he became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) to move into fourth on the conference all-time scoring list. Alcindor scored 2,325 points in only three seasons because freshmen weren’t eligible when he entered college. The leaders are UCLA’s Don MacLean (2,608), Arizona’s Sean Elliott (2,555) and Lichti.

Vanderbilt lost one of its big men early in the second half when 7-foot sophomore Luke Kornet suffered a concussion while taking an elbow from Brown as Brown drove to the hoop. Brown was called for a flagrant foul. Kornet, who had 12 points, didn’t return.

The Commodores could have used him the final hectic minutes, head coach Kevin Stallings said. “He’s a big (who) can stretch it out and shoot it,” he said. “When we were down three near the end and needed a three-point shot, it would have been nice to have another option like him on the court.”

James Siakam scored 14 points for Vandy, but All-SEC first-team center Damian Jones, hampered by foul trouble, had just eight points, seven below his average. Stef Nastic helped neutralize him but dislocated a little finger in the first half. He finished with 12 points.

Tom FitzGerald is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: tfitzgerald@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @tomgfitzgerald

Arizona State

fires Sendek

Arizona State fired coach Herb Sendek after nine seasons as head coach.

Sendek led the Sun Devils to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in five years in 2013-14, but the team took a step back this season. The Sun Devils finished 18-16 to miss the NCAA Tournament and lost their second-round NIT game at Richmond on Sunday.

Sendek had a short meeting with Arizona State athletic director Ray Anderson on Tuesday morning before the decision was made.

Sendek went 159-137 at Arizona State with two NCAA Tournament appearances. He previously coached at North Carolina State and Miami (Ohio).

Miami 63, Richmond 61: Sheldon McClellan gave the visiting Hurricanes their first lead with just more than a minute left and Miami rallied from 18 points down to beat the Spiders and advance to an NIT semifinal matchup with the Louisiana Tech-Temple winner. ... McClellan led Miami (24-12) with 16 points and Davon Reed had 10 points and 12 rebounds. ... Terry Allen had 18 points and 11 rebounds for Richmond.