Daejon Davis, KZ Okpala and Oscar Da Silva will become the centerpiece of a team, if it stays healthy, is capable of winning between 20-25 games and reaching the NCAA tournament.

Setting that aside, the freshmen who couldn't help staying out of foul trouble, will return and Stanford will be a better as a result.

Stanford's season could be over or the Cardinal (18-15) could get a bid from the NIT. Regardless, Dorian Pickens and Michael Humphrey are off to greener fields next year and Reid Travis will likely have a decision to make.

Freshmen accounted for 13 of the Cardinal's 19 team fouls which explains, in part, Stanford's 88-77 loss to UCLA in the quarterfinals of the Pac-12 tournament Thursday.

Freshmen played an important role in the success of Stanford's men's basketball team and even at this late stage of the season, you still have to take the good with the bad.

John Sharma scored on a putback and the Cardinal got a pair of 3-pointers from Davis and another from Okpala and suddenly it was tied at 32 with 4:28 left in the first half.

UCLA took off running, building a 10-point advantage less than seven minutes into the contest and led by 13 with just under eight minutes left.

In addition to the depth of its returning players, Stanford will also add Marcus Sheffield, a sharpshooter in the making, who had to sit out the year with a foot injury.

"There's a lot of emotions right now," Stanford coach Jarod Haase said. "But I think of pride first. I'm just so proud of the way we played. We fought extremely hard."

Pickens added 11 and Davis had 13 for the Cardinal, which won five of its last seven games to finish above .500 and a chance to continue its season.

Okpala had a big game with 23 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three steals. Travis scored 17 points and had 14 rebounds.

Both teams scored 30 in the paint and Stanford was a little better in foul shooting but UCLA was better shooting the 3s and scored 10 points off 14 Cardinal turnovers.

"We're best when we attack," Haase said. "When we get to the paint, things happen."

"I can't tell you how proud I am for us coming together," Travis said of the three co-captains, himself, Pickens and Humphrey. "We've had a lot of ups and downs this year and I'm proud of the way this team fought."

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Stanford driven out of Pac-12 tournament by the Bruins