It was the perfect time for an upset.

Stanford’s All-America candidate Josh Childress was benched for the Cardinal opener with a stress reaction in his left leg.

The Stanford fans were still reeling from a 28 -16 home loss to Cal in the football game played earlier Saturday.

And Sacramento State’s Jameel Pugh silenced a collective group of student fans who were donning long-sleeved black t-shirts with “6th man” printed on the back, as he tore through the Cardinal defense finishing with a lay-up for the first points of the game.

But the Hornets couldn’t control the frontcourt triple threat of Justin Davis, Rob Little and Matt Haryasz, as the three combined for 39 points in Stanford’s 77-59 win over Sac State.

“They were just kind of banging us a little bit,” Hornet center Tony Champion said. “We were either falling asleep and they were hitting us backdoor or we were trying to do too much. We kind of beat ourselves on that part and gave up easy plays.”

The Cardinal outrebounded the Hornets 46-22.

“We have to work on blocking our men out,” Champion said. “We have to find whoever is open, whoever has no one else around them and just stick our butts in them. Our goal is to win our conference and if we are going to do that we need to improve our rebounding drastically.”

Stanford, ranked No. 17 by the ESPN/USA Today poll, was led by Davis’ 17 points while Pugh led all scorers with 18 points on 7 of 16 shooting. Pugh knocked down two 3-pointers, was able to drive to the basket and play well on the inside.

“When I don’t get a dunk people notice that I can do other things,” Pugh said. “I think that the dunking ability really blind-sided some people and they thought that was the most impressive part of my game. They didn’t see the other things that I was doing on the floor.”

Guard Joseth Dawson was the only other Hornet who scored in double figures, finishing with 11 points and shooting 1 of 6 from behind the 3-point line. The senior was playing in his first game since February of 2002.

“We matched up fine with (Stanford’s guards),” Dawson said. “We were basically more athletic and quicker than they were.”

While his shooting was not accurate, Dawson was quick off the dribble, slashing to the hole, unstopped by Stanford’s defense.

“Their coach was saying ‘he’s a shooter, he’s a shooter,’ so that automatically made me a driver — going straight to the hole. They couldn’t hold me from the jump.”

Stanford’s starting guards Matt Lottich and Chris Hernandez finished with 13 and six points, respectively.

Champion, who led the frontcourt with nine points but came down with only two rebounds, suffered a knee injury and had to be taken out of the game while the Hornets trailed 13-12 with over 12 minutes remaining in the first half. The Cardinal went on a 15-5 run before the Hornets’ starting center returned to the game with his knee wrapped.

Stanford went into halftime with a 41-27 lead.

Sac State dished out eight assists as a team, four coming from starting point guard DaShawn Freeman, while the Cardinal had 21 assists led by Hernandez’s six.

With the Hornets in the penalty early in both halves, Stanford shot 31 free throws compared to Sac State’s 12.

The Hornet defense forced 14 turnovers while implementing man-to-man defense and a full-court press, while the Hornet offense turned the ball over 20 times against Stanford’s man and zone defenses.

“We’re just learning how to play together,” head coach Jerome Jenkins said. “Offensively the team showed a lot of good flashes, a lot of good signs. We had a chance, but we have to learn how to play together. I think we beat ourselves a little bit. We took some ill-advised shots and kind of got caught up in the moment.”

Behind baskets from Pugh, Dawson and senior Joel Jones, Sac State came within six points of Stanford, 51-45, with 11:17 remaining in the game.

Stanford responded with a 13-2 run. Sac State shot 37.1 percent from the floor compared to the Cardinal 50 percent

“I think they were really athletic,” Stanford head coach Mike Montgomery said of Sac State. “They are hard to guard. They move people around and guys get in a position to take you and then they take you. The nights when the ball is going for them they are going to be real hard. But when it is not they are going to have to rely on their defense and turnovers.”