Senior Jalen Sullinger scored a career-high 34 points, Delrecco Gillespie posted a double-double and Kent State made it two consecutive road wins in the NIT, holding off Stanford 77-75 on Sunday night.VonCameron Davis chipped in with 12 points for the Golden Flashes (24-11), who opened the NIT with a victory at St. Bonaventure on Tuesday.Kent State will advance to the tournament quarterfinals, where it will take on Loyola-Chicago, a 77-76 upset winner at San Francisco on Sunday.Jaylen Blakes had a team-high 23 points and Maxime Raynaud 22 as part of a double-double for the Cardinal (21-14), formally bringing to an end Stanford’s first season as an Atlantic Coast Conference school.Seeking to win a third straight on the road dating back to the Mid-American Conference regular season, Kent State ran up a 13-point lead in the first half en route to a 43-34 advantage at the break. Sullinger had 20 of his 34 points and five of his seven 3-pointers in the 20 minutes.It took Stanford less than five minutes to erase the deficit, opening the second period with a 12-2 burst that featured six points from Raynaud.The Cardinal went up by as many as two at 49-47 at the 13:56 mark before Sullinger caught fire again, hitting a game-tying jumper and then a go-ahead basket.When he added a 3-pointer with 10:29 remaining and assisted on a Cli’Ron Hornbeak layup 36 seconds later, the visitors had regained a 58-51 advantage, never to trail again.Stanford closed within 74-72 when Blakes hit the first of two free throws with seven seconds left. But he missed the second, and when a Sullinger rebound turned into a Cardinal foul, the guard dropped in two foul shots to ice the victory.
