Stanford guard Josh Childress right attempts to dribble around Boston University guard Paul Seymour. (AP photo) | ZOOM |

STANFORD, Calif. - Josh Childress scored 15 of his 22 points in the second half in addition to 11 rebounds as Stanford defeated Boston University, 61-57, in an opening round game of the Preseason NIT Monday night.

"We're a good shooting team and we were frustrated in the first half. All they would give us were the three's," said Childress. "We just kept at it and it started to pay off in the second half."

Justin Davis added 10 points and 13 rebounds as the Cardinal (1-0) improved to 60-6 in home openers.

Billy Collins scored 13 points and grabbed 10 rebounds for Boston (0-1), which fell to 2-6 against Pac-10 teams.

Stanford hosts No. 11 Xavier, an 87-48 winner over St. Peter's, in a second-round game on Wednesday night with the winner advancing to the semifinals at Madison Square Garden.

Matt Lottich added 12 points for the Cardinal, and Ryan Butt had 12 for the Terriers.

Stanford, which had junior All-Americans Casey Jacobsen and Curtis Borchardt declare early for the NBA, was unranked in the initial poll, the first time its missed out in 94 weeks -- which was the second longest streak to Duke.

The Terriers, favored to win the America East Conference, made their second appearance in the Preseason NIT, losing to Connecticut in the first round of the 1997 event.

Stanford, picked to finish seventh in the Pac-10, made its third appearance in the tourney, reaching the championship game in 1998 before losing to North Carolina.

After Boston scored the first five points of the second half, the Cardinal went on a 17-4 run to pull ahead 36-32 with 12:23 remaining to play.

"We were tentative and not attacking in the first half," said Stanford coach Mike Montgomery. "The shots we made later were strictly the result of good movement of the ball."

That lead was short-lived as Boston regained the advantage in two minutes and the contest settled into a seesaw battle in which neither team seemed able to control until the closing minutes.

"We were in it until the very end," said Boston coach Dennis Wolff. "Our defensive rebounding in the second half broke down and that hurt us. We were going a little bit too fast in offense. We needed to take an extra pass once in awhile before shooting."

The Cardinal went on a 16-6 run to finally grab the lead for good at 54-46 with just over two minutes left.

Boston took advantage of an early Stanford cold streak to take a 12-3 lead midway through the first half.

The Cardinal missed 11 of their first 12 shots in the first 10 minutes, and wasn't much better the rest of the half but still managed to pull within 23-19 by halftime.

After making four of its first eight shots, Boston made just four of its next 15 to allow Stanford to rally.