On Saturday at 7:00 PM PT on ACCNX, Stanford men’s basketball will welcome Cal Poly to Maples Pavilion. Stanford comes in at 6-1 overall while Cal Poly comes in at 4-4.
Last time out: Stanford fell to Grand Canyon on Tuesday at the Acrisure Holiday Classic in Palm Desert, CA by a final score of 78-71. Maxime Raynaud was the top performer for the Cardinal with 29 points and 11 rebounds.
BOX SCORE: Stanford vs. Grand Canyon-Tuesday, November 26th
On Cal Poly: The Mustangs are off to a 4-4 start. They lost games at San Francisco, at Cal, at Saint Mary’s, and at Arizona State. They have wins over Menlo College, Seattle, Eastern Washington, and Grambling State. The win over Eastern Washington was on the road.
The head coach of the Mustangs is Mike DeGeorge, who is in his first season after having success coaching at the Division II level. On DeGeorge’s staff is former Stanford assistant coach Jesse Pruitt, who brings high major experience to the program. Pruitt is in his first season with the program after being on Jerod Haase’s staff at Stanford for several seasons. The Mustangs seem to have a promising coaching staff that is eager to take their program to new heights.
The Mustangs are led by graduate student and former Cal guard Jarred Hyder (14.3 points), graduate student guard/forward Owen Koonce (14.0 points), senior guard Isaac Jessup (13.3 points), and graduate student guard Mac Riniker (10.9 points). The four of them form a very balanced scoring attack.
As a team, the Mustangs average 80.5 points per game on 47.3% shooting from the field, 34.9% shooting from 3-point range, and 75.0% shooting from the foul line. They average 35.9 rebounds, 15.6 assists, 8.9 steals, 2.4 blocks, and 16.3 turnovers per game. They also average a -1.4 rebound margin and a -3.0 turnover margin per game. Their opponents average 80.5 points per game on 43.8% shooting from the field, 33.6% shooting from 3-point range, and 68.6% shooting from the foul line.
Keys to the game: For Stanford, the first thing they need to do is keep feeding Maxime Raynaud. The big man from France has been fantastic all season long as one of the top scorers and rebounders in the country. I don’t think Cal Poly has an answer inside for him, so Stanford needs to take advantage of that.
Secondly, Stanford needs to make sure that it isn’t all on Raynaud. At times, they’ve been too reliant on him. They need to make sure they get others going. Oziyah Sellers has been great at being a number two guy as has Jaylen Blakes. This would be a great game to get other guys going and not be too reliant on Raynaud. Especially since down the road, there’s going to be plenty of moments where they’re going to need to go to Raynaud in the clutch.
Finally, Stanford needs to make some threes. 3-point shooting has been an issue for them at times. It would be nice if they could get some threes to drop and get in a good flow from beyond the arc.
Prediction: Stanford should win this one fairly easily. 84-64 Cardinal is how I see this one going.
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