On Tuesday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated Tarleton State 62-50 in their regular season opener at Maples Pavilion. Stanford freshman forward Harrison Ingram led the way for the Cardinal with 16 points and 7 rebounds while junior forward Jaiden Delaire finished with 14 points and 6 rebounds on 9-11 shooting from the foul line. Senior forward Lukas Kisunas was the other Stanford player to reach double digits with 12 points and 5 rebounds. Tarleton State senior guard Montre Gipson led the way for the Texans with 15 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists. Stanford improves to 1-0 overall while Tarleton State falls to 0-1.
“First of all, give a lot of credit to Tarleton State,” Stanford head coach Jerod Haase said after the game. “I think obviously a well-coached team. Very very scrappy. The pressure certainly bothered us, especially in that first half. They did a great job of milking the clock. I mean, their game plan was really really good and they executed I thought very very well.
“Second thing, the student section was fabulous. I think 1100, over a thousand students which is game changing. I think that impacts the game for us. It gave our guys energy and excitement and when we had some good plays, we were able to feed off of that momentum. So that was big. Pat on the back for the 6th man club ambassadors and the students for coming.
“And then from our standpoint, I think you’re going to see us grow a ton this year. I think it’s going to be a ton of fun to watch us develop and grow. Obviously we have some deficiencies right now but as we gain experience, I think those deficiencies will become maybe even positives as the year goes on. The bench play today was fantastic. I think it was a real key in the second half getting guys off the bench and producing at a high level. And that run in the second half was really the difference in the game. I think we were down seven and flipped it to get a decent lead and then we were able to hold on from there.”
Stanford got off to a 7-2 lead with 15:51 to go in the first half. Sophomore forward Max Murrell had a triple to get things going. Stanford was shooting 3-6 from the field while Tarleton State was shooting 1-5. It was a solid start for the Cardinal.
Stanford would then go up 11-4 with 11:47 to go in the half. Kisunas was up to 4 points for the Cardinal on 2-2 shooting from the field, getting a bucket inside and a nice two-handed jam. Tarleton State was shooting just 2-9 from the field.
Over the next few minutes, Tarleton State started to find their groove as they would lead 16-11 with 7:32 to go in the half. Tarleton State was on a 12-0 run over the last 3:38 as senior guard Tahj Small was up to 7 points on 3-4 shooting from the field. Stanford needed to wake up.
Stanford would soon go on a 7-0 run and lead 18-16 with 3:52 to go in the half. Ingram was up to 4 points and was on the board. Stanford was shooting 7-21 (33.1%) from the field and 1-10 from 3-point range. Hence the early funk.
Tarleton State would lead 26-22 with 22.4 to go in the half. Jerod Haase called for time, hoping that his team could get one more bucket before halftime. The timeout paid off as Ingram found the basket inside and finished, making it a 26-24 lead for Tarleton State at halftime.
At halftime, Harrison Ingram was leading all scorers with 8 points and 5 rebounds while guards Tahj Small and Shakur Daniel each had 7 points for Tarleton State. It wasn’t the type of start Stanford was hoping for, but they were still in the game. It was just a matter of responding in the second half.
The early part of the second half was a bit alarming for Stanford as Tarleton State led 31-28 with 15:54 to go. Small was up to 11 points on 5-7 shooting from the field. Stanford needed to move the ball better as they had just 6 assists. That kind of ball movement isn’t going to get the job done.
Tarleton State would then go up 35-28 with 14:17 to go. Stanford called for time as they were shooting a putrid 2-9 from the field in the half. Things needed to change fast.
That timeout appeared to light a fire in the Cardinal as Stanford would go on a 7-0 run to tie the game up 35-35 with 11:45 to go. Spencer Jones and Jaiden Delaire each got 3-pointers to fall. Freshman guard Isa Silva had a really pretty assist to Delaire, showing off his ability to facilitate.
“Handling the pressure is really important,” Haase said. “We were on our heels; we didn’t turn it over much in the second half. I’ll tell you what, at the beginning of the second half we had a lot of good shots. I mean Spencer had a couple wide open threes, we had two or three layups that were wide open. So we weren’t finishing. I think it would have been a different tone early in the second half if we were finishing our plays.
“And then the other part that I thought was real important is during the stretch when we made the run we were securing the defensive rebounds cleanly. They were getting some offensive rebounds or we would get it and they would steal it and just kinda those 50/50 balls or those scrappy balls, they came up with. And so again, during the stretch where we made the run, I do think it was important we were getting those defensive [rebounds]. Maxime was fantastic, I believe five defensive rebounds during that stretch and I think that was real important.”
“The lull, I mean I think every team goes through a lull,” Ingram added. “I think it’s kind of about how you respond. Coach Haase called a timeout and said something in the huddle to us about being surgical and being nasty because we knew this team it was one of the biggest they’re playing all year. They’re going come out and hit us first and try to hit us hard and we gotta hit’em back.”
Stanford would lead 43-36 with 7:03 to go. Isa Silva connected with fellow freshman Maxime Raynaud for the easy jam inside. The freshman 7-footer from France was making an impact inside with 6 rebounds to go along with his 2 points.
Stanford would then lead 54-42 with 4:21 to go. Ingram was now up to 13 points and 6 rebounds while Delaire had 14 points and 5 rebounds on 9-11 shooting from the foul line. Stanford was doing exactly every Pac-12 team should do against a school like Tarleton State.
“I’m definitely a downhill player,” Delaire said of his effort to get to the foul line. “I like to get to the rim. Yeah, that is one of my major focuses. Getting to free throw line. Free points and hopefully I can convert some of those into and-1s. A lot of players on the team, Harrison as well, can do that and I expect to see a lot of that moving forward as well.”
In the end, Stanford walked out with a 62-50 victory. The first 25 minutes of the game weren’t pretty and honestly were pretty sloppy, but the final 15 minutes were pretty fun to watch and encouraging. Harrison Ingram played like the McDonald’s All-American he is, Jaiden Delaire played like a seasoned upper classman, Lukas Kisunas looked like a legit Pac-12 big man, and everyone else found ways to chip in and make contributions whether it was Maxime Raynaud doing the dirty work inside, Isa Silva facilitating, or Spencer Jones knocking down some timely threes.
“It was just an amazing experience,” Ingram said of his first college game. “Seeing all the fans at Maples. Seeing my parents. I haven’t seen them in like three months. Especially my mom. Missed her and then having my friends out there at Maples and just playing my game. I mean, everything I do is to win.”
While Stanford would have liked to have won the game going away from start to finish, they got the end result they wanted and learned some important lessons along the way. They found a way to come together as a team and make the plays they needed to in order to get the win. That should serve them well as the season goes on.
“Today, I would have loved to have won by 40 points,” Haase said. “But having said that, being in a dog fight really the whole game, I think probably serves a better purpose for our team.”
Up next for Stanford will be a road game at Santa Clara on Friday at 8:00 PM PT. That game will air on CBS Sports Network and Cardinal Sports Network Radio.
