On Wednesday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated Miami by a final score of 88-51. Stanford center Maxime Raynaud led the way for the Cardinal with 28 points and 12 rebound while Chisom Okpara (12 points & 4 assists), Jaylen Blakes (12 points & 4 assists), Ryan Agarwal (11 points & 5 rebounds), and Oziyah Sellers (10 points) also scored in double figures. Miami guard Matthew Cleveland was the top performer for the Hurricanes with 23 points. Stanford improves to 13-6 overall and 5-3 in the ACC while Miami falls to 4-15 overall and 0-8 in the ACC.
VIDEO: Stanford MBB Postgame Press Conference: Miami
BOX SCORE: Miami at Stanford-Wednesday, January 22nd
“Yeah, that was, obviously I thought we played really well,” Stanford head coach Kyle Smith said after the game. “I know going into that game, coming off a big win, it was good to see if we could handle success and our goal today was just stay disciplined and do what we did. Play the right way and I thought we really did do that. There were a handful of plays that weren’t necessarily the prettiest but when they stick in your mind that’s usually when you play well because I thought we were, couple rough patches here and there, but gosh dang, we just, it’s not easy and we did it.
“Obviously, Miami is, you know, in turmoil a little bit, change of coaches, but they got good players. I know they do and we could easily find a way to get that thing close and like I said, Cal Poly, we didn’t get that one done, that could happen. So, really pleased with our team effort and they played unselfishly, I thought.”
This one was one-way traffic for the Cardinal from the jump as they led 14-3 with 14:35 to go in the first half. Maxime Raynaud was up to five points and three rebounds for the Cardinal while Jaylen Blakes had four points. Stanford was shooting 5-8 from the field while Miami was shooting 1-7.
Stanford would extend their lead 21-3 with 11:53 to go in the half. Stanford was on a 14-0 run over the last 4:00 and a 21-2 run over the last 5:45. Oziyah Sellers was up to seven points on 3-3 shooting from the field. The Cardinal continued to dominate.
With 6:51 to go in the half, Stanford led 32-11. Raynaud was up to nine points and six rebounds for Stanford. The Cardinal were shooting 12-19 from the field while the Hurricanes were shooting 5-19. Miami was even having a hard time with free throws, shooting 1-6 at the line.
Stanford would then go into a bit of a funk, their only dry spell of the night as it was a 32-17 game with 2:52 to go in the half. Miami was on an 8-0 run over the last 4:24. Stanford needed to heat up again as Miami was looking like they had a bit of life.
At halftime, Stanford would lead 37-21. Sellers’ 10 points was leading the Cardinal while Raynaud was right behind him with nine points and eight rebounds. Overall a very strong half for the Cardinal.
Stanford got off to a good start in the second half, leading 46-28 with 15:17 to go. Raynaud was up to 16 points and 10 rebounds, continuing to lead the way. Miami had made just one of their last eight field goals.
Stanford continued to put the hurt on Miami, leading 62-34 with 11:55 to go. Stanford was on a 7-0 run. Ryan Agarwal was up to 11 points and five rebounds on 3-5 shooting from 3-point range, finding his groove from beyond the arc. As for Raynaud, he was up to 24 points and 10 rebounds.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s just confidence from my teammates and from my coaches continuously,” Agarwal said of his 3-point success. “It’s never been Ryan stop shooting the ball. It’s Ryan keep shooting. Confidence every single time, practice, games, whatever and whatnot. So, yeah, I mean, it’s confidence in myself, too. Knowing it’s gonna fall and it did tonight.”
Stanford would continue to blow the Hurricanes away, leading 77-40 with 5:09 to go. Raynaud was up to 28 points and 12 rebounds while Blakes was up to 12 points after a transition dunk. At this point, it was clear that Miami wanted to get out of the building.
“No, I’m gonna relish every second,” Smith said of coaching Raynaud. “There’s just this rare generational player for Stanford I think in the last, I don’t know, whatever. He’s just probably, like I said, it’ll be the best individual season and let’s see how good the team gets because the better he gets, the better we can be and there’s no doubt about that…No, I will not get tired talking about Maxime.”
“On my end it’s really just putting the same amount of work every day for the past four years,” Raynaud said of his success. “Having people allow me to do that…I mean, we just play really well as a team…I think the team is doing really really well. I’m glad I can help in any way.”
And get out of the building Miami would, but not before Stanford freshman Anthony Batson Jr. would have a 360 dunk to end the game. He would get called for a technical foul for hanging on the rim like Spider-Man. 88-51 would be the final score as Stanford had their largest margin of victory the season.
For Stanford, this went as well as they could have hoped. They dominated from start to finish and was able to get 14 players into the game. Aside from a brief scoring drought at the end of the first half, they were in a good offensive rhythm all night long. There’s really not anything for them to be too upset with about how this game went.
“We don’t have any bad players,” Smith said. “We really don’t and my approach is that as I’ve gotten older as a coach is embrace them all. It’s like and I know how hard is to have been on teams where I didn’t get to play and sometimes you get ignored and it’s like you’re taken for granted. If you’re player you want to play. Bottom line. It’s understandable. I get it. You don’t want to hear you’re not good enough. I just say oh, no, you’re good enough. I can only play seven, eight. You know, we’ll get to nine and ten.
“And like I said, those forwards we have like Cam Grant. He came in there again. I know it was late in the game, but he made a three, he got two rebounds. It’s kind of like, he can shoot and grab rebounds. He needs to work on his defense and Jaylen’s our best in one-three-one. There’s just those guys and he’s had a moment. It's like the end of the Virginia game I think it was where he dunked. I was like what’s that? I said, it’s pretty good…Like I said, we can get better as we go.”
That all said, Stanford has a certain standard that they expect to play at. They’re trying to stay grounded and don’t want to get overly confident. This was something that was hammered home by Kyle Smith during Monday’s practice after the win at North Carolina.
“I thought we were just, Monday, we were just a little loose,” Smith explained. “It was just there’s a standard. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but it was like we were kind of going through the motions and some and I said hey, on the line, run and then we kinda dogged it in that. And I said no, no, no we’re gonna run.
“Like we talked about it, so nothing more than that and I think that and normally these guys are pretty responsible that way, and I said you know what, you can interpret that as coach like, you want to be really tough on us because we just had a good win, but it was reality is, because we’re pretty even keeled, I really try to be there. The standard is the standard and we got it, we got to call ourselves accountable and did a good job responding the way they did today.”
Up next for Stanford is a home game against Florida State on Saturday. Tipoff is set for 4:00 PM PT on ACC Network.
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