On Tuesday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated Cal State Northridge 87-70 in their first round game of the NIT at Maples Pavilion. Stanford center Maxime Raynaud led the way for the Cardinal with 22 points, 11 rebounds, and five blocks while guard Oziyah Sellers had 20 points, three rebounds, and two steals. Raynaud broke the Stanford program single-season rebound record and moved into the top ten in scoring for his career. CSUN forward Keonte Jones was the top performer for the Matadors with 18 points and five rebounds, having to step up his game with leading scorer Marcus Adams Jr. out.
VIDEO: Stanford MBB Postgame Press Conference: CSUN
BOX SCORE: CSUN at Stanford-Tuesday, March 18th
“Yeah, I thought, I’m really impressed with the way we came out after, you never know in the postseason how your team is gonna respond and I thought we did great coming back from you know, a tough loss out of in the ACC tournament and we got finals going on and it was when I saw Northridge as a team, I was like ooh, it could be kryptonite for us,” Stanford head coach Kyle Smith said after the game. “Their ability to rebound, they turn you over, and we were able to do a great job handling the ball. We rebounded well enough to win and that first half, we’ve had some good first halves this year at home. We did it against and just that’s a good win over a good team.”
Stanford jumped out to a 14-4 lead with 15:47 to go in the half. Maxime Raynaud had 6 points for Stanford on 3-3 shooting from the field. Jaylen Blakes (3 points), Ryan Agarwal (3 points), & Oziyah Sellers (2 points) were also on the board for the Cardinal.
Stanford would continue to lead 18-10 with 11:55 to go in the half. CSUN went on a nice 6-0 run but had since made one of their last seven field goals. Raynaud was getting it done on both ends with eight points, three rebounds, and four blocks.
With 7:50 to go in the half, Stanford led 27-18. Stanford was on a 6-0 run over the last 1:10. Oziyah Sellers was now up to seven points for the Cardinal. Stanford was shooting 5-11 from 3-point range.
With 3:39 to go in the half, Stanford was up 39-25. Raynaud was up to 10 points & four rebounds for the Cardinal while Aidan Cammann had six points on 2-2 shooting from 3-point range. Keonte Jones was leading CSUN with nine points and three rebounds.
At halftime, Stanford led 46-29. Benny Gealer hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer for the Cardinal. He’s got 6 points. Raynaud was leading the Cardinal with 15 points, five rebounds, & four blocks. Jones was leading CSUN with 11 points & four rebounds.
Stanford continued to be on cruise control, leading 55-37 with 15:40 to go. Raynaud was up to 17 points, seven rebounds, & four blocks for Stanford while Blakes had 10 points. Jones was leading CSUN with 13 points & four rebounds. He was doing his part for the Matadors.
Stanford would lead 61-44 with 11:31 to go. Raynaud had recorded his fifth block of the night, tying a career-high that he set earlier this season at Cal. Stanford was shooting 10-25 from 3-point range. Their shooting from beyond the arc had been huge.
“Well this is a game where we could have hit 15 or 16,” Smith said of their 3-point shooting. “We had a few looks, but made enough. That’s one thing that they do do, they turn you over, but they do give you looks at the three and they’ll switch and they’ll double the post, they’ll come off strong side. They dared us a little bit. I thought for the most part, we made, like you said, eight turnovers, and made pretty good, pretty sound decisions offensively and we’ll need to continue that to keep winning.”
With 7:32 to go, Stanford was in front 70-55. Sellers was heating up for Stanford with 14 points while Raynaud had 19 points, 10 rebounds, & 5 blocks. The Cardinal were in control. Without Marcus Adams Jr. the Matadors simply didn’t have the juice that they normally have.
Stanford remained in firm control up 77-60 with 3:50 to go. Raynaud was up to 20 points, 10 rebounds, & five blocks while Sellers had 16 points. From there, Stanford would win 87-70. CSUN battled as hard as they could, but being undermanned as they were, it was just not their night.
For Stanford, this was a really good win. They took care of business with the game never really in question. Granted, CSUN was missing their leading scorer Marcus Adams Jr., but even so. They did what they what they were supposed to do and that’s something they can feel good about.
“Our coach is big on moving forward and not trying to think about the past or stay on the past,” Sellers said. “We’re big on just moving forward next play and stuff like that. So, even though we lost that game [to Louisville], we got another game and another chance today. So, we had to move forward and that’s what we did.”
While Stanford would of course prefer to be in the NCAA tournament, given they haven’t been in a postseason tournament since the 2017-18 NIT, it feels good for the program to be playing in the middle of March once again. The goal that Kyle Smith had for his program at the start of the season was to be playing in a postseason tournament and they’ve accomplished that.
“I think it’s great,” Smith said of having his program play in a postseason tournament. “I think it’s always, you gotta train your mind and your body to play this time of year, especially we’re on quarters. So I think we’ll always be playing during finals, which is the case whether you’re in the NCAA tournament or NIT unless I can get the change to semesters. But I think that’s, you know, that’s why I was proud of our guys. I pulled them in yesterday. I said listen, Northridge is probably, I don’t know if they’re quarters, they’re probably not as stressed about finals as you guys are, but no one cares.
“And I said the reason you’re here is because you have the capacity to do both and that’s what makes Stanford unique. You are tasked with more responsibilities in the classroom, etc. And yet when it’s time to compete, that’s not an out. That’s not an excuse. And I thought our guys did a great job, so I was really pleased.”
“I think Ryan mentioned during our team meeting that it’s really good for the young guys to see that Stanford can play postseasons,” Raynaud added. “And kind of set the expectation for the years to come. So I think in that regard, that’s a really good thing for the program.”
To touch quickly on CSUN, this was a good experience for their program, too. They got a chance to play in a postseason tournament and show that they can be a team that is capable of playing in the middle of March as well. Had they been at full strength, perhaps this would have gone differently for them or at least been a lot more competitive.
“I thought we battled hard. You know, we didn’t play good. That was obvious, but we fought hard, we played tough," CSUN head coach Andy Newman said of his team's performance. "Which is all you can really ask of your guys. And so I was super proud of the effort. Super proud of the year that we’ve had and now having that kind of capstoned here with an NIT appearance and getting a chance to play a really good Stanford team up here on their home court, just a great way to cap off an historic season for Cal State Northridge and just super proud of that locker room and those guys in there and the sacrifices they made and just how together they stayed all the way through until the bitter end.”
Up next for Stanford is a second round game against Kent State on Sunday, March 23rd. Tipoff is 6:00 PM PT on ESPN2.
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