On Tuesday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated Northern Arizona by a final score of 90-64. Stanford senior center Maxime Raynaud led the way for the Cardinal with 22 points and 11 rebounds while junior shooting guard Oziyah Sellers had 17 points. Northern Arizona senior guard Trenton McLaughlin led the way for the Lumberjacks with 20 points. Stanford improves to 3-0 overall while Northern Arizona falls to 2-1.
VIDEO: Stanford MBB Postgame Press Conference: Northern Arizona
BOX SCORE: Northern Arizona at Stanford-Tuesday, November 12th
“I thought it was a good result and did a lot of good things out there,” Stanford head coach Kyle Smith said after the game. “Really great offensive effort. We’ve been kind of hanging our hat on our defense the first two games, turning people over. Didn’t turn these guys over. Had to show them some zone and stuff that, but point guards go nine assists no turnovers, we shot 56 from the field, 52 from three, 88 from the line. You can always be pleased with that. That’s pretty awesome. But credit to them. The McLaughlin kid is a really tough cover. Even though the results, they gave us a hard time both start both halves.”
Stanford went with a bit of a different starting lineup for this one. Replacing Aidan Cammann in the post was Chisom Okpara. The rest of it was the same with Jaylen Blakes, Benny Gealer, and Oziyah Sellers in the backcourt and Maxime Raynaud at center.
“I thought Chisom has been coming on and just they were a little smaller,” Smith said of the lineup change. “And Aidan, he had four fouls last game and like he’s a freshman and Chisom’s an older guy, but hoping to, I thought he’d play better and Chisom didn’t handle starting as well as you’d hope, but this is a pretty good team. I like when I said hey we’re making a switch they both said fine. They’re both like gotcha coach you know, which is some teams you’re gonna have to but I think it’s a testament to Maxime’s leadership and everything, these guys are like whatever, you know, whatever it takes to win. They wanna do well.”
Northern Arizona got out to an early 8-0 lead with 17:15 to go in the first half. The Lumberjacks were 4-4 from the field. Stanford called for time, looking to regroup.
“I’m not sure what I said to be honest,” Smith said of what he told the team. “I just know we need a time out. It was 8-0 and I was like, they make good plays, but at the same time we’ve been so active with our hands and contesting shots and deflecting balls, we didn’t turn it over I don’t think in this stretch, but we didn’t get a stop first four possessions, so I just thought it got their attention and we went to the bench and Ryan Agarwal he was plus thirty three when we were out there tonight, so I thought he had a big hand. Aidan came in there, too. Did a good job. Those two kind of gave us a nice lift and we started banging some shots and I think we went on a big run.”
Northern Arizona would lead 13-6 with 14:41 to go in the half. The Lumberjacks were shooting 6-9 from the field while the Cardinal were shooting 2-8. Oakland Fort was leading the Lumberjacks with four points.
Stanford would soon wake up as they tied it up 13-13 with 12:36 to go in the half. The Cardinal were on a 9-0 run after a nice slam inside by Raynaud and a corner 3-pointer by Cammann. Stanford would then lead 18-13 with 10:06 to go in the half. The Cardinal were on a 14-0 run as Raynaud was up to nine points and six rebounds.
With 7:38 to go in the half, Stanford led 20-16. Raynaud continued to lead the way for the Cardinal with 11 points and six rebounds. Stanford hadn’t scored in the last 2:04, so things were cooling off a bit for them.
Stanford would grow their lead 32-21 with 3:46 to go in the half. Sellers was starting to heat up for the Cardinal with nine points on 4-5 shooting from the field and 1-1 shooting from 3-point range.
At halftime, Stanford led 48-26. Maxime Raynaud led the way for the Cardinal with 13 points and eight rebounds while Oziyah Sellers (12 points) and Benny Gealer (10 points) were in double figures.
Northern Arizona jumped out to a 10-2 run to open the second half as they led 50-36 with 17:10 to go. Fort was up to 13 points for the Lumberjacks, doing his part to keep them in it. Once again, Stanford needed to regroup to not allow the Lumberjacks to get any more back in the contest.
Stanford would once again gain more separation as they led 67-49 with 10:04 to go. Maxime Raynaud’s 19 points and eight rebounds led the way for the Cardinal while Ryan Agarwal was up to 15 points and four rebounds on 5-6 shooting from the field and 4-5 shooting from 3-point range.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s been a long journey,” Agarwal said of his growth. “I mean, I’m not where I wanna be yet, but I mean, like last year, I redshirted, sat out, and I don’t think a lot of people plan to do that going into college. So I mean, my process has been different, but I just you know, everyday just kind of continuing to know when it’s going to come if I continue putting the work in. So, yeah man I’m just enjoying it. I’m just happy, you know, not playing last year, whether I’m playing a couple minutes or a lot of minutes, I’m just happy to be out there this year.”
Over the next few minutes, Stanford would continue to be in control as they led 82-57 with 6:03 to go. Raynaud now had a double double with 22 points and 10 rebounds. Stanford had made seven straight field goals.
With 3:14 to go, Stanford was up 86-57. Jaylen Blakes was up to 13 points for the Cardinal after a nice steal and slam in transition. Stanford was on an 8-0 run over the last 3:08.
“He’s a point of our defense,” Smith said of Blakes. “He’s up there bulldogging. When we went to zone stuff and he got some deflections, got us going and then he’s just been great on his decision making. Penetrating, making the right decisions, two steals again, four assists, no turnovers, banged the three. Just happy to have him. His confidence is growing from where we were the two scrimmages. Again, his role has changed completely from where he was doing at Duke. That takes some time sometimes. His character is really high. I mean, he’s a three six student graduate at Duke and just really kind of do a lot of great things in life and getting this opportunity, kinda lead a lead. It’s a win-win for everybody where our program is and getting him an opportunity to do this has been awesome.”
In the end, Stanford would win 90-64. Aside from a couple of hiccups to start the first and second half, it was Cardinal all the way in this one. They were fantastic on both ends of the floor and are now off to their first 3-0 start since the 2019-20 season.
This was also an historic game for the Cardinal in that this was their first game playing on what is now Tara VanDerveer Court. The court was re-named on Sunday before the women’s basketball game against Gonzaga and now the men’s team can say they have played their first game on the new look court.
“She’s been awesome towards me,” Smith said of VanDerveer. “She’s been unbelievably welcoming. It’s kind of a neat thing. I made sure I was at her press conference, which was shortly after I got the job. Like she told me like the day before that she was gonna retire and everything and I was just kind of on her, like she didn’t have to tell me that. But she’s been great. “I love watching their team play. Because they run what I’ll call it the Columbia offense, but really Princeton offense when I was running back in 2014 and their ability to execute and that’s Kate.
"But I was at the game when they honored Tara and it’s neat. It’s like playing on Coach K Court, just on the women’s side. That’s fine. And I told our team before last game and said you guys are in the presence of something special here. I mean, they’ve been good for forty years and it’s an elite and that’s what Stanford can be. Men’s, too. But it takes time, but honor that and I said it’s like the Patriots had a twenty year run, I’m intrigued to know how they did that and Stanford women’s basketball has been able to keep it at a very high level and pretty cool.”
For Maxime Raynaud, what made this win special was having his parents in attendance to watch. Being from France, they don’t get to see him play live very often, so he had fun having a strong performance with them in the stands to cheer him on.
“I mean, it means a lot,” Raynaud said of the chance to play in from of his parents. “I see them about once a year since they’re in France. They usually come around for the Thanksgiving tournament to watch more games. We don’t really have one this year, so I’m really happy to have them over. Even off the court has been a blast. You know, like introducing them to my friends, like show them what I live on a day to day basis. I think, like, this whole college athletics thing is not a thing in France. So it’s very new to them and I’m really happy to show them to win and show them that the team is doing good and that the school is doing good as well. So, it means a lot to me. Really happy to see them. Calling my sister on FaceTime right after, too. So, it's really a blessing, yeah.”
Overall, things are going good for the Cardinal to start the season. Everyone seems to be buying into Kyle Smith’s philosophy and playing the kind of basketball that he wants them to be playing. If they continue to show this kind of growth, perhaps they’ll surprise some people in the ACC.
“Oh yeah, absolutely, you gotta keep getting better,” Smith said of how he feels the season is going. “But what I think a couple positives, I thought it was Maxime’s best game, best floor game, best sharing the ball, because I told him he’s going to see every double team match. You’re gonna see low side doubles, you see high side doubles, you’re gonna see fronting, and you can move around all the floors. So I thought that was growth.
“And that’s what I said, the first two games, Maxime was good. Double doubles. But there’s more. He finished well tonight. And that’s like a point guard play. Nine assists, no turnovers. But Benny made good decisions, not shooting well from two, we gotta get that better and then we gotta get defensive rebounding, you know, it’s Maxime’s kind of, he’s a great one, so he hogs a lot of them, but we gotta really make a concerted effort to rebound long ones. Like Ryan’s a really good rebounder, perimeter rebounder, our fours Aidan and Chisom have not been what we need them to be on the rebound thing. That’ll be an area that we need to keep getting better. I think it’s going to be a challenge for us. Just defensive rebounding as we play bigger teams and stuff like that.
“Hopefully get Tallis maybe coming and Aidan playing bigger. Like I said, Jaylen Thompson he made an impression on us tonight. Just getting on the glass. Three rebounds in six minutes and he’s got good length and hopefully he keeps coming. We need him.”
Up next for Stanford is a home game against UC Davis on Sunday, November 17th. Tipoff is set for 1:00 PM PT on ACCNX.
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