On Thursday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated Oregon State 67-46. Stanford senior forward Spencer Jones and grad transfer guard Michael Jones each had 18 points for the Cardinal while sophomore center Maxime Raynaud (12 points & 6 rebounds) also scored in double figures. Oregon State sophomore forward Glenn Taylor, Jr. was the lone Beaver to score in double figures with 11 points on 4-7 shooting from the field. Stanford improves to 6-12 overall and 1-7 in the Pac-12 while Oregon State falls to 7-12 overall and 1-7 in the Pac-12.
“Pleased with the energy, generally throughout the game, certainly beginning of the game and obviously there was a stretch there into the first half, beginning of the second half, there was a dry spell for us,” Stanford head coach Jerod Haase said after the game. “In the beginning of the second half, I thought our shot selection was fantastic. We were getting great shots, they just weren’t going in. But the idea of kind of responding to that adversity and then getting things going back the way we want to; I was really pleased with that.
“We were able to make a couple shots from the outside, which was big. I thought Spencer was great and Michael Jones did a lot of nice things. I think the number one story for the game was defensively I thought we were able to really defend, we were switching a lot of the ball screens and had a lot of cross matches, but I thought our guys slid their feet well, challenged shots well and then we were able to rebound the basketball.”
The game was close early on as Stanford led 7-5 with 15:14 to go in the first half. Maxime Raynaud was leading the Cardinal with 4 points thanks to two dunks inside. One off the jump ball as Michael O’Connell found him running to the hoop for the slam.
“Maxime is an important piece of what we’re doing,” Haase said of Raynaud. “At the end of the day we realize we need interior touches. You can get interior touches by driving the ball to the paint, sometimes that gets a little bit more difficult, but the most effective way is to have a variety. To be able to drive the ball in the paint, to get there in transition, but also throw the basketball in there to post players, and we think Maxime can score on the post one-on-one, we need to be able to get him the ball effectively down there, and we think good things are going to happen, so that’s definitely a part of our game plan.
“The first play was drawn up. It was intentional. Brandon [Angel] set a rear screen on Maxime’s man. Michael O’Connell had a really nice pass and it was a nice way to start the game.”
Stanford would continue to lead 13-9 with 11:38 to go in the half. Raynaud was up to 6 points for the Cardinal. Stanford was shooting 5-11 from the field while Oregon State was shooting 3-11.
“He’s been great, he’s been great,” Spencer Jones said of Raynaud. “I mean obviously you know, 7’1” guy with a 7’6” wingspan. You can pretty much just throw it up and get it to him. The biggest thing for us is just keeping him to have that tough kind of mindset to always just attack, always try to throw it down on somebody’s head and really just get him mentally into the game.”
Stanford would then break things open, leading 24-12 with 7:48 to go in the half. Spencer Jones was up to 8 points for the Cardinal on 3-4 shooting from the field and 2-3 shooting from 3-point range. There was a nice give and go between Spencer Jones and Isa Silva where Silva found Jones for the two-handed slam.
Stanford would expand their lead 29-14 with 3:23 to go in the half. Spencer Jones was really coming alive with 11 points on 4-5 shooting from the field and 3-4 shooting from 3-point range. Stanford was shooting 12-24 from the field while Oregon State was shooting 5-17.
At halftime, it was a 31-22 lead for Stanford, though Oregon State closed the half on an 8-0 run, finding some life at the end. Spencer Jones was leading the way for the Cardinal with 13 points and 3 rebounds while Maxime Raynaud had 6 points. Harrison Ingram had just 2 points for Stanford, but his bucket came off a vicious put-back slam, the highlight of the night. Nobody had more than 5 points for Oregon State.
Oregon State picked up right where they left off, opening the second half on an 8-0, making it a combined 16-0 run across the end of the first half and beginning of the second half. This made it a 31-30 game as Stanford was only up by one point. However, Stanford would respond with a 5-0 run to lead 36-30 with 15:33 to go. Raynaud was up to 8 points after a bucket inside while Ingram was up to 5 points after a bucket inside plus a foul shot.
“We slipped up a little bit on our defensive assignments,” Spencer Jones said of allowing Oregon State to come back into the game. “Let our energy dip a little bit there, but kudos to some of the guys like Harrison, made some plays to get us back up there, especially in the second half. So it’s just our ability to respond. That’s gonna be our Achilles heel the entire season or the reason why we win and why we lose is how we respond.”
Stanford would continue to push out their lead again, going up 47-31 with 11:21 to go. The Cardinal were now on a 16-1 run as Michael Jones had back-to-back threes and was up to 10 points. Spencer Jones was leading the pack with 16 points.
“Yeah, I think it was good being back home,” Michael Jones said. “Great being in front of the home crowd. Had a great crowd tonight after three games on the road and three tough losses. I mean, it’s good to get back to familiar rims, get back, had a good week of practice this week and we’re just able to come out and execute. So yeah, great to be back home.”
With 7:54 to go, Stanford now led 51-31. Stanford was on a 15-0 run over the last 6:56 and a 20-1 run over the last 8:59. Stanford was shooting 7-22 from 3-point range and was out-rebounding Oregon State 33-23.
Stanford continued to keep their foot on the gas, leading 62-43 with 3:03 to go. Stanford could finally breathe as the Beavers’ dam of bricks had become a fortress. From there, Stanford walked out with a 67-46 victory.
For Stanford, this is a really nice win purely on the grounds of it being their first league win. Granted they were heavily favored coming in, but still. Teams that go through the kind of losing skid that they’ve been on usually have a tough time picking up that first win to end the skid. So Stanford should feel good to have this win.
“It is nice, like you said, to just get it off that back,” Spencer Jones said of getting their first conference win. “Finally stop seeing a zero in front of our conference record and now we’re ready to carry that momentum forward and go on a run here.”
As an added bonus, Stanford won with relative ease. Aside from the 16-0 run Oregon State went on to bookmark the end of the first half and beginning of the second half, this one was all Stanford. Their 15-0/20-1 run in the second half was fantastic and they really did a great job of putting the Beavers to bed. Stanford played like the better team.
“Coach had talked about all week after last weekend being 0 and 7, it’s admirable that we’ve been able to take a lot of punches and get back up,” Michael Jones said. “But he said it’s time to stop taking punches and going down and getting back up. It’s time to start punching ourselves. So, we’re able to come out strong tonight, attack instead of being attacked and just come out and get a win.”
As for Oregon State, this loss stings as they’ve now lost six games in a row. They were hoping to have a get it right game of their own and instead they got rocked. At this point, all they can do is just hope to go up to Berkeley and steal a win up there on Sunday. The Bears will be looking to back on track after getting crushed by Oregon, so it won’t be an easy game by any means for the Beavers.
Up next for Stanford is a home game against Oregon on Saturday. That will tip-off at 8:00 PM PT on FS1. Stanford beat Oregon at home last year and hopes to recapture some of the magic that they had in that game on Saturday night.
“I mean, yeah I remember that game really well,” Spencer Jones recalled. “You know, our celebration in the locker room, everything like that. I mean yeah, if you beat a team like that and I think they were even a little bit better last year, so we even have a lot more confidence coming in this year that we know we can get this done.”
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