On Saturday, Stanford men’s basketball fell to No. 14 Louisville on the road by a final score of 68-48. Louisville guards Chucky Hepburn and Terrence Edwards Jr. each scored 16 points for the Cardinals while Stanford center Maxime Raynaud had 17 points and 11 rebounds for the Cardinal. Louisville improves to 25-6 overall and 18-2 in the ACC while Stanford falls to 19-12 overall and 11-9 in the ACC. Louisville will get the No. 2 seed in the ACC tournament while Stanford will get the No. 7 seed.
BOX SCORE: Stanford at Louisville-Saturday, March 8th
Louisville got out to an early 15-5 lead with 13:35 to go in the first half as Chucky Hepburn and Aboubacar Traore each had four points. Stanford then went on a 5-0 run thanks to a 3-pointer from Jaylen Blakes and a layup from Ryan Agarwal. That made it 15-10 with 12:46 to go in the half.
Louisville then led 20-10 with 8:33 to go in the half. Stanford hadn’t made a field goal in the last 4:14. They needed to wake up offensively.
Louisville continued to dominate, leading 24-11 with 6:10 to go in the half. Chuck Hepburn was cooking for Louisville with 10 points on 4-5 shooting from the field and 2-2 shooting from the foul line. Stanford needed to slow him down.
With 3:44 to go until halftime, Louisville led 29-14. Oziyah Sellers had a nice corner three for Stanford. They needed to get more out of him.
At halftime, Louisville led 33-18: Halftime. Chuck Hepburn was leading Louisville with 12 points on 5-9 shooting from the field. Oziyah Sellers was leading Stanford with 8 points on 3-8 shooting from the field & 2-4 shooting from 3-point range.
Louisville led 35-23 with 15:41 to go. Maxime Raynaud was starting to get rolling for Stanford with nine points and eight rebounds. Louisville hadn’t scored in the last 2:49.
With 12:44 to go, Louisville led 41-33 as Stanford was closing the gap. Raynaud was up to 14 points and nine rebounds for Stanford while Agarwal had five points after making a huge 3-pointer.
Unfortunately for Stanford, that would be the closest they would get to pulling off the comeback as Louisville would pull away from there, ultimately winning by a final score of 68-48.
For Stanford, this game didn’t go the way they wanted it to go, but to their credit, it wasn’t due to a lack of effort or fight. They made Louisville finish strong in order to get the win. This was simply a case where the better team won.
Up next for Stanford is the ACC tournament in Charlotte, North Carolina. As I said at the beginning, Stanford is the No. 7 seed in the tournament. They’ll face either No. 10 Virginia Tech or No. 15 Cal on Wednesday at 4:00 PM PT on ESPN2.
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