On Saturday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated Cal at home by a final score of 66-61. Stanford center Maxime Raynaud (20 points, 8 rebounds, & 3 blocks) led the way for the Cardinal while guard Oziyah Sellers (14 points) was the number two scorer. Cal guard Jeremiah Wilkinson (19 points & 6 rebounds) was the leading scorer for the Golden Bears while guard Andrej Stojakovic (16 points & 10 rebounds) was right behind him with a double-double. Stanford improves to 17-10 overall and 9-7 in the ACC, securing their first regular season sweep over Cal since the 2020-21 season. Cal falls to 12-15 overall and 5-11 in the ACC.
VIDEO: Stanford MBB Postgame Press Conference: Cal
BOX SCORE: Cal at Stanford-Saturday, February 22nd
“That was a great atmosphere, great game, nice to be involved with a rivalry like that,” Stanford head coach Kyle Smith said after the game. “Especially with trying to honor Coach Montgomery and went down about how I expected. We played pretty well there for just to had a pretty good hole in the game and then they went small and pressed us. Obviously fouled out both our point guards, so that made it really tough and we were able to just kind persevere. Ryan made a big shot for us up five, then we couldn’t get it in, and made a couple stops and got some rebounds in a really physical, tough game. What we expected. So, happy to get that win.”
Cal got off to a 2-0 lead with 18:11 to go in the half after Jeremiah Wilkinson had a fast break layup. Stanford called for time as Kyle Smith was clearly not happy with his team’s effort.
“Yeah, I have. I have,” Smith said with a laugh when asked if he had ever called a timeout so quickly before. “I’ve done it before. So I was just like, I just thought we were just making some funny decisions and I was like, hey, if I know there’s nerves in that, but I just wanted to try to get their attention. Like, we’re not, like we had three turnovers, we took two bad shots, we hadn’t scored. I was like, it’s okay not to score, but let’s try to respect the game. Respect the game. Play the right way and we did a great job the rest of that half until the very end of the first half, we kind of had a couple of bonehead, but maybe we could have been up ten, we were only up six.”
Cal would lead 7-2 with 15:42 to go in the half. Andrej Stojakovic had a 3-pointer for the Bears while Maxime Raynaud had a dunk inside for the Cardinal. Cal was shooting 3-7 from the field while Stanford was shooting 1-7.
Stanford would lead 14-12 with 9:06 to go in the half. The Cardinal had started to wake up, especially Raynaud, who had eight points and two rebounds. Cal had made just one of their last nine field goal attempts. They had gone cold.
With 6:35 to go in the half, Stanford led 18-12. The Cardinal were on a 13-2 run over the last 7:13. Chisom Okpara was up to five points for the Cardinal with a transition bucket and a 3-pointer. Stanford was shooting 7-19 from the field while Cal was shooting 4-21.
Shortly thereafter, Oziyah Sellers finally got on the board for Stanford with a 3-pointer. That made it a 21-14 lead for Stanford with 5:09 to go in the half.
With 3:30 to go in the half, Stanford led 23-16 as they had made five of their last seven field goals. Maxime Raynaud’s eight points and three rebounds was leading the Cardinal.
At halftime, Stanford led 28-22. Raynaud was leading the Cardinal with 11 points and five rebounds while Stojakovic was leading the Bears with seven points and four rebounds.
Stanford would get out to an 8-3 start in the second half, leading 36-25 with 14:34 to go. It was an ugly game for both teams, but Stanford was in control.
Stanford continued to lead 43-30 with 11:57 to go. Sellers was now up to 10 points for Stanford, who as a team was 15-37 from the field. Cal in contrast was 12-40 from the field. All things were continuing to look favorable for Stanford as they had a 15-8 edge in the second half.
To Cal’s credit, they did not throw in the towel. Instead they kept fighting and went on an 8-0 run to make it a 52-44 game with 8:16 to go over a stretch that was less than a minute. Jeremiah Wilkinson was up to 13 points as Stanford called for time.
With 6:24 to go, Stanford led 52-46. Cal was now on a 10-0 run over the last 2:47. Stanford needed to wake up as Cal was very much in the game.
Stanford’s lead would shrink to two points as they led 52-50 with 4:58 to go. Cal was now on a 17-3 run. An incredible comeback by the Bears as Wilkinson (15 points) and Stojakovic (11 points) were both in double figures.
With 3:52 to go, Stanford had a bit more breathing room up 56-50. Raynaud was up to 15 points and seven rebounds for the Cardinal after making a pair of free throws and also a tough turnaround jumper.
Stanford then led 58-52 with 2:20 to go as Raynaud was up to 17 points and seven rebounds. The Cardinal were looking to hang on after what had been a pretty ugly contest.
Cal would find one more second wind as they went on a 6-0 run over a period of 1:20 to make it a 58-56 game with 1:30 to go. Down by two, the Bears had a pulse.
On the next Stanford possession, Ryan Agarwal hit a huge straight away 3-pointer in the face of Andrej Stojakovic, making it a 61-56 game. Wilkinson then answered with a pair of free throws to make it 61-58 with 55.0 to go.
“I honestly can’t remember what the exact play call was,” Agarwal said of his shot. “But it kind of went down a little bit, too. End of the shot clock and Max kind of set one but slipped out and so there was no really like a bandage play. ‘Dre was guarding me, he was a little behind, like kind of a little off me, and I said I’m just gonna shoot this thing, man and I’m glad it went in.”
“There’s a lag time where we get to see some, for certain guys, like you see some stuff in practice that you’re like it’s coming,” Smith said of Agarwal’s big shot. “It’s coming. It’s coming and he’s got a good feel. He pulled a long three early in that second half, too. I was saying come on, Ryan, we’re shooting 27 percent. But I feel comfortable in him shooting there and he made a big one there and obviously the game winner against NC State gave him confidence and almost had a triple double and then tonight he was really steady.”
Stojakovic then got a huge basket plus the foul for Cal, converting the foul shot to make it 61-61. Raynaud then got fouled and made both foul shots for Stanford to make it 63-61 with 23.9 to go. Cal head coach Mark Madsen called for time, looking to draw up a play for Stojakovic to go isolation and win the game or force overtime. Stojakovic would not be able to get his shot to fall as Raynaud got the rebound and was fouled. Raynaud then went 1-2 at the foul line to make it 64-61. This gave Cal one more chance to force overtime.
This time it was Wilkinson that went isolation one-on-one for Cal and his 3-pointer clanged off the rim, rebounded by Sellers. Sellers got fouled and went to the foul line to make both foul shots with 0.7 seconds left. Stanford 66 Cal 61 would be the final score as the Cardinal survived.
“We had a slow start,” Madsen lamented after the game. “Stanford had all the energy in the first half and really to start the second half. Our guys stayed with it. They battled. We gave our ourselves a chance to come back into the game. Fell short.”
“It was good, they were really aggressive toward the end,” Raynaud said of Cal. “And that’s what makes a good game, makes a good story, you know? So, they kept coming back, tested our resilience, but you know, we’re a very resilient team, we’re at home. We don’t lose very often.”
For Stanford, this is a huge relief to win this game. Cal is a bad team with a NET worse than St. Thomas of Saint Paul, Minnesota. You have to beat bad teams at home even if they are your rival. And to Stanford’s credit, they found a way to do that even though it wasn’t pretty.
“Getting the win over there earlier this year was I believe one of the reasons why we started off the season so well,” Raynaud said. “Just because it was the first ACC game and obviously on top of having them coming back, we had so much more to this game like Coach Mike Montgomery coming back, all the former players coming back, parents weekend as well, I think it meant a lot for the program but also for the school in general and getting a sweep over your rival is the best feeling in the world.”
The other thing that makes this win special for Stanford is it secures a regular season sweep over Cal. Even though Cal as of late hasn’t been a good men’s basketball team, they’re still a hard team to sweep given how hard they play against the Cardinal. To complete the sweep is something that Stanford should definitely feel good about.
“I think it secured a winning season,” Smith said. “Which I don’t think has happened in like five years. Is that possible? Is that right? First time in four years, a winning season. I didn’t talk about that with our team, but there’s a threshold. I mean, they’ve been, some of the guys have been in the program playing with a heavy burden on them the last couple of years, not necessarily even fair to them, but to have that and with games to go and keep striving for postseason’s is important.”
Lastly, it was cool that former Stanford and Cal head coach Mike Montgomery was honored during the game. He had a great head coaching career at Stanford and Cal, making a positive impact on both programs. Kyle Smith is hoping they can turn the rivalry game into something that honors him every year. We’ll see if that happens.
“It’s great,” Smith said of being part of the rivalry. “We’re trying to get a name. We’re trying to go with Monty Cup. We’re trying to call it the Monty Cup and see if that sticks. I lived in the Bay Area a long time, I didn’t know about that axe thing. Maybe I did. I said we gotta get something going for our game and Coach Rev, he’s been trying to put together with Mark and everything. He’s trying to make it something with Coach Montgomery.
“But like I said, it was neat to have him up here, seeing his former player, coaching on the other sideline and I think he’s probably a really proud guy. It’s just neat to be associated with Stanford and this rivalry and you know lived in this place for pretty much my whole, I’ve lived all over the place, but my adult life I’ve lived in the Bay Area more than any other place.”
Up next for Stanford is a home game against Boston College on Wednesday. Tipoff is set for 6:00 PM PT on ACC Network.
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