Recap: Stanford MBB grinds out a victory over Chicago State
On Wednesday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated Chicago State 72-65. Stanford forward Spencer Jones (21 points & 7 rebounds on 6-9 shooting from 3-point range), center Maxime Raynaud (17 points & 13 rebounds), and forward Harrison Ingram (15 points & 7 rebounds) led the way for the Cardinal while Chicago State guard Wesley Cardet was the top performer for the Cougars, leading all scorers with 31 points. Stanford improved to 8-12 overall (2-7 Pac-12) while Chicago State fell to 5-17 overall.
Video: Stanford Men's Basketball Postgame Press Conference: Chicago State
“Well, that was a grind,” Stanford head coach Jerod Haase said after the game. “Certainly give a lot of credit to Chicago State. They’re coming off a win, a road win, and played inspired basketball, especially at the beginning of the game. One of the things we were trying to do is protect the area around the rim and the first five possessions they scored probably six feet and in on all those and then the next few possessions that built confidence and they knocked in a couple threes in the first half. Kinda went in that direction.
“Very proud of our guys for responding. Midway through the second half and continuing to fight on the defensive end and just found ways enough to get some scores on the offensive end. Obviously some things we’re gonna learn from this game, both positives and negatives. And then try and apply them moving forward.”
Chicago State got off to a strong start, leading 16-11 with 15:24 to go in the first half. Cardet had 9 of the Cougars’ 16 points. Six of his points were off driving layups while he also had a 3-pointer. He was in a nice flow.
Chicago State continued to lead, up 31-25 with 7:15 to go in the half. Cardet was going wild with 17 points, giving Stanford all they could handle. Spencer Jones was up to 9 points, doing his part to keep the Cardinal in the game.
With 3:55 to go in the half, Chicago State led 33-29. Cardet was up to 19 points for the Cougars. Chicago State was shooting 12-25 from the field, 5-9 from 3-point range, and 4-7 from the foul line. As for Stanford, they were shooting 10-20 from the field, 4-11 from 3-point range, and 5-7 from the foul line. Chicago State’s 3-point edge is why they had a slight lead.
Chicago State would then lead by 10 points, 41-31 with 30.3 to go. Stanford had the ball and called for time, hoping to draw up a good play to end the half. To Stanford’s credit, they were able to find Spencer Jones for a much-needed triple, making it 41-34 at halftime. Jones was up to 12 points for the Cardinal on 4-7 shooting from the field and 4-5 shooting from 3-point range. As for Cardet, he was leading Chicago State with 19 points.
“The talk at halftime was pretty much you’re getting punked,” Jones admitted. “Like, we’re getting punked from a bunch of guys we should be beating. The talk before the game was come out strong, punch them in the mouth first, and keep it that way the entire game. Obviously we didn’t do that. We let them get comfortable and get confident and that’s where it happens. We got a guy like Cardet scoring 31 and a bunch of other guys making shots and making some plays that they maybe don’t normally do. You give a team confidence like that and they’re gonna keep rolling.”
With 17:34 to go, Chicago State led 43-35. Cardet was up to 21 points, continuing to put pressure on the Cardinal defense. Stanford was shooting 12-31 from the field, clearly not in the kind of offensive flow they wanted to be in.
“We told the guys, it’s a scrappy team,” Haase said. “We didn’t have a number, but we thought it would be a team that gets more deflections than any team we’ll play all year and they did that and we had to be strong with the basketball and at times we were and at times we were not. And that’s something we can learn from.”
Chicago State would lead 47-37 with 14:59 to go as Cardet was now up to 23 points. The Cardinal needed to find a way to slow him down. Ingram was up to 4 points after getting a bucket inside and had two free throws coming up. After making the free throws to make it 47-39, that seemed to ignite a bit of spark in him that Stanford desperately needed.
Stanford would then close the gap, going on an 8-0 run to make it a 52-48 game with 11:07 to go. Spencer Jones was up to 16 points after a 3-pointer and a technical free throw that was due to a flop on Chicago State. Raynaud was up to 12 points and 8 rebounds while Ingram had 9 points and 5 rebounds. The Cardinal were making their comeback.
“I mean, it was all defensive end for us,” Jones said of their comeback. “They had 41 points at half, I mean that’s not our identity. Our identity is to keep it out of the red zone and challenge three point shots and kudos to 1 Cardet, he was getting there at will and making shots and we knew we had to stop that and that was the basis of it, but other than that it was really just pride and heart and just challenging guys to play tougher, play stronger.”
Stanford would tie it up 54-54 with 7:09 to go. The Cardinal were on a 14-2 run over the last 5:32 as Jones was now up to 19 points while Raynaud had a double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds. After getting down by double digits, the Cardinal were right back in this game, doing a nice job of putting more ball pressure on the Cougars than they were in the first half.
“Yeah, yeah, it is,” Haase said when asked if increasing ball pressure is something they talked about. “It’s kind of a fine line with us because the more ball pressure you have, the more susceptible you are to direct drives and getting to the paint, which can lead to open threes. Kinda breaks down your defense.
“Overall we’re not the fastest defensive team in the country and so we need to again find that fine line, find that happy medium between trying to pressure the basketball, make them feel you so they’re not comfortable. But also build enough of a cushion so they can’t have direct drives and I thought in the second half there was a better, happy medium with that.”
Stanford would then take the lead to go up 61-57 with 3:36 to go. Jones (21 points), Raynaud (14 points), and Ingram (13 points) were all in double figures for the Cardinal. The Cougars had gone cold as they had zero field goals made in the last 2:44 and missed seven of their last eight field goal attempts.
“You said it, progressing,” Haase said of Raynaud. “Maxime’s progressing seems like game by game, practice by practice. He has that unique ability to score inside, score from the perimeter, get some rebounds, and the other thing that I think, anybody watching the game would agree he’s extremely effective doing great things. And that the future is really bright for him. That he can still get a lot better and that part’s exciting. I think it’s exciting for him.
“He needs to continue to get strong with the basketball when it’s in his hands, you know maybe sometimes taking another half-second to gather and have a great base before he goes up and shoots it, in the inside, but overall I’m thrilled with his progress. He’s doing a great job and we’re going to need to lean on him moving forward. “
From there, Stanford hung on to win by a final score of 72-65. Things were a bit hairy all the way until the end. With 41.0 to go, Stanford led 66-61, but they almost turned it over and were it not for the possession arrow being in their favor, a jump ball would have given the ball back to Chicago State. Stanford called for time with 34.6 to go and was able to make enough free throws to ice the game away. It wasn’t pretty, but Stanford did find a way to get the win in the end, outscoring Chicago State 38-24 in the second half.
A big part of why Stanford won was free throws. They shot 22-29 from the foul line while Chicago State shot 13-17. Michael O’Connell really stepped up in this department with 10 points on 8-9 shooting from the foul line while Maxime Raynaud shot 3-4, knocking down some clutch shots at the charity stripe.
“Yeah, I think I did not have a great beginning of the season, in terms of free throw percentage,” Raynaud said. “But like, I work on that every day before the game and I was working on that eventually yeah, just all my teammates trusting me to make those. I made them and I did not even think much of them. Just like free throws. Eventually, it was a clutch timing. But, it was just free throws.”
Another major point of emphasis that paid off for Stanford was rebounding. Raynaud was big with his effort on the glass and then as a team, Stanford out-rebounded Chicago State by +14. That made a big difference as the game wore on.
“Well first of all, before we go into every single game, we have always like three keys to the game,” Raynaud said. “And crashing the glass and dominating the glass was one of them. So, obviously like I was trying to just crash the glass as much as I could and as you said, with Keefe being out, I know how to double down on that and I try to get even more in those. And eventually, thank God I’m 7’1”. They were not necessarily that tall and that physical, even though they are hard playing team, so I just took advantage of that and I was at the right place at the right times. So, eventually I got 13 [rebounds]. Yeah.”
For Chicago State, this loss stings because they were outplaying Stanford for much of the night. They seemed to succumb to Stanford’s defensive pressure in the second half and then also just seemed to lose the belief in themselves. A lot of times teams like Chicago State only do so well as they believe they can do. They started to unravel at the end and while Stanford deserves a good amount of credit for making that happen, it also just seemed that Chicago State got a bit psyched out by the Cardinal uniform and the fact that their opponent was a Pac-12 school.
As for Stanford, if this isn’t the definition of “winning ugly” I don’t know what is. They won the game and at the end of the day that’s all that matters. That said, there are a lot of lessons they can take from this game, most notably not getting boat raced by an inferior team at the start, but then there’s also some positives as well about sticking together, never panicking, and getting Spencer Jones going. His six threes were crucial to the outcome. This game reminded me of last year’s home victory over Dartmouth only that one was even closer, going to overtime before Stanford pulled away in the extra period.
“Yeah, if you had the opportunity to ask me during the game, I’m sure that’s exactly what I would have said,” Haase said when asked if there were any regrets on playing the game given it wasn’t needed that they do. “I probably would have said a lot of other things, too, so it’s probably good that the interview didn’t happen then.
“Yes, we can learn a lot from this game. And there’s going to be, we’re going to take a lot from this game from a positive standpoint and we’re going to take a lot of this game from a learning/negative standpoint that we have to avoid in the future. So, we’re going to take this as a positive and looking back we’re going to say this is a positive game where we grew as a team. But we’re going to have to go through the growing pains of going through the film and watching the things that we need to learn from and it may not be pleasant, but on the other end of it, on the other side of it, it’s going to end up being a net positive for us.”
Up next for Stanford is a home game against Cal on Saturday. That will air at 7:00 PM PT on ESPNU. Stanford will honor the 1998 Final Four team, commemorating 25 years since they took the court. It will also be a revenge game given that Stanford got blown out at Cal earlier in the season.
“Yes, we understand it’s a big time game, a rivalry game, we also have not forgotten what happened the first time,” Haase said. “But just having feelings and a desire isn’t going to be good enough. We’re going to have to play well and we’re going to have to put together a heck of a game plan and we’re going to have to execute it out there and that was a game that I remember vividly, the guys are going to remember vividly, and the next two days we’re going to try and prep the best we possibly can so we can perform. Desire has not been lacking with our team and desire is not going to be lacking in this game. But execution needs to be extremely high and that’s what we need to figure out over the next couple days.”
“Yeah, I think we had more like a learning talk after the game from the coach about like preparation,” Raynaud said when asked if this game was beneficial before facing Cal. “We did not necessarily have the best practices for the past two days. And I think that taught us that we need to focus, we need to be ready for any team and obviously Cal’s going to be a big challenge, they beat us by 20 in the first game, so I think we’re gonna use that game and use that as a motivation to prepare really well for the next one and have two good practices for the next two days.”
Note: Stanford guard Isa Silva went down attacking the basket and did not return to the game. Haase said he hopes he’ll be able to play against Cal but hadn’t yet spoken with doctors. As for forward James Keefe (right hand), Haase said he’s out indefinitely, so it sounds like they’re going to have to soldier on without him for at least a little while.
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