On Tuesday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated Merrimack 74-68 in their final home game of non-conference play. Stanford wing Oziyah Sellers led the way for the Cardinal with 19 points while center Maxime Raynaud had a double-double with 16 points and 16 rebounds. Merrimack guard Adam “Bud” Clark was the top performer for the Warriors with 32 points and 6 rebounds. Stanford improves to 9-2 overall while Merrimack falls to 5-7.
VIDEO: Stanford MBB Postgame Press Conference: Merrimack
BOX SCORE: Merrimack at Stanford-Tuesday, December 17th
“Yeah, that was a tough game,” Stanford head coach Kyle Smith said after the game. “We were able to hang in there. Got up 19 early, playing really well. I thought we did some good things and weren’t able to execute as far as like putting the ball in the basket. We missed a lot of bunnies. But credit to them, they do that, but to get as many good looks at three, make 11 threes against them is really hard.
“So offensively pleased, I think we’ll see, I assume Syracuse, I assume they’re playing zone. I haven’t seen them once this year, but it’s a good test for us there and usually Oregon will mix up some defenses, too. So I think that was good for us. And then you know, hat tip to them, their point guard is a really tough cover, really good player. He kept them in it and kept coming, was relentless and that team was similar to the Cal Poly game for us and in fact, we folded against Cal Poly for us in the fact that we folded against Cal Poly and the got us and this one we were able to hang in there. Would have liked to have seen, we had it 12, made them miss, and we got an and-1. We just kind of don’t quite have the, weren’t able to do it tonight. Hopefully it’ll get better where we can.”
Early on the game was tight as Stanford led 10-8 with 15:51 to go in the first half. Jaylen Blakes was off to a hot start for the Cardinal with six points on 2-2 shooting from 3-point range while Adam Clark was up to five points for the Warriors.
“We got a lot of good shooters on the team,” Sellers said. “So, when we shoot well, it’s always a plus for us and that just goes back to trusting our work. You know, all of us, we put a lot of reps in, a lot of shots up before practice, after practice, so just trusting our work. So when we hit threes, it’s just always a great thing.”
Stanford would then go on a 9-0 run to lead 19-8 with 12:21 to go in the half. Sellers was up to five points for Stanford, most recently nailing a 3-pointer near the Tara VanDerveer Court decal.
Stanford would lead 31-14 with 5:58 to go in the half as Blakes (11 points & 5 rebounds) and Sellers (8 points) were leading the way. The Cardinal had gone a bit cold, making one of their last seven field goals.
With 3:56 to go in the half, Stanford led 37-23. Sellers and Blakes each had 11 points for Stanford. The Cardinal were still in control.
Stanford would lead 39-30 at halftime, ending the half on a 2:29 scoring drought. That allowed Merrimack to creep back into the game. Stanford needed to pick things up in the second half to ensure that Merrimack didn’t make it any more interesting.
Stanford did not start the second half the way they wanted as Merrimack opened the half on a 5-0 run. As a result, Stanford called for time up 39-35 with 19:11 to go.
Stanford would still be up by only four points as it was 46-42 with 15:11 to go. Sellers (17 points) and Blakes (14 points & 5 rebounds) continued to lead the Cardinal. At this point, Maxime Raynaud had just five points. He needed to get rolling.
Stanford was still in front, up 51-46 with 11:38 to go. Sellers was up to 19 points for Stanford, doing his part. The Cardinal needed to go on a run if they were to put the Warriors away.
Stanford would soon go on a 6-1 run to lead 57-47 with 10:16 to go. Raynaud (9 points & 10 rebounds) was starting to wake up a bit for Stanford after having a quiet first half.
With 7:52 to go, Stanford led 62-53 as Raynaud finally had his double-double with 11 points and 11 rebounds. Ryan Agarwal just hit a 3-pointer to give the Cardinal some breathing room. Stanford would maintain that same margin up 69-60 with 3:57 to go as Raynaud now had 13 points and 12 rebounds while Agarwal now had 11 points and five rebounds.
“I think their defense broke down a little bit,” Raynaud said of his second half surge. “We found me on like a couple more inside shots and on top of that, I tried to crash the boards a little bit more. So naturally it showed up. But other than that, I think in the first half we had like three guys that were just on fire from three, like JB, Ozyiah, and Ryan. So naturally, the scoring is going to spread between like a couple of guys.”
From there, Stanford would hang on to win 74-68. It got a tad dicey towards the end as Stanford was struggling to score, but Merrimack wasn’t able to muster enough juice to actually make a comeback possible.
“I think we gotta, we’re playing a little tight,” Smith said of what his team needs to do to finish games stronger. “We’re a little, you could feel it. We’re just, like Ryan, he hit some big threes, but then we still like, Oziyah had a big one, would have taken like 12 to 15 or 10 to 13. Ryan had one maybe nine to 12 and we didn’t. You just gotta take advantage of those and then just kind of get a stop. You get a bucket, get a stop. We were swapping baskets there and not a healthy way to do it, so like I said, I’ll take it as progress in the sense that Cal Poly we caved. We were shocked.
“We had a little bit of that look in there today, but we hung in there and I said, you know, I think Kate’s got a young team and I saw it [yesterday]. I left the gym with two minutes. I said I know that look because they were up like 14 and it’s just part of the growing process and hopefully they kind of got down to the wire and we had a little bit tonight, but we were able to extend a little bit.”
“Maybe that’s the one thing that we lack of: finishing games, probably,” Raynaud added. “Because other than that, I think we have all the ingredients to be one of the top teams in our league. So, I’m really not worried about it.”
For Stanford, this win is a relief. It wasn’t pretty, but at least they won. Blakes’ shot making early on was big time as was Sellers’ and then once Raynaud got going, they were able to put Merrimack away. What also should be noted is Stanford was a bit shorthanded with guards Benny Gealer and Derin Saran both out. They’re both listed as day-to-day, but with them unavailable that made things a little bit tougher on Stanford.
Up next for Stanford is a game against No. 10 Oregon at the SAP Center in San Jose on Saturday, December 21st to wrap up non-conference play. That will tipoff at 5:00 PM PT on Big Ten Network.
“It’s awesome,” Smith said of facing Oregon. “It’s a good neutral game. Quad one opportunity and they’re a really good team and I think there’s just a little excitement and it’s an old Pac-12 game and obviously coaches familiarity, a lot of players familiarity, so it’ll be fun. West Coast, high major game and going into Christmas, just kind of let it all hang out there and see what happens and like I said, great opportunity and then we got a long break and then we get into ACC play.”
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