On Wednesday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated Syracuse at home by a final score of 70-61. Stanford center Maxime Raynaud led the way for the Cardinal with 21 points, 15 rebounds, three steals, and one block while guard Jaylen Blakes had 14 points and six rebounds. Syracuse guard Jaquan Carlos was the top performer for the Orange with 16 points, four rebounds, and three assists. Stanford improves to 15-6 overall and 7-3 in the ACC while Syracuse falls to 9-12 overall and 3-7 in the ACC.
VIDEO: Stanford MBB Postgame Press Conference: Syracuse
BOX SCORE: Syracuse at Stanford-Wednesday, January 29th
“Yeah, that was a league game,” Stanford head coach Kyle Smith said after the game. “That’s what they look like. That was a great win for our program, for our team. Obviously we came out with a great start: 22-2. And we didn’t have Donavin tonight, he actually was available on the bench, but he tweaked his ankle yesterday in practice and then once it got going, it just felt like, it hurt our depth a little bit in our defense, I think, but hopefully he’s healthy and be able to go moving forward.
“Syracuse, they got good talent. Good perimeter talent when they went to their point guard off the bench. Kind of flipped the game for them Jaquan Carlos. He ended up playing 33 minutes, six for six, he played really well, and I thought he was key to getting them back in that thing. I said, it’s hard to this level, any level, to wire to wire a game. We did. Had opportunities I think even to, we’re a little fatigued there, like couldn’t make a shot in the second half and I thought Max got some great looks and really played with purpose there and then we gutted out a good one. That was a good win for us.”
Stanford got out to a strong start, leading 7-0 with 15:57 to go in the first half. Maxime Raynaud was on fire with five points and five rebounds, already halfway to a double-double.
Stanford would lead 22-2 with 11:21 to go in the half as the onslaught continued. The Cardinal were squeezing the juice out of the Orange. Benny Gealer had a nice triple while Oziyah Sellers had a nice hoop plus the foul. Raynaud was leading the Cardinal with eight points and seven rebounds.
Stanford would soon get their biggest lead of the night after a triple from Ryan Agarwal made it 25-2 with 10:55 to go in the half. Syracuse needed to wake up fast and get out of their slumber.
“I don’t know, we made a lot of shots,” Smith said with a chuckle about his team’s 25-2 start. “Our D was really good. So, we were playing with purpose and they do a good job of, like us, they guard the assist. You gotta score over them. They don’t provide a lot of help and were getting some downhill drives and Max playing well and then our defense was really good. I think we had them befuddled a little bit with some of our switching man and zone stuff, but then they got hip to it. They got into it and they started making plays and didn’t have a lot of answers there. So, we kinda hung on.”
“I think defense,” Raynaud said of the key to their strong start. “We always talk about two things: A kill, which is three stops in a row and mini games, which is basically the amount of time during two media timeouts and we started off with like three kills in a row and we won the first three mini games basically. So, that’s where it started. We got a couple blocked shots, forced them into tough twos, got a ton of rebounds right away.
“We knew we had to get physical early on with Eddie Lampkin, which we did and we knew how to take their shooters off the 3-point line. Number eight was a really good shooter. The guards did an amazing job there. So, yeah, knew the scouting report, threw the first punch, and finished the repossession with a rebound.”
Syracuse would start to do just that as they would go on a 7-0 run to make it 25-9 with 7:05 to go in the half. Jaquan Carolos was up to five points for the Orange, starting to find a nice groove.
Stanford would lead 29-20 with 4:06 to go in the half. Syracuse had made five of their last six field goals while Stanford had made one of their last seven. Stanford called for time. The Orange were starting to find their mojo. Stanford needed to finish the half strong as they had gone colder than the Arctic Ocean.
At halftime, Stanford led 33-24. Raynaud was leading the Cardinal with 11 points and 11 rebounds while Sellers had seven points. Carlos was leading the Orange with seven points, three rebounds, and three assists.
“We measure each mini game, the first two medias we won obviously convincingly, and the idea was like hey, let’s win the next one,” Smith said of what his message to the team was at halftime. “We went into halftime and lost the last three, I believe and then we won the next one for the first four minutes coming out of the second half…It was stay the course. We’ve been talking about handling success, staying disciplined with what we do, I don’t think we got away from, we stayed with our game planning, they made that run, they’re good, we struggled to guard them man a little bit, and when man to man they’re getting downhill on us and like I said, I think Carlos got them going a little bit.”
“I think it was a teaching moment,” Raynaud added. “A teaching moment more than a frustrating moment. It’s really good that we face that now than later in the season when we’re up by 10 and they are up by 10, right? We knew they were a really good team. They could come back at any time…We knew they were going to come back, we knew we had a really good start. Gotta learn from it. Gotta learn from it. I think our team did a really good job of moving on, just noticing the great plays than the low lights and yeah, proud of the guys and proud of the way we finished.”
Stanford would lead 41-333 with 15:56 to go as things were going back and forth. Sellers and Blakes both had 10 points for the Cardinal while Carlos had 10 points for the Orange. Stanford was still in front, but Syracuse was hanging around.
Stanford would lead 47-33 with 13:17 to go. Stanford was on a 6-0 run. With Donavin Young resting due to an ankle injury, Evan Stinson got a bit of a run for the Cardinal and was bringing nice energy off the bench with four points during that run.
“So we were just trying to play clip by clip and then in the second half, we were I could tell, it was hard. It was hard to get stops,” Smith said. “We looked a little fatigued, Oziyah looked a little long, Ryan there, and that’s when I said I gotta get Evan in there, I thought he would give us some day and he played great in a short six minute role, made two baskets, was aggressive, got three shots up.
“I like to see that. That helped us. It was just like, good, you know, and that can go a lot of ways when you’re a freshman, you didn’t play in the first half, get your number called, and that helped us and we’ll see where Donavin is at, but I think we had a good rotation at eight and Evan has been our ninth and we got some other guys down there that can help, too.”
“One thing that we talk about is being a team,” Blakes added. “You know, not being individuals and it wasn’t one play that was going to manage to make the lead go back up to 20. It was multiple. Multiple plays. So, for us it was being together as a team.”
With 7:37 to go, Stanford led 58-50. Raynaud was leading Stanford with 16 points and 13 rebounds while Blakes was up to 12 points. Former Colorado Buffalo Eddie Lampkin Jr. was starting to go to work inside for Syracuse with 10 points and six rebounds.
Syracuse would continue to chip away at Stanford’s lead as it was a 62-56 game with 3:33 to go. To Syracuse’s credit, they were still in this game as they were on a 6-0 run over the last 2:04. Stanford needed to put the nail in the coffin right away.
On the next Stanford possession, Raynaud hit a jump hook inside to make it 64-56 with 2:55 to go. That gave Stanford a much-needed cushion and from there, they were able to fend off the Orange, walking out with a 70-61 victory as Gealer went 3-4 at the foul line down the stretch.
“I’m just really pleased with, he had a tough patch there when we started ACC on the road and league and I just challenged him,” Smith said of Gealer. “I said you gotta guard. You know, he wasn’t. It’s not him. He’s a fighter. I don’t even like to mention oh, he’s a former walk on. Forget that. He’s a good player and I keep telling him that. He reminds me of some guys I’ve coached in the past and you just gotta fight your way through there and he’s become really good defensively.
“He gives us another guy that can guard the ball, puts pressure, creates some havoc, through that he’s gotten more comfortable and confident and him putting the ball in the basket. Like last game against Florida State, he hit some tough shots into the clock and everyone would be like, oh, that’s kind of flukey. I was like nope. We see that in practice all the time and sometimes there’s a lag there, so him getting that confidence and being a competitor, then making plays late, he’s just all about winning, too. So it’s nice to see him have that kind of success.”
For Stanford this is a nice win. They built up a huge lead and were rewarded in the end. While Syracuse did make it interesting, the game was never really in question. Stanford did a good job of bending, but not breaking. Of course, Maxime Raynaud was a major reason for that. Every time Stanford really needed a bucket or a rebound, he was able to step up.
As for Syracuse, this is a frustrating outcome, but they can’t be surprised to lose after getting down 25-2. If you get down by that much, you really can’t expect to win. They can take some positives from their comeback provided they learn to not get down by this much going forward. It’ll be interesting to see if they’ll be able to get off to a better start at Cal on Saturday.
Up next for Stanford is a road game at SMU on Saturday, February 1st. Tipoff is set for 3:00 PM PT on ACC Network.
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