On Saturday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated USC on The Farm by a final score of 99-68. It was a sellout crowd at Maples Pavilion with 7,563 in attendance. Stanford junior center Maxime Raynaud led the way for the Cardinal with 25 points, nine rebounds, and five assists while freshman wing Andrej Stojakovic had a career-high 20 points. Stanford also made a program-record 19 threes in the game on 38 attempts, shooting 50.0% from deep. That’s tied for the most threes made in a game by any team in the country this season. USC guard Isaiah Collier was the lone Trojan in double figures with 18 points. Stanford improves to 12-11 overall and 7-6 in the Pac-12 while USC falls to 9-15 overall and 3-10 in the Pac-12.
BOX SCORE: USC at Stanford-Saturday, February 10th
VIDEO: Stanford MBB Postgame Press Conference | USC
“The crowd was a home court advantage,” Stanford head coach Jerod Haase said after the game. “It was really cool. Our guys fed off that energy, obviously there was an excitement in the building. Once we had success, our team fed off that energy, the crowd fed off of that energy as well. But a deep and sincere thank you to all the fans, all the students that came out tonight and supported the team. It was a big, big deal.
“As the year goes on, one of the things we’re, the vast majority of the teams, is you go through the highs and lows of a season and we just lost back-to-back games. And a lot of times when that happens, you see splintering, you see blaming and complaining, excuses; and our practice yesterday was maybe the best one of the season. And our guys were focused, nothing over-the-top crazy, but just business-like, did their job, unbelievable in their approach and I thought that made a big impact on our play. So, proud of the guys in how they approached adversity coming into this game and obviously we played exceptionally well shooting the ball like that. Kind of was a game-changing kind of a thing.”
The game was tight early as Stanford led 11-9 with 15:22 to go in the first half. Raynaud was up to six points for the Cardinal, doing a nice job of establishing himself inside.
It did not remain a tight game for long as Stanford soon led 23-14 with 11:08 to go in the half as they were on an 8-0 run. Raynaud was up to 10 points for the Cardinal while Stojakovic was up to five points on 2-2 shooting from the field and 1-1 shooting from 3-point range.
Stanford continued to remain on fire as they led 32-14 with 8:32 to go in the half. They were now on a 17-0 run. Stojakovic was up to 11 points on 4-4 shooting from the field and 3-3 shooting from 3-point range. Kanaan Carlyle was now on the board for the Cardinal with a triple.
The run didn’t end there. With 6:10 to go in the half, Stanford led 40-14 as they were on a 25-0 run. Raynaud was up to 15 points and four rebounds. The Cardinal were playing out of their heads while USC was unable to come up with any answers.
With 3:11 to go in the half, Stanford led 46-24 as both teams were now trading baskets. Stanford had made eight of their last 10 field goal attempts while USC had made four of their last four.
At halftime, Stanford led 55-26. Raynaud’s 15 points and four rebounds led the Cardinal while Stojakovic was right behind him with 14 points and four rebounds. Stanford had made 12 threes already, which set a new program-record for most threes in a half. As for USC, nobody was in double figures for them.
“We talked about it at halftime, the guys that came out of the bench just came out with a crazy energy,” Raynaud said of their defensive effort. “We have something called ‘turkeys’, which means we get three stops in a row. We got five of them in the first half, which is probably our season’s best, I’d say. Yeah, they just all came out with an amazing energy, rebounding the ball really hard, everybody knew the scouting report by heart, we were flying around, rotations were on point, I think that’s what made the real defense during the game and it shows us that we can also be a great defensive team. We’ve always been a great shooting team, now if we can get both together that would be amazing.”
Stanford got off to a nice start in the second half as they led 62-38 with 15:35 to go. Kanaan Carlyle (10 points) and Benny Gealer (11 points) were also in double figures. The Cardinal continued to roll.
“The coaches prepared us really well,” Gealer said. “Amazing communication, team defense, we knew what we had to do and we took care of business. It was good to see chunks on the defensive end as well as the offensive end which we need to happen. Pushing towards the end of the season for us to be a complete team and go as far as we want to go."
Stanford continued to put the hurt on USC as they led 73-49 with 11:01 to go. Raynaud was up to 23 points and five rebounds while Stojakovic had 16 points and four rebounds. At this point, it was beyond clear that the Trojans were not going to be coming back.
“Andrej is process,” Haase said of Stojakovic. “I mean, he’s, like every player and certainly every freshman, there’s always an ebb and flow to the season. There’s good games, there’s bad games, there’s wins, there’s losses, and you never see the residual effects of good or bad with Andrej. He’s gonna come in with a smile, a willingness to learn, an eagerness to learn, and he’s fun to coach. He’ll continue to just like all of our players and every other player in the country, have a little bit of highs and lows and as time goes on, hopefully we can normalize those and minimize those and just continue on the ascent northward.”
With 7:19 to go, Stanford led 82-57. The Cardinal were continuing to put the hurt on the Trojans as Benny Gealer was up to a career-high 14 points. He blocked a shot and then on the same sequence went down on the other end of the floor to make a three. He was having fun out there and the packed student section at Maples (The Sixth Man) was eating it up.
“I think first, my teammates just making the right play, giving me easy opportunities to make shots,” Gealer said of the key to his 3-point shooting. “I think all my shots today were assisted from other teammates and then just being in the gym, getting reps so it’s muscle memory. Just a lot of reps.”
Stanford’s lead then ballooned to 30 points as they led 87-57 with 5:37 to go. Stanford had made 17 threes on 34 attempts. That set a new school record for most threes in a game, breaking their previous record of 16 threes at home against Arizona earlier this season.
“I think the coaching staff does a good job of giving us confidence and we pride ourselves on shooting a lot of threes because we are a really good shooting team,” Stojakovic said. “So, obviously we don’t always make it a 3-point shooting battle, but if that’s the case, I think we’re equipped with the right guys to compete with anyone in the country when that comes up.”
Stanford would go on to win 99-68. A 3-pointer by Roy Yuan was the exclamation mark on a fun night for the Cardinal. That gave them 19 threes for the night, the official new program record. As a result, Stanford is now 6th in the Pac-12 only one game back of Oregon and UCLA who are third and fourth. They are also tied with 5th place Colorado who is 7-6, so they are right in the mix to get a top-four seed in the Pac-12 tournament.
Obviously for Stanford, this game went as well as they could have imagined. They romped one of their So Cal rivals by 30+ points in front of a packed home crowd. The student section didn’t look like it had any space open and very few seats in general were available. It was recorded as a sellout. You really can’t ask for anything better if you are Stanford.
“I think this game had a particular meaning [because of] the throwback jerseys,” Raynaud said. “I think you guys saw also a lot of students. A lot of people came to the game. Before the game, our gear manager Roy Abousamra did like an amazing job getting us all these jerseys, shoes as well, everything, all this gear. And I think the buildup to this game, we’re not only playing for ourself, we’re also playing for the whole staff that is doing an amazing job to put us into this perfect conditions to play. So, like a big shout out to them, yeah.”
“It was different for sure, we loved it,” Gealer said of the atmosphere. “I knew like we were all excited to play this one. Just seeing all these Stanford fans supporting, it really felt like a home crowd. The best crowd I’ve played in front of this season for sure. So, it felt great. It was contagious. The energy is contagious.”
As for how they played, Stanford just showed how dangerous they are when their 3-ball is falling. They have a lot of guys who can make it rain from deep and when they are all feeding off each other, they can put up spectacular performances like this. On top of their offense doing well, Stanford also played really sound defense, holding USC’s top scorer Boogie Ellis to seven points.
“Well, he got a couple clean looks that I didn’t want in the second half, but our guys did a great job understanding the scouting report in terms of the details of how we’re getting around screens,” Haase said of their defense on Ellis. “Whether it’s off ball or on ball screens, the communication was pretty good. In the second half I thought we got a little bit loose at times and he got loose to the basket a little bit, but he’s an elite player. Certainly a ton of respect from me and the program, but our guys did a nice job executing the game plan and then providing the effort to get it done.”
Touching quickly on USC, their season has been a disaster. They were picked to finish second in the Pac-12 Preseason Media Poll with four first place votes and instead, they are currently tied for last place along with Oregon State. It’s rather shocking how far they have fallen. They have a ton of talent on their roster but for whatever reason, they have not been able to figure things out. If by some chance they are able to catch fire a bit come season’s end, maybe they make a bit of noise in Vegas. There’s a reason they are an opponent that a lot of teams are hyped to play.
“I think because USC has a really good recruiting class this year, I think that’s what surrounded the hype,” Stojakovic said. “I mean obviously, Bronny is a great player, but they have other players like Isaiah Collier and transfer Dennis Rodman. So, I think that’s the initial hype and then just a chance for the first time this year, just to show college basketball what our fanbase is truly about. So when you get a team like that coming in here, not really expecting much. We lost last time in LA, so just a great show out and really proud of the guys how they responded from the last game.”
Up next for Stanford is a road game at Washington. That will tip-off on Thursday at 6:00 PM PT on ESPN2.
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