On Saturday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated Santa Clara on the road by a final score of 71-69. Stanford center Maxime Raynaud led the way for the Cardinal with 32 points, 16 rebounds, one block, and two steals while shooting guard Oziyah Sellers had 23 points. Stanford guard Jaylen Blakes hit the game winning shot with 2.0 seconds to go, giving him eight points for the night to go along with 10 assists. Santa Clara center Christoph Tilly was the top performer for the Broncos with 16 points on 6-9 shooting from the field. Stanford improves to 6-0 overall while Santa Clara falls to 2-4.
BOX SCORE: Stanford at Santa Clara-Saturday, November 23rd
“Honestly about what I expected,” Stanford head coach Kyle Smith said after the game. “It didn’t surprise me. I just knew that Santa Clara’s a very experienced, talented team on their home floor, coming off the big win against Riverside. They’re trying to get right. It’s early in the season and there’s no way to really prepare your team, replicate that in practice. And we got hit in the nose early and we hung in there, came out in that second half, established ourselves, got ourselves back in the game, were able to battle back again; down eight late and found a way to win.”
Santa Clara got off to a strong start, leading 6-0 with 17:54 to go in the first half as Tilly already had four points inside. With 9:22 to go in the half, Santa Clara led 19-14 as Raynaud had 12 of Stanford’s points. He was in quite a zone scoring from both inside and beyond the arc. He was single handily keeping the Cardinal in the game as he desperately needed others to step up.
At halftime, Santa Clara would lead 37-27 at halftime. Raynaud was up to 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Cardinal, doing all he could to keep the Cardinal in the game. He was phenomenal, but clearly needed more help as nobody else on the Cardinal had more than two points.
Stanford would open the second half on an 8-0 run as it looked like Kyle Smith gave his team some of “Michael's Secret Stuff” at halftime. It was now a 37-35 game as Stanford was down only by two points with 18:26 to go in the game. Raynaud was up to 23 points for Stanford while Sellers now had five points after a 3-pointer.
“I expect to see more hard doubles and stuff like that and we didn’t,” Smith said of how Santa Clara was defending Raynaud. “So it was a lot of one on one and they really kinda just said hey, he’s gotta get 50 or whatever. He was 6 for 12 from the line, he could have had 40 or whatever. They really didn’t show many doubles and they just said we’re playing one on one and Maxime was good from all areas. So, just expect he’s an unselfish guy, when they bring the double find guys and it was a good step forward for us and we get other guys that will get comfortable. Hopefully.”
With 15:19 to go, it was tied 41-41. Sellers was providing Raynaud with the help he needed as he was up to nine points, one block, and one steal. Stanford had flipped the switch. It was now a ball game.
“Stay together,” Raynaud said of what Smith’s message to the team was at halftime. “Stay together. I think we started the game 0-6 with three turnovers and outside of this, if we didn’t like foul the very last possession, we pretty much like, we’re in the game for the rest of the first half. But you know, when you’re down nine, first time on the road, you cannot start pointing fingers.
“You’re kinda stressed about like everybody, right? Me, including coaches, everybody. So I think it was really a message of trying to regroup, trying to get everybody bought in again, and yeah, that’s why we came out so strong and I think we got like two steals for at the beginning of the second half. Couple shots went in. That’s exactly what we’re looking for.”
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t necessarily know if it was anything strategically, I think it was just a mindset thing,” Blakes said of the key to turning the game around. “They kind of punched us in the mouth early in the first half and I thought in the second half we knew we had compete harder and I think that’s something that we did and we had to turn it up and I think that’s what helped us get going is our mindset. And for us we just stayed together. And I think you know, it was our first road test and a lot of times, it’s those 20 people on our bench first. Everybody else in the arena and for us, we just had to rally together and just it was us against them.”
Santa Clara would lead 49-46 with 12:00 to go. Both teams had made five of their last seven field goals. This one was a battle. Santa Clara was up to 18 bench points while Stanford’s bench had just three points. It was still very much the Raynaud show for Stanford as he was now up to 26 points and 13 rebounds.
“I think I’m just following the game plan,” Raynaud said. “I’m trying to prepare myself every day for these kinds of opportunities. Uh, the game plan was to be strong inside. Coach Harden always talks to me about being strong on the offensive glass and I think that’s what I did in the first half. That got us going and then second half I just try to sustain it and other guys started getting going, too. Like, Oziyah had an amazing second half, JB had like 10 assists. It was amazing.”
Santa Clara would lead 58-55 with 7:32 to go. Free throws were making a real impact as Santa Clara was shooting 16-18 from the foul line while Stanford was shooting 10-19. Santa Clara would then lead 61-55 with 6:22 to go. Stanford called for time. Stanford was still in this game, but they needed to make a run.
With 3:25 to go, it looked pretty bleak for Stanford as Santa Clara led 67-59. Bukky Oboye had a huge bucket for the Broncos as he was up to seven points. Stanford was running out of time. Raynaud was up to 30 points and 14 rebounds for Stanford while Sellers had stepped up with 15 points, but that had pretty much been it.
Sellers would continue to step up as he went on an 8-0 run all by himself to tie it up 67-67 with 1:02 to go. He had two threes and a transition dunk during the run. Santa Clara called for time, hoping to regroup.
“We didn’t have any timeouts, they were just competing,” Smith said of making that run. “Just keep competing and we got some breaks there. I felt like you know, we hit them with the big flurry to start the second half to go up and they knew they’d make a run. We’d missed free throws, so I was like this will be something to address tomorrow win or lose. And you know, it just made some plays and even when we missed one and one, Jaylen came back and hit a big shot. But I felt good about our competitive spirit.”
Santa Clara would then go 1-2 at the foul line as Adama Ball made the first, but missed the second free throw. This gave Santa Clara a 68-67 lead. Stanford then was able to make it 69-68 as yep you guessed it: Maxime Raynaud scored inside. Christoph Tilly would then go to the foul line for the Broncos and go 1-2 at the foul line as he missed the first shot, but made the second. This tied it up 69-69 with eight seconds to go.
Stanford would make the most of their final possession as Jaylen Blakes hit a clutch jump shot in traffic to give Stanford a 71-69 lead with 2.0 seconds to go. Santa Clara would not be able to respond as a bad pass would end the game. 71-69 Stanford won.
“No we work on it, and it was basically Jaylen tried to spread them out. We had four shooters out there and Jaylen, he had enough time. We call it, well I’ll tell you, it’s blood. We call blood. I said go blood and he’s supposed to get a piece of the paint and either, if he draws help, can’t get enough time to kick it, in the situation he got pretty deep. He’s pretty good. He’s actually a good midrange shooter there. Felt good about it, he believed, went in. Not shocked to believe it or not. He’s got a willful spirit and he’s pretty tough that way and happy for him and for us.”
“Yeah, I mean, I missed two front end one-and-ones before. You know, I think, I was like I gotta make it up for my team,” Blakes said. “You know, for us, they did a really good job of getting us back into the game and I thought when he missed one or he made both, I was like, if I get the ball in my hands, I got the confidence to shoot it and I think I work on it enough with Coach Matt Elkin a lot to make it and I was blessed that I was in the opportunity to make that shot and it's a great feeling…I guess God works in mysterious ways. He wanted to miss the first one and make the second one.
"So, I guess that’s the way it worked, but I always believed in myself. My coaches believe in me, my teammates believe in me, and I got to believe in myself that every shot I take I feel like it’s gonna go in and in that moment, I felt like the work that I put in was gonna pay off.”
This game really was a tale of two halves as Stanford got off to a sluggish start before waking up in the second half and jumping out to that 8-0 run within the first couple of minutes. The one constant though was Maxime Raynaud. He was steady all night long and delivered the goods without fail.
“Just incredible,” Smith said of Raynaud’s performance. “Kept us in the game, sustained it, just heart of a champion. Just, we had no, if he didn’t step up there, I don't know where we would have been. We’re still down 10 and he was really the only guy that was really competing, but that’s a testament to how hard he’s worked, his experience too, and it was a great breakthrough for Oziyah and Jaylen in that second half played well and Aidan played great, so good things are going to come out of this I would imagine.”
Ozyiah Sellers and Jaylen Blakes were also fantastic in this one. Sellers really came alive down the stretch and gave Raynaud the help he needed while Blakes was able to step up in crunch time to make the game winning basket. So make no mistake, this was a true team victory.
“You know what, he’s a steady performer,” Smith said of Sellers. “He’s not really a streaky human being. But you can see where if he just keeps working, keeps working, found his opportunity, he saw one go in, a three early in that second half, probably got him going, and the way they guard, they’re pressuring. There’s going to be some ebbs and flows in that and so we were able to, Jaylen ended up with 10 assists, we got some penetration, we got the ball movement a little bit, and he benefited from that.”
“It’s great because he’s got a lot of experience in a lot of ways,” Smith said of Blakes. “Like familiarity with officials, played in high level games, but where he’s almost like a freshman is like it’s your team and that’s why he came here. Like try to see if he could do it. Can I lead a team and he’s doing an awesome job. We’re 6-0 and again, he’s played a different role from his last three years, his last two years. You know, there’s room for him to get better. This will hopefully help him, too.”
What added to the fun of this game for Stanford was the environment. Santa Clara brought an energetic crowd, which created for a great atmosphere. It felt like a rivalry game because in many ways it was.
“I personally love it,” Raynaud said of the atmosphere. “I mean, I was looking forward for this game because Adama Bal is one of my teammates for national team, he’s French. I personally strive in this kind of environment. I really like when the crowd gets into it. Obviously, I need to make my free throws, but other than that, I think the guys did an amazing job of resilience…I think we have really mature matures that knew how to make the best of the situation and we go the Dub in the end.”
“It was a great atmosphere,” Blakes echoed. “Whenever you’re playing on the road in an arena like this, I think it was a great atmosphere. You know, the crowd was going against you, you heard the chatter, you know, somebody got kicked out of the game. So I think, you know, that stuff. I haven’t seen that one before, but it was a great environment. It was definitely great to get a cool program.”
Up next for Stanford is the Acrisure Holiday Classic against Grand Canyon in Palm Desert, California. That game will be played on Tuesday, November 26th at 4:00 PM PT on True TV and HBO Max.
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