On Saturday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated SMU on Senior Day by a final score of 73-68. Stanford senior big man Maxime Raynaud balled out with 26 points, four rebounds, and four blocks while guard Benny Gealer had 17 points and three assists. SMU guard Chuck Harris was the top scorer for the Mustangs with 17 points, four rebounds, and three assists. Stanford improves to 19-10 overall and 11-7 in the ACC while SMU falls to 21-8 overall and 12-6 in the ACC.
VIDEO: Stanford MBB Postgame Press Conference: SMU
BOX SCORE: SMU at Stanford-Saturday, March 1st
“Yeah, that was a great game, great college basketball atmosphere,” Stanford head coach Kyle Smith said after the game. “They’re really good. We had to play really well to beat them. But just proud of the way our guys hung in there. Especially senior night. Maxime deserves that and Benny really bailed us out in a big way, just making some big shots and this time of year that’s what you need to do. Just highlight movie like ending for Maxime: tip dunk! So, it’s great. So, great win, probably this and North Carolina are probably our two biggest wins and couldn’t be more pleased with that outcome.”
Stanford would lead 11-10 with 14:36 to go in the first half. Maxime Raynaud was a man on a mission for Stanford with 9 points on 3-3 shooting from the field and & 2-2 shooting from the foul line.
With 12:04 to go in the half, Stanford led 18-14. Raynaud was now up to 11 points. Ryan Agarwal was on the board for the Cardinal with a triple. Stanford was on a 7-0 run over the last 1:12.
Stanford would remain in front 31-26 with 6:31 to go in the half. Stanford had made four of their last four field goal attempts. Oziyah Sellers had a nice bucket in transition and was up to four points. Stanford was shooting 12-21 from the field while SMU was shooting 10-20. Matt Cross had 10 points for the Mustangs. Both teams were shooting well.
Stanford would extend their lead 38-28 with 2:57 to go in the half. Stanford had made seven of their last eight field goal attempts while SMU has made one of their last seven with zero field goals in the last 4:19. Maxime Raynaud’s 11 points led Stanford while Matt Cross’s 10 points led SMU.
At halftime, Stanford led 45-39. Maxime Raynaud was leading the Cardinal with 11 points while Benny Gealer (9 points), Oziyah Sellers (8 points), and Ryan Agarwal (8 points) were knocking on the door. Chuck Harris (11 points) and Matt Cross (10 points) were in double figures for the Mustangs.
Early on in the second half, Stanford led 52-44 with 15:27 to go. Raynaud was up to 18 points for the Cardinal. Aidan Cammann was doing a little bit of everything for the Cardinal with four points, two rebounds, & four assists. Harris was leading SMU with 13 points.
Things would get tighter as it was a 57-53 lead for Stanford with 11:40 to go. SMU was on a 6-0 run over the last 1:28. Harris (13 points) and Cross (12 points) were leading the Mustangs. Raynaud was up to 20 points and two rebounds for the Cardinal. He needed more help.
With 9:54 to go, SMU had pulled ahead 60-57. The Mustangs were on a 13-0 run over the last 3:14. Stanford had gone cold. Chuck Harris was up to 15 points for the Mustangs while Kario Oquendo had 13 points. Stanford needed to regroup.
With 7:27 to go, SMU led 64-59. SMU’s run was now 17-2 over the last 5:41. Maxime Raynaud was still the only Cardinal in double figures with 22 points.
Stanford would find a way to get back in front as they led Stanford 69-68 with 3:09 to go. Gealer had come alive for the Cardinal with 17 points on 6-7 shooting from the field and 5-6 shooting from 3-point range. He had just hit a couple big threes and a huge layup after driving to the basket. He was looking like Jimmer Fredette out there.
“Maples is loud, Maples is really loud,” Gealer said. “That helps a lot. To be honest, I’m just looking at the score I’m like okay, we’re down two, you know, we’re up one. I’m just trying to win the game. Get this guy a dub on senior night, right? But yeah, this was a fun day…I shoot a lot. I gotta trust my shot and the coaches obviously believe in me to shoot it. So when I’m open I gotta pull it.”
Thanks to a clutch baseline jumper from Sellers, Stanford would lead 71-68 with 1:44 to go. Sellers had 10 points. Approximately 90 seconds later, Raynaud came flying in for the put-back slam off a missed 3-pointer from Agarwal. Stanford was now up 73-68 with 8.7 to go.
“Ryan shot it and I saw there was no one in the paint,” Raynaud recalled about his dunk. “I’m like, might as well just crash it because otherwise Coach is gonna be mad, right? So I just crashed, I jumped, and I don’t know, it really felt like a movie like was in slow mo. The rebound was perfect, just caught it, like, put it in. Just, I don’t know, I really feel like there are some things that are scripted a little bit sometimes and that was one of those moments. Just, yeah. Make this night so much more special.”
From there, Stanford would win 73-68. The put back slam by Maxime Raynaud was the nail in the coffin. He finished with 26 points & 4 rebounds for the Cardinal. Benny Gealer also took over down the stretch finishing with 17 points & 3 assists.
“Great performance I guess,” Raynaud said of how he played. “The only thing I was a little bit scared of coming into the game is to get too emotional and not managing my emotion very well. I talked to JB before the game, Cole, to coach as well. But I think that’s who I am. I am a very emotional person and I think that’s what drives this performance tonight. Obviously, the guys stepped up big time. I mean, everybody just stepped up big time.
“Like, that one dunk at the end is pretty cool, but like his [Gealer] layup, his threes, the stops we got, the rebounds from Aidan, like all these kinds of things is just, it was a team effort. The resilience for sure was just awesome. Coach did not give in. The people in the stands were awesome as well. I don’t think so much about me right now, I mean it’s about all of us and our team and so much about what Stanford has become now. So, I’m just so happy right now.”
“I’ve seen him, you know what, Benny, like I said, for those local Bay Area guys, he reminds me a lot of a guy I coached named Frankie Ferrari,” Smith said of Gealer. “And they, kinda like where Frankie was, Frankie’s third year out of high school, he was actually a sophomore for us, and this is Benny’s third, he’s actually a junior, but they’re really similar. And then Frankie had two all-league years after that and we only got one year left with Benny, but you could see that sometimes open gym, sometimes practice where he could just start banging threes.
“You could see him get confidence, a little swagger when he made the, he diced him up and got the lefty layup, that was a big play. He’s got an ability to be a big playmaker like that and he’s been guarding ever since, really since he got sick against SMU a month ago. When he came back, he’s been really effective for us and the ability to shoot the ball and deliver like that puts a lot of pressure on defenses.”
For Stanford, this was a big-time win. They really needed to get this one just in terms of helping solidify their NIT chances and also keep their odds of a higher ACC tournament seed alive. They’ve now won three games in a row and are entering the final week of the regular season with some momentum. On top of that, Stanford got even with SMU after losing at their place earlier in the season while sending off seniors Maxime Raynaud, Jaylen Blakes, and Cole Kastner in style.
Stanford men’s basketball has been a fairly quiet program the last several years with few moments to get really excited about. This was game was definitely one of those moments. There was a great crowd and everyone was fired up to see the Cardinal finish things out strong at Maples Pavilion.
To touch quickly on SMU, they’re squarely on the NCAA tournament bubble right now. This game didn’t go the way they wanted it. The big thing for them is to find a way to finish the season strong with a home game against Syracuse on Tuesday and then a road game at Florida State on Saturday. Getting their leading scorer and starting point guard Kevin “Boopie” Miller back would be certainly be huge as he’s currently missed the last five games including Saturday’s game against Stanford due to a foot injury.
“It was a good game, proud of our players,” SMU head coach Andy Enfield said. “Came back after being down and fought back and took the lead and really came down to the last two and a half minutes. We missed a jump shot and we missed two floaters in the lane that were wide open and we missed a wide open three.
“Chuck missed that off the dribble. That would the tied it and turned it over one foot from the basket. All he had to do was play the ball in. So, we had our chances. We put oursvels in position to make those shots and we normally do and they made a couple tough ones and that was the difference in the game.
“We’ve had too many turnovers the last few games because when you lose your starting point guard who is also your leading scorer and leading in assists, it puts a lot of pressure on other guys to play a lot of minutes and handle the ball and make plays and tonight we only had seven assists as a team and he [Miller] averages six. So I think without him, we’ve done okay, but we’ve struggled at times offensively and defensively with his quickness.
“We’d like to get Boopie healthy. That’s the first thing we’d like to see. We’re optimistic he can try to play next week. And then we just have to keep competing.”
Up next for Stanford is a road game at Notre Dame on Wednesday. Tipoff is set for 6:00 PM PT on ESPNU.
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