On Saturday, Stanford men’s basketball fell to Cal Poly at home by a final score of 97-90. Cal Poly guard Owen Koonce led the way for the Mustangs with 30 points and seven rebounds on 12-16 shooting from the field, 3-5 shooting from 3-point range, and 3-3 shooting from the foul line while guard Isaac Jessup had 21 points and seven rebounds. Stanford center Maxime Raynaud was the top performer for the Cardinal with 21 points and five rebounds while guard Jaylen Blakes had 17 points. Cal Poly improves to 5-4 overall while Stanford falls to 6-2.
VIDEO: Stanford MBB Postgame Press Conference: Cal Poly
BOX SCORE: Cal Poly at Stanford-Saturday, November 30th
“Yeah, that was really an offensive clinic put on by Cal Poly SLO there in the second half,” Stanford head coach Kyle Smith said after the game. “They were really we knew going in and our guys respect them, no doubt. They’ve been knocking on the door against some really good programs on the road and we played pretty well first half. I think they’re a really old and well-conditioned team. I was concerned. That concerned me that they were just able to compete so hard. So for forty minutes and as the game wore on, they made some big plays.
“Hat tipped to them, their coaching, the way they play, they were impressive. As far as us, we’ve gotta, this humbled us. I don’t know, what, we’re coming off a loss, but just we’ve been pretty, I thought we made some improvements for this year being defensively and we took a big step backward so hopefully we can bounce back Tuesday.”
Stanford would lead 14-11 with 14:30 to go in the first half. Maxime Raynaud was up to five points & two rebounds for Stanford. Stanford was shooting 5-11 from the field while Cal Poly was shooting 5-8.
Stanford would continue to stay in front as they led 21-15 with 11:43 to go in the half. Raynaud was up to seven points for the Cardinal while Benny Gealer had five points right behind him. Stanford freshman guard Anthony Batson Jr. was bringing some exciting defense as he got a nice block inside.
Stanford would lead 26-22 with 7:54 to go in the half as Cal Poly was hanging tough. Kyle Smith called for time, unhappy with his team’s defense inside.
Stanford then started to pull away as they were up 38-27 with 3:48 to go in the half. The Cardinal had really taken things up a notch defensively as they now have five steals and 13 points off turnovers. Maxime Raynaud had 10 points and two rebounds while Jaylen Blakes had eight points and three steals.
At halftime, Stanford led 43-34. Raynaud was leading the Cardinal with 12 points and two rebounds while Koonce was leading the Mustangs and all scorers with 16 points. Stanford was in a good spot, but Cal Poly still had a pulse.
Stanford would lead 55-47 with 15:44 to go. Cal Poly continued to have life as Koonce was up to 23 points on 9-12 shooting from the field and 2-2 shooting from the foul line. He was very efficient.
Stanford’s lead would shrink as they were up 64-59 with 11:02 to go. It was now a five point game. Raynaud up to 16 points & four rebounds for Stanford while Gealer had eight points after a huge 3-pointer. The Mustangs were hanging tough and making Stanford need every basket to stave them off.
With 7:31 to go, Stanford was still up by five points as the score was 74-69. Raynaud was up to 17 points & four rebounds for Stanford while Gealer had 13 points after making his third 3-pointer of the night. Koonce had 28 points for Cal Poly. This was a real battle.
Stanford would lead 76-73 with 5:58 to go. Cal Poly would not go away as Koonce was up to 30 points after a dunk inside. Things continued to go against Stanford as Cal Poly led 82-80 with 3:16 to go. Jessup was up to 19 points, seven rebounds, & five assists for Cal Poly. Stanford had given up 48 points in the second half. Their defense was severely struggling.
“Just a really good athlete, well-conditioned, very skilled, downhill player,” Smith said of Koonce. “He’s just good. We knew that going in that was the best player and is a tough matchup because he’s really their biggest starter and the way they started and we put Oziyah on him and he’s, Oziyah’s a little dinged up and then we got Jaylen [Blakes] on him, and he made some tough shots, but I thought there’s a couple soft hands that we should have been able to contest better, but just disappointed that we didn’t do a better job there.”
Stanford then made a bit of a surge to tie up 84-84 with 1:50 to go after Blakes had a huge layup inside off an assist from Raynaud. It looked like despite all their struggles, Stanford would still find a way to pull it out.
However, Cal Poly found their second wind and ended up pulling away to win 97-90 as Koonce and the rest of the Mustangs finished strong. It was a shocking result considering the name of the opponent for Stanford, but in truth, Cal Poly has been playing above their name and looks to be a team that could give more teams trouble down the road.
“They played very fast,” Blakes said of Cal Poly. “They could shoot the ball really well. They hit 12 threes and it’s hard to beat a team when they hit 12 threes and we couldn’t get stops. So, I think a lot of it was we just couldn’t get stops and when a team scores 97 points on the road, so it’s not good.”
The biggest problem for Stanford in this game was undoubtedly their defense as they gave up 63 points in the second half. If Kyle Smith could have done anything differently in hindsight, he probably would have played Anthony Batson Jr. and Jaylen Thompson a bit more given their defensive energy. Batson actually was the only player with a positive plus minus for the game with a +4. I usually don’t take much stock in that stat, but this is a game that I do. When Batson was on the floor (four minutes), his defensive energy was making a real difference.
“Start Chisom [Okpara], started second half, go man,” Smith recalled. “Thinking that we could stay matched up with 11. That didn’t work out well. Went back to zone. They were able to, it wasn’t the three, they made just some big plays in against our man and zone. I probably, you know, probably, it was tough, I probably should have gone Jaylen Thompson a little more and Anthony maybe just provide some depth there and keep some bodies on there, but we just couldn’t get away from them. And then we got down and that’s where maybe I gotta trust them a little more. That would help. But it was nice to see Chisom, helped play better, and did some good things out there.
“So we’ll keep looking there, but if I had to look back, I mean yeah, I wish maybe we’d played some more depth there and have been better defensively. Some way to be better. Get some stops…We’ll just work on being better defensively. That was just really regression. I thought in my, I don’t know, 15th year, I’m sure that was our worst defensive. Probably the worst points per possession, had to be the worst in my coaching career, so I’ll take responsibility for that.”
At this point, all that Stanford can do is move on from this and learn from it. Up next for Stanford is a home game against Utah Valley University on Tuesday, December 3rd. Tipoff is set for 7:00 PM PT on ACCNX.
CardinalSportsReport.com on Facebook, IG, Threads, X (Twitter), & Blue Sky: @StanfordRivals
Ben Parker on Facebook, IG, Threads, X (Twitter), & Blue Sky: @slamdunk406
Email: slamdunk406@yahoo.com
Join the conversation on CardinalSportsReport.com
