Stanford men’s basketball’s 2025-26 ACC schedule has been announced. After previously being on a 20-game schedule, the league has shifted back to an 18-game schedule. I think that shift is good for Stanford and Cal as that reduces travel a bit and gives them a chance to have two more West Coast games.
Speaking of Cal, under this new 18-game schedule format, Stanford and Cal will continue to be travel partners. That means they’ll both be home and away at the same time unless they are facing each other. That was the case last season, but what has changed is that now, all the other ACC teams have been assigned a travel partner as well. Below are the full travel partner pairings:
Boston College-Notre Dame; Clemson-Georgia Tech; California-Stanford; Duke-North Carolina; Florida State-Miami; Louisville-SMU; NC State-Wake Forest; Pitt-Syracuse; Virginia Tech-Virginia.
On top of the 18-game schedule helping the travel for Stanford and Cal, all the schools in the ACC are getting more manageable travel out of this change. When a team hits the road for two games, they’ll face two schools that are close to each other geographically. In the past, there was less rhyme or reason to the order that teams faced each other. It just makes sense that if you play Duke on the road, you should also swing by North Carolina on the same trip as they are only 10 miles apart from each other. So I need to stress, this change is beneficial for all the schools.
Switching gears to the 2025-26 ACC opponents for Stanford, they will play Cal twice and play Notre Dame twice, meaning they’ll face them at home and on the road. Stanford will not play Syracuse at all. And then everyone else they’ll see once either at home or away.
The teams Stanford will only see at home are as follows: Duke, North Carolina, Louisville, Clemson, SMU, Pittsburgh and Georgia Tech. The teams Stanford will only see on the road are as follows: Florida State, Miami, NC State, Wake Forest, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Boston College.
Obviously, Duke and North Carolina coming out to Maples Pavilion (Stanford) and Haas Pavilion (Cal) is the big news for both the Cardinal and Golden Bears. Last year, Stanford and Cal didn’t have much in the way of exciting home games. The most exciting home games they had were the games they had against each other given the rivalry. So, to have two blueblood programs come to town is certain to generate a lot of buzz at both campuses. I expect Maples and Haas Pavilion to both be packed for those games.
To touch quickly on just Stanford, this will be the second year of the Kyle Smith era. Stanford had a 21-14 overall record and 11-9 record in the ACC, good enough to make the NIT and win their first-round game. However, a lot of key players from last season have moved on:
Star big man Maxime Raynaud is graduating with a degree in Mathematics and is expected to be a first-round pick in the upcoming NBA draft. Number two scoring option Oziyah Sellers stabbed the program in the back by transferring to St. John’s after previously stating publicly that he was all in on Stanford at season’s end. Lastly, graduate student guard Jaylen Blakes is out of eligibility and will look to possibly play in the G-League or head overseas.
With Raynaud, Sellers, and Blakes gone, Stanford is going to need other guys to step up. Returning players Ryan Agarwal, Benny Gealer, Donavin Young, Chisom Okpara, Anthony Batson, Jr. and others are going to need to step up their game. And then hopefully the incoming freshman class along with incoming transfer guard Jeremy Dent-Smith will make a real impact as well.
It'll certainly be interesting to see how KIyle Smith manages his rotation next season and who emerges as the new stars of the team. My guess is it’ll take Stanford a bit of time to find their identity, but come ACC play, they should be locked in. It’ll be fun to see how they look.
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