As the college basketball season approaches, two Stanford men’s basketball players were named to preseason watchlists by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Senior forward Reid Travis was honored with being named one of the 20 players on the watchlist for the Karl Malone award, which is given to the best power forward in college basketball, while senior forward Michael Humphrey was chosen for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar watch list, which honors the nation’s top center.

Travis will be looking to build on his tremendous success from last season, in which he was the fourth-leading scorer and fifth-leading rebounder in the Pac-12. Travis averaged 17.4 points and 8.9 rebounds per game last year and is the top returning scorer and rebounder in the conference. Travis received first-team All-Pac-12 honors last season and ESPN deemed him a fourth-team preseason All-American on Monday.

As for Humphrey, he will also look to improve upon solid play from the 2016-2017 season. While his numbers did not see an uptick from his sophomore campaign, Humphrey was a staple for the Cardinal last year, scoring 9.4 points and grabbing 6.4 rebounds per game, which ranked third and second on the team, respectively.

Travis, Humphrey and the rest of the Cardinal will start their season on Nov. 10 against the Cal Poly Mustangs at Maples Pavilion. That game will tip-off at 4 p.m.

Contact Sam Curry at currys ‘at’ stanford.edu.