Strong rebounding, red-hot three-point shooting and a relentless defense fueled Stanford men’s basketball to a commanding 90-64 victory over the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks on Tuesday evening and their first 3-0 start since the 2019-20 season.
Leading the charge for the Cardinal was senior forward Maxime Raynaud, who notched his 18th career double-double — and third of this season alone — with 22 points and 11 rebounds on the night. Other key contributors to the dominant performance were junior guard Oziyah Sellers, who returned to form with 17 points, and redshirt sophomore Ryan Agarwal, who notched a career high 15 points off the bench along with four rebounds, three assists and two steals.
“I’m just enjoying it,” Agarwal said about his game. “You know, [redshirting] last year, whether I’m playing a couple minutes or a lot of minutes, I’m just happy to be out there this year.”
Stanford hit 90 points for the first time this season, led by five players who hit double figures in points: Raynaud, Sellers, Agarwal, graduate student guard Jaylen Blakes and junior guard Benny Gealer. The Cardinal were an efficient 32-57 from the field and an impressive 12-23 from behind the arc.
“It was a really great offensive effort,” head coach Kyle Smith said. “Point guards [had] nine assists, no turnovers, we shot 56% from the field, 52% from three, 88% from the line… you can always be pleased with that.”
Stanford once again held true to Smith’s mantra of “defend, rebound, [and] take care of the ball,” recording nine steals, 31 rebounds and only six turnovers, compared to Northern Arizona’s three, 22 and 10, respectively. Blakes was again a leader on defense for the Cardinal, recording two steals.
“He’s the point of our defense,” Smith said. “We went to zone stuff and he got some deflections, got us going.”
Stanford closed the first half with a 44-13 run after being down nine at the 15-minute mark in the first half, giving the team a 22 point cushion–their largest halftime lead of the young season.
Raynaud said “not trying to point finger[s],” was key to the team turning it around after being down 8-0 at the 17-minute mark in the first half.
“I think everybody can get mad, everybody can get kind of angry in that situation, so [we] just turn up the rhythm, go back to what we do which is playing defense,” Raynaud said.
Stanford was able to hold the Lumberjacks to 25-56 from the field. Outside of Trent McLaughlin, the Big Sky Preseason Most Valuable Player who dropped 20 points on an efficient 7-14 from the field and 4-7 from beyond the arc, the Cardinal were able to hold the rest of the Lumberjacks to fewer than 15 points, including their second-leading scorer and leading rebounder Carson Towt. Agarwal attributed the team’s tenacious defensive effort to contagious hustle.
“My mindset is make one hustle play and it’s just contagious,” Agarwal said. “Everybody else starts doing it… naturally it becomes a contagious effort from the whole team.”
With this performance, Stanford continues to rise in some of the key analytical rankings used by the selection committee, jumping to 69th in KenPom and 88th in Torvik. While this might excite fans, the team is focused on other things.
“We’re not focusing on the outside noise,” Raynaud said. “Last year, even if we struggled at times, we tried to just stick together and stick with what we were doing… this year I think we’re going to do the same.”
The Cardinal will now shift their focus towards their next bout: a home game on Sunday against UC Davis. Stanford will be looking to give the Aggies their second loss of the season and shut down Ty Johnson, their All-Big West Preseason Team guard who is averaging 29 points per game.