SETTING THE SCENE
Stanford men's basketball concludes regular season action with its final ACC road contest, traveling to No. 14/13 Louisville on Saturday, March 8 at 11 a.m. PT. The game will air on ESPNU, while the radio broadcast can be found on GoStanford.com and the GoStanford App, the Varsity Network App, and Sirius XM channel 386.
THE STARTING FIVE
• The Cardinal is 19-11 this season (11-8 ACC), including ACC wins over North Carolina, SMU, California (2x), Virginia Tech, Virginia, Florida State, Syracuse, NC State, Boston College and Miami, including two quadrant one NET wins. The Cardinal went 16-2 at home this season and 9-1 in ACC play.
• Stanford’s roster holds an exciting mix of returning players, transfers and freshmen, led by the premier center in the country, Maxime Raynaud. The Pac-12 Most Improved Player last season, Raynaud is 15th nationally in scoring at 20.2 points per game and fifth in rebounding with 10.9 per night. He is second in the ACC in scoring and first in rebounding, and his 22 double-doubles this season pace the nation. No other major conference player has more than 18 (Norchad Omier, Baylor).
• Three players are averaging double figures, paced by Raynaud but also including Jaylen Blakes (13.2) and Oziyah Sellers (13.5). Both players are posting career-best numbers by a comfortable margin.
• Blakes has showcased his clutch gene this season with game winning baskets in the closing seconds against both Santa Clara and North Carolina. Blakes made national headlines on Jan. 18 with his last-second winner against the Tar Heels, while his sister, Mikayla, a freshman at Vanderbilt, scored a game-winner of her own less than 24 hours later against Tennessee.
• Kyle Smith joined the Cardinal from Washington State as the reigning Pac-12 Coach of the Year, where he led the Cougars to 25 wins and the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2023-24.
WHAT'S AT STAKE
Stanford has already secured a first round bye in the ACC Tournament, and it enters the final contest able to finish seventh or eighth in the ACC table. Stanford can secure a top-seven seed with a win or a Georgia Tech loss (at Wake Forest) on the league's final day of action. Regardless of the Cardinal's league finish, there are several possible second round opponents that could face Stanford in Charlotte.
SKIP PROSSER AWARD RECIPIENT
Maxime Raynaud has found success not just on the court, but also in the classroom, as the big man was named the Skip Prosser Award recipient as the ACC Scholar-Athlete of the Year on March 5. Raynaud is Stanford men’s basketball’s fifth consecutive Scholar-Athlete of the Year, as Stanford won the final four Pac-12 awards in the category. Raynaud joins Oscar da Silva (2021), Sam Beskind (2022), James Keefe (2023) and Brandon Angel (2024), extending the program’s streak, and he becomes the ninth recipient of the ACC or Pac-12 honor, along with Dorian Pickens (2018), Chasson Randle (2015), Dwight Powell (2014) and Landry Fields (2010). The men’s basketball program becomes the first of Stanford’s 36 teams to win five consecutive scholar-athlete of the year honors, dating back to the award’s inception in the Pac-10 in 2007-08, though women’s rowing has a chance to match the five consecutive honors later this spring.