Recap: Stanford MBB cruises past Louisiana
On Tuesday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated Louisiana at home by a final score of 93-66. Stanford freshman point guard Ebuka Okorie led the way for the Cardinal with 26 points and five assists while senior forward Chisom Okpara (22 points & 5 rebounds) and redshirt sophomore forward Cameron Grant (15 points on 5-11 3PT) also finished in double figures. Louisiana guard Joshua Lewis was the leading scorer for the Ragin’ Cajuns with 16 points. Stanford improves to 4-0 on the season while Louisiana falls to 1-4.
VIDEO: Stanford Postgame Press Conference-Louisiana
BOX SCORE: Louisiana at Stanford-Tuesday, November 18th
“Yeah I was very pleased the way we played tonight,” Stanford head coach Kyle Smith said after the game. “Obviously the first 10 minutes was very competitive and they’re tough. I knew that. You know I challenged our guys and Coach White, Coach Shaw coached him at Oklahoma and he played for Kelvin Sampson, worked for Kelvin Sampson; you could see the little DNA in that team though they play the same way.
“They’re not gonna turn themselves over. We turned them over a little tonight. They’re gonna rebound, they’re gonna play hard, they’ll be physical and our guys stood up to it did a good job and you know, I thought Ebuka was probably his best floor game as far as just obviously scored he scored, he seems to score all the time, but starting to see the extra pass, starting to see the guys on the rolls; stuff like that and you know the rising tide raises all, brings all ship; something like that. The better he gets, the better makes guys and it’s been fun to watch.”
Stanford got Evan Stinson back for this game, who was making his season debut after having to miss the first three games. Stinson would play 10 minutes and score four points while grabbing a rebound. Two of those points came within the first 10 minutes of the game as a pair of free throws he knocked down gave the Cardinal a 15-9 lead with 10:50 to go in the first half.
“Yeah, that’s great. We need them all,” Smith said of their depth. “You know, there’s going to be moments like I said, like AJ got two fouls, we kept them on the bench. He wasn’t his best tonight and it just gave, we still had enough where Aidan play 25 minutes, we were able to get Oskar, you know, eight minutes there. Like I said, he had two blocks, two rebounds, he’s impactful. He’s gonna get better and like I said, Cam being the, maybe that he can, that’s having a guy and get five threes in a game coming off the bench is pretty important. Nice to have.”
Stanford led 19-18 with 7:50 remaining in the half. Chisom Okpara was leading the Cardinal with seven points. Stanford had not made a field goal in the previous 3:44 minutes. The Cardinal offense needed to wake up, while Louisiana hung tough.
Stanford was ahead 31-22 with 3:27 left in the half. The Cardinal had gone on a 10-0 run over the last 2:05. Ebuka Okorie had reached nine points for the Cardinal on 3-6 shooting and 2-3 from 3-point range, while Cameron Grant had scored 6 points on 2-2 from deep. Grant’s three-point prowess had come through.
“Yeah, you know, I should have mentioned that off the top, but Cameron, you know, we see practice every day, so we weren’t as shocked,” Smith said of Grant’s 3-point shooting. “It takes, sometimes there’s layers, you know, things you have to go through. In one of our scrimmages, he showed, he played this way, and he’s always, he can flip a game like that just because (A), he really can shoot it. And so that kinda broke it open when he got in there and second half of the first half. It’s a great guy to put, they’re gonna scout him hard. They’re going to chase around. So you put him in a corner, you put him up top. They’re playing four on four if they want to try to just chase him off the line. Then you put him in some screening actions and then he becomes that much harder and it just helps. I guess the NBA guys call it gravity.
“And it’s neat to see someone like that that’s, he’s really improved since day one he got here and it’s nice to see him get an opportunity and take advantage of it. I mean, they’re all great kids. It’s hard. I can’t play all 17 of them. But he’s earned it and he’s done a good job.”
“Yeah, I thought I shot the ball well,” Grant said. “I thought we were able to kind of move the ball pretty well, especially in the second half and just wide open shooters. And so I’d credit a lot to my teammates. I know Ebuka was finding me quite a lot and Jeremy as well. So, it was fun.”
At halftime, Stanford led 40-25. Ebuka Okorie had led the Cardinal with 14 points on 4-7 shooting, while Chisom Okpara had 11 points. Joshua Lewis and Jaxon Olvera had each scored 8 points for the Cajuns. Stanford had ended the half on a 19-3 run.
“Yeah, it felt like early on we took a couple tough shots, obviously like early in the shot clock,” Okorie said of the key to opening the game up. “And then Coach Smith basically just told us to move the ball, make the extra pass, and once you started doing that, they couldn’t rotate on time and we were getting open shots as you saw Cam hit a lot of threes. We shot a pretty good percentage from three, like solid. But yeah, it was just moving the ball and that got us the lead.”
Stanford was up 50-35 over Louisiana with 15:45 to go. Okorie’s 14 points had led Stanford, while Okpara had 13 points. Stanford’s 8-20 shooting from 3-point range had made a real impact. Louisiana was 0-3 from beyond the arc.
“Just, we’re pretty good,” Smith said of his team’s defense against the 3-ball. “They run a lot of actions like ghost screens and stuff to do that. I thought our guys were pretty much on the scout and we did a good job there. We probably fouled them a little too much, but on the drive, we forced them to drive and, but we’ll make it hard for you to shoot threes.”
Stanford led 56-41 with 11:55 left. Okorie had increased his total to 16 points for the Cardinal, while Okpara had 15 points. Stanford had not made a field goal in the previous 2:36, but they were still in control.
Stanford was ahead 71-51 with 7:37 remaining. Okorie had once again reached the 20+ mark with 20 points and 4 assists. Louisiana didn’t have an answer for him.
Stanford led 91-65 with 2:16 to go. Okorie (26 points and 5 assists) and Okpara (22 points and 5 rebounds) had both been fantastic for the Cardinal. They continued to show why they are such an effective one-two punch.
From there, Stanford would win 93-66. Louisiana battled hard, but Stanford was simply the better team. Okorie and Okpara in particular delivered the goods and then Grant with his 15 points off the bench really helped seal the deal.
For Stanford, this is overall a good win. They came in as heavy favorites and didn’t allow Louisiana to make much of a game. Sometimes it’s easy to take wins like this for granted when in truth, it speaks to the kind of team you have that you were able to come out and take care of business. This is definitely a confidence boosting win for the Cardinal as they improve to 4-0.
Touching more on Cameron Grant, he’s grown a lot as he now enters his third season on The Farm. He’s really starting to carve out a role for himself, which is impressive for a guy who committed to Stanford as a preferred walk-on.
“Yeah, it’s all about the process for me,” Grant said. “I think just improving year over year and just trying to get better. There’s more joy in that than kind of the result, I think because you spend more time through it. And yeah, just being able to have that result and moving on and do the process, it’s been fun.”
Up next for Stanford is a home game against Seattle on Friday, November 21st. Tipoff is set for 7:00 PM PT on ACCNX.
“Good team. Yeah, a really good team,” Smith said of Seattle. “Will be on paper the best team I think we played in the regular season. They got depth, they got size around the rim, they’re really good defensively. It’s a homecoming. They got a lot of Bay Area guys for them. Similar to Montana thing. I got to talk to Coach Shaw about scheduling all the homecoming games, but Chris Victor I think is from San Mateo, their head coach. So it’ll be a homecoming for him and it’ll be a good test.
“I’d say like good depth, too. They got really good guards, like good size up front. And they’re, like I said, I think their calling card is actually they can score a lot, but they’re really good. They’re long and big and guard well. So it’ll be a good test for us.”
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