Recap: Stanford Men’s Basketball edges Montana State at Maples
On Wednesday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated Montana State at home by a final score of 77-68. Stanford freshman guard Ebuka Okorie led the way for the Cardinal with 21 points, three assists, and three steals while senior guard Benny Gealer (16 points & 4 rebounds), senior forward Chisom Okpara (15 points & 4 rebounds), and graduate student forward AJ Rohosy (13 points & 7 rebounds) also finished in double figures. Montana State forward Christian King was the top performer for the Bobcats with 14 points and seven rebounds. Stanford improves to 3-0 on the season while Montana State falls to 1-3.
VIDEO: Stanford Men’s Basketball Postgame Press Conference: Montana State
BOX SCORE: Montana State at Stanford-Wednesday, November 12th
“Wow, we were tested tonight in a good way,” Stanford head coach Kyle Smith said after the game. “Knew it wasn’t gonna be easy. I watched, you know, at all. Montana State had Colorado beat a couple of, you know, the first game of the year. So they were pretty well tested on the road in a high major environment. Matt Logie I’ve known since he was probably a junior in high school. He’s a good coach. His grandfather’s a legendary coach and I thought they play really well. We played really well. I thought the first 18 minute and the new just didn’t finish out that half. Well, the game’s momentum and they kind of, they exposed us a little bit in the, quite a bit in the second half, put us in the basket.
“Just one on one. Just were a little grittier than us and we were able to rally up and made some, you had to make some plays in those situations. I think off the top of my head, I know Benny hit a big shot. Oskar came to the game, really flipped the game for us, and Chiz made some good plays and Ebuka made some really good defensive plays and I think at one point, I think it was 4-for-11. He ended up 7-for-15. I think he was really, pretty clutch down the stretch and for a freshman, you know, he had some stretches there where he wasn’t his best. But it’s end of the day, he had a pretty good line. He was really one of the best players out there. So, great win for us, and a lot to be learned and grow from this one.”
Stanford led Montana State 20-13 with 10:54 to go in the half. Gealer was leading the Cardinal with eight points. Stanford had shot 8-14 from the field; Montana State had shot 5-12 from the field.
Stanford led Montana State 22-17 with 7:42 to go in the half. Okorie started to get rolling with six points on 2-4 shooting from the field and 2-2 shooting from the free throw line. Stanford had no field goals in the previous 3:43. Their offense needed to wake up.
Stanford led Montana State 29-23 with 2:48 to go in the half. Stanford had made just two of their last 10 field goals. Rohosy was up to seven points for the Cardinal. The Bobcats were hanging around.
At halftime, Stanford led Montana State 36-31. Gealer was leading the way for the Cardinal with 11 points on 4-6 shooting from the field and 3-4 shooting from 3-point range. Davian Brown was leading Montana State with eight points.
To open the second half, Stanford led Montana State 46-42 with 15:32 to go. Okorie was having more of a quiet night up to this point with eight points. Stanford’s 3-13 from three-point range was not helping.
Montana State led Stanford 52-48 with 11:53 to go. The Bobcats were on a 13-2 run over the previous 4:12. King was up to 14 points for the Bobcats. Stanford hadn’t scored for over 2 minutes. They needed to get their offense back on track.
Montana State led Stanford 59-55 with 8:54 to go. Chisom Okpara had 15 points for Stanford while Ebuka Okorie was up to 12 points. Stanford had been outscored 28-19 in the second half so far. Stanford needed to start by getting some stops.
Stanford led Montana State 66-63 with 4:13 to go as they had retaken the lead. A major reason for this is Okorie started to take over: 21 points on 7-14 from the field and 6-8 from the free throw line. Stanford would then led Montana State 69-65 with 2:16 to go. Stanford was in the driver’s seat, but they needed to close.
“Oh yeah, I think just, we had to get stops, you know, they were scoring on us every time down,” Gealer said. “There comes a point in time where you just gotta keep the ball in front, get stops, and then finish the play. I think we did that. So, a win’s a win.”
In the end, Stanford defeated Montana State 77-68. Okorie coming alive with 21 points really helped seal the deal while Gealer (16 points), Okpara (15 points), and Rohosy (13 points) also scoring in double figures really helped.
“He brought his best when his best was needed,” Smith said of Okorie. “Like I said, he had some, he played really well, just the expectation is so high you’re surprised, like, when he misses an open three. It’s like, you’re not allowed to do that. But he hit a big three in that stretch. It was huge and he’s a good competitor, man and be able to do that, as a freshman, and just stay locked in, and actually, had to kind of rally himself a little bit. He’d had a couple, got fatigued out there, and I said no, you can’t come out, you just go play through it and he’s really gonna be good or he is good. I just think he’s gonna get better.”
For Stanford, this was a closer game than they would have liked, but at least they won and in the end, the final score was acceptable. They didn’t get forced into overtime or anything like that. Still, it was a reminder that every night, you gotta be ready to go.
“The main thing was just playing defense,” Okpara said of what the emphasis was down the stretch. “Staying in front one-on-one. Because if you look at the assist numbers for them, you know, they weren’t getting assists. They were just attacking us one-on-one. And so if we just locked in on defense and stopped the ball, stop our matchups one-on-one, and just continue to play through the inside, drive and kick, because they were switching everything. So, a lot of mismatches. And just continue to play fast.”
One key takeaway from this game is Ebuka Okorie and Chisom Okpara are really gonna have to be the one-two punch all year long. Things looked dicey until Okorie started to take over. Once he did, then it was pretty smooth sailing from there. It’s hard to count on a true freshman to deliver the goods like that every night, so Stanford better be ready to get other guys going so that they aren’t so reliant on Okorie.
“But yeah, no, we’re pretty Ebuka centric,” Smith admitted. “And as I said, we ought to learn how to play without him when he’s not always gonna play, you know, his best game, and there was and there were some stretches there where we needed to, we’d shove him off the ball a little bit. And as I said we had Jeremy, you know, it’s a lot of pressure on him to guard the ball in, run a lot of pick and roll stuff, so Jeremy helped out there.”
Up next for Stanford is a home game against Louisiana on Tuesday, November 18th. Tipoff is set for 7:00 PM PT on ACCNX.
“Yeah, no, we’ll watch a lot of film,” Smith said of what the focus will be going into next week. “I think, tomorrow, and then probably add a few new things that we probably need to do whether it’s OB plays or couple things. Tight up somewhere, defensive stuff. We didn’t play our zone tonight at all. Not one possession. So we need to have that in our hip pocket. Especially when we’re getting driven like that. Would have been a good time to switch it up, but that’s, again, getting used to this team.”
“Yeah, it feels good, you know, definitely leaving with this little break, six day break with like a high level of confidence in ourselves and at the same time, we can watch for our mistakes,” Okpara said of their 3-0 start. “But we kinda know our strengths and weaknesses now, we can continue to build on those, too and work on our weaknesses and then continue to capitalize on our strengths.”
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