Recap: Stanford Men’s Basketball falls to UNLV at Maples
On Sunday, Stanford men’s basketball fell to UNLV at home by a final score of 75-74. In his UNLV debut, sophomore big man Emmanuel Stephen led the way for the Runnin’ Rebels with 18 points and 10 rebounds while senior forward Kimani Hamilton and junior guard Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn each had 15 points. Stanford freshman point guard Ebuka Okorie was the leading scorer for the Cardinal with 18 points, five rebounds, and three assists, though he did so on just 4-16 shooting from the field. UNLV improves to 4-5 overall while Stanford falls to 7-2.
VIDEO: Stanford Men’s Basketball Postgame Press Conference: UNLV
BOX SCORE: UNLV at Stanford-Sunday, December 7th
“That was obviously a tough loss for our program, for our team,” Stanford head coach Kyle Smith said after the game. “I thought it was a very physical game. We told our team, this would be similar to Saint Louis and it was a one point game. It was very similar. I thought their activating Emmanuel Stephen really impacted them in a good way and he was 18 and 10, did a really good job and you know, they kept us on our heels with their defenses, mixing defenses, and we didn’t handle it well enough, I thought they forced us into some, obviously turned the ball over, which is a little bit uncharacteristic and we took some questionable shots. So, hat tip to them, they won the game and we had our opportunities and hopefully we can learn from this.”
With 15:50 to go in the first half, Stanford led 9-6 as Benny Gealer and Ryan Agarwal each had a 3-pointer for the Cardinal. Both guys were in a nice flow early from beyond the arc.
Stanford led UNLV 20–15 with 10:42 remaining in the half. Gealer was leading Stanford with 6 points. Chisom Okpara had just gotten on the board for the Cardinal with a 3-pointer.
Stanford was ahead 25–22 over UNLV with 7:46 left in the half. Okorie had six points for Stanford after a nice bucket inside. Tyrin Jones was leading UNLV with eight points. Stanford was shooting 8-for-23 from the field (34.8%), while UNLV was shooting 9-for-18 (50.0%). Stanford needed to shoot more efficiently. The Cardinal had recorded four steals, doing a good job forcing turnovers.
With 4:07 to go in the half, Stanford was up 35–27. The Cardinal had started to heat up, having made four of their last five field goals. Freshman big man Oskar Giltay had come on strong for Stanford with five points, six rebounds, one block, and one steal.
Stanford led 37–36 with 33.5 seconds left in the half. UNLV had gone on a 7–0 run over the previous 2:31. Stanford had really needed a bucket to break the run and gain some momentum heading into halftime.
At halftime, Stanford was up 39–38. Agarwal led the way for the Cardinal with 10 points on 4-for-6 shooting from the field and 2-for-4 shooting from 3-point range. Stephen led UNLV with 10 points and 5 rebounds. It was a tight game at the break.
With 15:50 to go, Stanford was ahead 48–46. Agarwal had increased his total to 13 points after a nice straightaway 3-pointer for the Cardinal. UNLV had made three straight field goals, while Stanford had made just two of their last 10. The Cardinal’s offense had gone cold, yet they still were in front.
UNLV took a 51–48 lead over Stanford with 14:08 to go. Kyle Smith had not been happy and called for time. Walter Brown had contributed a strong putback inside for the Runnin’ Rebels. It remained to be seen how Smith would adjust.
UNLV led 55–54 with 11:43 remaining. Jeremy Dent-Smith had five points after making his first 3-pointer of the night. Giltay had 11 rebounds (eight offensive) to go along with five points. His activity on the glass had been crucial. Stephen’s 14 points led UNLV, while Agarwal’s 13 points led Stanford.
“Oskar was just really tough on there,” Smith said of Giltay’s rebounding. “And I thought we could have an advantage there. We’re pretty good there with AJ and Oskar and you know, that was our best offense, you know? And that’s why having 16 turnovers, we only turn the ball over 10 times. I think we’re pretty safe. Whether six more shots, three more, you know, we were getting three of those back and good things could happen.”
“A big emphasis of ours is rebounding and I thought Oskar did an incredible job, you know, giving us second chance opportunities,” Gealer added. “And it’s an emphasis for sure, but you know, tonight it obviously, you know, we gotta and at the end of the day, we gotta keep doing what we do: defend, rebound, take care of the ball, and you know, if we focus on that and keep growing in all those areas, tonight we didn’t take care of the ball. You know, it’s hard to win, you know, 16 or 15 turnovers, but if we do what we do at a high level, we’ll be a really good team.”
UNLV was up 61–60 with 6:50 to go. Stanford had committed three turnovers in the last 2:05 and had not scored during that period. The Cardinal needed to play cleaner to pull this one out.
Stanford regained the lead, 66–63, with 3:45 left. The Cardinal had gone on a 6–0 run. Okorie had reached 14 points for Stanford despite shooting 3-for-14 from the field, but he was 7-for-9 at the foul line. Dent-Smith had a pretty finish inside, bringing his total to seven points for the Cardinal.
With 1:23 to go, the score was tied at 70. Stanford had turned it over; UNLV had gone 1-for-2 at the foul line. Stanford had possession.
Stanford led 73–72 with 49.1 seconds left. Okorie had rebounded his own miss inside and scored the basket plus the foul, making the free throw—a huge play for the Cardinal.
Hamilton then had a huge bucket inside for UNLV. Okorie had gone 1-for-2 at the foul line to answer for Stanford. The score was tied at 74 with 17.7 seconds left. UNLV had possession. Hamilton would go on to get fouled with two seconds left in the game. He would go to the foul line and make one of two foul shots, making it a 75-74 lead for UNLV. Stanford was unable to get one more bucket as Okorie’s last second heave fell short. UNLV escaped with the win.
“Some things you’d always like to change,” Smith said. “But a couple is just like you said, those scrums underneath their basket. We had to, that’s just, gotta come up with those things, man. They just wanted a little more. They were really excited to get that done. And we gotta play with a little more vigor.”
“I mean, I would say it’s pretty, pretty important,” Agarwal said of those hustle plays. “I mean, as you can see today, it was a one possession game. So when you think of it like that, every possession matters. So, you know, I think those play a big part.”
For Stanford, this was a disappointing loss. Despite Ebuka Okorie shooting 4-16 from the field, they were right in this game and a had a chance to pull out the win. Instead, they came up one point short. This is a game that had they played just a bit cleaner and more efficient, they would have walked out with the win.
“Yeah, no, he’s always, he’s gonna draw a lot of attention,” Smith said of Okorie. “And he’s learning, like he was able to get in the paint, but he drew a lot of help. He tried, he shot 12 free throws, you know, drew seven fouls. He’s so quick and tough and then, you know, those two guards are good that we had to guard. And we just can’t have where he has to score 25 to win or 20 to win. And he needs to be more efficient. You know, he needs to be able to find some other guys and more of those things for us to be our best. So, he’s really good player. I’m excited to coach him. He’ll get better on that. There’s some lessons to be learned there and you know, we’ll be okay. He made a couple big, like blocked shot and a steal that was huge.”
As for UNLV, they showed that with Emmanuel Stephen in the lineup, they are a much better team than their record indicates. In many respects this was a sort of a trap game for Stanford in that UNLV’s record was a bit deceptive given they hadn’t yet played with Stephen. He is clearly a guy who if he stays healthy will make a real impact on their team.
“No,” Smith said when asked if he knew Stephen was going to play. “You know what, you know, we saw him in high school, we knew who he was. He’s a good player, signed at Arizona originally and he made some really tough shots, too. He hit some like eight, nine foot turnarounds over his left shoulder that I thought were defended well and he’s an effort athlete guy, too.
“So, and I thought Oskar matched him and AJ did a pretty good job, but he just, he’s a difference maker and you know, we didn’t prepare for that, but that doesn’t necessarily change the scout as much. They had 14 turnovers; they only had seven assists. We just couldn’t, we didn’t do a good job, good enough job guarding him one on one.”
Up next for Stanford is a road game at San Jose State on Saturday, December 13th. Tipoff is set for 4:00 PM PT on CBS Sports Network.
“I mean, we got finals. We’re gonna play on the road,” Smith said looking ahead to facing the Spartans. “That’ll be tough, obviously. We don’t have that much margin for error. We have to play well. We got to play as a unit; we got play together.”
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