Recap: Stanford Men’s Basketball survives at San Jose State
On Saturday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated San Jose State on the road by a final score of 86-82. Stanford was without their leading scorer and freshman guard Ebuka Okorie (21.0 points) who is day-to-day with what the team is calling a “lower body injury.” Graduate student forward AJ Rohosy (20 points & 8 rebounds) and senior forward Chisom Okpara (20 points & 5 assists) led the way for the Cardinal while graduate student guard Jeremy Dent-Smith (16 points & 4 assists) and redshirt junior forward Ryan Agarwal (11 points & 9 rebounds) also finished in double figures. Okpara reached the 1000 career points mark.
“It was a great bounce back for Chisom,” Stanford head coach Kyle Smith said about Okpara’s performance. “He knows he didn’t play, he had six turnovers against UNLV and we really want to encourage him to shoot the catch and shoots. Like, you’re open and he’s been over penetrating and stuff and people playing his ball and he played the right way on a couple drives, kickouts, he banged at least two. How many threes did he have? Just two? Where’s the guy? Oh, hit three. Three for three.
“I think they’re all catch and shoots because sometimes they’ve been known to take them off their dribble, but they’re the right shots and then he had a couple close outs he drove. He hit Ryan late for a big bucket, he sprayed one out for another good shot, so he was huge.”
San Jose State senior forward Yaphet Moundi (26 points & 5 rebounds) and junior guard Colby Garland (20 points & 9 assists) led the way for the Spartans. Stanford improves to 8-2 overall while San Jose State falls to 5-6.
BOX SCORE: Stanford at San Jose State-Saturday, December 13th
“I prefer comfortable, I might stress, but I felt good,” Smith about the win. “You know, we didn’t execute well the last four minutes. First 36 minutes, played pretty darn well considering road game and not having our starting point guard. Obviously, our ball handling throughout the game, we kind of wore down a little bit. But, we were gritty enough to get the win. We got some film to look at ourselves and what we can do better in that late game situation, but I, you know, hunt the good stuff for 36 minutes. We’d pretty much controlled the game. I think we led by, get up 13 or whatever. 14 twice and just couldn’t. And that’s been a little bit, a couple even our scrimmages, we couldn’t handle, we gotta get better, but hopefully when you hang on, you want to look to hang on, hopefully we’ll get one of these where we kind of press through and put them away and then you’re starting to be a good team, with a little confident.”
Stanford was up 16-8 with 16:23 remaining in the first half. Dent-Smith already had six points for the Cardinal, having knocked down a couple of threes. He was in a nice groove early.
“Jeremy got us going early and you know, he needs to keep coming, keep coming for us to be good,” Smith said of Dent-Smith. “Even like Jaylen Thompson came in there and gave us some, you know, he didn’t show up on the stat sheet, but his energy and his, he was into the game, ready to play and guy that hadn’t played much for us, but with Ebuka down, he gave us another athlete, long arms out there that helped.”
Stanford was up 19-10 with 13:42 left in the half. Dent-Smith led the Cardinal with 9 points after banging home another three. He continued to feel it.
Stanford led San Jose State 31-22 with 7:42 left in the half. Okpara led the Cardinal with 11 points, going 3-3 from the field, 2-2 from three-point range, and 3-4 from the free throw line. Dent-Smith had nine points on 3-5 shooting from deep. Moundi led San Jose State with eight points. Stanford did a great job containing Garland, San Jose State’s leading scorer on the season, holding him to just two points up to this point.
Stanford led San Jose State 33-26 with 5:20 left in the half. San Jose State had made four of their last five field goal attempts. They were starting to find a rhythm.
Stanford led San Jose State 38-31 with 3:41 left in the half. Stanford shot 12-18 (66.7%) from the field while San Jose State shot 10-22 (45.5%) from the field. Stanford was 6-10 from 3-point range while San Jose State was 1-4 from 3-point range. Stanford was 8-11 from the foul line; San Jose State was 10-10 from the foul line.
At halftime, Stanford led San Jose State 44-36. Okpara led the way for the Cardinal with 13 points on 4-4 shooting from the field, 2-2 shooting from three-point range, and 3-5 shooting from the foul line, while Dent-Smith had 11 points and three assists. Rohosy did work inside with eight points and three rebounds. Moundi led the Spartans with 10 points and three rebounds.
Stanford led San Jose State 51-40 with 15:56 remaining. Rohosy started to get rolling inside for the Cardinal with 13 points and five rebounds. Stanford was out-rebounding San Jose State 21-10.
Stanford led San Jose State 61-50 with 10:52 left. San Jose State got within four points, but Stanford quickly went on a 7-0 run over the last 1:29 to extend their lead back into double figures. Rohosy (15 points & 6 rebounds) led the Cardinal while Dent-Smith and Okpara had 13 points. Garland woke up for the Spartans with 15 points while Moundi led the way with 16 points.
Stanford led San Jose State 63-56 with 8:04 left. The Spartans would not go away. The question was whether they could find a way to close the gap if Garland remained out due to an ankle injury he had suffered a couple minutes earlier.
Stanford led San Jose State 68-59 with 6:32 left. Rohosy was having a career night for the Cardinal with 17 points and six rebounds. The Spartans did not have an answer inside for him. He delivered the goods in the paint all night long. Amazingly, Garland was back on the floor for the Spartans. It really looked like Garland was done given the way he hobbled off the floor. It was huge for the Spartans to have him back out there.
“AJ having to step up and really was a man out there,” Smith said of Rohosy. “20 points, eight from nine from the field.”
Stanford led San Jose State 75-61 with 4:41 left. Rohosy (19 points), Okpara (18 points), and Dent-Smith were really coming through for the Cardinal. Garland (17 points) and Moundi (16 points) were playing well for the Spartans but needed more help.
Stanford led San Jose State 82-75 with 1:06 left. Moundi had 21 points for the Spartans after making a pair of free throws, while Garland had 20 points. Rohosy’s 20 points led the Cardinal. Stanford just needed to hang on.
San Jose State continued to put up a fight. Stanford also made some costly turnovers. Stanford had the rock up 84-82 with 28.4 seconds left. Okpara just made two crucial free throws for Stanford; Moundi scored a nice bucket inside for San Jose State. Nobody guarded that basket.
From there, Stanford defeated San Jose State 86-82. The Cardinal survived. Aidan Cammann made a clutch steal in the post to force a turnover and got the ball to Gealer, who made a pair of free throws.
“That was big,” Smith said of that final sequence. “Yeah, we got it. That was good. You know, you don’t want, gosh, it happens though. You don’t want to backpedal in a situation we were up two. Now how’d this happen? You know, we gotta get a stop and sometimes you miss free throws in that. We just turned it over. We switched everything, we stayed down on, guy’s good, and there was a loose ball, Benny came up with it and there’s still 3.6. And you gotta make, make two free throws, you win. Everyone thinks that’s easy. It’s not. And he misses the second one. You know, now you’re 3.6 and that’s a tough. I don’t really want to go to the foul game there with, and give them a chance to make one, miss one. Like we, like the game we won. So, it was a big stop. We need those. Get big stops.”
“Yeah, I didn’t feel much, I mean, they had a good press going, so I was a little tired,” Gealer said of that final sequence. “But just got my composure, made the free throws, which is, you know, gave us a lead. Like Chisom said and like you said, we were up 14 twice, you know? We got to bring that 14 lead to, you know, 20 points, but it was overall a good win. Everyone down the bench contributed. I thought JT gave us great minutes. AJ had an incredible game, Chisom had an incredible game, Aidan Cammann had a great stop at the end, so everyone contributed. They gave us a really good fight and we were able to withstand that and come up with the win. So, first road win, too.”
For Stanford, this is overall a good win considering the fact that they didn’t have Ebuka Okorie. This was a good test for them to see how they could do without their star player and they were able to still come out on top. Things got a little shaky at the end, but in the end, they still got the job done, this time making their free throws, which did them in against UNLV in their previous game.
“The main thing I’ll say is that we just kept together as a team,” Okpara said. “You know, it was unfortunate we had to give up two leads, but you know, we just kept doing what got us those leads and continued to play defense, continued to play together as a team and then trusting our coach, you know, at the end you know, we kind of folded a little bit with the turnovers, but you know, we stuck together, played through toughness. That’s a different form of adversity and you know, we just got comfortable at the end and just trusted each other, trusted ourselves, you know, trusted each other with free throws, so yeah, it’s really just stick with our habits, really you know, iced the game.”
“Just gotta keep working at it,” Smith said of the foul shooting. “Like you said, even though, you know, the guy that’s obviously had AJ’s 4-for-8 is progress, honestly. And he went and there was no empty trips for him and those sometimes could be, there was no, I’m not saying anything he doesn’t know. Those are sometimes emotionally hurt you when you’re like, gosh, empty trip. And then everyone else was pretty solid and that, it is a difference. We make our free throws. You know, we make a third of the ones we missed last time, we’d probably get that one done. But we live, we learn, and gotta get coming.”
As for San Jose State, this is a disappointing result. Stanford was not at full strength and with a strong crowd on hand to cheer them on, this was absolutely a game the Spartans could have won. The biggest positive for them was to see Yaphet Moundi come on strong like he did to take some of the pressure off Colby Garland. The two of them formed a really good duo in this one. If they can keep that up, there’s a chance they make a bit of noise in Mountain West play.
“How did Garland do? I felt like we did alright on him, in the end he got it going,” Smith said. “What did he end up with? Oh gosh, he had 20 [points]. Nine assists. Oh, he was great. He made some big plays late. In the game we had a chance, he hit the, I think up seven he cut it to four with the corner three that he made. And Benny got in foul trouble. He was doing a pretty good job on him early and then we had to throw some zone in there and then big fella [Moundi] was good, man. We said it’s coming. He’s really crafty down there. Showing the ball, stepping through, really good footwork, and we told our guys like hey, he’s gonna, everything he does is gonna be, it’s one more. It’s like a shot fake step through and he gets tough and you know, in the pick and roll we were giving that up a little bit. Him in the middle floor, he got downhill, and we weren’t moving over enough. But credit to them, they’re good players.”
“Yeah, I sense it from the opponent,” Okpara said of this game being extra chippy due to it being a rivalry game. “Yeah, definitely. I heard some vulgar language throughout the game. So, you know, I’m probably not used to that playing like another team. But yeah, I definitely felt it for sure in that sense one hundred percent.”
“Yeah, I mean, it showed in the way they were competing,” Gealer added. “You know, like we said, we had big leads and they were able to, you know, use the momentum and kind of withstand our, you know, our runs. So, I thought it was for sure a little edgy, but you know, hats off to them, they competed hard and gave us a run for our money.”
Up next for Stanford is a home game against UT Arlington on Wednesday, December 17th at 7:00 PM PT on ACCNX.
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