Recapping Big Game weekend Stanford hoops action from Maples Pavilion
This past weekend was busy on The Farm with NCAA tournament soccer, volleyball, and of course Big Game, which Stanford won 31-10. Not to be lost in the shuffle of all that was basketball. Stanford men’s basketball fell to Seattle on Friday by a final score of 77-69 while Stanford women’s basketball defeated Lehigh 98-43 on Sunday. Stanford men’s basketball is now 4-1 on the season while Stanford women’s basketball is now 7-0. What I want to do is provide a quick summary and some takeaways from both of these games before I dive into their upcoming games Thanksgiving Weekend.
BOX SCORE: Seattle at Stanford-Friday, November 21st
BOX SCORE: Lehigh at Stanford-Sunday, November 23rd
VIDEO: Stanford Men’s Basketball Postgame Press Conference-Seattle
VIDEO: Stanford Women’s Basketball Postgame Press Conference-Lehigh
Starting with the men’s game, Stanford was off to a decent start, leading 41-37 at halftime as Chisom Okpara (11 points) and AJ Rohosy (10 points) were both in double figures at the half while Ebuka Okorie (6 points) was shooting 2-4 from the field, which meant he was being pretty efficient. Nobody for Seattle was in double figures at the half and their star guard Brayden Maldonado, who averages 20+ points per game had just two points. Things were looking good for the Cardinal at the half even though they were up by just four points.
The second half was another story: Seattle outscored Stanford 40-28 as forward Jun Seok Yeo scored nine of his 16 points. Seattle finished the game making four of their last four field goals while Stanford made one of their last 10. That stat more than anything sums up how the second half went. Seattle was able to make shots and maintain a good offensive flow while Stanford went icy cold. Seattle shot 12-23 (52.2%) from the field in the second half while Stanford shot 8-34 (23.5%). And it wasn’t like Seattle was playing amazing defense. A lot of it was just Stanford going cold.
The only two players who did anything offensively in the second half for the Cardinal were guards Ebuka Okorie and Benny Gealer. Okorie scored 11 of his 17 points in the second half while Gealer scored all nine of his points. Outside of that, nobody had more than three points.
The main lesson that Stanford needs to take from this game is they have to figure out how to get going when they find a dry spell coming on. They can’t let three scoreless minutes turn into five scoreless minutes.
Switching gears to the women’s game, this was dominance all the way through for Stanford. The final score says it all. Stanford outscored Lehigh 25-9 in the 1st quarter and 27-9 in the 2nd quarter to lead 52-18 at halftime. The 3rd quarter was only a +4 advantage for Stanford (23-19), but given how well the first half went, it didn’t really matter. And then hey, Stanford really put the clamps down in the 4th quarter 23-6.
Junior forward Nunu Agara led the way for the Cardinal in this one with 24 points and four rebounds while freshman forward Lara Somfai had 15 points and six rebounds. Both played fantastic and earned weekly honors at the end of the week: Agara was named ACC Player of the Week while Somfai was named USBWA Freshman of the Week. Stanford had a 70-45 victory over UC Davis earlier in the week on Thursday, November 20th.
Honestly, there isn’t much to really have an issue with from the women’s side. They took care of business and a lot of players saw the floor and were able to produce. I do think the Tennessee game that will be on Wednesday, December 3rd will tell us a lot about Stanford. That’s going to be their first of four straight games against power conference opponents. So that will give us a better sense of where things stand with them. In some respects, it’s hard to know how good this Stanford team is given the schedule up to this point. That said, one still has to give them a lot of credit for taking care of business and remaining undefeated.
Up next for Stanford men’s basketball is the Acrisure Invitational in Palm Desert, California. They’ll face Minnesota on Thursday, November 27th at 6:30 PM PT on CBS Sports Network and then either Santa Clara or Saint Louis on Friday, November 28th on TRU TV (Tipoff TBA).
As for Stanford women’s basketball, they have the Resorts World Classic in Las Vegas, Nevada. Up first will be Florida Gulf Coast on Friday, November 28th at 5:00 PM PT after which they’ll face Colorado State on Saturday, November 29th at 5:00 PM PT. Both games will air on Flo College.
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