Stanford (15-6, 7-3 ACC) used a 25-2 start to pull away from Syracuse (9-12, 3-7) in a wire-to-wire 70-61 home victory.
Syracuse head coach Adrian Autry acknowledged that Stanford has been jumping on teams early at home. Just a week after leading Miami 21-3, the Cardinal outdid that. The game started 17-0, and it took more than 7 minutes for the Orange to get on the board. They were settling for difficult looks, and the Stanford defense was flummoxing them as they switched between zone and man.
Maxime Raynaud was coming off a season low 8 points on Saturday. He scored 8 points in the game’s first 6 minutes today, and was playing with the aggression of a man with something to prove. At one point, he had Stanford’s first 7 rebounds of the game.
The Orange were able to make it a game at halftime, using a 20-4 stretch to trim down the lead. A late shot from Maxime Raynaud made the score just 33-24 at the break, a relatively harmless margin given the Cardinal’s torrid start. Maxime had 11 points and 11 rebounds to lead the way.
Although the coaches stressed that it was a game of runs, the second half saw no spurts greater than 6-0 for either team.
After Syracuse cut the lead to 8 points at the under 16 timeout, Kyle Smith inserted freshman guard Evan Stinson for the first time, and just the second time in five games. Evan converted a pair of field goals to help Stanford on a 6-0 spurt to push the lead back up to 14.
With the teams largely trading baskets, Syracuse failed to get any closer than 6 at any point after the opening minutes. Benny Gealer made several key plays down the stretch to score or get a stop when they needed it.
At no point in the second half did the Cardinal’s win probability dip below 94%.
Maxime Raynaud led the way with 21 points and 15 rebounds, the latter of which is his high mark in ACC play. Jaylen Blakes had 14 points, although an uncharacteristic 5 turnovers. Oziyah Sellerls and Ryan Agarwal added 10 and 9 respectively, while Benny Gealer added 10 of his own off the bench, his second consecutive double figure outing.
Stanford had a 19-9 advantage in points off turnovers, giving the ball away just 9 times. Per Sports-Reference, their season turnover rate of 13.1% is on pace to be the program’s lowest in at least 20 years, which is as far back as the data goes.
The Cardinal currently sit in a share of fourth in the ACC standings.