On Tuesday, Stanford men’s basketball defeated Utah Valley by a final score of 77-63. Stanford center Maxime Raynaud had a double-double for the Cardinal with 14 points and 17 rebounds while guard Jaylen Blakes had 18 points and six rebounds. Utah Valley guard Dominick Nelson was the top performer for the Wolverines with 22 points. Stanford improves to 7-2 overall while Utah Valley falls to 4-4.

VIDEO: Stanford MBB Postgame Press Conference: Utah Valley

BOX SCORE: Utah Valley at Stanford-Tuesday, December 3rd

“Yeah, thought that was a good win for us,” Stanford head coach Kyle Smith said after the game. “I think a lot of respect, you’re talking about they’re one of the better rebounding teams in the country. They really get on the offensive glass and even really make it hard to get offensive rebounds and I thought we did a good job there and we definitely addressed our defensive issues from the previous game. Trying to get back to building that identity and we weren’t perfect, but we were definitely more centered, focused on that area and it was a good win for us.”

Utah Valley got off to a nice start, leading 12-8 with 14:51 to go in the first half. Dominick Nelson was up to five points for the Wolverines while Jaylen Blakes was up to four points for Stanford. Utah Valley was shooting 4-8 from the field while Stanford was shooting 3-6. UVU had two threes and Stanford had zero.

Stanford would then lead 16-15 with 11:44 to go in the half. Stanford freshman Evan Stinson checked in for the first time of his career and nailed a 3-pointer. He was a nice spark off the bench.

“You know, we need, it’s funny because it, we have some guys that I would call combo forwards that are just, we need another perimeter guy and it’s kind of a 3-2, 2-3, 6’6”, 6’7”, some size,” Smith said of Stinson. “Ryan has been pretty much that guy for us and probably playing a little heavy minutes. So it just seemed like we need more size on the perimeter bottom line with Oziyah. Oziyah’s a good sized two guard and then Ryan’s a good size three and then Evan, try to get some help there and I think he’s gonna be a good player moving forward. Put him in a tough spot. He really hasn’t practiced that much, but it’s just kind of what we need. I think moving forward and he played well. So hopefully he can continue.”

Stanford would lead 26-19 with 7:41 to go in the half. Blakes was up to seven points for the Cardinal. Stanford was shooting 10-16 from the field while Utah Valley was shooting 6-18.

Stanford would lead 28-25 with 4:29 to go in the half. Blakes was up to nine points for Stanford while Tanner Toolson had ten points for Utah Valley. The Wolverines had closed the gap.

At halftime, Stanford led 38-26. Stanford closed the half on a 10-0 run over 4:08. Utah Valley had made one of their last eight field goals. The Cardinal played great defense to close the half.

Stanford got off to a hot start in the second half, leading 49-30 with 15:40 to go. Jaylen Blakes was up to 14 points and four rebounds for Stanford while Maxime Raynaud had 10 points and eight rebounds. Stanford was outscoring Utah Valley 11-4 so far in the second half.

Stanford would lead 49-36 with 12:05 to go. Utah Valley was on a 6-0 run over the last 2:41. Dominick Nelson had 13 points and six rebounds for the Wolverines. He was doing what he could to keep his team in the game.

Stanford would lead 61-51with 7:44 to go. Blakes was up to 16 points for Stanford while Nelson had 18 points for Utah Valley. Utah Valley was hanging around.

Rather than allowing Utah Valley to make things even more interesting, Stanford would put the clamps down as they led 67-53 with 3:22 to go. Oziyah Sellers was up to 15 points & four rebounds for Stanford, doing a nice job of helping the Cardinal finish strong.

“Even when things are not going good, we can still play defense hard,” Sellers said. “We can still bring energy and all that would translate.”

“A lot of times you can have a perfect game plan but on defense, but if you don’t have the toughness or the energy or mindset to get a stop or stop the guy in front of you from driving or fighting through a ball screen and none of it will work,” Blakes added.

“So for us it was just a mindset that we can’t let these guys score. We have a mindset of getting kills, three stops in a row. That’s our mindset for every defensive possession is to get a stop and don’t let the guy in front of you score the ball. And if he does get by you, believe that the person to your right and left has your back.”

In the end, Stanford would walk out with a 77-63 victory as a thunderous dunk by Evan Stinson was the exclamation point of a nice bounce back win for the Cardinal. Utah Valley played Stanford tough, but in the end the Cardinal came through as they were expected to.

“Yeah, I mean, the motivation was pretty obvious,” Blakes said. “I mean coming off of two losses, didn’t sit well with us and the team. And for us, you know, we just had to keep moving forward and obviously there’s motivation every game because we always have something to prove individually or as a team, but especially when you’re coming off two losses, two games that we felt that we should have won. And for us it was we had to double down our fundamentals and get back to what we do and that was play defense and for us that’s what we did.”

For Stanford, this was an underrated win. What I mean by that is on paper, beating Utah Valley might not seem like a big deal, but given they were coming in having lost two straight games, they really needed to get back in the win column. They also needed to have a bounce back performance on defense and they did that.

“I’d say we’re not a confident group yet, like used to winning,” Smith said. “So I was like, I gotta be careful, I didn’t jump them too much. I was like, we little bit, just we weren’t ourselves. And so the deal was just try to get back to what we talked about previous six, for six months. Like, if we don’t defend we’re hoping. You’re hoping to win you exchange baskets and so it’s just about let’s guard them right.

“We started off slow with Chisom Okpara gave us a big lift. Just kind of got us going. I think he was his plus/minus was tremendous tonight. Plus 19 in 23 minutes he gave us. When he checked in the game, he got the scoring going that way and he was in there the last two minutes, first four minutes of the second half and did a great job.”

Up next for Stanford is a road game at Cal on Saturday, December 7th to open up ACC play. That will tipoff at 1:00 PM PT on ACC Network.

“You know, we got kind of a short, we’re gonna get tomorrow off, get rested up, and then we’ll practice Thursday and Friday,” Smith said looking ahead to Cal. “It’s an early game Saturday so there’s not a lot of prep time. I really haven’t watched much of them. I think they, just by their scores and little I’ve seen, they’re getting better, they’re pretty good. They had a tough one tonight, but to get up big on the road and SEC, obviously that’s a good sign, so it’ll be fun.

“It’s first ACC game. First league game, first ACC game, and it’s your rival. Kind of why you come to college. That’s what college basketball is about. So, I’ve coached in that gym before, but not wearing the Cardinal. So it’ll be fun.”

“I’m super excited,” Sellers said of facing Cal. “You know, obviously people know that I grew up in the Bay Area, so that’s a game that I looked forward to watching, going to, things like that. So to finally play in it, I’m super excited and yeah, that’s all I can really say. USC, you know, I faced them I think four times over the two years. So I’m kind of familiar just with, I mean, the arena obviously. Got a new team and stuff like that, but yeah, I’m excited for Saturday for sure.”

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