MBB: Duke vs. Stanford (Saturday 2/15, 4pm ET, ABC/ESPN+) Pregame and In-Game Thread

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brevity

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Having personally welcomed SMU and California to the ACC, the #3 Blue Devils will host the Stanford Cardinal in a late afternoon game on Saturday, live on ABC. This is one of only three Duke games on a broadcast network this season, theoretically watchable with a nice antenna; last month's SMU game was on The CW, and the upcoming Illinois game is on FOX. So it's easier to watch, maybe, but harder to stream: ESPN usually has a corresponding ESPN3 stream for events on ABC, but all I'm seeing right now is an ESPN+ stream, which comes at an additional cost (ESPN+ streaming link, listen, live stats). If something changes -- adding a Spanish language feed on ESPN3, for example -- I'll provide an update by game day.

Duke and Stanford have never faced each other on their respective home courts, Cameron Indoor Stadium and Maples Pavilion; GoDuke's opponent history says that they've played three games on neutral courts, and that Stanford holds the edge, 2-1. Let's even that record now. (Interestingly, the two most recent meetings were in the 2000-2001 and 2014-2015 seasons, both of which ended in a Duke national championship.)

dukestanford2014.jpg
(source)

I'll provide a preview for Saturday's matchup later. In the meantime, feel free to discuss.
 
It will be nice to see Jalylen Blakes return to Cameron. As Cory Alexander said last night, Jaylen is the most improved player in the ACC. Blakes missed some games recently with a concussion, but returned to the court this week. I'm sure the Crazies will express their appreciation.
 
I am also looking forward to the hopefully warm welcome that Blakes should get. Duke should appreciate him and his service to the Brotherhood. I thought he always played hard, never complained. He acted like a leader. And if he didn't transfer to Stanford, he would never have hit that game winning shot in the Dean Dome and take down the Heels. He's been playing well this season. I hope he has a good game... but of course not enough to win.

I've watched Stanford a few times this year. They have talent, just not enough to be more than a team that's a weak bubble team for the Next 4 Out (or Next Next 4 Out) at this point. But that does not mean they can't beat a team like Duke, if Duke has an off night. Raynaud is a solid+ player. He'd be at least in the rotation if he were at Duke. He's double double machine, and he can hit a 3 (not consistently but enough to respect a player that's 7-1). But he's not that hefty, so it will be an interesting battle for Maluach. The third guy to watch is Sellers, who transferred from USC to the Cardinal. He's a guard with reasonable size at 6-5. Between Blakes and Sellers, James and Proctor will need to shut them down. Blakes will do his usual number on whoever he has, so that guy may be limited slightly offensively.

Note: if Raynaud played at UNC, there would be much more noise about him vs. Flagg for ACC POY. But since he's out here, the east coast bias sets in. ACCN talks about a race, but it's a race in name only. We all know who's winning POY.

Stanford should be motivated. Win at Duke, and they get into the bubble discussion. Still again maybe Next 4 Out (or Next Next 4 Out), but that's better than most of the rest of the ACC. Kyle Smith is their coach, who primarily has been a west coast guy (he's been with Saint Mary's, Wash State and USF). But his best job was probably at Columbia, who he coached to a winning record once in the early 2010s - first time in decades that had one. He's a cerebral coach who is supposedly an analytics guy. So he probably works well with higher academic school programs.

From a personal standpoint, I've never liked Stanford. It's an elite school rivalry thing, I suppose. I was neutral on them until the Madsen years, when their fair-weather fans came out of the woodwork. Duke came to the Bay Area in 2000 and played Stanford in the Oakland Coliseum, where the Golden State Warriors used to play. Duke was #1, Stanford was ranked top 5. Stanford had Casey Jacobsen and was coached by Mike Montgomery. At the time, it was the largest attendance ever to see a regular season college basketball game in California. Duke had a big lead late in the 2nd half, then choked it up as K went into that slowdown game we all hated. Stanford took advantage and kept scoring, possession after possession. Duke had looked so good earlier, then started to fall apart. Jacobsen hit the go ahead shot with under 10 seconds left. JWill had a chance on a drive, but couldn't convert. I had to put up with crap until Maryland took out the Cardinal in the E8, which set up the FF meeting between the Terps and Duke. When Duke won it all that year, one of the many reasons I was happy was that I could lord it over Stanford folks... But it's not like I have a long memory or something...;)

9F
 
kako said:
I am also looking forward to the hopefully warm welcome that Blakes should get. ... He's been playing well this season. I hope he has a good game... but of course not enough to win.
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Sorry, Jaylen. If I were there, I would welcome you with open arms and I would cheer loudly for you, but I honestly hope you have a terrible game. Not because you play poorly, but because Duke's masterful defense completely shuts you down. I hope your defense also looks poor, not because you played particularly poorly, but because Duke's offense is firing so well that it makes you irrelevant. I hope you end up with the worst game of your entire season, and that it is all our doing.

Then I'll cheer for you again when it's over.
 
brevity said:
I'll provide a preview for Saturday's matchup later. In the meantime, feel free to discuss.
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In order to introduce Stanford Men's Basketball, I have to tell a short story that's also about UNC Men's Basketball, Duke Women's Volleyball, and karma. You may remember the Ingram siblings from last year: 6-7 junior forward Harrison Ingram transferred from Stanford to UNC, and his sister Lauren Ingram was a 6-1 freshman (now sophomore) outside hitter at Duke, according to her bio. They struck a deal: Harrison would wear Duke gear when Lauren played against UNC, and Lauren would wear UNC gear when Harrison played against Duke. The volleyball teams split their series, and the Heels swept in basketball, so Carolina may have gotten the better end of that deal.

Cut to the offseason. Another player on the Duke volleyball team, 6-1 redshirt sophomore setter Millie Muir (bio), also happens to be the daughter of Stanford Athletic Director Bernard Muir. She knew that Jaylen Blakes was graduating from Duke early and was looking for a grad transfer destination, and suggested (through her parents) to new Stanford coach Kyle Smith that Blakes was available. Coach Smith says as much, and gives her all the credit in his ACC Tip-Off press conference. Just a few months later, this happened in Chapel Hill:


As you might know, Jaylen Blakes has a sister of his own, 5-8 freshman guard Mikayla Blakes of Vanderbilt, who hit a buzzer beater the same weekend as Jaylen, and more recently broke an NCAA rookie record, scoring 53 points against Florida. Is there any chance she'll get to face the UNC women in the NCAA Tournament? And if I looked deeper into the Duke volleyball roster, am I going to find more connections? Because I did: 6-3 junior outside hitter Kerry Keefe (bio) comes from a family of Stanford athletes, including her father Adam Keefe, who went on to the NBA. What does it all mean? No idea, but I know enough about karma to not assume that it's done here.

In Coach Smith's first season, the Cardinal are 16-9 overall and 8-6 in the ACC. That's a decent conference record, but like real estate, it's been very dependent upon location. The team is 6-1 in Maples Pavilion, and aside from the win at California, they are 1-5 on the road, with that victory at the Dean Smith Center. They just lost at Georgia Tech, a weird team that is both depleted and resurgent right now (60-52: recap, box score, highlights, full replay).


Let's take a look at the Stanford roster.

PROBABLE STARTERS

7-1 senior forward Maxime Raynaud #42 (19.9 pts, 11.5 reb, 1.8 ast, 1.1 stl, 1.1 blk)
6-5 junior guard Oziyah Sellers #4 (14.0 pts, 2.8 reb, 1.1 ast)
6-2 grad guard Jaylen Blakes #21 (14.5 pts, 3.2 reb, 5.0 ast, 1.9 stl)
6-6 redshirt sophomore guard Ryan Agarwal #11 (7.5 pts, 5.0 reb, 2.4 ast)
6-8 freshman forward Donavin Young #2 (4.1 pts, 2.6 reb, 0.2 ast)

TOP RESERVES

6-8 junior forward Chisom Okpara #10 (6.1 pts, 1.8 reb, 1.0 ast)
6-1 junior guard Benny Gealer #5 (5.8 pts, 1.6 reb, 1.9 ast)
6-10 redshirt freshman forward Aidan Cammann #52 (2.7 pts, 2.5 reb, 0.9 ast)
6-7 freshman forward Evan Stinson #33 (3.4 pts, 1.1 reb, 0.4 ast)

BENCH PLAYERS

6-8 redshirt sophomore forward Jaylen Thompson #24 (1.6 pts, 0.9 reb, 0.1 ast)
6-3 freshman guard Anthony Batson Jr #0 (1.0 pts, 0.5 reb, 0.3 ast)
6-7 redshirt freshman forward Cameron Grant #20 (2.0 pts, 1.4 reb, 0.4 ast)
6-11 freshman forward Tallis Toure #3 (1.0 pts, 0.4 reb, 0.1 ast)
6-7 grad forward Cole Kastner #9 (0.0 pts, 0.3 reb, 0.0 ast)
6-2 freshman guard Ethan Kitch #13

INJURED/OTHER

6-4 sophomore guard Derin Saran #1 (0.6 pts, 0.6 reb, 0.2 ast) -- lower body injury, out indefinitely

I first became aware of Parisian post player Maxime Raynaud when I recapped Stanford's Summer 2023 trip to France and Greece, and his family hosted a lunch for the team in their apartment. In the following season (2023-2024), he was named Most Improved Player in the Pac-12, and made the all-conference second team. He entered the transfer portal last March -- UNC reached out in interest -- but withdrew a few weeks later, sticking with Stanford. Now he's leading the ACC in points and rebounds, and is Cooper Flagg's primary competition for ACC Player of the Year. Here are some midseason highlights:


Bart Torvik is predicting a Duke win, 80-61. Compare the teams' stats (primarily from Sports Reference) in the pair of tables below.

TABLE 1

CategoryStanford (16-9, 8-6 ACC)Duke (21-3, 13-1 ACC)
Points Scored74.8 (164th nationally)80.0 (50th)
Points Allowed70.5 (142nd)60.4 (5th)
Scoring Margin (NCAA.com)+4.3 (147th)+19.6 (1st)
Bench Points (NCAA.com)16.6 (292nd)19.2 (230th)
Total Rebounds34.9 (220th)38.5 (41st)
--- Offensive Rebounds11.3 (134th)11.0 (156th)
--- Defensive Rebounds23.6 (275th)27.5 (29th)
Assists14.1 (152nd)16.5 (33rd)
Assist/Turnover Ratio (NCAA.com)1.33 (84th)1.65 (10th)
Steals7.04 (168th)7.00 (172nd)
Blocks3.5 (149th)3.6 (130th)
Turnovers10.6 (57th fewest)10.0 (25th fewest)
Personal Fouls17.2 (215th fewest)16.0 (112th fewest)
Field Goal Percentage43.7% (244th)47.8% (45th)
2-Point FG Percentage51.4% (199th)56.8% (30th)
3-Point FG Percentage32.7% (258th)37.4% (37th)
Free Throw Percentage78.5% (15th)77.0% (32nd)

TABLE 2

CategoryStanford (16-9, 8-6 ACC)Duke (21-3, 13-1 ACC)
NET Ranking (NCAA.com)#81 (NET Summary)#2 (NET Summary)
--- Strength of Schedule92nd55th
--- Quad 12-55-3
--- Quad 21-34-0
--- Quad 36-07-0
--- Quad 47-15-0
KenPom (Ken Pomeroy)#88#2
--- Offensive Efficiency81st5th
--- Defensive Efficiency118th3rd
--- Tempo202nd283rd
Fastbreak Points (NCAA.com)7.8 (282nd)10.7 (141st)
T-Rank (Bart Torvik)#82 (T-Page)#3 (T-Page)
--- Experience1.745 (279th)0.978 (361st)
--- Talent42.422 (69th)81.213 (3rd)

NET quadrants explained:

The quality of wins and losses will be organized based on game location and the opponent's NET ranking.

Quadrant 1: Home 1-30, Neutral 1-50, Away 1-75
Quadrant 2: Home 31-75, Neutral 51-100, Away 76-135
Quadrant 3: Home 76-160, Neutral 101-200, Away 135-240
Quadrant 4: Home 161-353, Neutral 201-353, Away 241-353
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Ken Pomeroy defines efficiency as an extrapolated measure of points scored (offensive) or allowed (defensive) per 100 possessions against an average opponent. The more points you score and the fewer points you allow, the better. Tempo refers to the number of possessions per 40 minutes against an average tempo: the higher the rank, the faster the tempo. Faster isn't necessarily better; Houston is among the 5 slowest teams, and is KenPom #3.
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Bart Torvik offers some clarification on Experience and Talent in the comments here. Experience "is based on class year (3 for senior, 0 for freshman) with caveat that it actually counts how many years a guy has played 10 games in, so if a guy is listed as a soph even though he's played two full years already, he'll count as a junior." Talent "is based on composite recruiting ranks weighted for minutes played."
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that video with Jaylen describing his game-winners was pretty cool, not just to see him abuse uNC again, but how both of the plays turned out so similarly. Also, he's a great narrator of the plays actually describing his thoughts and some analysis of the action rather than just "i wanted to make a play, and i so made a play and made the shot".
 
DukieInBrasil said:
that video with Jaylen describing his game-winners was pretty cool, not just to see him abuse uNC again, but how both of the plays turned out so similarly. Also, he's a great narrator of the plays actually describing his thoughts and some analysis of the action rather than just "i wanted to make a play, and i so made a play and made the shot".
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Wasn’t it a State player years ago, who after hitting a game winning shot stated “… coach told me to shoot, so I shooted it.” (Shackleford maybe?)
 
brevity said:
GoDuke's opponent history says that they've played three games on neutral courts, and that Stanford holds the edge, 2-1. Let's even that record now. (Interestingly, the two most recent meetings were in the 2000-2001 and 2014-2015 seasons, both of which ended in a Duke national championship.)
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This piqued my interest. Besides 2000-01 and 2014-15, Duke also played Stanford in 1999-2000. All three games were played early in the season.

In 1999, #10 Duke lost to #13 Stanford at MSG 80-79 in overtime. I don't have a box score, but current Cal coach Mark Madsen was a senior on that Stanford team. (I'm guessing this was the Pre-Season NIT or other MTE, since the next day Duke lost to #1 UConn, also in MSG, UConn having lost the previous day to unranked Iowa. Duke would win 18 in a row after the 0-2 start. Stanford finished the season 27-4, won the Pac-10, and spent most of the season ranked in the top 3. They were upset in the second round by Carolina, gross.)

In 2000, #1 Duke (10-0 going in) lost to #3 Stanford (8-0) 84-83 in a game played at the "Arena at Oakland," better known to me at least as Oracle Arena. (Stanford would go on to lose only 2 games that regular season, spending most of the back half of the season ranked #1, before losing to Maryland in the Elite Eight. Unsure what happened to this Duke team.)

In 2014, #4 Duke (4-0 going in) beat unranked and Johnny Dawkins-coached Stanford (3-0) 70-59 at the Barclays Center. Box score here. The Cardinal's Chasson Randle led all scorers with 22. Quinn Cook paced Duke with 18. Grayson Allen did not get off the bench.

So Duke's two losses to Stanford were by a combined 2 points, including one overtime loss, and both of the victorious Stanford teams were among the best in the history of that program, both of which lost in the tournament to Schools Who Shall Not Be Named. Duke lost a combined 9 games across the two seasons spanning 1999-2001, so Stanford is responsible for 22% of Duke's losses during that span.
 
brevity said:
Having personally welcomed SMU and California to the ACC, the #3 Blue Devils will host the Stanford Cardinal in a late afternoon game on Saturday, live on ABC. This is one of only three Duke games on a broadcast network this season, theoretically watchable with a nice antenna; last month's SMU game was on The CW, and the upcoming Illinois game is on FOX. So it's easier to watch, maybe, but harder to stream: ESPN usually has a corresponding ESPN3 stream for events on ABC, but all I'm seeing right now is an ESPN+ stream, which comes at an additional cost (ESPN+ streaming link, listen, live stats). If something changes -- adding a Spanish language feed on ESPN3, for example -- I'll provide an update by game day.

Duke and Stanford have never faced each other on their respective home courts, Cameron Indoor Stadium and Maples Pavilion; GoDuke's opponent history says that they've played three games on neutral courts, and that Stanford holds the edge, 2-1. Let's even that record now. (Interestingly, the two most recent meetings were in the 2000-2001 and 2014-2015 seasons, both of which ended in a Duke national championship.)

View attachment 19253
(source)

I'll provide a preview for Saturday's matchup later. In the meantime, feel free to discuss.
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So what you're saying is Duke is about to go on a Wooden UCLA like run, since we'll play Stanford every year and playing Stanford = National Championship. I like it.
 
There was a story about that 2000 game in one of Coach K's books. We blew a lead in that one, but still had a chance to hold on with a 1 point lead late. Coach K had designed for Dunleavy to throw the inbounds pass, but Mike D protested, saying he wanted to be the one to shoot the free throws. Coach K pointed this out in the book as an example of assertive leadership on Mike D's part.

Of course, as things go sometimes, Dunleavy missed both free throws and Casey Jacobsen hit the winner.
 
MChambers said:
Interesting analysis by the always wonderful Brian Geisinger on how Duke may choose to defend Stanford, especially Raynaud:

briangeisinger.substack.com

C'est difficile: Matching up with Maxime Raynaud

Scouting the dynamic play of Stanford's stretch-5: Raynaud's growth as a player, how he's being used in combination with Jaylen Blakes for Kyle Smith and what it could mean for the matchup vs. Duke
briangeisinger.substack.com briangeisinger.substack.com
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It looks like Khaman and Maliq will have their hands full on Saturday.
 
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