SETTING THE SCENE
Returning home for its final conference battle of the year, and the first of three straight games at home, Stanford men's basketball hosts CSUN on Saturday, Dec. 27 at 5 p.m., broadcast on ACC Network Extra.
THE STARTING FIVE
• Stanford is out to a 10-2 start, including wins over Colorado, Minnesota and Saint Louis at neutral sites, marking its best start since 2019-20. Stanford is outscoring its foes by 9.6 points per game this year.
• Stanford won the Acrisure Invitational in Palm Desert with wins over the Gophers and Billikens, with Benny Gealer's buzzer beater on Nov. 28 sending the Cardinal home victorious.
• Ebuka Okorie ranks seventh in the country in scoring at 22.1 points per game and third among freshmen. He joins only Duke's Cameron Boozer and BYU's AJ Dybantsa as freshmen nationally north of 20 points per night. Chisom Okpara is averaging 15.0 points per night, which ranks 18th in the ACC.
• The Cardinal posted a successful first season under the leadership of Kyle Smith, winning the program’s most games since 2014-15 (21) and matching a program record for wins on its home court (17). 2025-26 marks the program’s second year in the ACC, after Stanford finished seventh in its maiden season. The Cardinal was postseason bound for the first time since 2018, appearing in the NIT.
• Maxime Raynaud graduated from Stanford in 2025 after posting one of the top seasons in program history, and the All-American was drafted by the Sacramento Kings in June. Raynaud, Spencer Jones and Ziaire Williams have each scored 20 or more in the NBA since Dec. 1, including career highs for Jones (28) and Raynaud (25). He is posting 14.3 points and 9.6 rebounds as a starter with Sacramento (eight games).
DROP YOUR BUFFS
Led by a dominant performance from freshman Ebuka Okorie, Stanford rolled to a 77-68 victory over Colorado in the Hall of Fame Series Phoenix at Mortgage Matchup Center. Okorie broke the Stanford freshman scoring record with a career-best 32 points, going 6-for-13 from the floor with a pair of threes and an 18-for-21 mark at the free throw line. Benny Gealer scored 13 points, including a trio of 3-pointers, while Chisom Okpara added 11 with five rebounds to help Stanford stay unbeaten away from home (4-0).
OUTSTANDING OKORIE
As Stanford edges closer to conference play, Ebuka Okorie has dazzled for the Cardinal with averages of 22.1 points, 3.6 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.8 steals per game. Okorie ranks seventh nationally in scoring, and third among freshmen, joining Duke's Cameron Boozer and BYU's AJ Dybantsa as the only three freshmen nationally above 20 points per game, and second in the ACC, trailing only Boozer. Okorie became the first Stanford freshman with four-straight 20-point games since Brook Lopez from Feb. 15-24, 2007. He would be the first freshman to meet his averages in points, rebounds, assists and steals since Eastern Washington's Rodney Stuckey in 2005-06, and the first player of any class since Ja Morant at Murray State in 2018-19.
The 26 points in Okorie's debut marked the most for a Cardinal true freshman in program history against a Division I opponent - only Mark Pitchford had more, coming against Division II Cal Poly in 1977. He was the first freshman point guard to start the season opener since Tyrell Terry in 2019 and just the third freshman overall to start the opener since 2019, joining Ziaire Williams (2020) and Harrison Ingram (2021).
Okorie broke Stanford's freshman scoring record with 32 points against Colorado (Dec. 20), topping the mark previously held by Kanaan Carlyle, vs. Washington State on Jan. 18, 2024. His 18 made free throws in the game are the second most in a single game by any player in program history, trailing only the 19 by Reid Travis on Dec. 3, 2016 vs. Kansas. He ties Todd Lichti for second on the free throws made list, with Lichti making 18 against UC Santa Barbara on Dec. 28, 1987. The 18 makes at the line are the second-most by any player in the country this season, while his 21 attempts are tied for first. Okorie ranks second in the country with 7.5 free throws per game, trailing only Auburn's Keyshawn Hall (7.6).