SETTING THE SCENE
Stanford will participate in a postseason tournament for the second consecutive season, traveling to Las Vegas for the College Basketball Crown. The event opens against West Virginia on April 2 at 5 p.m. on FS1.
THE STARTING FIVE
• Stanford is 20-12 this season with a 9-9 mark in the ACC, but it became the first team in the NET era to record at least 20 wins, with five in Q1 and a winning record in Q1+Q2, but miss the NCAA Tournament.
• Ebuka Okorie ranks eighth in the country in scoring at 22.8 points per game and third among freshmen, behind only BYU's AJ Dybantsa and Arkansas' Darius Acuff Jr., and he leads the ACC in scoring, just above Duke's Cameron Boozer. Okorie was named an honorable mention AP All-American as well as to the All-ACC first team, ACC All-Rookie team and NABC All-Division first team.
• The Cardinal is postseason bound for the second year in a row under head coach Kyle Smith, marking the first time Stanford has made consecutive postseason tournaments since 2012-15.
• Stanford won the Acrisure Invitational in Palm Desert with wins over Minnesota and Saint Louis, and it enters the Crown with an 8-6 record away from home, and a 3-0 mark in neutral site contests.
• 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. Stanford's NBA alumni are shining above expectations, with Raynaud scoring 12.0 points per game, Ziaire Williams 10.3, Brook Lopez 8.1, Spencer Jones 5.5, and Dwight Powell 3.23 The double-double king at Stanford, with 25 in a single-season last year, Raynaud leads all NBA rookies and ranks 26th overall in the NBA with 17 this season.
HEAVY LIES THE CROWN
Stanford makes its 29th postseason appearance in program history, and its first in the second season of the College Basketball Crown. 17 of Stanford's postseason appearances came in the NCAA Tournament, 10 in the NIT and one in the CBI. The Cardinal owns four postseason championships: the 1942 NCAA Championship and NIT titles in 1991, 2012 and 2015. Stanford is the first ACC program to participate in the Crown, with the SEC's Oklahoma collecting the other at-large bid in the 2026 field.
OKORIE: ONE OF ONE
Ebuka Okorie has dazzled for the Cardinal this season with averages of 22.8 points, 3.7 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.6 steals per game. Okorie ranks eighth nationally in scoring and third among freshmen, trailing only BYU's AJ Dybantsa and Arkansas' Darius Acuff Jr. nationally, and he leads the ACC, just ahead of Duke's Cameron Boozer (22.5). Okorie became the first Stanford freshman with four-straight 20-point games (twice) since Brook Lopez from Feb. 15-24, 2007, and the first Stanford player with back-to-back 30-point games since Landry Fields from Jan. 23-28, 2010. He would be the first freshman to meet his averages in points, rebounds, assists and steals since Oklahoma's Trae Young and Howard's RJ Cole in 2017-18 and the first player of any season since Murray State's Ja Morant in 2018-19. The last ACC freshmen guards to average at least 20 points per game were Kenny Anderson (Georgia Tech, 1989-90) and Mark Price (Georgia Tech, 1982-83).
Earning a plethora of awards at the end of the season, Okorie was named an AP All-America honorable mention selection - the first Cardinal freshman to earn All-America status in program history. He was an All-ACC first team honoree as well as a selection to the ACC All-Rookie team, with Stanford joining only Duke with a first team selection in back-to-back seasons in 2025 and 2026. He was also an NABC All-District honoree and a finalist for the Kyle Macy Freshman of the Year Award, and he has earned four ACC Rookie of the Week and one ACC Player of the Week honors.
KYLE SMITH. NERDBALL
Kyle Smith became the first coach in program history to win 20 or more games in each of his first two seasons at Stanford, with Stanford at 41-26 over his first two seasons at the helm of the program. He has guided Stanford to a .500 or better mark in consecutive seasons in the ACC as one of just five teams to accomplish the feat, along with Duke, North Carolina, Louisville and Clemson, and Stanford is making postseason appearances in back-to-back seasons for the first time since making four in a row from 2012-15. His next win will be No. 300 for his career.
SCENARIO PLANNING
Stanford will face West Virginia in the quarterfinals, squaring off on the hardwood for the first time since 1959. The winner will take on Rutgers or Creighton on Saturday, April 4, while Oklahoma, Colorado, Baylor and Minnesota await on the opposite side of the bracket.