SETTING THE SCENE
Taking to the road for the first time this season, Stanford men's basketball heads to Las Vegas for a 6 p.m. battle on Friday, Nov. 13 with UNLV. The contest will be broadcast on CBS Sports Network, while the radio feed can be found on YouTube, Sirius XM and GoStanford.com.
THE STARTING FIVE
• Stanford is out to a 3-0 start with three players averaging double-figure scoring and five scoring at least eight points per game. Nick Townsend leads the team with 22.7 points, 7.3 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 2.7 steals per game as the only player nationally to hit those benchmarks this season.
• Kyle Smith enters his third season as Stanford’s Anne and Tony Joseph Director of Men’s Basketball. The 2024 Pac-12 Coach of the Year led Stanford to 21 wins in its first ACC campaign, the program’s most since 2014-15, and 20 wins a year ago.
• Stanford has added its highest-rated recruiting class since 2023 and its fourth top-25 recruiting class since 2020. Four players are rated top-100 prospects by at least one recruiting service, and three frosh are posting at least six points per game: Julius Price (11.7), Aziz Olajuwon (8.3) and Isaiah Rogers (6.0).
• The Cardinal was postseason bound for the second consecutive season in 2026, appearing in the College Basketball Crown. The postseason appearance was the fifth in a row for a Smith-coached program, and the first time with back-to-back postseason tournaments for Stanford since 2012-15.
• Stanford tallied an entrant to the NBA for the third consecutive season, as Ebuka Okorie was a first round draft selection to the Detroit Pistons with the 17th overall pick. Okorie joins Maxime Raynaud and Spencer Jones in reaching the Association over the last three seasons.
TALK OF THE TOWNSEND
Completing an unblemished eight days to the college basketball season, Stanford earned wins over Eastern Washington, Oakland and Rice at Maples Pavilion. Nick Townsend has led the Cardinal with eye-opening averages of 22.7 points, 7.3 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game, including contests of 25 points, eight rebounds and four assists against Oakland and 31 points, eight rebounds and six assists against Rice. Townsend co-leads the ACC in scoring and paces the conference in field goal percentage (71.0%). He ranks 15th in the ACC in rebounding, 10th in assists and seventh in steals.
RICE COOKER
Nick Townsend scored 31 points, one shy of his career high, with eight rebounds and six assists, and Stanford downed Rice 91-73 to improve to 3-0 this season. Townsend became the third Stanford player in the past 25 years to tally 30 points with five rebounds and five assists in a game, joining Ebuka Okorie (2026 vs. Pitt) and Landry Fields (2010 vs. Oregon). Austin Maurer contributed his second-career double-double, and his first in a Stanford uniform, with 14 points, a career-best 11 rebounds and a career-high-tying three steals, while Christian Bliss was in double figures for the second consecutive game with 12 points and seven rebounds. Julius Price added 10 points and four assists, and Stanford shot 51.2 percent overall in the win.
RUNNIN' REBEL REVENGE
Stanford is 3-2 all-time against UNLV, and it is looking to rebound from last season's defeat to the Runnin' Rebels at Maples Pavilion on Dec. 7, 2025. Stanford posted wins over UNLV in 2002, 2003 and 2014, with the Dec. 21, 2002 win also coming at the Thomas and Mack Center. Josh Childress and Justin Davis led the Cardinal with 21 points apiece in 2022, a 77-66 triumph.