Stanford opens its third season in the ACC on Monday night, and the Cardinal will do it at home against Eastern Washington in the first game of the Kyle Smith era’s latest chapter. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. on Nov. 2, with the game available on ACC Network Extra. The radio feed will be carried on GoStanford.com, YouTube, Varsity Network and Sirius XM.
There’s plenty of change around this Stanford roster, but also enough familiar production to give the Cardinal a real base to work from. Aidan Cammann and Donavin Young are back after serving as two of the team’s main contributors, and Stanford also brought in three transfers who are expected to matter right away: Christian Bliss from Delaware, Austin Maurer from Seattle and Nick Townsend from Yale.
Smith enters his third year as Stanford’s Anne and Tony Joseph Director of Men’s Basketball, and the résumé keeps growing. The 2024 Pac-12 Coach of the Year has already guided Stanford to 21 wins in its first ACC season, the program’s most since 2014-15, followed by 20 more a year ago.
Stanford’s postseason run continued in 2026 with an appearance in the College Basketball Crown, marking a second straight postseason berth and the fifth consecutive postseason trip for a Smith-coached team. It was also the first time Stanford reached back-to-back postseason tournaments since 2012-15.
The roster upgrade doesn’t stop with the transfers. Stanford is bringing in its highest-rated recruiting class since 2023, along with its fourth top-25 class since 2020. Four of those incoming players are rated as top-100 prospects by at least one recruiting service.
There’s also a strong current of NBA success running through the program. Ebuka Okorie became Stanford’s latest first-round pick, going 17th overall to the Detroit Pistons and extending the Cardinal’s streak of producing an NBA entrant to three straight seasons. He joins Maxime Raynaud and Spencer Jones in making that jump over the last three years.
Opener history has been kind to Stanford, too. The Cardinal has won 16 straight season openers dating back to 2011, and recent debuts have produced some eye-catching scoring nights. Michael Jones set the program record for points in a debut with 31 against Pacific in 2023, and Ebuka Okorie owned the freshman debut mark after scoring 26 against Portland State in 2025.
Stanford’s two preseason exhibitions offered a first look at the new pieces. Julius Price opened by scoring 26 points in a 83-78 loss to Santa Clara on Oct. 17, while freshman Aziz Olajuwon led the Cardinal with 16 points in an 85-57 defeat at Oregon on Oct. 25.
The Santa Clara game also showed how aggressive Stanford can be when it gets downhill. Anthony Batson Jr. scored 16 points and went 8-for-10 at the line, Christian Bliss added 15, and Austin Maurer pulled down a team-high nine rebounds.
Stanford shot 46 free throws in that game, a total that would have been its highest in a regular-season contest since it attempted 47 against Washington on Feb. 22, 2018.
In the finale at Oregon, Nick Townsend put up 11 points, six rebounds and five assists in his first Stanford appearance.
Eastern Washington is a familiar opener opponent in one sense, at least: this will be the fourth meeting between the programs, and all four have come in the last decade. Stanford beat the Eagles 95-70 in the most recent matchup on Nov. 17, 2023, when five Cardinal players scored in double figures. The Cardinal also won the previous home matchup, 78-62, on Dec. 15, 2018, led by Daejon Davis’ 19 points.
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High has already produced big moments against Georgia Tech and NC State, which fits the way Stanford has leaned on him in the weeks since his return. For a program still searching for consistency, his emergence has been one of the more useful developments of the season, even if there is still plenty of work ahead in turning those flashes into a more complete aerial attack. [Read more 🡒]
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Davis Warren and Sam Mattingly figure to be central again, with Stanford needing steady play from both the offense and defense if it wants to keep pace. The matchup also brings another layer of concern for a Cardinal team still managing its health, and the challenge is compounded by a key absence that has lingered since September. Against a strong Louisville offense, Stanfords margin for error figures to be thin. [Read more 🡒]
Stanford Opens With One Big Test For Its Rebuilt Roster
Stanfords new-look roster gets no easing-in period when it opens against Eastern Washington, a program that arrives with real continuity and enough experience to make this a demanding first read on where the Cardinal stand. With last seasons top five scorers gone, Stanford is leaning on returners Aidan Cammann and Donavin Young while asking a freshman group that includes Julius Price and Aziz Olajuwon to help stabilize things right away.
Eastern Washington brings back two starters in Alton Hamilton IV and Emmett Marquardt, and the Eagles come in with expectations of finishing third in the Big Sky. The bigger test for Stanford may be how quickly it can sort out its rotation and match a veteran opponent that has already built some established chemistry, the kind of early-season challenge that can expose a rebuilt roster before conference play is even on the horizon. [Read more 🡒]