Stanford opens the season Monday against Eastern Washington with a roster that looks a lot different than last year’s 20-win team, and third-year coach Kyle Smith sounds like he’s heard this song before.
The Cardinal lost their top five scorers from last season, but Smith has already seen what a sudden reset can do when it goes right. A year ago, Stanford was in a similar spot before Ebuka Okorie emerged as a star, leading the Atlantic Coast Conference with 23.2 points per game before leaving for the NBA after one season.
“I stood here 12 months ago,” Smith said, “and we'd lost our top four scorers I think, maybe five, and I didn't know where we were coming from, and somehow we were sitting on the top scorer in the league.”
Stanford may be hoping for another breakout from its newcomers, and there are signs that at least a couple of freshmen are ready to make noise. Julius Price scored 26 points in the Cardinal’s 83-78 exhibition loss at Santa Clara on Oct. 17, while Top 100 recruit Aziz Olajuwon -- yes, the son of Hakeem Olajuwon -- turned in 16 points, five made 3-pointers on 11 attempts and nine rebounds in Stanford’s next exhibition loss at Oregon.
For the moment, though, Stanford’s backbone comes from the two returnees from last season’s rotation: junior forwards Aidan Cammann and Donavin Young. Cammann averaged 6.5 points and 3.8 rebounds, while Young put up 2.5 points and 2.7 rebounds.
Smith likes the way that group fits together, especially on the unselfish end of the floor.
“But we're a really unselfish group,” Smith said. “(Cammann and Young) make the extra pass.
This should be our best group that way. These guys are really great two-way players.”
Young started both exhibition games, as did Delaware transfer Christian Bliss. Cammann drew the start in one, and Nick Townsend -- the 2026 Ivy League Player of the Year who spent the last four years at Yale -- started the other.
Eastern Washington comes in with some continuity of its own, bringing back two starters from a 14-19 team that found a late-season groove by winning eight straight Big Sky games in February.
Second-team All-Big Sky forward Alton Hamilton IV returns after averaging 13.5 points and 5.7 rebounds, and 6-10 forward Emmett Marquardt is back after posting 5.5 points per game. But the Eagles’ biggest swing piece is sixth-year guard Andrew Cook, who missed last season with an ankle injury before receiving a preliminary injunction to return this year in an eligibility ruling.
“It was a long, winding road,” associate head coach Ryan Lundgren told The Spokesman-Review. “It's been a really heavy weight for the last 11 months since the injury.”
Cook looked ready in the Eagles’ 71-65 exhibition win against CSU Bakersfield on Oct. 18, scoring 26 points. He joined Hamilton on the Big Sky preseason all-league team, and coaches and media picked Eastern Washington to finish third in the conference.
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