Louisville at Stanford preview

1 week ago 2

Louisville Cardinals (11-2, 1-0) at Stanford Cardinal (11-3, 0-1)

Game Time: 8 p.m.

Location: Maples Pavilion: Stanford, Calif.

Television: ACC Network

Announcers: Chris Sylvester (play-by-play) and Ben Braun (analysis)

Favorite: Louisville by 9.5

Series: Louisville leads, 4-0

Last Meeting: Louisville won, 75-73, on March 13, 2025 in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals in Charlotte

Series History:

Projected Starting Lineups:

Louisville

G Adrian Wooley (6-4, 200, So.)
G Isaac McKneely (6-4, 195, Sr.)
G Ryan Conwell (6-4, 215, Sr.)
F J’Vonne Hadley (6-7, 210, Sr.)
C Sananda Fru (6-11, 245, Jr.)

Stanford

G Ebuka Okorie (6-2, 185, Fr.)
G Benny Gealer (6-1, 185, Sr.)
G Ryan Agarwal (6-6, 205, R-Jr.)
F Chisom Okpara (6-8, 240, Sr.)
F A.J. Rohosy (6-9, 230, Sr.)

Injury Reports:

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Statistics:

Relevant Videos:

Stanford’s Season to Date:

About Stanford:

As was the case with Cal on Tuesday, Louisville will be facing a Stanford team that owns a fairly sparkling record but is looking to add a giant jolt of legitimacy to that mark. The Cardinal are also coming off two of their worst performances of the season — a near loss to Cal State Northridge and an embarrassing 40-point home effort against Notre Dame in which the hosts shot just 4-of-30 from three and 23% from the field overall.

Stanford has a trio of nice non-conference wins — Saint Louis, Minnesota and Colorado — but nothing that really moves the needle. They also have a pair of bad home losses to Seattle and UNLV. If second-year head coach Kyle Smith wants to take the Cardinal to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 12 years, they’re going to have to be a top six or seven (at least) team in the ACC. Scoring 40 points in a home loss to Notre Dame on Tuesday night was not an ideal start towards accomplishing that goal.

Offense has been a bit of an issue for this Stanford team all season. Not necessarily to the degree it was Tuesday night, but still … it’s been not great. That’s a pretty significant surprise considering that the offense was pretty good for the Cardinal last season, and that they’re returning more minutes and points per game from their 2024-25 roster than any other team in the ACC.

For all the talk nationally about stellar freshman play, one of the guys who doesn’t get nearly enough love is Stanford’s Ebuka Okorie. The 6’2 point guard who was No. 119 in 247 Sports’ final class of 2025 rankings is currently 11th in the country in scoring at 21.5 ppg. National POY front-runner Cameron Boozer (Duke) and potential No. 1 NBA Draft pick A.J. Dybantsa (BYU) are the only freshmen currently scoring at a higher clip than Okorie. He has scored 30 points or more in two of Stanford’s last three games, including a 32-point effort against Colorado that set a new school scoring record for a freshman. His 7-point effort against Notre Dame on Tuesday was the first time this season he’s been held to single digits in scoring.

Kid can play.

Senior forward Chisom Okpara has stepped into a larger role in his second and final season in Palo Alto. The 6’8, 240-pound forward is the team’s best interior defender and is a versatile scorer currently averaging 15.2 ppg. He sometimes settles for the three too often, which I imagine will be Louisville’s game plan on him defensively.

Senior guard Benny Gealer (10.9 ppg) is the team’s other double figure scorer. He’s in his fourth season at Stanford, but his first as a full-time starter. A majority of the 6’1 guard’s field goal attempts come from beyond the arc, and a majority of those attempts are set up by the attention that opposing defenses are paying to Okorie. The Cards can’t lose Gealer on the perimeter when Okorie makes his move to the basket.

Jeremy Dent-Smith was a back-to-back All-American at Division-II CSU Dominguez Hills, and helped lead them to a national title game appearance last season. He’s the most talented of a group of imports that Smith has poached from the D-II and D-III level. He enters Friday night’s game in a massive shooting slump, and has scored just 6 points over the team’s last three games. AJ Rohosy was also an All-American at the D-II level who played sparingly for two seasons at Washington State. The 6’9 forward has been productive for Stanford so far this season, but his lack of overall skill should be exploited by a team like U of L.

Defensively, Stanford looks a lot like they did a year ago, even without 7-footer Maxime Raynauld manning the middle. They do two things exceptionally well (force turnovers and defensive rebound) and one thing exceptionally poorly (foul a ton). The Cardinal have tried to force their opponents off the three-point line all season long, something they did pretty well against in both meetings against Louisville last season. Only 11 teams in college basketball allow a lower percentage of their opponents’ shots to come from beyond the arc. The Cards will certainly put that statistical profile to the test this evening.

Notable:

—A win Friday night would be the 300th of Pat Kelsey’s coaching career.

—Louisville is looking to begin conference play 2-0 for the first time since the 2021-22 season.

—Louisville is one of seven teams making the two-game West Coast swing to play Cal and Stanford for the first time this year. In 2024-25, Wake Forest was the only ACC program of the nine that made the trip to return home with two victories.

—Stanford has not lost back-to-back home games since February of 2024.

—Stanford ranks third in the ACC as a team in turnovers forced per game at 15.0 and fifth in turnover margin at plus-3.7, while ranking fourth in the country in offensive steal percentage (6.6%), per KenPom.

—Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey is 2-0 in games against California.

—Stanford head coach Kyle Smith is 0-2 in games against Louisville.

—Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey is 168-63 all-time in conference play as a head coach. Kelsey is 79-38 in road league games.

—Louisville is 10-1 in ACC road games under head coach Pat Kelsey.

—Louisville has hit the 100-point mark four times in a season for the first time since 1989-90.

—Louisville is 38-0 under head coach Pat Kelsey when leading with five minutes to play.

—Louisville is 14-0 over the past 11 seasons when limiting opponents to no more than one three-point field goal.

—Louisville is 120-0 all-time when scoring 100 or more points in non-overtime games.

—Louisville has won 167 consecutive games when holding an opponent under 50 points.

Ken Pomeroy Prediction: Louisville 85, Stanford 75

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