Having enjoyed a two-day Thanksgiving celebration in the California desert, Stanford returns to its home court to host Portland in a nonconference game Monday night.
After opening with five straight at home, including a 77-69 loss to Seattle in the most recent outing in front of their fans, the Cardinal (6-1) thrilled their traveling faithful in the Palm Springs suburb of Thousand Palms with a pair of wins Thursday and Friday.
Stanford rallied from a deficit in the final seven minutes to overtake Minnesota 72-68 on Thanksgiving, before using one of the most remarkable finishes of the young college basketball season — a high-arcing, buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Benny Gealer off a missed free throw — to stun Saint Louis 78-77 for the championship of the Acrisure Invitational.
Minutes later in a televised on-court interview, Gealer grounded himself from the heroic moment and assured there would be no letdown when the Cardinal returned home to face Portland (5-3).
“Great team win. We were just resilient. We did it as a team,” Gealer said. “One game at a time, one practice at a time. Great challenge; we were able to fight through adversity. We got another one at home coming up (Monday).”
Portland will be hoping to make it four straight wins over California competition this season, having dispatched of UC Davis 67-63, Cal State Fullerton 103-85 and Long Beach State 93-73, the latter serving as the Pilots’ most recent action last Wednesday.
All three of those wins came at home. Portland has played just one road game so far, and that didn’t go well, losing 93-56 at Wyoming.
The Pilots have been led by a pair of international freshmen — Joel Foxwell of Australia and Timo George of the Netherlands. Each scored 19 in the win over Long Beach State.
Foxwell leads all freshmen nationally with 6.1 assists per game to go with 15.6 points and 5.4 rebounds, while shooting 49.4% overall and 39.5% on 3-pointers.
The import has fit perfectly into the style of play coach Shantay Legans has scripted for his new-look fifth edition as he’s attempted to weave nine new players into what’s left of last year’s 12-20 roster.
“We want to play fast and score the ball,” Legans, who began his college playing career in the San Francisco Bay Area at Cal, told reporters recently. “That’s what everybody likes to see. It’s entertainment at the end of the day.”
