ACC TEAM PREVIEW #14 STANFORD CARDINALS

Head coach Kyle Smith put together a 21-win season in his first year at Stanford after leaving Washington State. It wasn't quite good enough to make the NCAA tournament, but they still finished 7th in the ACC with an 11-9 record. On paper, I'm not really sure how they're gonna be able to replicate that. Stanford lost their top three scorers from last season, and they really didn't do anything in the portal to replace what they lost.

Projected lineup:

G Benny Gealer

G Jeremy Dent-Smith (D2 transfer)

G Ryan Agarwal

F Chisom Okpara

C Oskar Giltay

Stanford's most notable loss from last season's team was 7-foot-1 center Maxime Raynaud. He averaged 20 and 10 last season and was one of the best players in the entire country. His production will be very difficult to replace. Stanford only brought in one player through the portal this offseason. 6-foot-1 guard Jeremy Dent-Smith from Division II Cal State Dominguez Hills. He did put up good numbers at the D2 level last season, averaging 19.2 points per game. It will be interesting to see how his game translates to ACC-level competition.

Stanford returns three guys who were notable parts of the rotation last season, none of whom really had great seasons. Ryan Agarwal started at small forward for them last season. He averaged 7.3 points, along with 4.9 rebounds. Benny Gealer is another guy who's back. He averaged 6 points and 2 assists last season. They also return Chisom Okpara, who averaged 6.5 points and 2 rebounds per game. The Cardinals will be heavily reliant on these three to make improvements this upcoming season.

Stanford does have a decent freshman class going into this season. They landed two four-star international recruits in Oskar Giltay from Belgium and Kristers Skrinda from Latvia. Both these guys should be immediate contributors for Kyle Smith. They also landed another four-star recruit in Ebuka Okorie out of Brewster Academy. Okorie should also be an immediate contributor during his freshman season.

Not sure why Stanford wasn't able to do really anything in the transfer portal this offseason. Last season's team was almost entirely centered around Maxime Raynaud, and they didn't really land any proven bigs to replace his production. Kyle Smith is gonna need a lot of his guys to break out next season for this Stanford team to compete in the ACC this season.

Prediction: 18th in ACC