-Matt Cox

Key Returners: Oscar Da Silva, Daejon Davis, Spencer Jones, Bryce Wills, Jaiden DeLaire
Key Losses: Tyrell Terry
Key Newcomers: Ziaire Williams, Max Murrell, Michael O’Connell

*UPDATE: Late signee Michael O’Connell is not reflected in the preview below. O’Connell is a 3-star prospect from New Jersey who was initially slated to play lacrosse at Maryland. He’s an exceptional athlete and has garnered comparisons to Notre Dame’s Matt Farrell, which could fast track him into the primary rotation given the Cardinal’s need for ball handlers and playmakers.

Lineup:

Outlook: Comparing Jerod Haase’s tenure at Stanford to Andy Dufresne’s escape from Shawkshank is a bit of a reach - Haase has been in Palo Alto for four seasons, a few years shy of Andy’s two decade stint behind bars, but there are parallels between Haase’s recent resilience and Andy’s improbable escape…

For three seasons, Haase chipped away at the task at hand, only to see the Cardinal program unmoved from where it stood back in 2016. He rolled up his sleeves and hit the recruiting trail hard, consistently hitting singles and doubles with a steady stream of 4-star recruits. Like geology, pressure and time were supposed to take care of the rest. Yet, if you picked up the summer hoops program 12-months ago, Stanford’s Pac-12 record since 2017 read ‘25-29’. 

Refusing to surrender to unsatisfactory progress and unlucky injury fortunes, Haase’s persistency finally paid off last year. The early returns came on the hardwood. Stanford barged its way into the national conversation when it cracked the AP Top-25 rankings in mid-January, led by freshman revelation Tyrell Terry. A mere return to national relevancy was a milestone achievement for Haase, signaling a ‘breakthrough’ moment for a program stuck in quicksand.

It wasn’t all a fairy tale, though. The young Tree were quickly humbled, dropping seven of their next eight games, learning the trials and tribulations of playing away from the friendly confines of Palo Alto. Still, Stanford forged ahead and salvaged a respectable record when it was all said and done. A drab 9-9 conference record masks the true gains, given the Cardinal oscillated inside the top-50 all season long.

Shortly after the season, Haase flexed that momentum into landing a white whale, Ziaire Williams, a top-5 nationally ranked prospect from the famed Sierra Canyon High School in Southern California.

For those seeking scouting expertise on the freshmen phenom, I’d point you toward the 247sports.com basketball podcast, where recruiting guru Jerry Meyer laid out a concise pros and cons list for Williams this summer. To summarize, Ziaire is oozing with talent and versatility, but sometimes lacks aggression and a killer instinct. Long-term, Williams will need to disprove those who doubt his assertiveness. But for the one-year rental period in Palo Alto, his reluctance to be ‘the guy’ might be the exact mentality needed to thrive alongside Pac-12 Player of the Year candidate Oscar da Silva.

The Munich native exploded last season, replenishing KZ Okpala’s production and then some. One of the smartest big men in the nation, da Silva’s cerebral passing and cutting make him a malleable tool within the construct of the offense. It’s not as if da Silva shapeshifted into a different player through some otherworldly offseason regimen. Rather, a simple positional tweak – sliding up to the 5 – was the key lever that unlocked a deluxe edition of da Silva’s game.

The notion of potentially diminishing a top-5 talent like Williams to second fiddle sounds borderline foolish, but that’s a testament to Da Silva’s rapid development last year. I could be dead wrong, and Williams could set the world on fire, rendering this entire blurb moot. But Williams could be just as effective as a two-pronged weapon, part-creator and part-scorer, on offense, akin to Terry’s impact last year. Stanford’s offense was propped up almost entirely by Terry and Da Silva and while Williams is a categorically different player than Terry, he’ll carry the same gravitational pull on the attention of opposing defenses. 

Barring some demonstrative sophomore leap from Spencer Jones, scoring and shot creation will fall squarely on da Silva and Williams’ shoulders. The opposite end of the floor is where Jones, along with juniors Bryce Wills and Jaiden DeLaire, and super-duper senior Daejon Davis (how is he still in school?) make up for their limited contributions on offense. Wills etched his name on the Pac-12 All-Defensive Team last year, quickly making a name for himself as a defensive stopper. Along with Davis, Stanford boasts two stingy lockdown corners capable of shutting down an explosive lead guard and a dynamic wing at the same time. DeLaire stands a few inches taller than the Wills / Jones tandem, an athletic 6’9 forward capable of holding his own down low. If Haase wants to size up against UCLA or Arizona’s imposing frontline without sacrificing mobility, DeLaire’s the guy he’ll call upon. 

However, DeLaire will be looking over his shoulder this season because 4-star freshman forward Max Murrell is too skilled and too versatile to keep off the floor. The lean lefty may be picked on inside, but he can flat out sky. This chase down block gives a glimpse at his functional athleticism:

Bottom Line: For years, we’ve doubted Jerod Haase’s ability to harvest his annual crop of talent into a Pac-12 title contender. The Terry magic was a powerful potion last year, but the breakthrough doesn’t happen without steady improvement from the other key cogs in the rotation (avoiding the injury bug certainly helped as well). Ziaire Williams will be the headline grabber, but sweltering defense will remain the underpinning of a potential Conference of Champions championship.