Stanford University’s men’s basketball team will travel to Palm Desert for the Acrisure Invitational, scheduled from November 27-28. This marks the team’s first trip away from home this season. Stanford is set to play against Minnesota on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, at 6:30 p.m., with the game broadcast on CBS Sports Network. Depending on results, Stanford will face either Santa Clara or Saint Louis on Friday, November 28.
The Cardinal has started the season with a 4-1 record, including wins over Portland State, Montana, Montana State, and Louisiana. The team is outscoring its opponents by an average of 12.2 points per game.
Ebuka Okorie currently ranks sixth in national scoring with an average of 23.8 points per game and leads all freshmen in this category. Chisom Okpara is averaging 16.0 points per game, which places him eighteenth in the ACC.
Stanford experienced a strong first season under head coach Kyle Smith last year, recording its highest number of wins since the 2014-15 season with a total of 21 victories and tying a program record for home court wins at 17. The current campaign marks Stanford’s second year as part of the ACC; last season they finished seventh in their debut conference run.
Kyle Smith returns for his second season leading the Cardinal after being named Pac-12 Coach of the Year in 2024. Under his leadership during Stanford’s inaugural ACC season, he became only the second head coach in program history to achieve at least twenty wins in his first year and matched a school record for win improvement by a new head coach. The team made its first postseason appearance since 2018 by participating in the NIT.
Maxime Raynaud graduated from Stanford in 2025 following one of the top seasons recorded by a player in program history and was selected by the Sacramento Kings during June’s NBA Draft.
Historically, Stanford has struggled against Minnesota with only one win out of six meetings—the sole victory coming during the championship game of the 2012 Postseason NIT at Madison Square Garden. This year’s matchup will be Stanford’s third Thanksgiving Day contest in four seasons as they aim for their first holiday win since defeating Old Dominion at the Puerto Rico Shootout in 2000.
Coach Kyle Smith and Minnesota’s Niko Medved have faced each other once before when Medved’s Colorado State defeated Smith’s Washington State team in 2019.
Stanford returns to Palm Desert for Feast Week for a second straight year after playing Grand Canyon at last year’s Acrisure Holiday Classic. The Cardinal seeks its first midseason tournament event (MTE) trophy since winning at the Basketball Travelers Classic in 2007; although they went undefeated at Hawaii’s Diamond Head Classic in 2021, that event’s championship was canceled due to COVID-19 protocols.
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