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After Okorie Left For the NBA, Stanford Has Made Improvements This Offseason
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- After Okorie Left For the NBA, Stanford Has Made Improvements This Offseason
(Matt Krohn-Imagn Images)
Stanford will be looking to replace first-round talent Ebuka Okorie with a reigning Ivy League Player of the Year and a loaded recruiting class.
Stanford basketball spent all of the 2025-26 season introducing the country to Ebuka Okorie. This offseason has been about replacing him.
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Okorie led the ACC in scoring as a freshman, averaging 23.3 points, 3.6 rebounds and 3.6 assists across 31 starts, then declared for the NBA Draft as a projected first-rounder shortly after the season ended. That left head coach Kyle Smith needing to fill a backcourt-sized hole in a single offseason.
The headline answer is Nick Townsend , a 6-foot-7, 240-pound forward out of Yale who was named Ivy League Player of the Year this past season. Townsend averaged 16.3 points, 7.4 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game on 51.1% shooting, including 46.3% from three, and was a two-time First Team All-Ivy pick.
He was granted a fifth year of eligibility through the recent class-action ruling and used it to leave New Haven for Palo Alto, becoming Stanford's eighth offseason addition and third out of the transfer portal. He also spent this summer with the Philadelphia 76ers' Summer League roster.
Joining him up front is Austin Maurer, a seven-footer with two years of eligibility left. Maurer started at Grand Canyon before transferring to Seattle, where he averaged 7.2 points and 4.6 rebounds in 18 minutes a night as a sophomore.
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Stanford also signed a four-player freshman class headlined by Aziz Olajuwon, a four-star wing out of IMG Academy and the son of NBA Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon. He's joined by point guard Isaiah "Slim" Rogers and shooting guards Julius Price and Elias Obenyah, adding depth at both guard spots.
The retooled roster gets a loaded platform to prove itself. Stanford is set to host 18 games at Maples Pavilion this season, including nine marquee conference matchups, as the Cardinal look to build on back-to-back years finishing .500 or better in ACC play — joining a group that includes only Duke, North Carolina, Louisville, and Clemson alongside Stanford over that stretch.
The ACC slate runs into the new year, with a road trip to Notre Dame on December 30 before Stanford opens 2027 at Louisville.
Stanford entered the offseason as a bubble team, and the additions of Townsend and Maurer, paired with a promising freshman class, have only strengthened that case heading into the 2026-27 season.
