By Morris Phillips
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.–When you’re new in town, you need a guy that knows the lay, the ins, and outs. When that guy turns out to be the guy, you’ve got something special.
Jaylen Blakes was that guy, and Stanford, that team to successfully navigate the Dean E. Smith Center Saturday afternoon and escape with a 72-71 win that materialized with less than two seconds remaining. Blakes’ full court rush in the final seconds concluded with a pull-up, and short jumper gave Stanford their first-ever win over the Tar Heels after 13 losses.
“We took our foot off the gas a little bit. Our attention to detail wasn’t there, and that allowed Stanford to get into a rhythm and make their run,” UNC guard RJ Davis said.
“Little things lead to big things happening. And I felt like those little mistakes led to big things happening today in result of a loss,” coach Hubert Davis concluded.
For the always front running Tar Heels contingent, the loss wasn’t easy to explain. It wasn’t easy to take either. North Carolina’s six losses coming in were to contending teams. Stanford’s not that, but they could be if they compete as intently as they did against UNC. Clearly, the Heels didn’t play poorly, but they were made to pay for their late mistakes.
For Stanford, Blakes was the main guy. A transfer from Duke, who played 83 games for the Blue Devils, but sparingly with just 60 total field goals made, has found his stride at Stanford. Against UNC, Blakes scored as many as 20 points for just the third time in his career, all three this season. The senior guard with a Duke degree led the Cardinal from the opening tip, being animated and solely responsible, the logical leadup to his game-winning shot. His celebration after the play that stunned 21,500 spectators was theatre as well.
“I was just talking to myself a little bit, but I happened to look at the crowd,” Blakes said. “I was overjoyed.”
Maxime Raynaud and three other starters were also full of belief. All five starters played at least 34 minutes and took all but one of the visitors’ shot attempts. Raynaud led all scorers with 25 points, but he was inefficient, and another missed shot–he missed 16–could have reversed the outcome.
Oziyah Sellers and Donavin Young provided high accuracy shooting and combined to get heralded UNC freshman Ian Jackson stopped. Jackson was 1 of 8 shooting for six points, after he had 18 or more in seven consecutive games.
Davis led UNC with 19 points. Ven-Allen Lubin added 13, and Elliot Cadeau had 12.
Stanford is 4-3 in the ACC and one of eight teams that have a winning conference record. The Cardinal has 12 scheduled games remaining, 10 of those against ACC teams with a losing conference record. They host Miami on Wednesday at Maples Pavilion.
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