Stanford gets an opportunity to exact a measure of revenge for the first time in its Atlantic Coast Conference lifetime when the Cardinal host Wake Forest on Wednesday night.
Hunter Sallis got the better of fellow All-ACC first-team candidate Maxime Raynaud when the Demon Deacons (16-6, 8-3 ACC) dealt the Cardinal (15-7, 7-4) an 80-67 defeat last month in Winston-Salem.
Sallis played all 40 minutes and put up 30 points, the third-most of his four-year college career, in the win. He hit 12 of 17 shots and 3 of his 5 3-point attempts.
Raynaud, meanwhile, countered with a 14-point, 11-rebound double-double.
Wake Forest coach Steve Forbes made no secret after the game of what had been his team’s primary focus going in.
“The most important thing was the job we did against the big guy,” he said. “We made him into a 3-point shooter. He only had one post-up the entire game. We doubled him and got it out of his hands. He got some offensive rebounds, but he’s everything as advertised.”
Raynaud shot nearly as many 3-pointers (five) as two-pointers (six) in the loss.
Stanford has won four of five since the defeat, with the lone loss coming Saturday at SMU, 85-61. Three of the four wins have come at home, where the Cardinal has yet to be beaten in five conference games.
Stanford was missing guard Jaylen Blakes, its second-leading scorer, in the loss to SMU. The Cardinal hope to get him back from a head injury this week.
Blakes, a transfer from Duke who took great joy in a game-winning shot at North Carolina earlier this week, knows his role is an important one even while Raynaud gets most of the attention.
“One thing that we talk about is being a team,” he noted. “Not being individuals.”
Wake Forest has struggled in its last three games, falling to Duke at home and Louisville on the road before edging Pittsburgh 76-74 on Saturday. Cameron Hildreth paced the win with 24 points on a day when Sallis was held to 13.
The Demon Deacons are tipping off a key stretch in which they play four of five on the road. They stay in the San Francisco Bay Area to take on California on Saturday.
