Stanford loses to Roman team, LXII - XXXV

Stanford kicked off its quadrennial trip abroad this week, departing from the Bay Area on Sunday morning en route to Italy. They spent the first two days visiting landmarks like the Colosseum and the Sistine Chapel, before finally hitting the court on Wednesday.

From a basketball standpoint, their trip to the Boot got off on the wrong foot. According to the official team twitter account, the Cardinal fell to Stella Azzurra Roma 62-35. The hosts play in the Italian Serie B, the third tier of Italian professional basketball. Their squad is primarily made up of college-aged players, with their most famous alumnus being a teenaged Andrea Bargnani.

Jerod Haase went with Daejon Davis, Bryce Wills, Oscar da Silva, Lukas Kisunas, and Tyrell Terry as his starters. There aren’t any major surprises in this five. With the graduation of Josh Sharma, Kisunas was the likely favorite to take over the 5 spot. The recent announcement of Trevor Stanback’s medical retirement only made his ascension easier. Terry is a college-ready freshman who will likely handle the ball a lot this season.

There was no live stream, and no official stats seem to have been published. According to the unofficial numbers, none of the Cardinal reached double figures, though freshman Spencer Jones was the closest with 8 off the bench. Kisunas, Davis, and Isaac White each added 6. Even the walk-ons got action, so it seems probable that Haase was subbing fairly freely.

Stanford will head north to visit Florence, Milan, and the Lake Como area. Their next game is on Saturday against NP Olginate, a Serie B squad from Lombardy. From there they will continue onward into Switzerland and Germany.