Stanford Basketball Star Makes Naismith Award Watchlist

Maxime Raynaud's dominant season is earning him all kinds of recognition

Feb 12, 2025; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Stanford Cardinal forward Maxime Raynaud (42) in action against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the first half at McCamish Pavilion. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-Imagn Images / Brett Davis-Imagn Images

The recognition for Maxime Raynaud's strong season continues. On Friday, it was announced that Stanford's star big man was named to the Jersey Mike's Naismith Trophy Men's College Player of the Year Midseason Team.

Raynaud was also named to the Kareem Abdul Jabbar Center of the Year watchlist, the Oscar Robertson Trophy watchlist and the Wooden Award Late Midseason Top-20.

The award, which is given out by the Atlanta Tipoff Club, is one of the most prestigious awards in college basketball and is one of the awards that recognizes the top player in both men's and women's college basketball. Named in honor of James Naismith, the guy who invented basketball, the most recent winner of the men's award was Zach Edey of Purdue (winning it in 2023 and 2024) and Iowa legend Caitlin Clark for the women.

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Leading the ACC in scoring at 19.9 points per game, and rebounding with 11.5 board per game, he ranks third in the nation in rebounding while being No. 13 overall in scoring. In the entirety of program history, Stanford has never had a player finish higher than No. 3 in the nation in rebounding. With 20 double-doubles, Raynaud leads the nation in that category by three and is six ahead of the second most in the ACC.

Tied with Stanford legend Adam Keefe for most double-doubles in program history, Raynaud is one of only six players to have recorded at least 20 double-doubles in a season over the last five seasons, joining Edey, Oscar Tshiebwe of Kentucky, Oumar Ballo of Arizona, Joel Soriano of St. John's and Armando Bacot of North Carolina.

If Raynaud were to keep things up the rest of the season and win both the ACC scoring and rebounding titles, he would become only the 13th player in conference history to achieve that feat. Of those 13, nine have gone on to win the ACC Player of the Year.

The last five, Marvin Bagley (Duke), Tyler Hansbrough (North Carolina), Antawn Jamison (UNC), Tim Duncan (Wake Forest) and Horace Grant (Clemson), all won the ACC Player of the Year.

This season, Raynaud has already won a handful of his awards due to his strong play, winning three ACC Player of the Week awards and being named the USBWA National Player of the Week on Nov. 19. But if he is able to win any of those prestigious postseason awards that he is on the watchlists for, it could very well affect his stock in the upcoming NBA Draft.

Next: Flagg or Raynaud: Who Will Win ACC Player of the Year?