After a string of departures, head coach Jerod Haase and the Stanford men’s basketball program announced a new addition Friday morning. Maxime Raynaud, a 7-footer from Paris, France, will join the Cardinal’s 2021 recruiting class and arrive on the Farm this summer in preparation for the 2021-2022 season.  

Raynaud will fill a void in the interior created by the departure of Oscar da Silva ’21. Raynaud has spent this past year playing for Espoirs Nanterre in the LNB Espoirs league, the under-21 division of France’s top league. Among his teammates for Espoirs Nanterre was Victor Wembanyama, a 7-foot-2 center who is considered by many NBA scouts to be the top prospect in the 2023 NBA Draft class. 

Raynaud averaged 12.8 points and 7.3 rebounds per game for his club team, to go with shooting percentages of 53.6% from the field and 46.2% from beyond the three-point line. His ability to shoot the three will make him a versatile piece in the Cardinal’s offense. 

“The skill set he has is extremely unique … He can score with his back to the basket, put the ball on the floor and make plays for his teammates, and can stretch the court and shoot from the perimeter,” Haase said in the GoStanford announcement.

Raynaud joins another highly-rated recruiting class put together by Haase and his staff. In addition to the French big man, five-star forward Harrison Ingram, four-star point guard Isa Silva and three-star shooting guard Jarvis Moss are set to join the program. Ingram and Silva signed with Stanford in November while Moss signed in April. 

The Cardinal also recently announced a new addition to its coaching staff, Rob Ehsan. Ehsan served as an assistant under Haase at UAB for four years before taking over the reins himself in 2016 when Haase came to take the Stanford opening. In his four years as head coach of the Blazers, he managed a 76-57 record. Ehsan takes over the slot left behind by Jeff Wulbrun, who accepted the University of Denver head coaching position a few months ago.