After Stanford basketball endured another disappointing campaign in 2025-26 that resulted in missing the NCAA tournament yet again, the Cardinal are fully focused this offseason on ensuring that they build a roster capable of contending both in the ACC and for a March Madness berth.

On Thursday, May 28, the ACC revealed Stanford's slate of ACC opponents for the upcoming 2026-27 season, giving a glimpse at how tough its schedule is going to be.

In an 18-game slate of ACC games, the Cardinal will start things off with home-and-home games against Cal before facing Syracuse — a team that they did not face last season — in another home-and-home. Among the home ACC games for the Cardinal this season are Boston College, Florida State, Miami, NC State, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest.

On the road, the Cardinal face a gauntlet of a schedule as well, taking on Clemson, Duke, Georgia Tech, Louisville, North Carolina, Notre Dame and SMU. Duke and North Carolina, two teams that are among the top blue bloods in college basketball, will once again boast loaded rosters and should provide Stanford with optimum competition.

This past season, despite finishing with at least 20 wins for the second straight season under head coach Kyle Smith (20-13, 9-9 ACC), the Cardinal failed to achieve their ultimate goals of reaching the NCAA tournament and were instead selected to participate in the College Basketball Crown, where they lost in the quarterfinals.

But, making a postseason tournament for the second straight year, this past season marked the first time since a streak that lasted from 2011-15 that the Cardinal played in consecutive postseasons. They won the NIT in 2011-12, lost the NIT in the second round in 2012-13 and then won a thriller in overtime in the 2014-15 NIT. Of course, they made the NCAA tournament in 2013-14, making it to the regional semis. 

But the sense of urgency for the Cardinal to win is higher than ever, with Smith fully locked in on bringing some Madness back to The Farm. Prior to his stint at Stanford, Smith was the head coach at Washington State, where he guided the Cougars to March Madness in 2024, their first appearance since 2008.

Heading into the new year, the Cardinal have a strong list of players set to join the team and prove that they can be real difference-makers. Headlined by four-star recruits in Drew Anderson, Julius Price, Isaiah Rogers, Aziz Olajuwon and Elias Obenyah, the Cardinal's new-look roster looks like one that could cause problems for opponents.

Kyle Smith is the right guy for the job, but for the second consecutive season he'll be re-working his roster to work around another loss to the NBA Draft. Join StanfordRoundtable — it's free — and tell us whether Smith's Nerd Ball will take Stanford to the tournament in 2026-27!