The Stanford and Santa Clara men’s basketball teams opened a busy week for Bay Area schools participating in the National Invitational Tournaments and the WBIT with blowout home victories.

Stanford, led by Maxime Raynaud’s 22 points, advanced in the 32-team men’s field by routing CSU Northridge 87-70 on Tuesday night, and Tyeree Bryan helped power Santa Clara to a 101-62 win over UC Riverside on Tuesday.

The Stanford women missed the NCAA women’s tournament for the first time in 37 years and makes its WBIT debut tonight at Maples Pavilion. Saint Mary’s plays its WNIT opener today at Texas Southern.

Raynaud, who earlier in the day was named AP honorable mention All-American, had 22 points, 11 rebounds and five blocks to help send the Cardinal men into a second-round game against Kent State tonight at Maples Pavilion. Stanford improved to 20-6 all-time in 10 appearances in the NIT. The Cardinal is 12-2 at home in the NIT, including 10 straight wins at Maples Pavilion.

Oziyah Sellers added 20 points and Benny Gealer scored 13 for the Cardinal (21-13), which was playing in its first postseason game since 2018.

Raynaud recorded his nation-leading 24th double-double of the season and also moved up in the Stanford record books. He became the school’s single-season rebounding leader (breaking Adam Keefe’s 33-year-old record of 355 from 1991-92) and moved into the top-10 on Stanford’s all-time scoring list, moving past John Revelli and Howard Wright into ninth place.

In Santa Clar’s big win, Bryan made five 3-pointers and finished with 17 points for the Broncos, who were 16 of 27 (59%) from beyond the arc in the opening win. Jake Ensminger added four 3-pointers for the Broncos (21-12), who are playing in the NIT for the third time in the past four seasons.

SCU will play Saturday or Sunday against the winner of Wednesday’s Alabama/Saint Joseph’s first-round game.

— Laurence Miedema

NHL

NHL rethinking ’26 All-Star plans >> The smashing success of the 4 Nations Face-Off replacing All-Star festivities with a compelling, competitive international tournament has the NHL rethinking what to do next February before players go to the Milan Olympics.

The league announced 13 months ago that the New York Islanders would host All-Star Weekend in early February 2026, and Commissioner Gary Bettman envisioned it as the ideal jumping off point for the Olympians to board planes for Italy. What that looks like, or when, is now up in the air.

“We’re reevaluating how we want to do things because I think we’ve raised the bar about as high as you can for an all-star game in any sport,” Bettman said at his news conference wrapping up the general managers’ annual spring meeting.

Asked about a different format or even shifting the event at UBS Arena to 2027, Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly multiple times said, “Everything’s on the table.”

Tennis

Kyrgios beats Piedmont’s McDonald in Miami >> Nick Kyrgios won a match for the first time in nearly 2 1/2 years on Wednesday at the Miami Open, beating Piedmont’s Mackie McDonald 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 while wearing a thick wrap of beige tape on his surgically repaired right wrist that he said was numb after he took five painkillers.

Kyrgios, one of the named plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday by players against groups that run tennis, began this year with an 0-3 record until Wednesday.

McDonald, who eliminated Rafael Nadal at the 2023 Australian Open, is ranked 101st and went through qualifying to earn a spot in the main draw of the Miami Open.

Cycling

tour de france returning to the uk in 2027 >> Britain will host the Grand Départ of both the Tour de France and the women’s version of the race in 2027, organizers said.

It will be the 28th time that the Tour de France starts from a foreign country, and the first time since 2014 — when the Tour began in the Yorkshire region — that Britain hosts the start of cycling’s biggest race. The 2007 Tour started in London.