STANFORD, Calif. — You can count on Lars Tiffany to cancel men’s lacrosse practice at the University of Virginia for a certain day in January. He already knows his players don’t plan on being there.

Cavaliers players had long ago warned their coach that a group would be taking a road trip to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. At least a dozen people will watch former teammate Cole Kastner play basketball for Stanford against the Tar Heels on Jan. 18.

“I’ve already been warned, we’re not practicing that day,” Tiffany said, “everyone will be driving 3 1/2 hours — just my love for it.”

After a career in collegiate lacrosse across the country, the 6-foot-10 forward is finally realizing his lifelong dream of playing for college basketball.

Tiffany initially wondered how Kastner would perform in lacrosse given his size.

“We were unsure during the recruiting process and were thinking: ‘Could you be too tall to be effective in college lacrosse?’ You had short guys with short sticks who were fast,” Tiffany said. “Changing direction, lateral movement, if you took a lot of lateral steps and steps, couldn’t you change direction fast enough to stay with them?

“But when you’re as athletic as Cole, not only has he proven he can do it, he’s proven he can do it at the elite level.”

Following his time at Virginia, Kastner transferred to the Cardinal program as a graduate transfer, where he helped the Cavaliers win the NCAA title in 2021.

It’s okay if Kastner doesn’t quite know how to adapt to the field. He’s so excited to have this chance.

“I feel it every day,” Kastner said. “It was amazing to be a part of this group and this university. “This is a very fortunate opportunity for me and I am grateful for everything the University of Virginia and the lacrosse team did to prepare me to have this experience and realize my dream.”

He graduated in May and was hoping to earn a master’s degree. In January 2023, Kastner began considering the possibility of playing a basketball season somewhere.

Coming to Stanford made everything even more special. He grew up at home, not far from campus in Palo Alto. His father, Eric, played football and rugby for rival California.

Kastner also had a perfect example and admirer: Golden State Warriors guard Pat Spencer, a four-time All-American lacrosse star at Loyola University before playing college basketball at Northwestern.

“For me, it was just about following my dream, and if that inspired the other guys behind me, that’s pretty cool,” Spencer said. “I’ve always loved lacrosse, but basketball was always my first love, so it’s pretty cool that it’s inspiring other guys to go on a similar journey.

The lacrosse community is small, so Kastner tracked it down.

“That was always (in the back of my mind) when I saw Pat Spencer, who was actually a great lacrosse player and went on to play basketball for a year, do that, and he’s doing a great job now, signed a two-way contract with the Warriors,” Kastner said. “I had the chance to talk to him a few times and he encouraged me to do it.”

There are a lot of lacrosse skills that transfer to the hoops.

Acting like he was holding a lacrosse stick in front of Maples Pavilion earlier this fall, Kastner showed off his lateral movements and similarities to the defense in his former sport to the defense he now plays on the basketball court.

While the transition has been far from seamless, Kastner is a veteran addition to the roster in coach Kyle Smith’s first season.

Kastner had been in contact with previous coach Jerod Haase about joining the program, and even when Haase left and Smith took over, there were discussions about still giving him a chance; No guarantees were given regarding playing time, role or minutes.

Smith wasn’t sure what to make of the idea at first, until he kept hearing from everyone that “he’s a local guy, he wants to come back” and what a great person Kastner was.

He realized he had to give the athletic big man a chance.

“I kind of brushed it off, it wasn’t a sense of urgency, I wasn’t worried about it,” Smith said. “I probably ran into 10 other people, ‘Hey, this is this Cole guy, I heard he was coming back,’ and then I finally talked to him three or four weeks later. I said, ‘Tell you what, you have an incredible PR campaign.’ “I feel so bad now, I was giving him a hard time and I can understand why everyone was praising him.”

Stanford guard Oziyah Sellers is from nearby Hayward and can see what it means to have Kastner at home.

“I had seen him play lacrosse, but I had never seen his highlights. Once I got the job, I saw the highlights they were posting, and he was hitting full-court shots, running people over,” said Sellers, a junior transferring from USC. “Seeing him at practice, it’s great to see what a good guy he is.”

For Kastner, this is an experience he will cherish.

“I couldn’t be more grateful.”

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