Stanford Loses Another Good Coach

In what is becoming a frightening trend for those of us East Coasters who actually pay attention to West Coast basketball, the Stanford Cardinal have lost their 3rd great head coach in 6 years (Willingham-football-2002, Montgomery-basketball-2004, Johnson-basketball-2008) today as men's basketball coach Trent Johnson left the program to take the head coaching job at LSU.

Johnson, who led the Cardinal to a 28-8 record and a Sweet Sixteen appearance, was an assistant coach under Mike Montgomery, who left the school to take a job with the Golden State Warriors. Johnson had expressed a desire to coach the Cardinal for years before the job was offered to him, and reports say that he often told his players at Nevada that he would only leave Nevada for a job at Stanford.

HOWEVER, the inability of Stanford AD Bob Bowlsby to sign Johnson to a contract extension in a timely fashion has bitten him in the ass yet again. Perhaps he'll be able to go out and find another talented coach chomping at the bit to coach at Stanford, praise his successes for a few years, and hang him out to dry until he leaves the school for another, less-prestigious position. That seems to be his m.o., after all.

Think about the Stanford basketball team next year. Intelligent or not, the school will lose both the Lopez brothers to the NBA next year, one likely to the first round of the Draft and the other to a lucky NBDL team somewhere. Now they lose their coach, too. Even though they have 4-star forward recruit Miles Plumlee coming in next year (from Arden, NC... western NC represent!), this blogger just doesn't see things going well in Palo Alto next year.