Stanford fires men's basketball coach Jerod Haase after 8 seasons
Stanford has fired men's basketball coach Jerod Haase after he finished his eighth season at the school without a single NCAA Tournament appearance.
Athletic director Bernard Muir announced the decision on Thursday night, shortly after the Cardinal finished a second straight losing season with a 79-62 loss to No. 22 Washington State in the Pac-12 quarterfinals in Las Vegas.
“I have not won here to the level that I expect,” Haase said after the game in an emotional news conference. “Just like I hold my team accountable, I’m being held accountable and I have no issue with that.”
Stanford went 14-18 for the season and finished in a three-way tie for ninth place in the Pac-12 with an 8-12 mark in conference. The Cardinal won their opening round game in Las Vegas against rival California but came up short against the Cougars.
Haase was a longtime assistant under Roy Williams at both Kansas and North Carolina and was head coach for four years at Alabama-Birmingham before being hired to replace Johnny Dawkins at Stanford in 2016.
Haase posted just two winning seasons on The Farm and had a 126-127 record overall, going 28-37 the past two seasons. Stanford posted a winning record in conference play only once under Haase in 2018 and never even made it as far as the Pac-12 semifinals.
“While the on-court results fell short of our expectations, Coach Haase led our men’s basketball program with great integrity and made a deeply positive impact on many Cardinal student-athletes,” Muir said in a statement. “As we embark on the search for our next head coach, I wish Jerod and his family all the best in the future.”
The Cardinal haven't been to the NCAA Tournament since 2015 under Dawkins with the drought the longest at the school since Mike Montgomery got to the tournament in 1989 for Stanford's first appearance since winning it all in 1942.
Montgomery built a powerhouse, making 10 straight tournament trips from 1995-2004 that included a Final Four appearance in 1998 and a No. 1 ranking in three seasons.
Trent Johnson took over after Montgomery left for the NBA in 2004 and made three tournament trips in four seasons before leaving for LSU in 2008.
The Cardinal have made the tournament just once since then under Dawkins and Haase.
The new coach will have the tough task of taking Stanford into its first campaign in the Atlantic Coast Conference next season with tougher competition and more difficult cross-country travel, as well as dealing with issues facing all of major college sports from the transfer portal and NIL.
“If the program was perfect right now, I’d still be the coach,” Haase said. “It’s not perfect. There need to be some advancements and improvements. ... It is an inflection point because there’s so many big changes, big decisions that are going on right now. I believe Stanford is a place of great ingenuity, creativity and desire to lead. The truth is a lot of these are hard decisions, especially when you value the scholar athlete, you value the experience, you value development of players. They're not easy conversations and they're not a lot of easy solutions."
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AP Sports Writer Mark Anderson in Las Vegas contributed to this report
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