Stanford confirms Jerod Haase will be back: Why it’s the right move
Shortly after Stanford men’s basketball’s 84-80 loss to #2 Arizona in the quarterfinals of the Pac-12 tournament, Stanford Athletic Director Bernard Muir put out a statement stating that Jerod Haase will be back for the Cardinal next season as their head men’s basketball coach:
"Coach Haase and I agree that the on-court results of our men's basketball program are not what we want them to be. Having said that, I believe that the young nucleus of talent on our team and promising recruiting will propel us to take the next steps we all desire while our program continues to operate with great integrity and achieve the highest levels of academic excellence. I look forward to my continued partnership with Coach Haase."
During and before the Pac-12 tournament, I had been asked by some people if Jerod Haase would be back at Stanford. While I didn’t know for sure what Muir was going to decide, I said I thought Haase would be back for a few reasons.
The first reason is simply the fact that the team is young and has a lot of quality talent returning, especially if Harrison Ingram decides to come back for a sophomore year. On top of that, the incoming recruiting class is strong.
Secondly, the team has gone through a lot due to the pandemic. While it is true that every school can use the pandemic as an excuse, Stanford got hit especially hard due to playing in the most COVID restrictive county in the country. They had to play the majority of their home games in Santa Cruz last season and the NCAA reclassified those games as neutral site games. So in truth, most of their games last season were either away from home or at a neutral site. Even this season, they had to play some games with no fans and also went through a long COVID pause. Not to mention having to play a truncated schedule in which they had to play more games in a shortened period of time due to COVID make ups.
Third, the team finished the season on a strong note. They played well on the Arizona road trip and backed that up by beating Arizona State in their first game of the Pac-12 tournament before giving #2 Arizona all they could handle, nearly knocking them off in the quarterfinals. This team had nothing but pride on the line these last two weeks and to their credit, they played like a team that cared how they finished this out for its own sake. The players could have packed it in and gone home and lost belief in the coaching staff. Instead they believed in the staff and wanted to prove that they were capable of delivering at a level that the coaching staff expects.
The final reason is Stanford comes with a unique set of challenges that other coaching staffs don’t have to deal with. Stanford can’t utilize the transfer portal like other schools can, their recruiting pool is narrower due to who they can get admitted into the school, and just in general, Stanford is a place that takes a while to figure out. Fit matters a lot and when it comes to knowing how to navigate Stanford and all the challenges that come with it, Jerod Haase seems to have navigated that as well as any coach could be expected to. Especially during the era of the pandemic.
When you add all those things up, it just makes sense that Bernard Muir would be bringing Haase back for another year. I just didn’t see Muir cutting Haase’s time at Stanford two seasons shorter than the amount of time that Johnny Dawkins got. Especially since he hired Haase to replace Dawkins and Haase has also had to deal with the pandemic. Athletic Directors are always going to go easier on guys they hire and want to give them more trips to the plate. It's in their nature.
As far as why Muir made the announcement and why he made it when he did, I think this was all about squashing unsubstantiated rumors that Haase’s seat was hot and that he was going to get fired. Given the rumors that had been swirling about Haase, I did my due diligence the past couple of days and fished around a bit on this. I got nothing back that indicated a change was going to come and the stuff that I did get back indicated it was likely that Haase was going to be retained. For all of the reasons I listed above.
All the chatter and articles written about Haase possibly getting canned after this season was just white noise and nothing more. I honestly don’t believe his job was on the line in the Pac-12 tournament. That’s why I told people before the tournament as well as in the middle of the tournament, that I think Haase would be back. The intel I was able to gather as well as just the general vibe of things pointed in the direction of him coming back. Not getting fired.
In terms of whether or not Haase should be brought back, I think it is absolutely the right move for Stanford. This is a team that has been through a lot and after putting up such a great fight in the Pac-12 tournament, deciding to part ways with Haase would have just felt wrong. He and his staff are both incredibly committed to their players and the players in turn showed that they are committed to them. The players desperately want to get to the NCAA tournament and one of the reasons why, as stated by sophomore guard Michael O’Connell in the beginning of the season, is for Jerod Haase. They want him to get Stanford to the NCAA tournament and they believe in his ability to get them there. Firing him after this season would have just killed all the good momentum and crushed the team’s morale.
I also should add that it’s a very dangerous game to want a coach to be fired for its own sake. The grass is not always greener on the other side. I know this from firsthand experience. Across the bay at Cal, greenhorn athletic director Jim Knowlton decided to fire Wyking Jones after his second season as head coach purely for its own sake. The thought process, at least from my vantage point having covered it up close, is that any head coach would be an automatic upgrade over Wyking Jones.
Knowlton went with Mark Fox. A coach whose main selling point coming in was that he wasn’t Wyking Jones. How has that worked out so far? Cal went 5-15 in league this season in Fox’s third year. That’s only a full game better than the 3-15 season that Jones had in his second year and it’s not even clear if they’ll be better next season. If you’re going to fire a coach, you better have some solid candidates lined up and have a good idea of who you can hire. Otherwise, stick with what you have until you have a game plan figured out. To quote Mrs. Crub from the American comedy film Lloyd:“Ignorance isn’t something to be proud of.”
Looking ahead, while it is the right move for Stanford to bring Jerod Haase back, that doesn’t mean they should be content with another season like the one they’ve just had. The goal for next season should be to get better and put themselves in a position where they don’t have to win the Pac-12 tournament to reach the NCAA tournament. If they do that, the Haase era could finally have the long awaited success that it’s been hoping to have. If not, then maybe the bell will finally toll.
To connect with CardinalSportsReport.com on Twitter, click here.
To connect with Ben Parker, click here.