On Thursday, Stanford men’s basketball fell to Washington State by a final score of 79-62. Washington State fifth year forward Isaac Jones led the way for the Cougars with 16 points and six rebounds while five other Cougars also scored in double figures. Stanford fifth year forward Spencer Jones led all scorers with 22 points and four rebounds.
BOX SCORE: Stanford vs. Washington State-Thursday, March 14th
VIDEO: Stanford Men’s Basketball Postgame Press Conference | Pac-12 Tournament Quarterfinals
To touch quickly on the game itself first, Washington State controlled this game the entire way. They led 45-29 at halftime and never looked back. They shot 31-61 (50.8%) from the field, 7-22 (31.8%) from 3-point range, and 10-14 (71.4%) from the foul line. They won the rebounding battle 39-25 while Stanford shot 25-54 (46.3%) from the field, 6-21 (28.6%) from 3-point range, and 6-14 (42.9%) from the foul line.
Washington State is the better team and they played like it. Stanford in contrast never got into a rhythm while their star center Maxime Raynaud got in early foul trouble, picking up two quick fouls within the first few minutes of the game. It just wasn’t the Cardinal’s night after they had an amazing comeback victory over Cal the night before that went into overtime.
And so, the season ends for the Cardinal in disappointment. They were hoping to make the NCAA tournament this year and for a variety of reasons they just never were able to get the pieces to come together in the way that they wanted.
As a result, Stanford has announced a leadership change, relieving Jerod Haase of his head coaching duties. Stanford made the announcement minutes after the game concluded. The full release is here:
STANFORD, Calif. – Stanford's Anne and Tony Joseph Director of Men's Basketball Jerod Haase has been relieved of his duties effective immediately, as announced Thursday night by Jaquish and Kenninger Director of Athletics Bernard Muir.
"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. "As we embark on the search for our next head coach, I wish Jerod and his family all the best in the future."
Haase produced a 126-127 record in eight seasons on The Farm, guiding the Cardinal to an NIT appearance in 2018. In addition to securing 15 top-100 rated prospects, including three five-star players, Haase mentored 13 All-Pac-12 selections overall during his tenure.
Stanford continued to excel academically under Haase's guidance, boasting five Pac-12 Scholar-Athletes of the Year, including four in a row from 2021-24, and three Academic All-Americans.
A national search will begin immediately.
For Haase, this is obviously not the way he wanted his time at Stanford to end. For the last eight seasons, he poured his heart and soul into the program, doing everything he could to get the program to take the next step. For a variety of reasons, some of which you can pin on Haase and some of which were out of his control, Stanford just never was able to get over the hump and make the NCAA tournament. He faced a lot of unique challenges at Stanford, did his best to address them, but in the end it just wasn’t enough.
At the same time, it wasn’t hard to see this coming. Johnny Dawkins, whom Haase replaced, also got eight seasons at Stanford and he was able to get Stanford to the NCAA tournament once in which they reached the Sweet Sixteen in 2014. And on top of that, Dawkins led Stanford to two NIT championships in 2012 and 2015 and a bonus NIT season in 2013. Haase in contrast only led Stanford to one NIT appearance in 2018.
Haase did have to deal with COVID and the strangeness that came with that. The 2019-20 season in which they had freshman point guard Tyrell Terry is the one season in which Haase and the Cardinal had a chance of making the NCAA tourney, but it was canceled due to the pandemic. Based on the research I’ve done, that team was probably not making the tourney, but still. They would have liked to have found out and at worst that would have been another NIT that Haase could have had under his belt.
Terry then left for the NBA to the surprise of the program and they just never seemed to be able to recover. When looking back on the Haase era, that moment appears to be the most pivotal and consequential. Had Terry stayed at Stanford for three years, things might have ended differently for Haase.
But alas, things went the way they did and Haase ultimately can’t blame things on Terry’s departure. He had plenty of chances to right the ship, most notably this season, and things went horribly wrong in terms of the team falling well short of expectations. Haase knows it, which is why a change isn’t at all surprising. This had to be done for the good of the program and for the good of Haase. This really is a merciful parting of ways. Haase tried his best, represented the university with a lot of class, but the results simply were not at the level that Stanford should expect. They have to expect better.
The press conference was of course emotional. You could feel it. Haase was holding back tears and spoke with a lot of emotion as he talked about his time on The Farm. You could tell he really cares about the whole Stanford experience and values the academic side a lot. That’s something that matters a lot to Stanford and played a big role in him lasting for as long as he did. Guys like that aren’t easy to find.
“I believe the news is out there that there has been a change of leadership with the men's basketball program here,” Haase said after the game. “It's been a heck of a run, honestly, eight years. I look at my job, I suppose a little bit old school and multi-faceted. One of the things is this is a place -- and I believe dearly about scholar-athletes. And I have coached for eight years -- tremendous scholar-athletes. Four straight years of scholar-athlete of the year in league. I won't get into specifics too much of team GPAs and the variety of majors and the hardest major at the greatest university in the world.
“But I'll be leaving very proud of the team accomplishments. The reality is I did nothing for that other than recruit highly exceptional kids, men. I also believe in development, and that's a part of my job.
“I’m leaving proud of what my staff and I have done on the court and off the court in developing our student-athletes. I believe deeply in culture, our core values. It's been a challenge in eight years. A lot of changes to the climate of college basketball, COVID. There's been a lot we've gone through.
“And during that time my staff and team, players, administration, we've worked hard on culture and developing something we're really proud of. That's something I'm super excited about.”
Regarding potential candidates, I’ll get a hot board piece out that goes through the names of potential candidates in more detail, but one name I can quickly bring up is the man who coached the team that Stanford lost to tonight: Kyle Smith. He’s expected to move on from Washington State after this season. Given he used to coach in the Bay Area at San Francisco and really enjoyed his time in the Bay Area, he’s an obvious name that comes to mind and will be on my hot board. For the rest of the list, you’ll just have to wait until I get that released. That’ll be out shortly.
Overall, this really is the best thing for the Stanford program to make this change. They are moving to the ACC and just looking at things roster-wise, it really is an ideal time to make a change. The key thing for them will be to make sure they make a good hire and find someone who is able to get Stanford back to the NCAA tournament with regularity. This is an important hire and one that they need to get right.
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