After two sketchy hires and a string of management mistakes, the Cardinal made a shrewd move Monday and charged Kyle Smith with resuscitating its dormant men’s basketball program following the dismissal of Jerod Haase.
Kudos to athletic director Bernard Muir for recognizing that Smith fits the Cardinal model even though Washington State and Stanford have little in common, including conferences. — He has Bay Area experience, first as an assistant at Saint Mary’s and later leading San Francisco for three seasons.— He has posted 20-win seasons at multiple levels of the game: twice in the Ivy League, three times in the WCC and twice in the Pac-12 with Washington State.
Muir’s fingerprints are all over those years in the wilderness. He stuck by Dawkins for far too long, then hired Haase, then retained Haase year after year despite the clear need for a change.Smith’s eye for talent and experience with a highly-selective admissions process will serve him well with the limited talent pool available for Stanford.
But given two or three recruiting cycles, a program that floundered in the mediocre Pac-12 could be competitive in the rugged ACC.Haase refused to hire assistants who had ties to the program, as former players or coaches. Will Smith repeat that mistake or hire at least one assistant with first-hand experience in Stanford’s unique culture?
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