Former Kansas guard Jerod Haase out as Stanford’s head men’s basketball coach
Former University of Kansas basketball guard and assistant coach Jerod Haase has been fired at Stanford after eight seasons as Cardinal head coach, Stanford athletic director Bernard Muir announced Thursday night.
Muir dismissed Haase at the conclusion of the Cardinal’s 79-62 loss to Washington State in Thursday’s quarterfinals of the Pac-12 Tournament. Stanford went 14-18 this season, 8-12 in the Pac-12 regular season.
Haase’s Stanford teams went 126-127 with no NCAA Tournament appearances. Stanford, 67-84 in Pac-12 games in the Haase era, did advance to the NIT in 2018. Under Haase, Stanford’s best finish in the league was third (with an 11-7 record) in 2017-18. Stanford has made just one NCAA Tournament appearance since 2008 — in 2014 under former coach Johnny Dawkins.
“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.”
Haase was known as a top-notch recruiter at Stanford, signing 15 top-100 rated prospects including three five-star players. His signees included recent NBA Draft picks KZ Okpala, Tyrell Terry and Ziaire Williams.
The Cardinal had five Pac-12 scholar-athletes of the year, including four in a row from 2021-24, and three Academic All-Americans during the Haase era.
Haase, who turns 50 on April 1, came to Stanford from UAB, where he went 80-53 in four seasons including a 26-7 mark in 2015-16.
Haase was hired following that 26-7 season. He went 80-53 at UAB.
Haase recently was asked about his job being in jeopardy.
“I do think it’s great to have a program and to build a program in today’s day and age there’s so many components to that,” Haase said as quoted by SI.com. “Nowadays it’s things like NIL and transfers, was never really a thing in the past. But it’s also so many things like we had a great home court advantage today (in a recent win over rival Cal). That’s a big deal.
“How you travel, how you do things within a program, there’s so many things (to success as coach),” he added, “Having former players invested and interested in the program is so great and we have the greatest group, unbelievable group of former players. And to be the program that we want to be, that’s a wonderful thing to have interest and investment in the program.”
Haase added by quoting Apple TV character Ted Lasso: “I would say with everything, you know the Ted Lasso kind of quote of ‘be curious’. I think we’re at a time right now that everybody should be curious, and when you are curious you ask questions, you learn, you grow, you figure what are the deficiencies. You identify those and then you try and solve them. But now is a wonderful time for everyone, myself, players, fans, former players, anybody around Stanford ... be curious. And when you are curious you start asking questions and you learn and you grow and that’s when you get solutions.”
Prior to becoming a head coach he worked for Roy Williams as an assistant at KU (1999-2003) and North Carolina (2003-12). He was head coach of the Tar Heels’ JV team during his days in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Haase transferred to KU from California after the 1992-93 season. Following a redshirt year, he played for the Jayhawks from 1995 to ’97. He averaged 12.5 points a game during his three seasons at KU, including 12.0 points per game his senior year (1996-97).
Matt Norlander of CBSSports.com lists Washington State coach Kyle Smith, Colgate coach Matt Langel and Princeton coach Mitch Henderson as possible candidates for the opening. Stanford is headed to a new conference, the ACC, for the 2024-25 season.
