The Cardinal lost the first three games of Pac-10 play, then won six straight, beginning with perennial powerhouse Arizona. Despite his team’s slow start, men’s basketball head coach Trent Johnson’s demeanor never wavered.
“I don’t put too much thought into guys being emotionally up or emotionally down,” he says. “I put a lot of emphasis on what we’re getting done.”
After an early-season loss to No. 12 Louisville, Johnson told his players: “I think we have a chance to be a solid team.” When they came within three points of beating Washington: “I told them, ‘Guys, we’ve got a chance. We’ve just got to continue to play better.’” After the win over Arizona, which many fans took as a turning point in the season: “I said, ‘Guys, this is the level of intensity we have to somehow play at.’”
As an assistant under former head coach Mike Montgomery from 1996 to 1999, Johnson made a lasting impression. So much so that when Monty was named head coach of the Warriors last May, Johnson’s name came up immediately. He had led a turnaround in his five seasons as head coach at the University of Nevada-Reno, and players from Stanford’s 1998 Final Four team lobbied athletics director Ted Leland, PhD ’83, to hire him. The AD did just that—within four days.
Johnson arrived to a full plate. The 30-2 team that won the Pac-10 championship last year had lost its top three scorers: Justin Davis and Matt Lottich to graduation, and Pac-10 Player of the Year Josh Childress to the NBA. But Johnson saw the promise of returning starters, including redshirt junior and All-Pac-10 point guard Chris Hernandez, senior center Rob Little and redshirt senior forward Nick Robinson. Standing in the wings were juniors Dan Grunfeld, Jason Haas and Matt Haryasz.
Grunfeld and Hernandez stepped up, leading the team with 17.9 and 14.3 points per game, respectively. “Chris is one of the best guards in the league,” Johnson says. “And Danny is an extremely bright kid who has good basketball instincts and comes from a good basketball family,” the coach adds. (He is the son of Washington Wizards general manager Ernie Grunfeld.)
But on February 12, Grunfeld tore his anterior cruciate ligament in a home game against Cal, ending his breakout season. “It was hard to see him hurt because we’re a close team, but we have to move on,” Johnson said after the game. “We’ll practice tomorrow and we’ll make some plays down the stretch.”
Grunfeld’s injury further depleted an already scant roster. Early in the season, two two-sport athletes, sophomore wide receivers Mark Bradford and Evan Moore, resigned from the team. Then, redshirt freshman guard Tim Morris was declared academically ineligible for the rest of the season by the NCAA. “Bradford said it had been bothering him for a long time, in terms of being able to handle the workload academically from season to season,” Johnson says. “And Evan’s [situation] was one where he thought with the [football] coaching change, he needed to concentrate on football. You have to respect their decisions and their choices. People need to be realistic and understand that it’s really, really hard, especially here, to compete at a high level in both sports.”
That leaves the team with eight healthy scholarship players and not a lot of depth as Pac-10 play concludes. But the coach is steadfast about the team’s prospects. “We’ve got to rebound and take care of the ball,” he says. “And at the offensive end, we’ve got to make good decisions and hit open shots. There are five or six things you need to do, and keep improving on.”
