Stanford quickly created a makeshift Zoom interview area late Thursday night at McKale Center, affixing the school’s banner to a wall in front of which coach Jerod Haase sat for a Q&A session.
“I sit here as a proud coach,” he said. “Arizona in many ways has been a gold standard nationally in terms of winning basketball games. As painful as it has been, I’m a part of that stat, but I wasn’t there for all of them, nor were our guys.”
That stat?
Until last month, Haase had gone 0-7 against the Wildcats; the Stanford program 0-20. But that has all changed. In six weeks Stanford beat Arizona twice, completing the sweep Thursday with a decisive 73-64 victory at McKale.
If a vote were taken today, Haase — not Gonzaga’s Mark Few or Baylor’s Scott Drew — should be the NCAA coach of the year.
It’s not just the well-told Suitcase Stanford dilemma — the Cardinal spent 51 of 57 days living in hotels. The team still hasn’t played a game at Maples Pavilion.
It’s that Haase has been coaching without starters Zaire Williams, Daejon Davis and Bryce Willis, the team’s Nos. 2, 3, and 4 scorers. Davis and Willis are injured; Williams, a potential NBA lottery pick, missed Thursday’s game due to a death in his family.
After going winless against Arizona in his head coaching career, Jerod Haase has beaten the Wildcats twice in the past six weeks.
“A couple times when things weren’t going our way, we didn’t sink into a depression,” said Haase. “We’re growing as a group and excited as we move forward.”
The math of Pac-12 basketball isn’t complicated. When one program moves up, one moves down. Stanford is rising. Arizona has been in decline for three years. If you saw this coming, if you saw Stanford replacing Arizona as a Pac-12 power, congratulations. You are among the few.
The Cardinal haven’t been relevant since 2008. Stanford had played in just one NCAA Tournament the last 12 years, all but forgotten with a 105-120 conference record. The epic days of Mike Montgomery are gone. Once-vibrant and wild Maples Pavilion averaged a bare 3,819 fans per game last season.
Who are these guys, anyway?
On Thursday, Haase started freshman point guard Michael O’Connell, and he came off as something out of the T.J. McConnell playbook.
The guard from upstate New York, a three-star recruit whose scholarship offers were from Dartmouth, Lafayette, UMBC, Niagara and Columbia, scored 14 points in 37 minutes.
He did not commit a turnover. Nor did he commit a turnover in a 41-minute overtime performance last week, a welcome-back-to-contention stunner over UCLA.
During teammate Jaiden Delaire’s Zoom interview Thursday, he seemed astonished by O’Connell’s performance. “He’s a freshman,” Delaire said, with emphasis on “freshman.”
What was so impressive about Stanford late in Thursday’s game was that it absorbed the type of late-game rally to which so many McKale Center opponents have succumbed. Arizona shot to a 57-52 lead. For a dozen years, Stanford wasn’t able to fight back.
But this time, with new starters O’Connell and Delaire the most productive players on the court, Stanford outscored Arizona 14-2. Game over.
“At the (57-52) timeout, Coach got pretty fired up,” said Delaire, who finished with 21 points.
Fired up? That’s probably not an adequate description of how animated Haase became during the timeout conference.
“We needed a little shot in the arm, a confidence boost,” Haase said with a grin. “I can’t confirm or deny we need another clipboard. If that’s the case, I’ll go ahead and pay for it.”
College basketball is so unpredictable, full of so many compelling stories. Haase’s story is among the most irresistible.
Stanford forward Oscar da Silva (13), right, stuffs Arizona guard James Akinjo (13) on a drive into the paint in the first half of their Pac 12 game at McKale Center, Tucson, Ariz., January 28, 2021.
He first visited McKale Center on Feb. 7, 1993, a Cal freshman shooting guard starting opposite freshman point guard sensation Jason Kidd. The Golden Bears were a young and climbing team that would beat Duke to reach the Sweet 16.
After Cal lost 93-81 to No. 8 Arizona, Haase’s life forever changed. As Bears coach Lou Campanelli loudly rebuked his team, Cal athletic director Bob Bockrath overheard what he later described as a “profane and abusive” atmosphere.
Bockrath fired Campanelli the next day.
Interim coach Todd Bozeman benched Haase, and the guard became disillusioned with the direction of Cal’s program. At year’s end, he transferred to Kansas. Talk about good timing.
The Jayhawks went 89-13 and were ranked No. 1 in each of Haase’s three seasons starting for Roy Williams. Right place, right time. At the conclusion of his playing days, Haase coached 12 seasons for Williams at Kansas and North Carolina before becoming head coach at Alabama-Birmingham in 2012.
With a recommendation from Williams, Haase became Stanford’s basketball coach after he coached UAB to a 26-7 record in 2016.
It has been a slow, challenging process to turn Stanford into a winner again. Haase’s first four Stanford teams went 34-38 in the Pac-12 and couldn’t regularly beat the big boys. Arizona, Oregon and UCLA went 16-5 against Haase.
It’s still a long way to the finish line, but Stanford has been cleared to return to Maples Pavilion for games next week against USC and Cal. And when starters Willis, Davis and Williams return, Stanford appears to be the most talent-stacked team in the Pac-12.
The days of breaking clipboards may be at an end.
