re: A Stanford fan's take on Trent Johnson

Agree, and these are his recruits. Next year big improvement or else.

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I give him one more year to prove what he's got. He has a 7' 260 lb. Iowa State transfer in Justin Hamilton and a 6'10" 240 lb. freak of nature recruit in Johnny O' Bryant. Lack of post presence has been his main problem in his tenure at LSU. This will open up shots for our relatively talented guards who can be good when they don't have to be the stars. If he can't win with these guys, he won't win with anybody.

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Fair enough. Totally agree.

I think the Brady followers get a bad rap for the most part in these discussions, as there is a certain segment of the LSU fanbase that seem to think he did absolutely nothing right at LSU. I don't think he was a great coach, I think it was time for him to go, but he did some really good things at LSU and should get more credit than he does. Hopefully, that will happen over time.

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Don't know where you're goin there, I support Trent but he's testing my patience.

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Sorry anyone posting "or else" just kind of makes me smirk and I had to comment.

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Sorry anyone posting "or else" just kind of makes me smirk and I had to comment.

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25 year old Trent Johnson apologist smirks at comment.

Maybe Alleva will get Les to offer Trent some recruiting advice.

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This is like reading the BYU take on Crouton.

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I bet that Stanford fan is wishing they still had Trent Johnson right about now given that the state of Stanford's basketball program right now is worse than it was under TJ. To emphasize how hard of times Stanford's once proud basketball program has fallen on, Oregon (a team picked before the season to finish dead last in a God awful Pac-10) beat Stanford in Palo Alto this year for the first time in 25 years. That's after we fired our long time coach in Ernie Kent last season too. Yeah his most successful year at Stanford was with the Lopez twins, but those were also his recruits.

Just coming from an outsider's perspective, but I do like Trent Johnson. I've been following him since his days turning Nevada into the basketball power in the state during his time there (older fans will obviously remember the UNLV teams from the 80's and early 90's) and I do think he is a good coach. Great coach? Not in the slightest otherwise some big name basketball school would have snagged him by now obviously, but he has seen some form of success everywhere he has been.

With all that said, he did have a horrible season last year and this one is looking to be much of the same in that regard, so I do very much understand the criticism shot towards him. I don't know how Trent will do next season obviously, but I do understand the sentiment that he needs to prove himself next season. I can tell you I as well as many of my fellow Oregon basketball fans were pretty frustrated when Ernie Kent was coaching at Oregon and constantly having 2 mediocre/bad seasons followed by a really good season over and over again. I mean Oregon isn't really a power when it comes to basketball but at the same time we have had some really good teams during the Kent years (Elite 8 in the '02 and '07 tournaments). When a team tastes success, all the fans do is want more of it. That's just the nature of sports in general. In this situation, I think Trent's downfall at LSU was the tremendous success he saw in his first year coaching you guys, as you went to the Sweet 16 that year. Obviously you want the guy to win but that sets the bar higher. But again, that's just how any sport is so I do believe it's fair for people to say that he has one more year to prove himself, as others in this thread have argued. That's just my 2 cents on the matter.

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Not really without that year he'd be looking at three bad years in a row and might be getting fired.

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Yeah good point.

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Nobody is expecting miracles but we would like to not be at the bottom of the conference when it is so down while also losing to lower level schools like Nicholls St.

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Whoa I just looked at the overall record but I just looked at the scores to some of these teams and yikes..... I mean 2-8 in conference is bad but some of those scores against less than stellar basketball schools like Alabama and Arkansas were kind of bad..... Ok really bad.... Pac-10 is in the same boat as the SEC in that regard with the conference being so bad and what not. We also had some real bad losses similar to Nicholls State this year (we lost to freaking San Jose State and Idaho) but we were somehow able to at least somewhat turn it around in conference play.

Ok I guess I REALLY don't blame people for wanting him to be canned after this year, let alone if he doesn't prove himself next season.....

I'm not screaming that he needs to be fired RIGHT NOW, but please, TJ fans:
convince me he's the right guy.

I'm a Dale fan, not a Brady fan, but at least Brady came into a huge mess- probation and scandals. And he eventually turned things back around, though not to the pre-probation level.

What exactly was the calamity that TJ walked into, that he has to rebuild from, that caused this team to be so weak? Please don't tell me it's all due to a shortage of local recruits, because we should ALWAYS have the talent to beat other local schools and Sun Belt teams. Hell, North Texas is 5-6 in the Sun Belt, and they beat us in the PMAC by 20. That's getting to Curly Hallman level bad.