Stanford hiring Washington State’s Kyle Smith as men’s basketball coach

By Nicole Auerbach, Mark Puleo and Brian Bennett

After guiding Washington State to its first NCAA Tournament in 16 years, Kyle Smith is headed to Stanford to become the Cardinal men’s basketball coach, Stanford announced Monday.

Smith spent the past five years with Washington State, garnering a 94-71 record and never finishing with a record below .500. Before Smith arrived in 2019, the school hadn’t finished with a winning record since 2011-12.

“The opportunity to serve as the head men’s basketball coach at Stanford is a dream come true, and I want to thank Bernard Muir for entrusting me with this opportunity,” Smith said. “From my perspective, Stanford has the resources and reputation to attract the ideal student-athlete who is seeking the character development aspects of what our basketball program will offer. Stanford has the capacity to provide a place where student-athletes can hone their leadership skills and intellect through hard work and team building. I am thrilled to try to provide that type of culture for an institution that prides itself on excellence in all areas.”

A No. 7 seed, Washington State defeated Drake in the first round Thursday before losing to No. 2 Iowa State on Saturday.

Prior to Washington State, Smith coached at San Francisco and Columbia, establishing connections with both the Bay Area and with an academically rigorous school.

At previous stops, Smith’s embrace of analytics earned his style of play the nickname of Nerdball. Smith first began focusing on basketball data as an assistant coach at San Diego, then later at Saint Mary’s. He rode that Nerdball system to his first head coaching gig with Columbia, then expanded on that after getting hired at San Francisco, where he guided the Dons to three straight 20-win seasons.

It was that coaching style that caught the eye of Washington State, where Smith and his staff used analytics and data tracking to chart more than 50 numerical categories during practice time, allowing the numbers to determine playing time during games. The style worked, as Smith turned the program around in one of the toughest power conferences in the country.

Now he’ll take that program to Stanford, which is coming off its second consecutive 14-win season and fired coach Jerod Haase earlier this month after eight seasons. The Cardinal haven’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2013-14.

Stanford star freshmen Andrej Stojakovic, a five-star recruit in 2023, and Kannan Carlyle announced in the past two weeks that they will are entering the transfer portal. Both were top-50 recruits.

Before Smith, the last coach to take Washington State to the NCAA Tournament was Tony Bennett. Bennett left the Cougars in 2009 and went on to take Virginia to an NCAA championship in 2019.

Both programs are changing conferences in 2024. Stanford will move to the ACC, while Washington State will compete in the West Coast Conference.

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(Photo: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)