Dawkins' seat getting warmer?

by RedOscar on Jan 22, 2026 3:08 PM PST

In his third year on the job, Johnny Dawkins has not yet been able to resuscitate Stanford Men's Basketball to the successes of Monty or Johnson's final seasons. Stanford knew they were hiring a first time head coach when they brought Dawkins from Duke, but is the gamble paying off?

Stanford has not had a winning final record since the 2007-2008 season.
Stanford has regressed (significantly) both on offense and from the charity stripe.
Inconsistency in play from both seniors and freshmen alike.
Failure to win in SoCal since 2005.
Despite significant down years in the Pac-10 for the past two years, Stanford has not had a winning conference record and, in fact has ended the season eighth or lower in both of Dawkins' full seasons.
The women have been outnumbering the men in attendance by 1,000 to 2,000 a game.
Student support has regressed so much that the athletic department has reached out to local alumni to help fill the 6th Man Club.
Season ticket sales have dropped from a waiting-list only to whole sections empty in a matter of three years.

Clearly it's unfair to judge a new coach and his program against seasoned vets such as the women as well as past successes by the men, but there are grumbles being heard in Maples, not to mention empty seats. What does Dawkins have to do this season to ensure his job isn't in jeopardy? Next year?

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1st Time Head Coaches

It is difficult to be the lead dog for the first time. There are only two ways to handle this situation, either hire people with head coaching experience or give the person hired enough time to figure out what they are doing.

Unfortunately, with few exceptions, this takes a few years of on the job experience. You can fire coaches every three years and spiral into oblivion by hiring inexperienced coaches or you can give the person 5 years to figure it out.

In year 3, you may as well wait another two years.

by jterry94 on Jan 22, 2026 10:53 PM PST reply actions

Well put

Of course, John Calipari could probably turn it around faster. But he doesn’t seem much like the Stanford type.

by Cardinal&Orange; on Jan 23, 2026 2:31 PM PST up reply actions

Thtat all sounds pretty grim, but...

1. 2008-09 Final Record: 20-14

2. Trent Johnson did little to advance the program. If not for Deborah Ledford’s contributions, the decline would’ve been evident a few years earlier. Montgomery had some early success but with talent recruited by Tom Davis. What I recall is that it took him a few years to rebuild things once those guys graduated.

3. Can the guy coach? He coaxed last year’s motley crew to 14 wins, and was 2 missed Jarrett Mann free-throws from taking down #5 Kentucky. There were other near-misses. Also not his fault that Josh Owens and Andy Brown were out the whole year, leaving a big hole in the post.

4. Most important, can he win at Stanford with his system and “his” players? The jury is still out on that. But I’m not sure we’ll really know until at least next year, after this bunch has experienced a full season of playing basketball together at this level.

To answer your ultimate question: As I’m neither in the Stanford administration nor an alum, I don’t know what they expect, but as a simple fan I’d be happy to see them start running a well-executed offense for a decent good portion of the game, not just in brief spurts.

And if they start making more of their point-blank shots, layups and dunks, that would be progress. I don’t know how you fix that.

by Cardinal&Orange; on Jan 22, 2026 10:54 PM PST reply actions

I more or less agree, I think

The jury is basically still out. The cupboard was REALLY bare when Johnson left…. Given what Dawkins has had to work with, so far, I think he’s done alright. But now that the team is basically all his, the seat will start to get warm inn the next year or two if the Cardinal doesn’t start competing for Pac-10 titles again.

Idolizing Robb Nen since 2002...

by Smoke on the Water on Jan 25, 2026 5:40 PM PST up reply actions

It should at least be lukewarm...

There were two things that Monty and Johnson were able to do that I have yet to see out of Dawkins:

1) Recruit blue-chip top line talent - For Monty it probably started with Adam Keefe, then to Brevin Knight, Mark Madsen (hell that whole ‘98 starting 5 ended up playing professionally somewhere), the Collins twins, Casey Jacobsen, Josh Childress, the Lopez twins, etc. In three years, I don’t know that we’ve seen Dawkins recruit a game changer. You only need one to turn a program around and start off in the right direction.

2) Get the most out of the kids they had - watching Monty’s teams (and to some extent Johnson’s teams as well) I always had the sense that these guys were playing beyond their ability. For the most part, they both maximized the talent that they had. Can we really say that Dawkins has done this?

I think Dawkins should start to feel some heat. There is no systemic reason why Stanford shouldn’t have a perennial tournament team, but it appears that is far, far away from the current state of affairs. That starts with the coach.

On the lighter side, I also wonder if this is karmic retribution for getting our coach from Duke.

by RickeySteals on Jan 22, 2026 11:20 PM PST reply actions

Lukewarm...tepid...laodicean...

Agreed that Monty is a great model for building a program and system around the kind of student-athlete Stanford is most likely to attract. It helped that other than CJ, JC, and one of the Collins twins, all of his players stayed until they’d used up their eligibility, so he seemingly always had experienced teams that only had a few holes to fill, if that, any given season. So at the very least, his teams were “fundamentally sound,” which is not a bad thing.

A funny thing about this list of blue-chip, game-changing recruits, though: The arguably biggest program changer, Brevin Knight, was far from a blue-chipper. He was barely recruited by ANYBODY and ended up signing late with Stanford. As for the Lopez twins, they were funneled to Stanford by their mom at birth — no recruitment required.

This year’s batch of recruits, the first that is truly Dawkins’, has played fewer than 20 games in college. Who can say if any of them is a game-changer. Powell may have that potential, but sometimes he plays like he’s still growing into his body.

I also think you give Trent too much credit in one respect. With a nice core group left from Monty’s tenure, they started the season ranked #13 — and promptly lost to UC Irvine, Montana and UC Davis, and finally in the 2nd round of the NIT. Not really getting them to play beyond their ability. I can’t think of any player during his tenure that played beyond his apparent ability. But maybe my memory is just bad.

Landry Fields didn’t do much under Trent, but developed into, well Landry Fields under JD’s tutelage. He has credited Dawkins with helping him advance his game a lot.

Maybe the sign that he has arrived, at least as a recruiter, will be when the wheel of karma spins and he coaxes a player AWAY from Duke and to Stanford.

by Cardinal&Orange; on Jan 23, 2026 4:15 PM PST up reply actions

Landry

Landry was the best player on the team last year, by far. But why all of a sudden is he considered such a surprise in the NBA while at Stanford he was just considered one of the better guys in a horrible Pac-10?

Of course he’s going to credit Dawkins with helping his game. No player of his caliber in the NBA who played all four years in college would dare disrespect their former coach like that. But with his sudden blossoming with the Knicks, it sure looks like he wasn’t maximizing his potential at Stanford. Sure NY also has one of the Stoudemire clan to help them start winning games, but Stoudemire isn’t carrying the team solely on his back, and now they’re talking playoffs in the Garden. When’s the last time anyone in Manhattan could say that? To an outside observer, one could say that Mike D’Antoni has done a better job with Fields than Dawkins did.

by RedOscar on Jan 23, 2026 8:12 PM PST up reply actions

Not sure what your point is here

It cannot possibly be that the main reason the Knicks are contending is because of Landry. He’s a great glue guy for them, but there’s a bunch of other guys who do the heavy lifting on that team.

And how does the faulty conventional thinking of NBA scouts and GMs illustrate that Dawkins is just a so-so coach? Dawkins runs an up-tempo style, as does D’Antoni, one reason Fields has made the transition quickly.

Maximize his potential? He led the Pac-10 in scoring and all that. The only other decent player was the streaky J. Green. There was no point guard worth a fig and the bigs were walk-ons. It was basically a one-man show. What more could he have done, exactly?

What D’Antoni HAS done is put him into the lineup on an improving team that plays in the media, and arguably the basketball capital of the US, if not the universe. Now everybody else can see what we saw.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/sports/basketball/01araton.html?_r=1&scp=10&sq=landry+fields&st=nyt

by Cardinal&Orange; on Jan 24, 2026 7:12 AM PST up reply actions

..

I may very well be overrating Trent… and it is possible that his greatest accomplishment was not screwing up the Lopez twins’ recruitment.

We do need to see what the current freshman class does, but one thing about a lot of those previous guys (Jacobsen, Childress, Collins and Lopez twins) was that made significant contributions as freshman, and by the end of their first years, they were recognized as being among the best in the conference. Not sure Dawkins has recruited a player of that caliber yet.

by RickeySteals on Jan 25, 2026 10:19 AM PST up reply actions

Interesting point about the frosh

I’ve seen most, but not every Pac-10 team play this season, and none of the freshmen strike me as being among the best players in the conference yet. Granted we’re not even halfway through, but last year I remember seeing Derrick Williams the first time and thinking he was already one of the best players in the league.

So Johnny D seems to have conference company in coming up short with the instant stars.

Mabye the Pac-10 just ain’t what it used to be…and I’m not so sure the Pac-12 will be any better any time soon.

by Cardinal&Orange; on Jan 25, 2026 12:40 PM PST up reply actions

Are things really this bad?

I’ll admit that I haven’t paid as close attention to men’s hoops since leaving the Farm and moving East, but I always thought the expectation was that this program would struggle for a couple years after losing Johnson. But hasn’t Dawkins at least recruited well?

by LPKingsFan on Jan 23, 2026 1:59 PM PST via mobile reply actions

oops. my post below was meant as a reply

by Cardinal&Orange; on Jan 23, 2026 4:18 PM PST up reply actions

Probably not that bad

But posing the question at least generates some discussion on this blog, which, as Martha would say, is a good thing.

And yes, the freshman recruiting class was highly-rated.

by Cardinal&Orange; on Jan 23, 2026 4:18 PM PST reply actions

State of the program

C&O brings up some valid points, but I’m not sure that they’re applicable here. The biggest thing that I can see is that what once was a proud and school-defining athletic program has become just another sport on campus. That shouldn’t happen with a program such as Stanford, and nothing has been done to rectify that.

Is that the coach’s fault? I would argue yes because ultimately a fan base is built upon whether or not your team can win on a consistent basis. That’s part of the reason football’s attendance was abysmal this year and Men’s BB attendance is so bad this season (as well as last year). It’s easy to lose fans when a team is losing but extremely hard to get them back if you are only winning here and there. People can argue whether or not Johnson was good for the program, but the fact remains that he continued to trend up while at Stanford, winning games and making it to the second weekend of the tournament in his last season.

I think the biggest thing, though, is that with the lack of basketball tickets moving, a once credible source of income for the department, a decision will be made about the future of the program sooner rather than later. Do I think Dawkins will be given the heave-ho after this season? I’d say with 99% certainty no. But next year? Giving him a full five year tryout may be asking too much of the department, especially if the department’s other moneymaker (football) doesn’t look so good in 2012 and the team doesn’t even make it to the NIT this year/NCAA next year.

by RedOscar on Jan 23, 2026 8:00 PM PST reply actions

$13.8B dollar endowment at a draw of 5.5% this year

They can afford to support the athletic department. It is always better when football and basketball are major draws (winning consistently) and the University should focus on this.

They should do more to drag the grad students to games as well.

by jterry94 on Jan 23, 2026 9:46 PM PST up reply actions

The university doesn't support the athletic department financially

That’s always been one of the most contentious things about other schools (ahem, Cal). Not to mention that it would for sure bring out the heady academics on staff as well as a very heated discussion amongst the ASSU and the Faculty Senate as to where university funds should be spent.

The Athletic Department is almost entirely privately financed through donations with the remainder coming from ticket sales, merchandising, licensing, and other financial gains independent of the university at-large. Despite the generous nature of alumni, it can’t afford to have both football and basketball operating at losses or small gains at the same time. When both the basketball and football programs suffer, the athletic department suffers (see the mass layoffs of 2007-08).

by RedOscar on Jan 23, 2026 10:40 PM PST up reply actions

I remember the mass layoffs

I agree but just because the university has not does not mean that they could not.

There is plenty of money available. They average 6.9% on the return.

by jterry94 on Jan 24, 2026 11:02 AM PST up reply actions

They could contribute money... but they won't

The university is feeling a pinch across all departments - there is no way the administration would decide to pull money from academic departments that are already running thin (or from financial aid) and give it to the athletic department.

by RickeySteals on Jan 25, 2026 10:16 AM PST up reply actions

Grad students are a tough draw

They are loath to involve themselves in anything that they see as revolving around undergrads (except maybe undergrad girls). When I was working at The Daily, it was like pulling teeth to get them to talk to us, much less even join or write for us.

Now, as a grad student at an Ivy, I understand the mindset somewhat. But that’s only because the school is awful at athletics. If they had a program like Stanford, I’d be paying attention.

by LPKingsFan on Jan 25, 2026 5:29 AM PST up reply actions