Stanford Basketball: 10 candidates to replace Jerod Haase as Head Coach

James Jones

Continuing the theme about academics, let’s look closely at a different successful Ivy League coach who’s shown how to build a successful program. Stanford really does feel like the western version of an Ivy League program, so it seems appropriate to consider someone likes Jones, who has spent nearly half of his life coaching in this conference.

Born on Long Island, Jones played his college ball at Albany and began his coaching career on that staff back in the early 90’s. He had brief coaching stints as an assistant at both Yale and Ohio before returning to Yale as head coach in 1999. Jones remains the head coach of the Bulldogs some twenty-five years later. His program has finished in the top half of the Ivy League in nearly every season and has played in three NCAA Tournaments, notably upsetting 3-seed Baylor back in 2015.

With much of his coaching career coming in New England, Jones would be in for quite the change moving out to northern California. Deciding to move on after a quarter century at one school would also be quite the decision. He has no experience at the power conference level and it’s not like his program has exactly been dominating the Ivy League. Jones is a great name to consider and he’s consistently had talent in New Haven, though you wonder if Stanford will swing higher.