Stanford's Anne and Tony Joseph Director of Men's Basketball Jerod Haase sat down with The Bootleg to check in with the state of the program as the Cardinal moves through a pivotal offseason in his tenure. In the first part of his chat, Coach Haase discusses the departure of Reid Travis and the on-court implications of the team moving forward as the team's leadership and roster turns over to a point where this is very much the program of his making. Of Travis' departure, Coach said "“It certainly hasn’t been something we’ve dwelled on. Reid’s a fantastic player and he’s gonna do well at his next stop but it’s also the kind of thing where as a program as we evaluate and visit with the guys there’s a great deal of optimism and looking forward to moving ahead and putting different players in different roles. And ideally if they step up and embrace that to their capabilities I think we have a chance to be pretty good.”

I asked Coach whether he was surprised by the choice Travis ultimately made and he said "Maybe a little bit. I do think the communication was very, very good throughout. At the end, it was a conversation with he and I and while I was maybe a little bit surprised also wasn’t shocked. It was a unique situation, and he gave it a heck of a go and his focus was on making an NBA roster and being a first-round pick and that’s kind of where the focus was and that’s what we tried to do the best we could to try and put him in the best position for that.” Stanford arranged a number of workouts for Travis, including ones with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Golden State Warriors, and his hometown Minnesota Timberwolves. The Cardinal staff have been very supportive of Reid from the moment they arrived on campus and Coach Haase was quick to point out that it's not just his production the team will need to replace moving forward.

“It’s not just him. We’re missing Mike. We’re missing Dorian. You lose a lot of size. You lose a lot of rebounding," but Coach also noted that in terms of realizing his ultimate vision of what the team should be, the roster as it currently exists is well-suited to execute his vision, maybe even a bit more with Travis and his fellow classmates moving on from Stanford. " the vision of the program is trying to become a very versatile team that passes the ball well with proficient shooting. We shot the ball pretty well last year percentage-wise but we didn’t shoot a ton of them. I think as time goes on I think we’ll shoot more threes as long as we can shoot a good percentage. I’d love to see a team where the ball hops. It’s never staying in anybody’s hands. It’s moving, the ball is shared. I’m hoping that assists next year will skyrocket, and it’s a really fun team to play and all that kind of goes into pace of play on both the offensive and defensive ends. I think the vision of the program in terms of how we want to play and how we want to play is going to be a little easier to realize with the pieces that we have now.”

One step forward the Cardinal will need to take is limiting turnovers, an evil Coach felt was necessary to a certain extent last year but which he definitely expects to clean up during the 2018-19 season. Stanford's 19.1% turnover rate in Pac-12 play ranked eighth. "“I think it will look different. I don’t think it’ll be earth-shattering, where we’re running up and down the floor shooting in five seconds every time, but I do think there will be an increased pace to what we do and part of that I think defensively we’re trying to come up with a scheme that is still fundamentally sound where we’re solid defensively but also so that we can create some steals and create some opportunities for more transition and so hopefully our defensive philosophy fits into what we’re trying to do offensively. Last year I think our pace of play in conference was second in the conference so it’s not like we have a long way to go to be the fastest playing team, and our goal isn’t just to be a fast-playing team, it’s to be the best team. I do think that playing fast and unselfish is gonna be a way for us to be pretty good," Haase says.

Tactically, there is some flexibility that the coaching staff is contemplating but do not expect this team to turn into Arkansas' 40-minutes of Hell teams or even the Portland State team Stanford saw last year at the PK80 Tournament. “I don’t know that we’re going to be a pressing team full-court. There’s certainly some value to that but I think when you’re playing against the highest level of competition that we’re playing against when you spread the court that much and open it up for the guards in the game it gets pretty tough. I do think you can do some things in the half-court with trapping in the half-court, switching ball screens, trapping the post, there are defenses in the half-court, quarter-court where you can kind of mix it up but I don’t envision us using a full-court press for 40 minutes last year.”

Coach Haase had said at his season-closing presser that he had just begun the process of evaluating himself and his staff. Ultimately, he felt there was a positive takeaway that he hopes carries over into the coming year's team. "I think looking back, the idea that we held it together when we were 6-8 going into 2018 and it was about as grim as grim could be. But we stayed together and from that point on I think we really grew and took the experiences of the failures and turned them into life lessons and grew and competed to the end of the year. I think our conference season was good enough to get us to the NCAA Tournament and our non-conference was...pretty tough. So that put us in a situation where we weren’t gonna make the NCAA Tournament, but I think we laid the groundwork with the guys on the team and in two years now we talk about our core values. I do think we’ve made progress in being invested, tough, and selfless and then I think we’ve done a nice job with recruiting where the overall talent in the program is in a good spot and then also recruiting and developing players to the style we want to play. I think all those things are positives but I also understand that at the end of the day we need to get to the NCAA Tournament and compete at the highest level. So it’s exciting. I do think we’re trending the right way as we evaluate the program. Good things are happening but we need to continue to move the needle and take another step forward.”

Part II of our chat will include Coach's thoughts on the team's leadership transition and the incoming '18 freshman class of Cormac Ryan, Bryce Wills, Lukas Kisunis, and Keenan Fitzmorris.

Stay tuned to TheBootleg.com for Stanford Football and Basketball Team and Recruiting Updates all year long!

R.J. Abeytia has been contributing to The Bootleg since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Abeytia and follow The Bootleg @TheBootleg for up to the moment Cardinal news and analysis.

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