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WSU Men's Basketball

Kyle Smith leaving Washington State for head coaching job at Stanford

Kyle Smith, pictured coaching Washington State at the Pac-12 Conference basketball tournament in Las Vegas, is headed to Stanford.  (Tyler Tjomsland/The Spokesman-Review)
By Greg Woods gregw@spokesman.com(509) 459-5587

PULLMAN – Kyle Smith’s tenure at Washington State has come to an end.

The former Cougars coach has agreed to become Stanford’s next head coach, according to multiple reports and a news release from the school, marking the end of Smith’s five-year stay in Pullman.

Smith became a hot commodity on the coaching market this season by leading WSU to one of the best records, 25-10, in program history, guiding the Cougs to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2008 and making the second round with a win over Drake on Thursday. WSU finished second in the Pac-12 and made the conference tournament semifinals.

The 2024 Pac-12 Coach of the Year, he helped three Cougars make the All-Pac-12 lists, including first-team selections Myles Rice and Isaac Jones, plus honorable mention pick Jaylen Wells, who posted a team-best 20 points in WSU’s Round of 32 loss to Iowa State on Saturday.

“It is with a humble heart that I want people to know I have decided to take on a new challenge,” Smith said in a release from WSU. “It has been an honor to lead the Coug basketball program back to the NCAA Tournament. This has not been a one-year run, but a slow build up of sustained success and growth year after year.”

Smith, who took the WSU job ahead of the 2019 season, ushered in a hoops revival on the Palouse. After WSU won a combined eight conference games in the previous two seasons under former coach Ernie Kent, Smith helped the Cougs make three straight postseasons, including a 2022 NIT semifinal appearance, another NIT cameo in 2023 and the NCAA Tournament in 2024.

Including his wins compiled in previous coaching stints at Columbia and San Francisco, Smith surpassed 250 career victories during WSU’s 2023-24 campaign. Back on Feb. 22, when Washington State topped then-No. 4 Arizona in Tucson, the Cougars capped an eight-game win streak and a sweep of the top-10 Wildcats.

His Bay Area connections may have factored into this decision. Smith coached at San Francisco from 2016-2019, leading the Dons to three 20-win seasons, including an appearance in the College Basketball Invitational in the first two. After the 2018-19 season, in which USF finished 21-10 and 9-7 in West Coast Conference play, he came to WSU to replace Ernie Kent.

At Stanford, which fired former coach Jerod Haase moments after losing to WSU in the Pac-12 Tournament earlier this month, Smith already has his hands full. The Cardinal, headed to the ACC in the upcoming academic season, have already lost three key players to the transfer portal: Forward Maxime Raynaud and guards Andrej Stojakovic and Kanaan Carlyle.