Reports: Tigers to hire Trent Johnson

• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Apr 9, 2008 - UPDATED: 2:10 p.m.

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Media outlets in the San Francisco Bay area and throughout Louisiana are reporting that Stanford coach Trent Johnson has been hired as the new LSU men's basketball head coach.

If accurate, Johnson would become the first permanent black head coach in school history in any men's sport. The only black head coaches for LSU have been former women's basketball coach Pokey Chatman and current women's tennis coach Tony Minnis.

Repeated attempts to Johnson's cell phone were unanswered and messages were not returned. Messages to Joe Alleva, recently named to succeed Skip Bertman as athletic director, and Associate Athletic Director Verge Ausberry were not returned.

Stanford's postseason banquet is tonight in Palo Alto, Calif. The Cardinal women's team will also be honored upon its return from the Final Four in Tampa, Fla.

The 51-year-old Johnson, who is expected to be introduced at at 3 p.m. news conference on Thursday, spent the last four seasons at Stanford, leading the Cardinal to three NCAA tournament appearances and an 80-48 record.

The 2007-08 season was the pinnacle of Johnson's tenure as Stanford rolled up 28 victories and advanced to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2001. Johnson, a Seattle native who played at Boise State from 1974-78, also guided Nevada-Reno to the Sweet 16 in 2004 before replacing Mike Montgomery in Palo Alto.

Montgomery left Stanford to coach the Golden State Warriors and was fired prior to the 2006-07 season. He was named the new coach at California -- Stanford's Bay Area rival -- last week.

Johnson also served stints as an assistant coach at Utah, Washington and Rice before joining Montgomery's Stanford staff in 1996.

The Cardinal's success vaulted Johnson into the spotlight as an up-and-coming assistant coach. he landed the Nevada job in 1999 and slowly built the Wolf Pack into one of the top programs in the West-ern Athletic Conference.

In 2004 Nevada earned an NCAA berth but was seeded 10th. Unfazed, the Pack stunned Michigan State and Gonzaga to reach the Sweet 16 for the first time in program history. In the regional semifinals, Nevada pushed eventual national runner-up Geogia Tech to the limit before falling 72-67.

The Wolf Pack also notched a 75-61 victory against sixth-ranked Kansas that season and claimed the first of four consecutive WAC crowns with a 13-5 record.

LSU fired John Brady on Feb. 7, ending Brady's 11-year tenure.

Since then, the search has covered over two months and taken a series of twists and turns.