by Jerry Feitelberg

Stanford’s Johnny Dawkins

Well fans, another college basketball season is upon us. The goal of every team in the Pac-12 and Division I is to make it to the NCAA tournament in March. Everyone knows that there is nothing like “March Madness.” 65 or 66 teams make it to the tournament and fans love to see if their team can advance to the Sweet Sixteen round and then the Elite Eight and , hopefully, to the Final Four.

Other teams that don’t make the NCAAs may be invited to the NIT but it’s not the same as the NCAA

Tournament.

The head basketball coach of the Stanford Cardinal is Johnny Dawkins. Dawkins is starting his sixth season as head man of the basketball program. Johnny is in charge of the program and he is determined to win it all this year. What do we know about Johnny. We know that Johnny had a great college career and played 9 years in the NBA. Where did Johnny get his start? Let’s take a look at his basketball history and what has he done with the Stanford program? Johnny is a native of Washington, DC and went to Duke University to play basketball. At Duke, Johnny was part of three NCAA tournament teams and was captain of the Blue Devils his senior year. Johnny also set many records while at Duke. Dawkins then played nine seasons in the NBA with the San Antonio Spurs,

Philadelphia 76’ers and Detroit Pistons. When Johnny retired form NBA play, Duke University retired his number and he was inducted into the Duke Sports Hall of Fame in 1996.

Since being Stanford’s head coach , Johnny’s team are 94-74 and were NIT Champions in the 2011-2012 season. Johnny’s team this year enters the season with high expectations as they have all their starters returning except for one. Aaron Bright, Chasson Randle, Dwight Powell and Josh Huestis

are all veterans and they will be ably supported by center Stefan Nastic, forward Anthony Brown Robbie Lemons, and freshman Grant Verhoeven. Also in the mix will be senior John Gage who has made so many critical three pointers over his college career.

The Cardinal opened the season Friday night against Bucknell. Let’s hope that Stanford will go all the way to the Final Fours and then see what happens then.