Stan Johnson (far left) guides the Golden Eagles in their win at Xavier last January.
When Jim Boylen, the University of Utah’s head coach at the time, was in San Antonio in the spring of 2008 looking for an assistant coach, one thought kept on creeping into his head: He needed to hire Stan Johnson.
“(Johnson) just rose to the top of those guys,” Boylen said. “Every time I talked to a different person, I kept on thinking about Stan. I kept thinking about how he would be (working) with me.”
Boylen interviewed 17 candidates, including assistant coaches at PAC-12 and Missouri Valley schools, but Johnson, an assistant at a school that has never won a Division I postseason game, stood out.