Gottfried and staff on leave, Trent Johnson named interim head coach at Cal State Northridge

Mark Gottfried and his staff – including assistant coach Jim Harrick – have been on paid administrative leave since earlier this summer as Cal State Northridge is completing an internal review of potential rules violations. The school announced on Tuesday that Trent Johnson had been named interim head coach of the Matadors for the upcoming 2021-22 season.

Johnson has been at California since 2019, serving as Director of Player Development on Mark Fox‘s staff, but comes to CSUN with a wealth of head coaching experience. He has 276 wins in 17 years as a D-1 head coach, which includes stints at Nevada (1999-2004), Stanford (2004-08), LSU (2008-12) and TCU (2012-16). During that time, he has been to five NCAA Tournaments (including two Sweet Sixteens) and three NITs and has claimed two conference titles.

As noted in CSUN’s press release, Johnson has spent much of his career on the West Coast. The Seattle-native had assistant coaching stints at Stanford, Washington and Utah earlier in his career. With the Cardinal, he spent three seasons under Hall of Fame head coach Mike Montgomery before getting the Nevada job in 1999.

credit to CSUN Athletics for the image