What Eric Reveno as GM Means for Stanford Men's Basketball

Stanford sports are once again ushering in a new era. First, football made an unprecedented move for college athletics by hiring Andrew Luck to be the program's general manager--something that was not common for a college program to have.

And on Monday, Stanford men's basketball followed suit and made current associate head coach, Eric Reveno, the program's general manager. With this move, it is clear that the Stanford athletics department is done messing around and is ready for their sports to return to national prominence.

But what makes this Reveno hire so interesting is the fact that unlike most other general managers that college programs have recently hired, he is already on the coaching staff. In many cases, such as with the Luck hiring and the Adrian Wojnarowski hiring for the St. Bonaventure program, the general manager is completely separate from the coaching staff and deals with all the behind the scenes stuff while the coaches coach.

However, adding the GM title to Reveno actually makes sense. Born in Stanford, California and playing his college career at Stanford from 1985-1989 before becoming a coach at Stanford in 1997, Reveno is a Cardinal through and through and knows the culture that is needed for the Cardinal to see success on the hardwood once again.

As is the case with Luck, who experienced tremendous team success as the Cardinal's quarterback back in the early 2010s, Reveno knows what the team needs in order to be dominant and won't really need an adjustment period to figure out what the team needs.

Reveno being a coach is also a major positive as well. General managers spend a lot of time around the team, but they don't necessarily work with the players directly when it comes to the on-field/court work. But Reveno is there every day and after having worked under head coach Kyle Smith for a season, he knows what type of player would fit the system and the ideal way to use them.

A Smith-led program uses a philosophy dubbed 'nerd ball' which integrates a lot of analytics into decision-making. Since Reveno has been a part of that philosophy, he can incorporate it much easier into his methods as the GM.

General managers are a must-have in today's era of college sports. With NIL and the transfer portal being a dominant factor in many recruits' decision-making, general managers deal with all that while taking some of the burden off of the head coach.

Now, especially with the NCAA settlement that was passed late last week that essentially gives schools a salary cap for paying their players directly, college sports have become more pro-style than ever before--making general managers the new normal.

Reveno, however, will have his work cut out for him in his new role. Once a top tier program, the Cardinal have not made an NCAA tournament since 2014, and before the 2024-25 season, had only one 20-win season since then.

Smith's first season brought surprisingly good results and with a strong recruiting class coming in, Stanford could be back on the rise. Reveno will need to keep the upward trend going and hope that his Stanford ties help prospective recruits buy into the program.