Trent Johnson said this is a situation any coach would want. LSU offers a chance to recruit the nation's best-student athletes and play for championships every year.

Johnson was officially announced as the new men's basketball coach of the Fighting Tigers Thursday afternoon.

He led the Stanford Cardinal to the Sweet 16 in this year's tournament and an 80-48 record in four seasons at the Pac 10 school.

Johnson had said recently that he hoped to remain at Stanford, but a deal on a contract extension was never reached. On that end, Stanford athletic director Bob Bowlsby may have some explaining to do. But LSU's new AD, Joe Alleva, is glowing after stealing Johnson away.

Before meeting with the media at the athletic administration building, the 20th head coach in Tiger hoops history met with his players.

"We talked about any and everything," Johnson said. "We talked about style of play. I tried to get them to understand, in a short period, my philosophy on everything. I thought their questions were really good. They want to compete at the highest level and win championships."

Johnson said he realized it might be time for a change during Stanford's Sweet 16 game, while watching Texas. Standards are amazingly high in Palo Alto, which makes it awfully tough to find great players that can also get past the admissions office.

"Here you have a distinct advantage that you can go out and recruit a variety of players," Johnson said. "That is the thing for me. At Stanford, you were limited. At one position on any given year, you probably had five kids that you could recruit that can probably get through and compete at a high level. Here, we might have 15 at one position."

LSU had a sub-.500 record this season and missed out on the NCAA tournament. Plus, freshman phenom Anthony Randolph is leaving for the NBA. So, Johnson will have a big challenge to get this team back up to snuff.