Across nearly nine calendar years, Ryan Johnson came to love Idaho State. The Bengals’ assistant women’s basketball coach even liked Pocatello. Everything about the program will stick with him: The fans, the players, the relationships he built along the way.

“But I need to now go and grow professionally,” Johnson told the Journal by phone. “That’s kinda what my next steps are, to take next steps in my career. That’s really all that it is.”

Johnson is leaving Idaho State after eight full seasons, he confirmed Monday afternoon, following a group of players who have made the same decision since the end of the season. Thirteen players who were on last year’s team won’t be on next year’s, including graduates Estefi Ors, Dora Goles and Ellie Smith, plus 10 others who have entered the transfer portal, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation: Diaba Konate, Tomekia Whitman, Jordan Sweeney, Paisley Specht, Montana Oltrogge, Anaya Bernard, Brooke Malone, Kayla Salmons, Sarae Beveridge and Finley Garnett.

That leaves Idaho State with just six players on its roster: Returning starter Callie Bourne, plus Carsyn Boswell, Lili Bevao (Boswell missed last season with an injury; Bevao missed part of it with her own injury), redshirt junior Ivvana Murillo and freshmen Sophia Covello and Mia Flor.

Johnson declined to comment on where he was headed next, explaining that he has options lined up both inside and outside basketball, but his departure underscores the exodus the program has experienced in recent weeks. When players began transferring, it became clear that the roster would look drastically different next season. Now the coaching staff will, too.

“We really appreciate all of Ryan’s hard work these last nine years,” Idaho State head coach Seton Sobolewski told the Journal via text. “We wish him the best of luck in the future.”

Johnson helped Idaho State most by leveraging his international recruiting connections, which helped the program land players like the Spain native Ors, the France native Konate, the Australia native Bourne, even the batch of freshmen who have also departed: Malone, Beveridge and Salmons, all of whom call Australia home.

Those players didn’t get the chance to make differences on the court, but others changed the trajectory of the entire program. The all-time leader in 3-pointers, Ors has piled up Big Sky all-conference honors, helping the Bengals reach the 2021 NCAA Tournament and win the conference regular-season championship each of the last two seasons. Konate earned second-team all-conference honors in 2021 and third-team honors last season. Bourne has been a regular starter the last few years, becoming a key rebounder and distributor.

That’s also to say nothing of Croatia native Dora Goles, who played at a Wyoming junior college before coming to ISU, where she earned first team-all conference honors in 2021.

So now the man who helped bring those players to Idaho State, by extension helping the Bengals become one of the country’s best mid-major programs, is headed out.

“I’ll miss getting to help put together a team that’s become very competitive. Certainly, that’s an exciting part of basketball too,” Johnson said. “But you do it with the team and the girls, and seeing them enjoy all of it, it makes all of the winning more fun.”

Before coaching at Idaho State, Johnson spent eight seasons at Northern Colorado, which won the Big Sky championship in 2011 and played in the conference tournament title game in 2012 and 2013. The Bears made trips to three different postseason tournaments, including the WNIT in 2012, when they made the second round.

Johnson left that job in the summer of 2014 to become an assistant at ISU, where over eight seasons, he coached and recruited three Big Sky MVPs, four freshman/newcomers of the year, three defensive players of the year, two sixth-players of the year, plus several first, second and honorable mention all-conference selections.

“For me, it’s always been about the players,” Johnson said. “From the start of recruiting them to watching them get here on Day 1, and they’re just college newbies, watching them grow and learn as students, as athletes, as people… And then after it’s all said and done, seeing them move on into having successful lives, being successful people in their professional lives.”

“Coach Ryan is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. Somehow he knows the answers to literally everything,” Goles said last month. “You ask him, like, what’s the free throw percentage of a bench player who played five years ago, and he’ll know it. He knows all the little things. He helps all the international people with immigration stuff, international taxes, whatever. He’s just such an important figure for us international people.”

But now Johnson is moving on from Idaho State. He enjoyed so much of his time in Pocatello. For him, it’s just time for another city, another venture.

“In the end, you have to take some steps to go and continue to challenge your professional life, too. At this moment, that’s what I need to go do,” Johnson said. “I’ve been here eight full seasons, and in doing that, we’ve accomplished a lot. I feel proud about what we’ve accomplished and what the girls accomplished. I feel really good about that.”