After four years on the Farm, Trent Johnson has agreed in principle to an offer to become the next head basketball coach at LSU, according to multiple sources close to the situation. An official announcement could come as early as Thursday.

Johnson, the Pac-10 Conference Coach of the Year, attended the annual men’s basketball team banquet Wednesday evening and was expected to take a redeye flight to Louisiana afterward. He has not yet signed a contract, but is expected to sign a fia-year deal Thursday reportedly worth $1 million to $1.2 million annually.

In doing so, he will finally accept an offer he had turned down multiple times in recent days, according to a source close to Johnson and the program. A contract extension from Stanford Athletic Director Bob Bowlsby, rumored to be in the works for months, was finally offered earlier this week, for about half the length of the five-year deal Johnson wanted.

“I think it came down to he was not wanted,” the source said. “When you get a feeling of not being wanted, no matter how much you love your company or your job, if your boss doesn’t love you, that’s not a good place to be in.”

By all accounts, Johnson had no desire to leave Stanford. Players said the banquet was mostly normal, but Johnson choked up after receiving a standing ovation while thanking his team for letting him be a part of their lives.

Reached by email Wednesday afternoon while returning from the women’s national championship basketball game, Bowlsby said he was not aware that Johnson had accepted another position.

“LSU notified me this morning while we were on the way to the airport in Tampa that they wanted to talk to Trent,” the athletic director said. “The position probably pays twice what he makes at Stanford, so I guess he feels he has to listen.”

Bowlsby could not be reached for further comment Wednesday evening. According to the source, he wanted to meet with Johnson Wednesday night, though the source cautioned, “it would take someone else than Bob Bowlsby getting involved” to work out a 23rd-hour deal.

Johnson’s logical replacement would have been former Stanford coach Mike Montgomery, who returned last fall in a part-time position in the athletic department as an assistant to Bowlsby. Montgomery, however, was hired just last Friday as head coach at Cal, and issued a statement yesterday to the Oakland Tribune reaffirming his desire to fulfill his new role.

“I am the head basketball coach at the University of California,” Montgomery said. “I am excited about the challenges that lie ahead and look forward to competing for a Pac-10 championship.”

Johnson first came to the Farm in 1996 and served three seasons as an assistant to Montgomery before taking a head coaching position at Nevada. After five seasons, he returned to Stanford in 2004 when Montgomery left to coach the NBA’s Golden State Warriors.

On the sidelines, Johnson developed a reputation for hard-nosed intensity that rubbed some players the wrong way but delivered results. He led the Cardinal to three NCAA Tournament appearances and an 80-48 record in four seasons, including a 45-27 record in Pac-10 play. This season he led Stanford to 28 wins and its first Sweet Sixteen appearance since 2001.

Still, a contract extension never came. His original five-year deal was set to expire after next season, leading some to speculate that the coach and athletic director did not exactly see eye-to-eye.

“[Johnson leaving] is not that surprising to someone who knows what their relationship has been like since day one,” the source said. “From what I understand, every conversation is fine, but they’re just infrequent. For whatever reason, [Bowlsby] will go months, months, months, without meeting coach Johnson. Of course meetings were canceled and rescheduled, blah, blah, blah, they’re both busy. But some of us, we assumed, he’s coached here two times and won twice, it seems like a pretty easy decision.”

Stanford’s players had not heard of Johnson’s potential move to Louisiana State until reading online media reports Wednesday morning. Johnson informed the team in person in a hastily scheduled meeting Wednesday afternoon.

“I really enjoyed playing for coach Johnson,” said senior forward and team co-captain Taj Finger, whose defensive energy matched Johnson’s coaching style. “I thought he was a great coach and am definitely sad to see he is leaving Stanford University.”

On his blog, former Stanford Star Mark Madsen expressed surprise at Johnson’s departure but wished his former assistant coach well.

“I can attest to the fact that all of us who played under Trent (when he was a Stanford assistant coach) are mourning if he’s really gone, but at the same time we are happy for him,” Madsen wrote. “I am happy for Trent and his family. This man deserves the very best because he is a first-class individual and one of the best basketball minds in the business.”

“In the same way that there is a business side to the NBA, there is a business side to being a college coach,” he added. “I wish somehow we could have kept Trent at Stanford, but it looks like he’s taken another great opportunity.”

News of Johnson’s impending departure has already put some recruiting efforts on hold. Ryan Kelly, a 6-foot-9 power forward from North Carolina, canceled a potential campus visit on Wednesday after hearing about the potential coaching change.

Doreen Kelly, however, said her son was still interested in Stanford.

“Stanford is Stanford,” she told Scout.com. “That’s the point. Now this isn’t the appropriate time to visit them but we’ll look anyway. The point is [the staff’s] personal lives are in turmoil. They have no idea what job they’ll have in 48 hours. Why put them through that? We’ll back off and see what the scenario is. The only thing that is personally disappointing is trying to figure out if distance will be a factor” in Ryan’s decision.

It has been a tumultuous off-season thus far for Stanford. Johnson’s departure comes in the wake of Montgomery’s decision to move across the Bay and the announcement by sophomore seven-footers Brook and Robin Lopez on March 31 that they would forgo their final two seasons at Stanford to enter the 2008 NBA Draft.