Report: Vanderbilt fires Jerry Stackhouse after SEC tournament loss to Arkansas
Vanderbilt finished the season at 9-23 after blowing a 14-point halftime lead
Jerry Stackhouse’s time at Vanderbilt is reportedly over.
According to ESPN, the school fired Stackhouse on Thursday after his team was eliminated from the SEC tournament Wednesday night. Vanderbilt lost a 14-point halftime lead in a 90-85 overtime loss to Arkansas. The defeat dropped Vanderbilt to 9-23 overall.
Stackhouse will reportedly have a buyout of approximately $15 million thanks to a contract extension he signed after the 2022-23 season.
The former North Carolina star’s time at Vanderbilt didn’t meet expectations. The Commodores finished above .500 in just two of his five seasons. The team’s best season came a season ago — and how Stackhouse secured that contract extension — when Vanderbilt went 22-15. The Commodores beat Kentucky twice in March but didn’t get into the NCAA tournament.
There was no step forward this season. Instead, Vanderbilt got off to a rough start and was 4-8 before Christmas thanks to losses to teams like Presbyterian, San Francisco and Western Carolina. The Commodores went just 4-14 in SEC play and finished 13th in the 14-team conference.
Vanderbilt was Stackhouse’s first college coaching job. He came to Nashville after a stint as an assistant coach with the Memphis Grizzlies. Before his year with the Grizzlies, Stackhouse was an assistant with the Toronto Raptors and coached the franchise’s G League team for two seasons.
Stackhouse, 49, got into coaching not long after his playing career finished in 2013. The No. 3 pick in the 1995 NBA Draft played for eight teams during an 18-season career and finished with over 16,000 points.
Whoever takes over for Stackhouse will be tasked with returning the program to the success it had under Kevin Stallings over a decade ago. From 2007-2012, Vanderbilt made the tournament five times and was no lower than a No. 6 seed in any of those appearances. Since the 2012 tournament, Vanderbilt has played in the NCAA tournament just twice and hasn’t been better than a No. 9 seed.
