Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings has apologized after an incident following Vandy’s 73-65 win over Tennessee on Thursday night in Knoxville.
“After the game, an incident occurred in which I need to apologize for,” he said in a press release. “One of our players acted inappropriately and violated what we believe is good sportsmanship following the game.
“In my haste to resolve the situation, I made a very inappropriate comment. While obviously it was not meant literally, it was still inappropriate. I apologized to the player immediately following the game, although displaying good sportsmanship is of the highest priority in our program.”
So what happened exactly? First, remember the backstory of what unfolded the past couple of days. Vanderbilt point guard Wade Baldwin said on Wednesday that he took offense to some of Tennessee guard Josh Richardson’s postgame comments after the Vols beat the Commodores in Nashville on Feb. 12.
Baldwin fired back, saying (via The Tennessean), “We’re going after Josh Richardson. We’re going after Tennessee. We’re going after their fans.”
After the clock hit zero on Thursday night, it appeared that Baldwin, instead of walking directly to the handshake line, approached some Tennessee players, primarily Armani Moore, and sarcastically clapped at them. Stallings, who was going through the handshake line at the time, appeared to be alerted of what happened by a Tennessee assistant coach. Stallings then left the line to force Baldwin to go through it with him behind him. Camera crews then caught Stallings scolding Baldwin with a profane statement.
Here’s some footage/comment about the incident with a language/NSFW warning for the videos:
@rockytopinsider pic.twitter.com/zZsR6e69xd
— TNVFLyaDig (@TravisDLong) February 27, 2015
Stallings rips Baldwin here (language warning) … Not exactly sure what happened https://t.co/xHFE7Y9Kcj
— Rocky Top Insider (@rockytopinsider) February 27, 2015
Vandy coach Kevin Stallings losing his mind on player https://t.co/AlXcTj3TDN
— Diehard Sport (@Diehardsport) February 27, 2015
@rockytopinsider as the game ended , Baldwin was at mid court and said something to Armani, made Armani stop and look back at him.
— Bob Baskerville (@TheHoundBB) February 27, 2015
@rockytopinsider Baldwin was taunting our players after the final whistle. He was running his mouth to several of our players.
— TennesseeJed (@TennesseeJed77) February 27, 2015
