Vanderbilt is set to part ways with current men’s basketball head coach Jerry Stackhouse, according to a report from ESPN’s Pete Thamel and Jeff Borzello on Thursday afternoon.
Vanderbilt’s firing of Stackhouse comes just one day after the Commodores’ first-round exit in the SEC Tournament, losing to 12-seed Arkansas by a score of 90-85 in overtime. Vanderbilt finished the 2023-2024 season with an overall record of 9-23 after their loss to Arkansas. The Commodores finished the regular season with a 4-14 record against SEC competition.
Stackhouse exits Vanderbilt after five years with the program as his first coaching job in the college basketball world. The former NBA All-Star was an assistant with the Memphis Grizzlies prior to being hired by Vanderbilt ahead of the 2019-2020 season. While the Commodores were trending up after the past two seasons, Vanderbilt’s 9-23 record in 2023-2024 makes for Stackhouse’s third losing season during his five years in Nashville.
Vanderbilt’s decline this season also comes at a time when in-state rival Tennessee has been on the rise. The Commodores have gone 1-9 against the Volunteers in their 10 meetings under Stackhouse’s direction.
“And you all know the respect that I have for Coach Stackhouse and the way he builds his program, and he’s had some tough luck, obviously,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said about Stackhouse and his program before the first meeting against Vanderbilt this past season. “But when I look at it, someone was asking me the other day about him and I was just talking about one, he has great schemes. Really a lot of really good schemes. (They) Are playing some different defenses, multiple defenses.
So you’re going to see some pressure, see some full-court pressure. A little one-three-one, man defense and have shown two-three. But it’s what he does, not only with his schemes, but I think they do as good a job as any coach in the country at developing players the way they do. So obviously I have the utmost respect for him and what he’s doing there.”
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Stackhouse spoke about his future with Vanderbilt during his postgame press conference on Wednesday night in Nashville after the loss to Arkansas.
When asked if he had been given any assurances from his program about returning next season, Stackhouse replied with the answer no.
“No, we’re going to sit down and talk after the season like we always do,” Stackhouse said. “I think it’s been a long season – not the season that we had hoped for. But, again, I’m so proud of my guys, so proud of how they’ve competed and how they’ve grown. But we understand that this is a results business, and the results hadn’t been there. Obviously, there’s some context behind those results but at the end of the day, I understand that. So we have to take accountability for that. We’ll sit down and we’ll discuss that and we’ll figure out the best way going forward.”
Vanderbilt Basketball Record Under Jerry Stackhouse
2019-2020: 11-21, 3-15 SEC
2020-2021: 9-16, 3-13 SEC
2021-2022: 19-17, 7-11 SEC
2022-2023: 22-15, 11-7 SEC
2023-2024: 9-23, 4-14 SEC
Stackhouse won the Tennessee Sports Writers Association men’s basketball coach of the year award in April 2023 after leading the Commodores to a 22-15 overall record with 11 wins in the conference.
Stackhouse’s lone win over Tennessee with Vanderbilt came during the 2022-2023 season as Vanderbilt defeated Tennessee, 66-65, on a last-second three-point buzzer-beater in Nashville.
