Former North Carolina standout Jerry Stackhouse is still attempting to turn the Vanderbilt program around. Vanderbilt hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament under Stackhouse and their last appearance was back in 2017.
That streak will continue this year with a 7-18 record overall and a 2-10 record in SEC play here in late February. With another season of struggles, Stackhouse finds himself on the hot seat at least according to one analyst.
Rob Cassidy of Rivals listed five coaches who could be on the hot seat and right at the top he included Stackhouse, predicting that he would ‘probably not’ be back:
Year five of the Stackhouse experience in Nashville has been significantly worse than the first four, none of which ended with an NCAA tournament appearance. It’s becoming nearly impossible to see a way forward for the current regime.
A 35-point loss to in-state rival Tennessee over the weekend was probably the nail in Stackhouse’s Vandy coffin, but a seven-game losing streak earlier in the season did the most damage to his future. The fact that Stackhouse is just 26-56 in SEC games over the past three years is a tough pill to swallow, even at Vanderbilt.
If this season stays on its current trajectory, Stackhouse seems destined to win fewer than five conference games for the third time in his five-year tenure in Nashville. Any good will he built with a 22-win season a year ago has evaporated, so it seems as though the Commodores will be in the market for a new head coach sooner rather than later.
Stackhouse has had his struggles in five years as the head coach but winning at Vanderbilt is no easy task. It’s tough to recruit and you’re in a really good conference that allows you to pick up some signature wins but those have been a rarity for him.
There’s still a few weeks left in the season but it feels like he will need a miracle to survive.
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