Vanderbilt Basketball: How hot is Jerry Stackhouse’s seat heading into 2021-22 season?

How hot is Jerry Stackhouse’s hot seat heading into year three with the Commodores?

In recent seasons, the power has shifted in the SEC. After years of Kentucky and Florida making most of the headlines for the conference, we’ve seen several other teams emerge, including runs by Alabama and Arkansas last season. Auburn and South Carolina have made Final Four runs in recent memory, while LSU and Tennessee have used good recruiting to bounce back onto the national scene. One SEC program that hasn’t experienced this growth is Vanderbilt, though the blame can’t all fall on Jerry Stackhouse after all.

The Commodores were a good, not great, program for much of the 2000s under former coach Kevin Stallings, who departed in 2016. Successor Bryce Drew led the program back to the NCAA Tournament in 2017 but was fired two years later after an injury-plagued season led to a winless campaign in conference play. Stackhouse, a longtime former NBA guard, had been head coach of the Raptors G-League squad and spent a few seasons on NBA benches, though had no previous collegiate coaching experience when he was hired in 2019.

The initial question is how hot can Stackhouse’s seat be after just two seasons with the Commodores. Our first consideration is that predecessor Bryce Drew was given just three seasons, and Stackhouse is approaching season number three. Drew was fired after bringing Vanderbilt’s best recruiting class but struggling when Darius Garland missed most of the season due to injury. Stackhouse is still getting started on the recruiting trail, with much of last season’s limited success coming with players Drew recruited to the school.

Typically, giving a new head coach at least one recruiting cycle to turn things around is common practice, but if Stackhouse’s Commodores can’t dig themselves out of the SEC basement, would it make sense to seek a new direction next offseason? Consider the two teams at the top of the standings this past season. Alabama and Arkansas both hired new coaches the same offseason as Vanderbilt, and it was the Crimson Tide and the Razorbacks topping the SEC standings in year two under new regimes. Vanderbilt was in worse shape than those two programs, but there still needs to be some sort of progress.

For this upcoming season, Vanderbilt will still have the services of Scotty Pippen Jr., who really emerged as a stud over the course of the year. They lose star forward Dylan Disu to Texas but did add former Minnesota forward Liam Robbins to the roster. Add in a decent recruiting class, and there should be more talent on this Commodore’s squad next season, but the same could be said about nearly every other power conference team. The Commodores need to prove it and win some of these big SEC games.

Three seasons may be too soon for some to give up on a former NBA player and coach, but Stackhouse needs Vanderbilt to make a legitimate step forward. The Commodores can’t settle for these constant finishes at the bottom of the conference. With a new Athletic Director, Stackhouse’s future is even more uncertain, especially if his program bottoms out just like Drew’s did in his third season. What does the future hold for the Commodores?