Vanderbilt Basketball: 12 candidates to replace Jerry Stackhouse as Head Coach

Amir Abdur-Rahim

There’s no specific reason why Stackhouse failed as head coach of the Commodores, but it’s important to note that he had no prior collegiate coaching experience before being brought to Vanderbilt. NBA players and coaches turned college head coaches have an alarmingly low success rate, so it’s not a surprise to see none of them today. Instead, we’re starting with someone who’s rapidly rising through the coaching ranks and is something a geographic fit.

Abdur-Rahim was born in Atlanta and has been a collegiate coach for nearly twenty years. Early on he bounced around at a number of programs, with several years of experience at Murray State, Texas A&M, and Georgia. Kennesaw State handed him his first head coaching gig in 2019 and he completely turned that program around, taking the Owls to the Big Dance for the first time last season. Now he’s exceeded expectations again, securing a runaway AAC regular season title in year one at South Florida.

The success in these last few seasons has been significant for Abdur-Rahim and his teams. There’s also the fact that he has hands-on coaching experience in the SEC, spending half a decade as an assistant in this league. He’s a potentially great fit for this job and likely many others that’ll open this year and in the future; it’s all about which fit he sees as the best for himself. Would he actually leave South Florida after just one season?