On Came Stackhouse and the Team Followed Suit
STARKVILLE, MS – After the Vanderbilt Commodores’ recent victory over LSU to break a 26-game conference losing streak, first-year head coach Jerry Stackhouse addressed the media in the postgame.
“Our morale ain’t been bad,” Stackhouse said. “You see our guys? Our guys don’t hang their heads. They come to work every day and bring the same hard-hat mentality they played with tonight. We told them if they continued to do that, things would turn.
“This is not the end all for us. This is not what we want to accomplish and win one game in the SEC. I’m glad we did and got that monkey off our back, and now you all can write something else. Now we can start talking about the team we are trying to build.”
The coach is right.
Despite an 80-70 loss to Mississippi State on the road Saturday night, Vanderbilt continued to improve its basketball stock. What did not improve – because it actually already shines – was the effort exhibited by this young Commodore squad. Vanderbilt fought to the bitter end and reduced a 16-point lead to six on several occasions before failing to edge any closer in the final minutes.
At the under-four media timeout of the first half, on came Stackhouse. The coach shifted the defense to a press which dropped into a 2-3 zone, and Mississippi State flopped a six-point lead in seconds with empty possessions. The Vanderbilt effort produced a 12-0 run, but a layup by the Bulldogs at the halftime buzzer proved to be a bad omen. A rocky start to the second half turned ugly quick when a potential hook and hold went uncalled, State made a three, and Stackhouse was issued a technical foul. He stuck up for his players.
The Commodores were down as much as 16, and had it with a chance to get to a one possession game. Jordan Wright had just made a three, and in transition the Dores were looking for Wright again in the corner and threw the ball out of bounds. It was the one mistake the coach noted in the postgame, but he was super impressed with his team’s effort and energy to get back into the game.
Effort is appreciated, and it’s the Vanderbilt way for a team left for dead in its expectations after losing senior post player Clevon Brown and sophomore sharp shooter Aaron Nesmith to injuries. Nevertheless, the win over LSU was a culmination of what Coach Stackhouse and diehard fans have known from day one. These young Dores have fight and never give up.
Vanderbilt fans who have experienced the magic of Memorial Gym know there are two veins to the heart of Commodore basketball. The black and gold blood flows through hot shooters like Barry Goheen, Scott Draud, Shan Foster, Drew Maddux, John Jenkins, Riley LaChance, Barry Booker and Phil Cox. The black and gold grit drips off Derrick Byars, Chris Lawson, James Siakam, Dan Cage, Ross Neltner, Jermaine Beal, Will Perdue and Corey Smith.
Those patterns of greatness follow decades of successful basketball in Nashville from Clyde Lee to Perry Wallace and the F-Troop. And under third year coach Bryce Drew in 2018-19, a new breed of expectations bounced off the rafters with a trio of recruits emerging onto the court. Current NBA guard Darius Garland played three full games before a season and college-career-ending injury. Power forward Simi Shittu moved on the NBA developmental stages, but his one season in Nashville came off major knee injury recovery and had its slow spurts with flashes of excellence.
Vanderbilt lost 20 straight games, including all 18 in conference, a non-conference tilt in the middle and then an SEC Tournament quick exit. Drew was relieved of his duties. Matt Ryan transferred. Yanni Wetzell is now a member of the upstart and highly-ranked San Diego State Aztecs. Garland and Shittu are pros. Joe Toye graduated.
Waiting in the shadows was Nesmith, a young man from Charleston, S.C., who spent much of his recruiting career in those same shadows behind future Duke freshman and in-state recruit Zion Williamson, now a member of the New Orleans Pelicans.
The freshman small forward averaged 29 minutes, shot 82 percent from the line, 39 percent from the field and 34 percent from three-point range, averaging 11 points and 5.5 rebounds. But with the floundering Dores unable to keep up with conference foes, and Saben Lee moved to point guard to replace Garland, the collective Commodore soul dipped into a dark depression. The season-ending loss to Texas A&M in Nashville for the SEC Tournament was a sad, but fitting end to a destructive season.
On came Stackhouse.
The former NBA G-League Coach of the Year was in his first collegiate journey and popped the eyes of fans and media by moving Lee to the sixth man role off the bench. The starting point guard was a newcomer in Scotty Pippen Jr. with a gold-star pedigree and name-drop attention. Stackhouse took a bench-effort junior in Maxwell Evans and thrust him into a starting role. Big men rotated in the lineup as Brown nursed the injury.
All the while, Nesmith emerged and exploded. Through 14 games, he was averaging 23 points per game, 82 percent at the line, plus 52 percent from three, and 51 percent from the field. He was among the nation’s leaders in all those categories, and nearly carried the Commodores to an upset of undefeated Auburn in the conference opener.
It would be his last game. A stress fracture left the all-world smile of Nesmith hanging out with kids and fans on the sidecourt of shootaround, pushing his elevated leg in a boot on a roll cart.
On came Stackhouse.
Lee now a starter, Evans was expected to contribute too on offense. A small starting lineup featured 6-foot-9 freshman Dylan Disu as the tallest player and that is the norm with occasional spot starts from Jordan Wright, Braelee Albert and young and raw Nigerian center Ejike Obinna, whom Commodore faithful liken to NBA champion Festus Ezeli and his time in Nashville.
The four-decade streak of made three-pointers in a game came to a crushing halt in an 0-for-25 effort against Tennessee. While Vanderbilt’s youngsters battled to the end, the coach bristled a bit in the postgame when fans booed made layups late in the game. He addressed it before the next game in an open letter to the fans posted by social media.
When fans wondered if the long-time traditions and lore of Vanderbilt basketball mattered to the new coach, he promised one thing.
His team would never quit. They would fight. They would get better. The wins would come. The win would come.
On came Stackhouse.
Then it happened. The pieces came together on the road at Kentucky, when Commodore nation expected a blowout to the No. 13 Cats in a place Vanderbilt had two wins in 42 tries. And fresh off a tough scoring effort at home, Vanderbilt opened eyes all across the country with a seven-point lead at halftime.
Minus a 5:40 field goal drought to end the game, Vanderbilt nearly upset the Wildcats but the deficit set the SEC record for consecutive conference losses.
The mark reached 26 regular season conference losses in a row when SEC-unbeaten and 18-ranked LSU marched into Memorial Gym as the only Division I team in America with five starters averaging over 11 points per game.
On came Stackhouse.
The day of the game, Vanderbilt officially introduced Candice Storey-Lee as the new interim director of athletics. Malcolm Turner, the man who hired Stackhouse, was gone from his AD position almost one year to the day on the job.
Minutes before tip off, the “boss lady” as Stackhouse referred to her was conducting a press conference in the same seat, that just two hours later a soaking-wet coach would smile from ear to ear and thank her for her confidence and support. He shared in a short media session that he was as shocked as anyone else Turner was leaving Vanderbilt.
On came Stackhouse.
As noted by LSU coach Will Wade in the postgame, Vanderbilt installed approximately 10 new offensive sets. Maxwell Evans destroyed his career high in points in the first half, and while he sat at 31 for the game, LSU shifted its defense slightly to lock down the three. Lee slashed and drove and dunked and dipsy-do’ed up and under to surpass Evans with 33 points.
No combination of Vanderbilt players had scored 30 points each in a game since the F-Troop. When teammates score 64 points, one would think that is the story. Stackhouse would likely say otherwise. The story was an effort play.
With a few minutes left in the contest, LSU retook the lead and Wright knocked away the ball at halfcourt for a steal. With so much bodily momentum, Wright nearly dribbled, slid and kicked the ball out of bounds under the Vanderbilt goal. Instead, he recovered, went up between three defenders and scored to give Vanderbilt an 84-83 lead which they extended to a 99-90 win.
The players and fans were electrified. Memorial Magic found its glimpse of hope.
On came Stackhouse.
This time, he never made it through the door fully of the locker room when the players doused him with water and Matthew Moyer dumped a whole cooler on the coach and his dapper threads.
All the streaks were over. The three-point one was now a distant memory, and the losing one was too. One streak remained. This team plays with guts, and no stat can measure it.
On came Stackhouse, and here come the Commodores every fan loves to cheer for.
For all the newness, flashy suit and impressive resume of the new coach, it seems he found the one key ingredient that’s been missing and turned it loose in this rag-tag, injured, walked-on, short bench bunch of ballers who are attacking the basket with reckless abandon and learning to press on defense and turn over the opponent into shots.
Sitting at 1-9 in the league with Kentucky coming in on Tuesday, these Dores will be overlooked by national pundits like an underrated Braelee Albert offensive rebound.
When that happens, watch out. On comes Stackhouse, and his fellas “ain’t been bad.”
No one comes to Vanderbilt because it’s easy, but for all the growth in Nashville, no one has to tell the Commodores to put on the hard hat every day.
Come SEC tournament time, the rest of the league may want to invest in one.
Kris Freeman is the public address announcer for the Commodores and contributor for SI-Vanderbilt. Follow on Twitter @KrisFreemanPA
