Vanderbilt Men's Basketball Parts Ways With Assistant Coaches Grace, Patton
In a surprise move, the Vanderbilt men's basketball team has parted ways with assistant coaches David Grace and Ricardo Patton according to a Twitter posting.
The move first reported by Simon Gibbs, sports editor of The Vanderbilt Hustler student newspaper. Gibbs tweeted the news on Monday night. The university, as of this time, has not released an announcement, but a member of the university athletics staff did confirm the move in an email Tuesday morning.
It is unclear what prompted the move, though there had been speculation in the two weeks that there could be a staff shakeup, though nothing was imminent.
The Commodores had a total of 12 coaches listed on their staff in the 2019-20 season, the first under head coach Jerry Stackhouse, with Grace and Patton bringing the most experience to the young staff.
Grace's roles with the Commodores include recruiting coordination, scouting opponents, practice planning, skill development, player behavior, and academics. He joined the Commodores staff after serving as an assistant coach between 2007 and 2018 at San Francisco, Oregon State, UCLA, and California, respectively.
Patton, a Nashville native who prepped at Hume Fogg before playing at Belmont, served as the head coach at Colorado from 1996-2007 among his many stops during his coaching career that began in Nashville in 1985 at Two Rivers Middle School.
Commodore Country reached out to Grace for comment but had not received a reply as of this story.
We will continue to update this developing story as information becomes available.
