Vanderbilt, Jerry Stackhouse in discussions about head coach opening, per report

MEMPHIS — Jerry Stackhouse is in line to be the next Vanderbilt men’s basketball coach.

The former NBA All-Star and current Memphis Grizzlies assistant is in “contract negotiations” with Vanderbilt, according to Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports.

Stackhouse's lone head coaching experience came in the NBA G-League from 2016 to 2018.

Vanderbilt athletic director Malcolm Turner, a North Carolina graduate, served as G-League president from 2015-2018. Stackhouse, a former North Carolina star player, led the Toronto Raptors' G-League affiliate to a title and was named the league's coach of the year in 2017.

Turner fired Bryce Drew on March 22 after the worst season in school history. The Commodores finished the season with a program-record 20-game losing streak and a 0-18 SEC record as the league's first team with a winless conference record in 65 years.

Drew posted a 40-59 record with one NCAA Tournament appearance in three seasons.

Before him, Kevin Stallings compiled a 332-220 record in 17 seasons, earning seven of Vanderbilt's 15 NCAA Tournament appearances.

Drew also played in the NBA, although with less fanfare than Stackhouse.

Stackhouse played in the NBA from 1995-2013, earning All-Star honors with the Detroit Pistons in 2000 and 2001. He was the third overall pick of the 76ers in 1995 after playing two seasons at North Carolina.

Incidentally, Turner has often said his favorite sporting event he ever attended was the 1993 NCAA title game, when North Carolina beat Michigan. Stackhouse enrolled at North Carolina later that year as a freshman on the 1993-94 Tar Heels team.

Stackhouse began his coaching career as an assistant with the Raptors for the 2015-16 season before becoming the Raptors 905 head coach.

Stackhouse joined the Grizzlies as an assistant before the start of the 2018-19 season and has received credit for helping four former Raptors players transition to Memphis in the second half of the NBA season.