This SEC Tournament was Vanderbilt basketball's new high point under Jerry Stackhouse | Estes

Gentry Estes
Nashville Tennessean

For three seasons, I’ve heard people who know much more than I do about basketball rave about the work that Jerry Stackhouse is doing with Vanderbilt.

That's pretty much any TV commentator. Former players. Opposing coaches like Rick Barnes or John Calipari.

Not saying they are wrong. Just that it has been like one of those Magic Eye illustrations. Everyone hasn’t gotten to see the picture.

This week, likely for the first time, more people started to see that picture.

Vanderbilt’s run at this SEC Tournament in Tampa was important and timely and the highlight of Stackhouse’s three seasons. It provided momentum and fresh hope about what might yet be possible for him on West End.

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And, of course, more praise.

You had Calipari’s interview at halftime, in which he told the cameras, “Vandy is playing as well as anybody in the country right now.”

Cal likes to say things, but he wasn't far off base. That's how good the Commodores looked the past three nights. If you turned on the TV and didn’t know the names and uniforms and recruiting rankings, you wouldn't have easily detected a difference between Vanderbilt and Alabama or Kentucky, two teams that are definitely NCAA Tournament bound. Kentucky is still in the mix for a No. 1 seed.

"Third game in three nights, and they never stopped,” Calipari said after UK’s 77-71 victory. “They played until the horn, and that's amazing. We thought we could get into their legs at some point in the second half, and it didn't happen."

It's true. Cal's Wildcats – one of the nation's best teams – needed all night to finally put away the SEC Tournament’s weary No. 11 seed.

Ultimately, though, Vanderbilt’s spirited run in Tampa ended in the quarterfinals.

“Great game,” Stackhouse said. “Hated that it didn’t go our way. But we’re still excited and still hopeful that it’s not our last game.”

The NIT might be out there. That looks more possible now than it did a week ago, and if anyone wants to keep playing, it’s Vanderbilt. It’s never fun for a team to have to stop playing just when it feels like it has figured it out and is playing its best.

That has happened before. Last season’s Vanderbilt was playing its best, too, when it was knocked out of the SEC Tournament. You could make a case Stackhouse’s first Vandy squad was also at its best in late February and early March.

File that away for later, I suppose, this growing trend of Vanderbilt’s teams playing their best at season’s end. A team that always improves is a credit to coaching and to the buy-in of the players.

But it’s not going to matter – I mean, really matter when it counts – until Stackhouse can put together a team that is both healthy and talented enough to consistently play all season at a level worthy of an NCAA Tournament bid. His Commodores haven't been close to that yet.

At 17-16, they were better this season. They went from poor to average. But theirs wasn’t a good season by the standard of the program.

Kevin Stallings once won at least 17 games in nine consecutive seasons at Vanderbilt, going to six NCAA Tournaments during that stretch. Jan Van Breda Kolff won more than 17 games in four of his six seasons. Eddie Fogler went 28-6 back in 1992-93.

I don’t mention all this to embarrass Stackhouse or his players. They’re doing everything they can.

I bring it up to remind Vanderbilt’s supporters of what this is supposed to be – that Vanderbilt's men’s basketball program is not the same as their football program. Vanderbilt is capable of winning big in hoops and has before.

Memorial Gym may be ancient, but it’s such a competitive advantage for Vanderbilt. Ask any coach who has faced a good team and a good atmosphere there.

So how did Vanderbilt go 9-8 at Memorial Gym this season, including a 4-5 mark in the SEC? The students weren’t missing at all those games, were they?

You win just half of those eight defeats and it could have changed everything. It could have meant the Commodores were playing themselves on the right side of the NCAA bubble in Tampa – instead of desperately trying to win five games in five days. That's a task so ridiculous that I’m not going on a limb to predict that it’ll never be accomplished in the tournament's current five-day format.

This week, though, Vanderbilt got closer than it had any business getting. It never backed down. It led Kentucky by seven points in the second half and hung around until the final moments. The Commodores overachieved.

After a so-so regular season, this was an encouraging experience. For them and for Stackhouse. It’ll create a little momentum for next season, when he will welcome his best recruiting class alongside expected returning players like Liam Robbins and Quentin Millora-Brown.

Mar 10, 2022; Tampa, FL, USA; Vanderbilt Commodores center Liam Robbins (21) and Alabama Crimson Tide forward James Rojas (33) talk during the first half at Amalie Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

“We know that something special is on the horizon,” Stackhouse said.

Maybe so.

But it’s difficult to know it’s there until you can actually see it. 

Reach Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on Twitter @Gentry_Estes.