Vanderbilt bucks SEC trend of hiring retread coaches
Vanderbilt’s hiring of basketball coach Bryce Drew from Valparaiso goes against a recent SEC trend of tabbing retread coaches with power conference experience.
Among the seven SEC basketball coaches hired over the past two years, only two have been snatched from the Division I mid-major ranks — Drew from Valparaiso to Vanderbilt and Mike White from Louisiana Tech to Florida.
Coincidentally, they replaced the SEC’s two longest-tenured coaches of the 2000s, Kevin Stallings (17 seasons) and Billy Donovan (19 seasons). Apparently, filling big shoes requires a coach with room to grow.
Drew, 41, has five years of head coaching experience, all at his alma mater Valparaiso. His goal is to have the most successful seasons of his career at Vanderbilt.
“As a coach you want to take a program and leave it in a better place than when you first got there,” Drew said. “I think the past (Vanderbilt) coaches have each taken this program a step further than where it was before.”
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Vanderbilt’s practice over the past 35 years has been to hire coaches from non-power conference schools. It got Eddie Fogler from Wichita State, Jan van Breda Kolff from Cornell and Stallings from Illinois State.
The SEC, meanwhile, has followed various trends in finding coaches. While retread coaches have been the recent norm, the SEC’s 14 current basketball coaches come from different paths.
Seven came to the SEC with head coaching experience in power conference schools or major programs — Auburn’s Bruce Pearl (Tennessee), Arkansas’ Mike Anderson (Missouri), Mississippi State’s Ben Howland (Pittsburgh/UCLA), Ole Miss’ Andy Kennedy (Cincinnati, interim), Kentucky’s John Calipari (UMass/Memphis), South Carolina’s Frank Martin (Kansas State) and Tennessee’s Rick Barnes (Texas).
Five came from mid-major jobs — Drew, White, LSU’s Johnny Jones (North Texas), Georgia’s Mark Fox (Nevada) and Texas A&M’s Billy Kennedy (Murray State).
Missouri’s Kim Anderson was a Division II coach at Central Missouri, and Alabama’s Avery Johnson was an NBA coach.
Recent history says there is no one type that fits all programs, and several schools have searched different sources for a coach.
Kentucky failed in hiring Billy Gillespie from then-Big 12 school Texas A&M, but it hit a home run by snagging Calipari from Memphis, considered a job equivalent to power conference schools.
Tennessee’s hiring of Buzz Peterson from Tulsa yielded no NCAA Tournament appearances in four years. But the Vols went to the mid-major ranks again in snagging Pearl from Milwaukee, a hire that led to two Sweet 16 runs and one Elite Eight before he got into NCAA trouble.
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Georgia also went for mid-major coaches in back-to-back searches. Western Kentucky’s Dennis Felton never got the program over the hump, but Nevada’s Fox has two NCAA Tournament berths and two NIT appearances in the past six years at Georgia.
In recent years, enough mid-major coaches have struggled in the SEC to scare some programs away from trying to dip down to find an up-and-coming coach.
Auburn went with Jeff Lebo (Chattanooga) and Tony Barbee (UTEP). Arkansas tried Stan Heath (Kent State) and John Pelphrey (South Alabama). South Carolina tabbed Darrin Horn (Western Kentucky). And UT hired Donnie Tyndall (Southern Miss).
None had staying power in the SEC, and each of those schools now employs a coach who previously guided a power conference school.
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Regardless of the hiring trends in the conference, Vanderbilt athletics director David Williams said the Commodores job requires a unique makeup because “not everybody fits Vanderbilt.”
As for the current coaches around the SEC, Williams said he hopes they can boost the conference’s tally of NCAA Tournament bids. The SEC put only three teams in the NCAA Tournament in 2009, 2013, 2014 and 2016. Before that, the SEC had not put fewer than four teams into the NCAA field since three went in 1990.
“We should be an eight- or nine-team league (in terms of NCAA Tournament bids),” Williams said. “And Vanderbilt should be one of those teams in the eight or nine that’s going to the tournament every year.”
Reach Adam Sparks at 615-259-8010 and on Twitter @AdamSparks.
WHERE SEC COACHES HAVE COME FROM
Among the 29 hired since 1999:
Mid-major head coach: 15
Power conference/school head coach: 11*
Division II head coach: 1
Division I assistant: 1
NBA: 1
*ACC, Atlantic 10, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC.
