The SEC was a dumpster fire in men’s basketball this year. Just godawful in almost every respect. Florida’s 18-0 conference run was considered suspect (but not enough to deny them the #1 overall seed). It just wasn’t pretty, and a whopping 3 SEC teams got into the big dance. Only thing is, all three of them made it to the Sweet Sixteen, including the Gators, 8-seeded Kentucky, and the 11th-seeded Tennessee Volunteers, who were stuck in a First Four play-in game on Wednesday and were by definition one of the last teams added to the tournament.
And in the past five days, Cuonzo Martin has led the Vols to as many wins in the NCAA tournament as Kevin Stallings has coached for Vandy in the last decade combined.
In 2007, Vanderbilt got to the Sweet Sixteen as a 6 seed behind Derrick Byers and Shan Foster, among others. Since then…
2008: 4 seed, lost in the first round to Siena.
2010: 4 seed, lost in the first round to Murray State.
2011: 5 seed, lost in the first round to Richmond.
2012: 5 seed, beat Harvard in the first round but lost to Wisconsin after.
10 years. 5 tournament appearances. Three total victories, and three consecutive first-round eliminations by a double-digit seed.
This is why Kevin Stallings should only find his seat slightly cooler next year. The circumstances of this year, leading to a conference schedule played out by seven scholarship players, two walk-ons and a student manager with a uniform, were ridiculous – any success of any kind meant extra credit. We still finished 11th, right where we were picked when we looked like having nine scholarship players instead. So I guess we overcame the adversity of losing McClellan and Hendo, for what that’s worth.
Next year? Dai-Jon Parker and Shelby Moats are our seniors. We have no juniors, because they all flew the coop after their freshman season, but Siakam is a redshirt junior and Kedren Johnson (assuming he comes back) would be a junior for eligibility purposes. I don’t know where Hendo fits in, depending on whether he gets some kind of NCAA waiver for medical hardship, but given the track record I’m not banking on getting a whole season out of him. Luke Kornet and Damian Jones, our twin towers of terror, are true sophs, and we supposedly have three freshman guards on the way. So for the next two seasons, we never lose more than two seniors per season and we should be well-tuned to the point that the 2015-2016 season should absolutely feature an NCAA tournament run. A run, mind you, not another one-out.
Because at that point, assuming we don’t sneak into the dance next year, we’ll be looking at one tournament win in the last nine trips. The SEC tournament title in 2012 was an unmitigated triumph, make no mistake, but it also camouflaged a squad that absolutely underachieved in the postseason. Stallings can recruit talent, and he can make the best of a bad situation, but unless he learns how to make the best out of a good one, it’s going to be time to look elsewhere.