The 2023-24 campaign was an ugly one for Vanderbilt basketball, as they went just 9-23 on the season to finish second to last in the SEC. As a result, head coach Jerry Stackhouse was fired after the season, meaning that the Commodores needed a new leader for their team. And it looks like they have found their new guy in Mark Byington to come in and take charge of their squad.
After taking a massive step back this season, Vanderbilt decided it was time to move on from Stackhouse after a fairly unsuccessful five-season stint in charge. That has led the school to Byington, who is fresh off a successful run in March Madness with James Madison. With him leading the way, the hope is that Vanderbilt will be able to find their way to the tournament for the first time since 2017.
Via Jon Rothstein:
“Source: Vanderbilt is closing in on hiring James Madison's Mark Byington as its next head basketball coach.”
Vanderbilt moves quickly to replace Jerry Stackhouse with Mark Byington
Vanderbilt has had a rough of it as of late, and as the season progressed, it became clearer and clearer that Stackhouse wasn't the right guy to lead this team moving forward. After firing him, the Commodores kept a close eye on March Madness, and locked in on Byington after he led James Madison to an upset of Wisconsin in the first round before they bowed out against Duke.
After a strong seven-year run at Georgia Southern, Byington landed with the Dukes in 2020, and has helped them enjoy quite a bit of success over the past four seasons. Byington led JMU to the CAA Championship in his first season, and after winning the Sun Belt Championship this year, he brought the school to March Madness for the first time since 2013.
Despite being a 12-seed, Byington and the Dukes coasted past Wisconsin in their opening round game, winning by a score of 72-61. There was a lot of hype surrounding them for their second-round matchup against Duke, but they ended up falling flat on their face, suffering a 93-55 defeat.
Even though James Madison just crashed out of the tournament on Sunday, Vanderbilt didn't have to wait long to land their guy in Byington. After seeing the success he had when it came to turning James Madison's program around, the hope is Byington can have similar success at Vanderbilt and make them a team that is consistently playing in March Madness.
Of course, Byington now has a lot of work to do to get this team back on track, but that's what he was brought in to do. It's a tall task, but the school clearly feels good about Byington given how quickly they moved to land him, and it will be interesting to see how the Commodores fare with a new coach running the ship.
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