Vanderbilt athletic director Candice Lee is right in the middle of a men’s basketball coaching search and doesn’t have much to share with the public about it right now, other than: “The interest has been great.”
She’s trying to right that program after two straight failed hires — Jerry Stackhouse and Bryce Drew — by the athletic directors who preceded her, Malcolm Turner and the late David Williams. She’s home basing it with the women’s team this weekend in Blacksburg, Va., and that’s fitting because the best hire she’s made as Vanderbilt AD should inform the current search. She needs another Shea Ralph.
If all the college athletics programs in the state right now were stocks, the clear move would be to buy on Vanderbilt women’s basketball. It’s not as established (therefore not as expensive) as proven powers such Tennessee men’s basketball and Vanderbilt baseball. There’s an opportunity for gains on Tennessee women’s basketball, which is the most storied program by far but has settled into a good-not-great era. Mostly, buy because of the CEO.
Ralph has Vanderbilt in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 10 years, and the Commodores just got the program’s first NCAA win in 11 years, a 72-68 victory over Columbia in the First Four on…
