Mark Byington, barely having had time to get off the plane after JMU’s second-round NCAA Tournament loss on Sunday night, has taken the job at Vanderbilt, according to multiple published reports.
Byington, who was 82-36 in four seasons at JMU, will replace Jerry Stackhouse, who was fired earlier this month after Vandy finished 9-23 in the 2023-2024 season.
The job is a step up from JMU, in that Vanderbilt is a member of the SEC, but it’s maybe the lowest-rung job among the Power 5.
Since Kevin Stallings left for Pitt in 2016, Vandy has had three winning seasons, one NCAA Tournament appearance, and a cumulative 110-151 record.
Bryce Drew, now at Grand Canyon, was 40-59 in three seasons, ahead of the hire of Stackhouse, the former UNC legend and 18-year NBA veteran, whose teams were 70-92 in his five seasons.
Byington led JMU to a school record 32 wins this season, including a season-opening win at Michigan State, and a dominant first-round NCAA Tournament win over a #5 seed, Wisconsin.
The issue at JMU, as we saw back in the fall, when the school lost its successful football coach, Curt Cignetti, to Indiana, a Big 10 school, is finances.
Byington, who has a 220-137 overall record in 11 seasons as a D1 head coach, was making $600,000 a year at JMU; Vanderbilt was paying Stackhouse, who was a first-tine head coach when he got the job in 2019, $3.1 million a year.
You’d expect Byington, who has a lengthy resume as a head coach – four years at JMU, seven years at Georgia Southern – to at least be in the same range.
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Chris Graham
