14th Year Overall (245-159)

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Seven seasons into his stay in Nashville, Stallings has put into place a strong base with five postseason appearances, an NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 in 2004 and a pair of 20-win seasons.

In fact, over the past 28 seasons, success has followed Stallings throughout his basketball career as a player at Purdue, an assistant at both Purdue and Kansas and his previous head position at Illinois State. During the time span Stallings has been a part of 19 seasons with 20-or-more victories. Twenty-three times a campaign has concluded during postseason play. Since coming to Vanderbilt in April 1999, Stallings has compiled a 122-96 record while moving his 13-year overall coaching mark to 245-159.

Stallings can achieve a couple of milestones this coming season, needing five wins to become the sixth current Southeastern Conference coach with 250 or more career victories and seven wins to match former Commodore head coach C.M. Newton as the second-winningest head coach in Vanderbilt history.

Stallings has guided the Commodores to postseason play in each of the last three seasons. The native of Collinsville, Ill, is two years removed from his most successful season at Vanderbilt. The 2003-04 campaign saw the Commodores advance to their first NCAA Tournament since 1993, reaching the Phoenix Regional Semifinals before bowing out to Connecticut, the eventual national champion.

That season, Vanderbilt set a school record with a 12-0 start, knocked off five nationally ranked opponents and advanced to the semifinals of the SEC Tournament. All of this before reaching the "Big Dance" and concluding its run with a 23-10 overall mark.

After falling a few wins shy of a second consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament, Vanderbilt advanced to the quarterfinals of the National Invitation Tournament at the end of the 2004-05 season posting a 20-14 overall record. The Commodores won at Indiana and outlasted Wichita State at the buzzer before falling at Memphis, one step short of reaching the semifinal round in New York City.

Last season Vanderbilt won six road games and posted its first sweep of Kentucky since the 1974 season before dropping a first-round decision at Notre Dame in the NIT.

Two other Vanderbilt teams have participated in the NIT during Stallings' tenure, including the 2000 and 2002 Commodores. In his initial season at Vanderbilt, Stallings inherited a team that lost three players from a squad that finished 14-15 overall and 5-11 in the SEC. When the 2000 season ended, the Commodores narrowly missed an invitation to the NCAA Tournament, before participating in the NIT and finishing with a 19-11 overall mark and 8-8 league record.

Two years later, Stallings brought the Commodores back to the NIT, despite a 2002 roster that featured nine underclassmen. The Commodores won seven of eight games decided by five points or less and posted a 17-15 overall mark.

QUALITIES OF A CARING COACH

Throughout his tenure at Vanderbilt, Stallings has proven himself as a coach whose intensity from the bench and drive to compete matches his reputation as a talented tactician and his genuine concern for players. Since coming to Nashville, Stallings has embraced the Commodore basketball tradition while building a program based on quality players and dedicated students.

He has molded Commodore players into some of the finest in the SEC. Former Commodores Dan Langhi and Matt Freije blossomed under the direction of Stallings. Langhi earned the 2000 SEC Player of the Year award while Freije became Vanderbilt's alltime leading scorer. Last season as a sophomore, Shan Foster earned first team All-SEC honors from the league coaches.

At the same time, Stallings makes sure his players perform in the classroom. At Vanderbilt, all 17 of his seniors either have earned or are currently working toward their college degree. While at Illinois State, five Redbirds achieved Academic All-America status and all but two seniors earned their degree.

Since Stallings became head coach, a Vanderbilt player has been named:
• All-SEC either by the Associated Press or the league's coaches 13 times.
• SEC Player of the Week seven times.
• Academic All-SEC 20 times.

TRACK RECORD FOR SUCCESS

Prior to coming to Vanderbilt, Stallings coached six seasons at Illinois State (1994-99) in his first head coaching opportunity.

Following the most successful coach in school history, Stallings raised the program to higher standards, taking four teams to postseason tournaments, including two trips to the NCAA Tournament. He became the first men's basketball coach in the history of the Missouri Valley Conference to win backto- back regular season and conference tournament titles in 1997 and 1998. As the Redbirds head coach, Stallings averaged 21 wins a season, compiling a 123-63 record.

As an assistant coach, Stallings worked with two of the nation's most well known and respected mentors in the nation - Gene Keady, his college coach at Purdue, and Roy Williams at Kansas.

After helping lead the Boilermakers as a player (1980-82) to three postseason tournament appearances, including a NCAA Final Four appearance in 1980, Stallings served as an assistant coach under Keady from 1983-88. On Keady's staff, Stallings helped direct Purdue to six NCAA Tournament appearances and three Big Ten championships while tallying a 140-44 overall record.

"More than anything, I think what Gene Keady taught me was that good teams have good players and great teams have great teammates," Stallings said. "I think his greatest strength was his ability to get a team to achieve as close to its potential as possible on a very consistent basis. That's because of his ability to motivate people to be a willing part of what he called `being a company man.' I believe in that and I believe in him. It's obvious that he was brilliant in that way."

Stallings left Purdue to join Williams' coaching staff at Kansas in 1989. Over the next five seasons, the Jayhawks made four NCAA Tournament appearances, enjoyed two trips to the Final Four, finished as the 1991 national runner-up and accumulated a 132-38 mark during Stallings' stay.

"The thorough nature in which Roy Williams approaches his job was the biggest aspect I took from my time at Kansas. Roy is very detailed, very organized, and very meticulous. Not only is he a great coach and great recruiter, but he runs his program with precision and with great organization."

A 1978 graduate of Collinsville High School outside of St. Louis, Stallings played under the legendary Vergil Fletcher, who was inducted into the National High School Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame during the 2004 summer.

Stallings earned his undergraduate degree in business management and marketing at Purdue in 1982 before receiving a Master's degree from Purdue in 1985.

Stallings and his wife Lisa have three children: Jacob (16), Alexa (12) and Jordyn (6).