Jerry Stackhouse hints at potential HBCU tournament in Nashville

Jerry Stackhouse and the Vanderbilt men’s basketball team have had their fair share of schedule rearranging for the 2020 season due to COVID-19.

Usually starting the first week of November, the NCAA announced a Nov. 25 start date for the college basketball season. Vanderbilt won’t begin its 2020-21 season until early December and the Commodores won’t begin SEC play until Dec. 29 and 30 after the SEC pushed back the start of the conference schedule due to COVID-19.

The ‘Dores haven’t finalized their non-conference schedule yet, but that they’re working toward filling in some holes in their schedule, including the Legends Classic tournament Dec. 2-3.

The tournament was moved from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where the event has been held every year since 2012, to the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut. Vanderbilt won the tournament in 2011, topping Oregon State 64-62 and John Jenkins was named tournament MVP.

The 2020 Legends Classic field will also feature UConn, USC and BYU. Vanderbilt coach Jerry Stackhouse said during the Commodore Hour on 102.5-FM Monday night that VU had to get a little creative after their original opponent pulled out.

“I think Andy Fox, who’s on our staff here, is one of the best in the business in making sure we find talent,” Stackhouse said. “We were in a mid-season tournament that had a team that pulled out – Notre Dame, a team that we were supposed to play – they were replaced by BYU, so we still feel like that’s a great game, a great test for us.”

Stackhouse also alluded to a few open dates in the backend of the Commodores’ schedule, stating the team could look to host a tournament at Memorial Gymnasium involving Vanderbilt, another Power 5 school and a couple of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Although nothing has been confirmed, schools such as Howard, Hampton University, North Carolina Central or Norfolk State could be potential candidates.

“We’ve got a couple of open spots that we could kind of fill in late, maybe do a tournament here ourselves,” Stackhouse said. “We’re thinking about doing something possibly with some HBCUs, including some of those teams with another Power 5 team. So, some ideas like that have been thrown around, but we left ourselves a little bit of room just in case we have any setbacks, so we’ll have some space to make up some time.”

Courtesy of Nashville Post