Kevin Stallings has agreed to be the next head coach at Pitt, a source told NBCSports.com.
Early this morning, he called his players and and informed them of his decision, another source said.
Stalling will replace Jamie Dixon, who had been with the school for 13 seasons. Dixon left to take over at TCU. Stallings has been with Vanderbilt since 1999, posting a 332-220 record there. He won less than half of his SEC games while with the ‘Dores.
Stallings has been to nine NCAA tournaments in 23 seasons as a head coach, including five bids in a six-year stretch from 2007-2012. But his reputation with the ‘Dores was as a coach that underperformed expectations. Three times in four seasons he lost to a double-digit seed in the first round, and this past season, with three potential NBA players on the roster, he lost by 20 points in the First Four.
Some of the early names that have been mentioned as potential replacements for Stallings at Vanderbilt: VCU head coach Will Wade, a Nashville native that spent some time at Harvard earlier in his career, will be one of the first calls that Vanderbilt has to make. A source told NBCSports.com that the school already reached out to Wade last week to gauge interest. Another name to monitor will be Monmouth head coach King Rice, a former Stallings assistant at Vanderbilt. Duke assistant coach Jeff Capel and Harvard head coach Tommy Amaker were other names that have been mentioned.