Pitt basketball parts ways with coach Kevin Stallings, probably owes him $9.4m not to coach

When Pittsburgh swooped in to snatch a likely-to-be-dismissed Kevin Stallings from an underachieving Vanderbilt basketball program, it raised eyebrows. When he failed to win a single game in ACC play in his second season as the Panthers head coach, it raised fans’ ire. And now that it looks like it will cost the program nearly $10 million just to get rid of him, Stallings is raising one last thing — a question.

Just how incompetent IS the University of Pittsburgh athletic department?

Stallings just oversaw one of the worst seasons in program history, one where the Panthers not only went 0-19 against conference opponents, but lost 15 of those games by double digits. The veteran coach’s seat is one of the hottest in the country, but Pitt may not be able to afford to fire him. That’s because Stallings has a $9.4 million buyout attached to his contract, and he’s reportedly unwilling to leave that guaranteed money on the table just to avoid a standoff.

That’s the kind of fiscal irresponsibility that stands to hamstring Pitt for years to come, shrinking the scope of their coaching search by cutting any big money options from the first round of interviews. And those interviews will be coming soon; if the situation with Stallings is so untenable the two sides are arguing about whether to pay $9.4 million or a mere $7.5 just to give the head coach an early retirement, there’s little hope the two sides could reconcile.

Stallings knows that, and that’s why he’s digging in his heels. His legacy at Pitt was garbage anyway. Forcing the university’s hand won’t do much to change that -- but it will make him nearly $2 million richer.

UPDATE: Pittsburgh reportedly “parted ways” with Stallings Thursday, per Jon Rothstein.

It’s somehow another fathom deeper for a once-proud program thought to have hit rock bottom when its 2017-18 ended. Instead, a short-sighted hiring process that landed on a coach coming off a season where he guided a talented team led by a pair of first round picks all the way to a blowout loss in an NCAA play-in game. That process saved Vanderbilt the trouble (and cost) of firing Stallings and allowed the Commodores to hire Bryce Drew, who in two years has already constructed the greatest recruiting class in program history. The Panthers, on the other hand, may wind up paying Stallings $9.4 million NOT to chase down the low three-star recruits who populate Pittsburgh’s starting lineup.

Pitt, a 2000s regular at the NCAA Tournament (though not its final weekend), now has to rebuild its program with a pair of albatrosses around its neck. The first is a winless conference record that paints the team as the worst of the high-majors and a roster devoid of blue chip talent. The latest is the expensive buyout that will haunt the team’s future hirings and force the university to gamble on inexpensive assistants in hopes they can blossom in a once-fertile ground that’s been salted by Stallings’ nuclear winter.

In either case, there aren’t any simple solutions for Pitt basketball.