Why Vanderbilt's Jerry Stackhouse, Austin Peay assistant got heated in handshake line
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Vanderbilt coach Jerry Stackhouse and Austin Peay assistant Sergio Rouco had a heated exchange after the Commodores' 90-72 win Wednesday night.
Vanderbilt's Saben Lee dunked the ball with seven seconds remaining, rather than dribbling out the clock.
A few moments later, Rouco pointed at Stackhouse as they shook hands. They exchanged some heated words, and Stackhouse ripped away his hand.
In the post-game press conference, Stackhouse agreed that Lee shouldn't have dunked the ball at the end. But he took exception at an opposing coach, especially an assistant, criticizing one of his players.
"(Lee's dunk) is not a play that we want to have happen. We want to be a team of class and a team of dignity," Stackhouse said. "Saben just had a lapse right there. But that’s something I’ll correct with my team, not something that anyone else is going to correct with my team.
"I’m always going to stick up for my guys. That’s all I told him, ‘I’ll coach my team and you coach yours.’"
Stackhouse continued, "And it wasn’t even the head coach. (Austin Peay head coach Matt Figger) didn’t say nothing. It was somebody else."
Rouco is a veteran college coach. He was Florida International University's head coach from 2004-09. And when he was an assistant at Ole Miss from 2011-14, he was credited with tutoring SEC Player of the Year Marshall Henderson, according to his Austin Peay biography page.
Figger was ahead of Rouco in the handshake line, and Stackhouse said he didn't complain about the late dunk. After the game, Figger downplayed the incident and instead criticized his team for playing poor defense in the final two minutes.
"We let him go dunk the ball. We didn’t get back. What is he supposed to do?" Figger said. "That’s our job to get back. There’s nothing to it. Our job is to stop him. We didn’t.
"If it was a different deal, then maybe I’d be upset about it. But we didn’t put up a fight in the last minute-and-a-half, so why would I be mad?"
Stackhouse said he would talk to Lee about the right way to finish a win. But he also said Austin Peay had less room to complain since the game was close until the final two minutes.
"Anybody on the baseline heard me say, ‘No shot, no shot,’ and he went in and dunked the ball," Stackhouse said. "But you can’t complain about taking a layup in (an 18-point) win when it was just an eight-point game not long ago. So you can’t have it both ways."
Reach Adam Sparks at asparks@tennessean.com and on Twitter @AdamSparks.