Starkey: Most importantly, can Stallings coach?

Can he coach?

That is the pertinent question regarding Kevin Stallings, introduced Monday during a memorably tense news conference at The Pete.

That's not to say the hard questions hurled at Stallings and athletic director Scott Barnes were out of place. They were fair. They needed to be asked. They just weren't particularly crucial to the issue of winning basketball games.

This search-firm business? Can't muster the outrage. Sorry. Search firms are by their nature unsavory, kind of like the collegiate sports business at-large. But nearly everyone uses them.

You might, for example, have firms placing administrators on the understanding those administrators will call back (and write a big check) when it's time to find a coach. Cronyism. Not so different from AAU coaches or sneaker companies funneling kids toward certain schools.

Pitt hired a search firm (Collegiate Sports Associates) headed by Barnes' old boss, Todd Turner, who also happened to hire Stallings 17 years ago at Vanderbilt. Barnes has used Turner's firm before. Maybe, just maybe, because he believes Turner does good work. Or maybe I'm naïve and can't see that Barnes would sabotage the biggest hire of his professional life to do his old boss a favor.

Seems to me the firm contacted a bunch of candidates based on the criterion Pitt provided. The firm asked each man if he had interest in Pitt. Some said yes, some said no. They whittled the list to a handful of names. Barnes chose Stallings.

Can we move on, or does somebody want Barnes put before a jury?

Oh yes, the Sheldon Jeter block. Stallings wouldn't let Jeter transfer to Pitt, to his hometown, after Jeter's freshman year at Vanderbilt. Anywhere but Pitt, the coach said. That was a garbage move, for sure, but Stallings at least owned up to it at the news conference and when I asked him later in a radio interview.

“(Jeter's) dad said it best: There were misunderstandings on both ends, and I'll assume responsibility for that,” Stallings said. “His disenchantment with the situation literally had nothing to do with me, and he will confirm that, as will his parents.”

Stallings laughed and added he told Jeter, “I wanted to coach you again badly enough that after 17 years I was willing to uproot my family to have one more chance.”

Anything else?

All right then, back to the question that matters most: Can Stallings coach?

There is good reason to believe he can, despite Vanderbilt slipping in recent years.

Last summer, Gary Parrish of CBS Sports and some colleagues took a survey asking college coaches several questions, including this: Who is the best offensive coach in college basketball? Stallings finished tied for eighth, behind Michigan's John Beilein, Davidson's Bob McKillop, Wisconsin's Bo Ryan, Gonzaga's Mark Few, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski and BYU's Dave Rose and tied with Notre Dame's Mike Brey.

In 2013, ESPN polled 250 Division I coaches on who was the best X's and O's guy in their profession. Stallings finished 10th.

I spoke with ex-Vanderbilt star Matt Freije, who played in the NBA and all over Europe. He said Stallings would change offenses regularly, from set plays to a motion offense to a Princeton offense in the same season.

“I was blessed to be able to play nine (professional) seasons after Vandy,” Freije said. “And when it comes to basketball, not many guys know more or can teach it better, especially on the offensive end, than Coach Stallings.”

One thing for sure: Stallings will have a bigger pool to recruit from. He spoke of Vanderbilt's admissions standards and claimed the following: “If there were a hundred kids that were D-I basketball players, we could probably (have access to) 25 or 30 of them.”

I like his history of recruiting international players. I like the fact he had three players taken among the first 31 picks of the 2012 NBA Draft and will have at least one player drafted this year.

This was at Vanderbilt, remember.

Who knows? Maybe Stallings, 55, becomes Dana Altman, a journeyman hired by Oregon at age 52 — having never made it past the second round of the NCAA Tournament — who proved to be a nice fit. Or maybe it doesn't work at all. Maybe Stallings pulls a Jamie Dixon and wins only one NCAA Tournament game in the next five years. Or none. Maybe it's a disaster.

If so, by all means, blame Barnes and his search firm.

Joe Starkey co-hosts a show 2 to 6 p.m. weekdays on 93.7 FM. Reach him at jraystarkey@gmail.com.