Nashville, TENN--It all came full circle for former Vanderbilt assistant Adam Mazarei, who was Cal's acting head on Wednesday night in the absence of head coach Mark Madsen.

Mazarei was on Jerry Stackhouse's Vanderbilt staff for four years as Stackhouse's associate head coach.

Vanderbilt's program is now under new leadership, but still means something to Mazarei.

Returning, particularly as an acting head coach, also meant something to the now Cal assistant.

"You’re excited about it and you get emotional about it," Mazarei said of returning. "It was awesome. I have nothing but great memories here."

Mazarei's time didn't include an NCAA Tournament like he'd hoped, but that's not what he remembers.

The former Vanderbilt assistant remembers the people.

"It was so much fun," Mazarei said of his time at Vanderbilt. "The development of Scotty, I still have a relationship with Aaron [Nesmith] and Saben [Lee], Jordan [Wright], Liam [Robbins], all the guys that we got to work with. It’s nothing but great memories. It really is. It’s a great fanbase, it’s a great city."

Mazarei remembers the moments, too.

"I’ve got so many great memories here from the game winner of Tyrin and Ezra’s layup against Auburn and just the development of our program over the four years I was here with Stack."

As Stackhouse entered his fifth year at the helm Mazarei felt it was time to go home, though.

The Ventura County, California, native felt it was the right time to embrace his roots and a Cal program that he believes is rising.

"I loved it here, but I do love it back home," Mazarei said.

The now Cal associate head coach looked to give his program a win over Vanderbilt in Madsen's absence on Wednesday, but fell short as Vanderbilt took it down 85-69 and led for over 27 minutes of game time.

Mazarei left Memorial Gymnasium impressed with Mark Byington's build of the program that he once contributed to.

"They’re talented, they’ve got speed and they were physical," Mazarei said of Vanderbilt. "They were handsy, they were disruptive. Whatever Mark [Byington] is doing, he got them motivated to play extremely hard. They did a really good job of dictating the whole game. They’re good, they’re talented. They’ve got really good guards, their bigs are skilled and they’ve got really good wings. They’ve got a really good roster makeup."

That Vanderbilt team played spoiler for Mazarei and former Vanderbilt center Lee Dort, but that won't taint the assistant coach's memories in Memorial Gym.

He'll continue to latch on to the four years he worked at the program's ascension as he moves forward in his career.

"Nothing but great memories."