Quick Thoughts on Vandy/South Carolina

by Train Island on Mar 6, 2010 5:05 PM EST in Vanderbilt Commodores Basketball

Wow. That...ended poorly. Just as it looked like Vanderbilt would pull out a sloppy comeback win like they did against Georgia and Florida, the Gamecocks refused to make the mistakes that would allow the 'Dores to get back into the game. Devan Downey made sure that the fans in Nashville would remember his name by putting the nails in Vandy's coffin. His monster-three in response to Jermaine Beal's big shot put USC ahead with under two minutes to play, and combined with his frantic footwork in dribbling out the clock, ensured that the Gamecocks would finish the regular season on a high note.

Hopefully, the loss will help flush all the sloppy play and poor rebounding out of Vanderbilt's system as they head into postseason play. Their second half collapse today was punctuated by missed shots around the basket and an inability to clear the glass on defense. Vanderbilt had excelled at out-passing the full-court press and turning pressure into easy baskets for most of the season, but today they just couldn't shake the Gamecocks. While the loss won't affect Vandy's SEC Tournament seeding, it will give their critics another morsel to chew on while ranking Tennessee six or seven slots higher than them.

It's a tough, annoying loss; made all the more painful knowing that it was Dolla Beal's last game at Memorial Gym. Still, the wake-up call might be what the team needed to play to their full potential in the SEC and NCAA Tournaments. Coach Kevin Stallings will surely be putting these guys through the ringer leading up to their first game next week. Other observations:

Hopefully Brad Tinsley's back at 100% next week - both physically and mentally: Tinsley went down in the second half with a knee injury, and his absence sparked South Carolina's scoring. Losing Tinsley would deal another blow to the team's bench, but even if he's healthy you have to wonder what effect the injury will have on him mentally. Though his shot wasn't falling, he was using an underrated dribble-drive game to be effective on the court. If he loses the mind-set to put the ball on the floor and instead just sits back and bombs threes that won't fall, he could create more problems than he solves in big games.
The bench effectively extended the team's lead heading into the second half: Led by Steve Tchiengang, the second unit finished out the first half tough and helped the team pull away from USC going into halftime. Unfortunately, they couldn't keep this up into the second half, which allowed the Gamecocks to get back into the game. On a related note...
The Darshawn McClellan Corollary: For every good play McClellan makes, he follows it with two mistakes. He finished the first half with a skillful move in the lane that earned him a lay-up and the foul. He then followed that up in the second half with a drive through the lane that ended with his shot going over the backboard. He topped this with a perfectly telegraphed pass...to Devan Downey. Darshawn can look good in short minutes but is too inconsistent, even as a junior, to have a significant positive impact on the team. Hopefully Lance Goulbourne returns from injury soon so the team doesn't have to rely on McClellan for extended minutes in the NCAA Tournament.
The Australian Sheik may just be this team's most frustrating player: Brad Nessler said it best "When he wants to, he can play as well as anyone around." A.J. Ogilvy looked great in the first half, and then disappeared in the second. He plays with intensity, but can't seem to funnel that intensity into his game, especially when it comes to finishing around the basket. There's no question that Ogilvy plays tough, but he still can't translate that toughness into his offensive game.
Speaking of disappearing: What happened to Jeffery Taylor late in the game? A fast-paced game like the one that South Carolina imposed on Vanderbilt should be the kind of game where JT thrives. He started off the second half with four quick points created by his athleticism - and then faded into the background for the last 16 minutes - going scoreless with as many missed lay-ups (2) as turnovers. Maybe he was just deferring to Jermaine Beal on his Senior Day, but more action from Taylor - especially during the team's offensive slump - could have changed the game for the Commodores today.

Speaking of blown opportunities - a little something to make the loss sting a bit less:

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Arkansas loses to Ole Miss and UGA loses to LSU

That sets up an Arkansas-UGA first round game on Thursday. I’m going to go waaaaaaay out on a limb here and say we should be cheerin’ for the Pigs on Thursday. I want no part of UGA on Friday…

by VolnVA on Mar 6, 2010 7:04 PM EST reply actions

Gambler's fallacy

I hate to propagate this fallacy by saying we were “due” to underperform. Randomness doesn’t work that way.

But we had and have managed to extract a W-L record quite a bit ahead of where our efficiency says we should be. That still doesn’t predict Carolina winning as an 11% dog, any more than it “predicted” Siena winning in 2008. But this outcome would be even more surprising if you went into this game thinking we were a top-12 team (3-seed), instead of #26 as our efficiency stats suggested.

by PhilipVU94 on Mar 7, 2010 1:31 AM EST reply actions 1 recs

Excellent points.

Based on how we had been playing the past few games, I think the efficiency rating made sense – this team won the games they were supposed to win, but looked ugly in doing so. Maybe it’s statistically unrealistic to think that this team was due, but this type of loss was necessary to help emphasize the importance of their interior game and protecting the ball – two categories where the team has been floundering since the UK game. Hopefully the loss gets them back to their fundamentals – the swagger is great, but it will be meaningless if this team can’t use their size and backcourt advantages to control games.

by Train Island on Mar 7, 2010 2:05 AM EST up reply actions

This team is good

Make no mistake. I just think they don’t prepare well when not very much is on the line or the opponent is vastly inferior.

Aside from Jermaine and Stevie Thunder, it was very apparent that the team was just going through the motions yesterday.

Downey and South Carolina really gave it to us. He’s been a thorn for us for his entire career.

I’m not really worried about an early NCAA exit just yet. If we stink it up on Friday, I’ll start to panic. My hypothesis is that the team will be “up” for all the rest of their contests, which bodes well.

Anchor of Gold

by KingJamesIV on Mar 7, 2010 1:13 PM EST up reply actions