Basketball: Vanderbilt 69, Alabama 59 -- Postgame Report
by KingJamesIV on Jan 20, 2012 2:35 AM EST
in Vanderbilt Commodores Basketball
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PrintDon't let the final score fool you. This was an absolute beatdown. Alabama's defense is stifling -- you don't post an adjusted 84.9 defensive efficiency (KenPom) by accident. Entering the game, Vanderbilt's offensive efficiency was 109.6. If the game had ended at the 4:20 mark in the second half, Vandy would have hit its average. That is a remarkable feat in and of itself.
Most importantly for Commodore fans, the Vanderbilt defense was the bigger story. They are a completely different team on the defensive end than we've seen in the last three or four years, probably since 2006-2007. Now, Alabama's offense hasn't exactly been the recipient of great praise from experts, but they came into the game averaging only 2 points fewer per 100 possessions than the Commodores (adjusted) at 107.4. Vanderbilt absolutely tore the Crimson Tide offense apart.
What's remarkable wasn't just that this happened. It was the way it happened. We continue to hear from the ESPN's, the CBS's, etc. about how difficult it is for teams to play on the road. Well, Vanderbilt is an overtime loss (sans-Festus) away from being undefeated on the road this season. Vanderbilt hasn't won these games specifically because they went crazy from long range. They've won with improved defensive play and with superior toughness.
After the game, Stallings mentioned that Festus Ezeli was a beast tonight, despite being only somewhere around 70% (!). That is an absolutely terrifying prospect for future opponents.
| VU | ALA | |
|---|---|---|
| Possessions | 67.8 | 67.8 |
| Points Per Possession | 1.02 | 0.87 |
| FG% | 40.0% | 32.9% |
| 3FG% | 44.4% | 25.0% |
| FT% | 72.4% | 70.0% |
| Assist/Turnovers | 0.71 | 1.63 |
| Assists/Field Goals Made | 60.0% | 56.5% |
| % of Points by 3FG | 34.8% | 30.5% |
| Four Factors | ||
| eFG% | 48.0% | 37.1% |
| OReb% | 39.4% | 30.0% |
| TO% | 25.1% | 11.8% |
| FTRate | 58.0% | 14.3% |
Periscope prediction: "Vanderbilt wins eFG% and FTRate." Result: 3/4. Could have done without those late turnovers...but I'll take a definitive OReb% advantage on the road when I thought it might be a toss-up.
Relevant Links: Game Page /// Box Score /// Official Vanderbilt Recap /// Roll Bama Roll
*** Each game, AOG's army of statistics monkeys laboriously pore over the box score and play-by-play to calculate the mysterious plus/minus game statistics. These are those statistics. Please share your observations via the comments. Note: these are only the stats from the last five games. Click here to view the entire 2012 season.***
Plus/Minus
Plus/Minus Adjusted Per 40 Minutes
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Looking forward to
seeing the bump we get in our offensive and defensive efficiencies over at KenPom. I’m thinking 111 for offense and 90.8ish for defense. Very curious to see how large the delta is on each.
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Didn't move that much
Pretty close on offense, but still around 92 for defense – only a 5 point jump, which was a bit surprising.
However, if you look at the conference only statistics, we are at 115.0 on offense and 89.5 on defense. For the last two seasons we’ve been around 1.05 on defense in conference.
It is still early, but we have a ton of difficulty defending Alabama last season – this season they got nothing easy and we pulled down almost 50 rebounding in a moderately paced game. I’m still in awe of how well Lance played defensively on Mitchell – that was a frickin’ clinic. We’ve got 4 plus defenders in our starting lineup, and JT, FE and now LG are excellent at that end.
by Jason Fukuda on Jan 20, 2012 9:52 AM EST up reply actions
All good except...
Tinsley was absolutely brutal at the end of the game against a good full-court press. And this isn’t the first time. He just doesn’t have the quickness/athleticism to break good pressure and Stallings needs to figure out how to make up for this weakness. To me when you have that big a lead you put in Tinsley, KyleFuller, Kendren, and DaiJon with Lance with Tinsley inbounding the ball.
Don’t mean to get all negative on what was an extremely impressive game by the doors (offensively and defensively) but in a closer game Tinsley’s turnovers could have turned this into a devastating loss.
Tinsley
I agree with you completely. There were so many good things about last night’s game but we can’t let bringing the ball up court be our achilles heel.
It is still my hypothesis...
…that by March, we could see Kedren in that spot simply because of his size and quickness advantage. If all you need is to get the ball up into the frontcourt, it might even be worth testing out DJP. I don’t really have a good sense for his ability to handle the ball, although I remember the recruiting blurbs saying that he wasn’t yet a capable point (which I dismissed because of having Kedren along as well).
"Well, if that ain't a show, I'll kiss your ass." - Gov. Jim Folsom Sr. (D-AL), 1948-52
Question
Who was inbounding the ball against the press?
In a previous game (SC?) we did a lot better against the press when Tins inbounded the ball. I feel like Tins was not inbounding the ball last night but In my euphoria I failed to notice this detail.
Lance was inbounding.
Honestly, the game was over. We were very, very vanilla at the end and were simply running out the clock, because doing so guarenteed the win. Brad wasn’t looking to attack the press because we were up 20 points with under 4 to go. So we were passive and Bama continued to run the press as if it were a two possession game.
We were playing a different game, and Bama was using up a lot of energy after the fat lady had long exited stage left. I don’t think it is very useful to look too deeply into the last four minutes of a blowout game. CKS had already substituted in Johnson, Parker, Odom and Tcheingang at the 6:00 minutes mark, probably thinking he could get them some garbage minutes. When Bama continued to press he re-inserted his starters and when we pushed the lead back up to 21 with under four left, your could see the starters relax.
While there are concerns about a theoretical team hurting us with their press, just who is everybody thinking of? Alabama is a top 5 defense – they don’t allow teams to shoot threes, or twos, they block a lot of shots and create a lot of steals. We aren’t going to face another defense as good as Alabama unless we meet FSU or Ohio State in the tournament.
This seems to be a lot of nit-picking following a dominant performance against a very good team (with a dominant defense) in their home gym.
by Jason Fukuda on Jan 20, 2012 9:45 AM EST up reply actions
Oh, I agree with you completely. I was just trying to remember.
I thought Lance did a good job of helping break the press in the first half. He was sort of in that Andre Walker role. Let Brad run off the main press and let a skilled big bring it up. We tried this with Rod too but with less success.
Rebounding
This was one of the best rebounding efforts that I have seen in a long time. And I thought Alabama was supposed to be tough in the post. Was I incorrect?
No.
On defense, we sent Jenkins to the rim as opposed to out on the break after the shot went up, which eliminated our running off of their misses, but also limited their offensive rebounds despite their many opportunities. On offense, Festus is an excellent offensive rebounder, but we really attacked the rim on offense, and our size presented Bama with difficulties. But a lot of it was just toughness and effort on our part – everybody was doing their part to make sure we were cleaning up the defensive glass.
by Jason Fukuda on Jan 20, 2012 11:43 AM EST up reply actions
I think it was the best
rebounding game i’ve seen Vandy play in 30 years. I seriously can’t remember when we annihilated a quality opponent on the glass like we did last night. Yes, we’ve done that to cream puffs in the past. But to a major opponent? I think last night takes the cake in games from 1980 to now.
Rebounds
Stallings said Jenkins was trying to get more rebounds than Festus, which made for a fun competition.
by foreverhopeful on Jan 20, 2012 12:47 PM EST reply actions
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