Vanderbilt Holds Court, Earns Cathartic 65-47 Win Over Tennessee
by Christian D'Andrea on Jan 24, 2012 9:09 PM EST
in Vanderbilt Commodores Basketball
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PrintJeffery Taylor put together a game that could make him a lottery pick in the 2012 NBA Draft and Vanderbilt avenged last season's sweep to Tennessee with a monster 65-47 win at Memorial Gym Tuesday night.
The Commodores shook off Saturday's disappointing loss to Mississippi State with a blowout win over their arch rivals. Vandy opened the game with a 9-0 run and never looked back, pushing their lead to as many as 27 points in the victory.
Taylor led the team with some excellent play on both ends of the court. He scored 23 points (including 3-3 from three point range) and had nine rebounds in a next-level performance. John Jenkins scored 16, while Festus Ezeli added nine boards and four blocks in another step forward in his ongoing recovery from knee troubles. The Commodores continued their streak of solid defense, holding UT to just 35.3 percent shooting from the field. The Volunteers were held to a season-low 47 points.
Though Tennessee was just 9-10 coming into the game, they were coming off a potential turnaround win last weekend against Connecticut. Freshman Jarnell Stokes made a big impact in his first ever game at Memorial Gym, pulling down 10 rebounds and getting into a couple of altercations with Ezeli - eventually leading to double technicals in the second half. It wasn't the only instance of chippy play in the game - Ezeli was called for a flagrant foul in the first half, and Volunteer freshman Yemi Makanjuola was ejected with 1:25 to play for clotheslining Jenkins as he ran down the court.
Big man Jeronne Maymon had 15 points to lead Tennessee. The team's starting guards combined to go 4-21 from the field.
The win was huge for the Commodores. Not only was it a blowout win over their arch rivals, but it was also a major bounceback from Saturday's Mississippi State loss. Vanderbilt showed that they could maintain their intensity throughout a game even when they held a big lead. The 'Dores never let off the gas, and Tennessee didn't have a chance to get back into this game in the second half.
Vandy will take a break from SEC play this weekend, hosting Middle Tennessee State in a big non-conference showdown. The Blue Raiders are 19-2 on the season and will be looking to earn a statement win in Nashville. If the Commodores can win, they'll regain much of the momentum they lost with last weekend's overtime loss to MSU.
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After the MSU game,
I told myself I’d only be happy if we won by 30. I lied. I’m very pleased that we showed we can win even when we weren’t at our best.
ok then
the ending was supposed to be:
I told myself I’d only be happy if we won this by 30. I lied. I will take an 18 point win in a game where key guys had their inevitable off-nights any day.
by Aaron Novick on Jan 24, 2012 9:42 PM EST up reply actions
It was an ugly game that we won easily
Jeff played great. No one else from our side played above average. And we still smoked them.
We did 2 things well. We did NOT turn the ball over generally. And we did play defense, or at least UT missed a lot of shots. We did have some post D troubles, but our perimeter D was very good. UT did not shoot well and turned it over frequently.
Now on to the next game. We can’t lose that one. Losing to MTSU will undo so much good work this team has done over the last month. Its almost like an NCAA 1st round game. We should win, but all the pressure will be on us.
MTSU looked really good against UCLA
But they shot a 1985 Villanova (against GTown) like percentage from the field and three, which is probably not going to occur again (I hope). Also, UCLA is 9-10 overall, which is now two down seasons in a row for Howland.
Besides that win, MTSU’s best win is against Belmont at home, which is a split of two contests that were played at MTSU. Other than that they have also beated Akron and Ole Miss, but the rest of their wins are against very average to bad teams. To their credit, all of these wins are of the double digit variety, so they are a legitmately good team, but we will likely be the best team they’ve faced so far this year, and with a (nearly) healthy Festus by a decent margin. It is very likely we would have at least as good a record as MTSU if we had played their schedule.
IMO, MTSU has picked a bad time to face us. We’ve now won 10 of 11, with the lone loss being a 1 point OT loss to a top 20 team that had to shoot 9-10 from three in the second half to win the game. They will be facing us after having played on Thursday and us coming off of an extended rest and while they will be up for us, I think we will be ready for them, and not lulled into any false sense of security having been beat by two other mid-majors.
by Jason Fukuda on Jan 24, 2012 11:37 PM EST up reply actions
But they've also looked good all year
While I think your comment about this being a bad time to face us is spot on, I think you are underestimating MTSU a bit, Jason. Their RPI is 60 right now. The UCLA win got them a lot of attention but perhaps undeservedly, because nobody had yet realized the extent to which they had plummeted yet. By RPI, their best win is actually against Ole Miss (everybody is sleeping on them, too, as they’re up to 34 in the RPI), which was a double-digit win at a neutral site. And they walloped an Akron team that’s quite good (64). Plus we’re playing at their place and, believe me, the folks in Murphreesboro will be cheering hard against us. In fact, this is very comparable to the Davidson game, so we should not overlook them for a second.
by Tim in Surrey on Jan 25, 2012 5:26 AM EST up reply actions
I thought this game was at Vanderbilt.
I hope the team is not underestimating MTSU. From some of Stallings’ comments, I don’t think he is. The coaches gave them more votes than us this week. MTSU should easily win their conference and play in March with a number 11 or 12 seed and this game is their best (and last) chance to improve their resume for their rank and rating.
I'm actually looking at Kenpom.com
And MTSU is rated higher there than in the RPI ratings. But objectively, their schedule is very weak and they’ve really faced maybe 3 or 4 decent teams total.
We played at their place last season, and they are returning here on Saturday – I’ve got tickets. I think it is probably comparable to last season’s St. Mary’s game – they came in with very similar rankings – having only lost two games to BYU and SDSU and had a high RPI and Kenpom rating. The difference is that MTSU hangs it’s hat on defense, but it is difficult to determine how good their defense actually is due to the overall schedule which they have played.
It will be interesting to see how this game turns out – We will have a definite size advantage on their front line and overall, and I really like the way our defense is playing. I believe they will have some problems with our size on the offensive glass, as they have had issues defending their glass all season. They will try to turn us over, but they will be at least the 8th team that we’ve faced that likes to do this, so we shouldn’t be surprised when it happens.
by Jason Fukuda on Jan 25, 2012 9:35 AM EST up reply actions
Jeff has a chance to catch Freije on the points list.
I would have bet against it before the season, but if he keeps his average over 17ppg he will make it if we play 14 games (would require 3 postseason games). We would need to win the NC to have a chance to catch Shan.
That game wasn't that different from the MSU game...
Outside of the fact that we played defense the entire game. Now, UT is certainly not nearly as talented as MSU, but we made things very difficult for them, and played very hard. When it mattered, we were really good on the boards – they outrebounded us badly in the second half, but our lead didn’t get below 16 points.
We really did a great job on their perimeter guys, especially Golden, who is their leading scorer but we held him to 4 points on 11 shots and did similarly well against Tatum and really made sure that McBee wasn’t going to beat us. The thing I really liked was that we were all over the passing lanes and got our hands on the ball when their posts put the ball on the floor. Festus is still a ways off offensive on the blocks, but has become a much better defensive player, especially as a defensive rebounder, where he is reaching an elite level. The difference from last year is pretty stark, where he now can block and alter shots but not be out of position for the rebounds.
Maymon and Stokes will be a formidable (if slightly short) front line next season. Stokes is a physical specimen, especially for a player who just turned 18 years old.
In our last 10 games
We’ve held 20+ point leads in 8 of them and 10+ point leads in the other 2. Seven of those games were against Big 6 power conference teams. We are 9-1 overall in this stretch.
I don’t recall a more dominant stretch of games by Vandy. These numbers are frightenly good. I doubt there is any team in the country with those kind of results over their last 10.
At the very least, we are in good company:
http://www.teamrankings.com/ncaa-basketball/ranking/last10-power-ranking-by-team
Conference play
I agree we have looked great over the last 10 games. Wish I could find some stats that look at the last 10 games. Here’s the conference play only stats:
http://www.secdigitalnetwork.com/Portals/3/SEC%20Website/menshoops/2011Stats/CONFONLY.HTM
In conference play, we lead the league in scoring defense, FG% defense, eFG% defense, scoring margin, 3P%, eFG%, and assists. We are second in 3P% defense and third in FG%.
Of note, despite the 75 turnovers by Tinsley at the end of the Alabama game (and subsequent questioning of his playing time), he leads the SEC in assists and A/T during conference play.
Also, no player on the Commodore team in among the top 11 in minutes/game. Some may say we have had a weak conference schedule thus far, but it has not been much different from UK or UF. Not bad for a senior-laden team with no bench depth.
Show Of Hands...
…who was holding their breath at the start of the second half wondering: “How can they possibly blow this lead?!?!”
That defense wrote the book on how to play UT.
Admits to holding breath
I was. I was glad the lead was so big. If it had been (only) 10, I would have been more nervous.
by foreverhopeful on Jan 25, 2012 10:30 AM EST reply actions
I wasn’t too concerned about winning the game given the fact that we were up 20 on a relatively offensively inept team. However, I was very glad to see that we came out and played the second half, especially JT. That was what I was really hoping to see. I didn’t really think they would repeat the State performance (or lack thereof), but being a fan…
Cathartic...
is exactly the right word for it. That’s how I felt watching the game. I don’t know that I yelled a single expletive the whole game. I know the team must have felt that this was exactly what they needed, especially in Memorial.
I think Jason kind of nailed it – we didn’t really look all that different from the MSU game, other than playing defense at a consistent level for the whole game. I was interested to see if we let up on the intensity in the second half or closing minutes, and I just didn’t see it. If we can keep up those sorts of defensive efforts there aren’t too many teams that can beat us (barring the occasional 9 of 10 from 3pt performances).
Also, as noted, the turnovers on our end seemed way down. I haven’t checked the box, but I don’t recall very many other than a little episode by Kendren Johnson.
Great win. Thought there might a fight there a couple of times, but we seemed to be the “tougher” team, contrary to the (somewhat deserved) media narrative about this team.
by Pope Vanderbilt on Jan 25, 2012 10:44 AM EST reply actions
So I haven't TV-watched this one yet...
…because ESPN3 didn’t stream it last night and I didn’t get the DVR set in time (I have the overnight replay recorded but won’t see that until tonight) – so I was largely limited to AoG and Twitter. And so my question is…
…was the officiating really THAT godawful? I mean, I know we grill the refs all the time, but when Wes Rucker is tweeting things like “For the record, more of Anthony Jordan’s bad calls have actually hurt Vandy tonight. Regardless, the bottom line is he sucks” — seriously, does the league not give a third of a damn about the quality of officiating? Or does it only care about things that might imperil the Blue Mist in basketball or Alabama/Florida/LSU in football? (Snarky cheap shot quota for 1/25 FILLED.)
Any game you can beat the hell out of Tennessee is a good game, though. Many Guinness died to commemorate this one.
"Well, if that ain't a show, I'll kiss your ass." - Gov. Jim Folsom Sr. (D-AL), 1948-52
Perhaps the SEC does care
But I’m not sure what they can do about it.
I seem to recall having similar discussion on basketball forums last year, and for the orange bouncy ball, there are no league-specific referees (they are apparently independent contractors). This article references this awesome site where you can even get stats on refs workloads, how many states they’ve been to, how many fouls they call, etc.
I like Tennessee and Vanderbilt. There aren't many like me, and they're probably better off for it.
Refs
One of my favorite Tweets last night that came in during the game was “If I were a SEC official I would tell people I worked in the fetish porn industry instead.”
by foreverhopeful on Jan 25, 2012 2:29 PM EST up reply actions
(bows)
Serious, though…now that the Pac-12 has famously cracked down on its football officials, we’re the last major conference whose officiating is carried out mainly by ouija board…
"Well, if that ain't a show, I'll kiss your ass." - Gov. Jim Folsom Sr. (D-AL), 1948-52
I paged through the Rocky Top
game thread this afternoon. They were complaining about the refs too. Saying their guys were constantly getting mugged and nothing called. There were some WTF comments about the double technical on Fes and Stokes too. No complaints about the guy getting thrown out at the end for tackling JJ.
I was obviously rather vocal in our game thread about the officials. My biggest issue was the inconsistency of the calls. Tick tack BS one trip, muggings not called on the next. And the tick tack crap usually (always?) went against us.
But having watched games in Memorial for over 30 years, while last night was bad, I’ve seen much worse.
That's what drives me up the wall the most
It’s not that I think the refs are specifically calling the game one way or the other (unless it’s a Pac-12 conference football game against U$C) but the wild inconsistency is what absolutely kills. To borrow a metaphor from our flagship sport these days, the strike zone needs to be the same for all nine innings.
Also, I don’t think I like the automatic flagrant foul rule. I realize they’re trying to standardize it so it’s not a judgement call from the ref, but EVERYTHING is a judgement call from the ref, so adding complexity isn’t helping…
"Well, if that ain't a show, I'll kiss your ass." - Gov. Jim Folsom Sr. (D-AL), 1948-52
CKS
Wonder If in the post-game the q was asked coach why did you decide to leave Jenkins in with the game well in hand so he could receive the clothes line? It seems a very good question don’t you think ?
by RyanLeath on Jan 25, 2012 1:09 PM EST via mobile reply actions
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