Vanderbilt Battles Past Middle Tennessee State in an Exciting Showdown, 84-77
by Christian D'Andrea on Jan 28, 2012 4:25 PM EST
in Vanderbilt Commodores Basketball
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PrintLet's get this out of the way first and foremost - Middle Tennessee State is LEGIT.
The Blue Raiders put together one of the strongest 40 minutes of basketball that Vanderbilt has faced this season, pushing the Commodores to the buzzer in an 84-77 loss Saturday afternoon in Memorial Gym. MTSU had needed a victory to make a major statement for the NCAA Tournament selection committee to review in March, but may have earned some major credibility even in defeat. Middle Tennessee scorched the Vandy defense all afternoon, using crisp passes to create open shots and connecting on 57.4 percent of their shots from the floor.
Vanderbilt responded with a superlative effort from their "big three." John Jenkins, Festus Ezeli, and Jeffery Taylor combined for 64 points and answered each time MTSU opened up a big lead. The Raiders led by as many as eight points in the first half and held a one point lead with under 2:30 left to play. Vanderbilt's seven-point margin of victory was their biggest lead of the night.
Middle Tennessee used fast breaks and strong passing to create open looks throughout the game. Center LaRon Dendy scored from all over the court to spark the Blue Raiders, leading the team with 22 points for the game. Guard Marcos Knight was the only MTSU player to shoot under 50 percent from the field in the contest.
However, Vanderbilt answered with interior baskets from Ezeli and Taylor and long-range shooting from Jenkins. Ezeli regained his stroke at the free throw line, going 11-13 and scoring 21 points in all. Jenkins used a mixture of threes (four of them) and drives (6-7 from inside the arc, including two massive layups late in the game) to lead the team with 26 points. Taylor had 17 to go with six rebounds.
Lance Goulbourne and Brad Tinsley made sure to make people notice that this team isn't just a three-man operation. Goulbourne had a key steal with under a minute to play and the team's nastiest dunk of the season on a monster put-back in the second half. Tinsley, who missed much of the contest due to foul trouble, came back strong, setting up Ezeli and Jenkins for an important layups that helped put this game away.
The 'Dores battled through a back-and-forth affair to record their fourth win of the season over a top 50 team. While casual fans may dismiss a close win over a Sun Belt squad, anyone who watched Saturday's game understands just how good this Middle Tennessee State team can be. The Blue Raiders are a strong-shooting, athletically balanced team that will give some unlucky opponents fits when March rolls around.
The win improved Vandy's record to 16-5. They'll be back in action Tuesday for a trip to Fayetteville against the 15-6 Arkansas Razorbacks. It'll be another stiff test for a team that is still scrapping to regain the confidence that the national media had in them when the season began.
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Great game!
Thoughts:
1. Great effort by our big three. For that matter, great job by the starters. BT the only one not in double digits (had 9), and he sat for a long time because of fouls.
2. Bench had zero points?!? Speechless.
3. The bench did provide some good minutes in terms of defense, especially DJP.
4. Great FT shooting by Festus. I believe Jeff Lockridge tweeted that he set a career high for FTs made.
5. I’m really glad we don’t have to face MTSU in the first round of the NCAAs. Good luck to them from here on out, unless we meet again.
Parker's lockdown D in the corner that forced the timeout
Is so far my favorite play of his this season. Great display of what he can do.
by Christian D'Andrea on Jan 28, 2012 4:53 PM EST up reply actions
that was perhaps the most fun and definitely the most exciting game of the year
I underestimated MTSU and am very relieved that we pulled it out. I will most likely be picking MTSU for a first round upset in the tourney. They’re good and I think could take most teams on a neutral court.
In the new landscape of the NCAA
that was a hell of a win. After Murray St, Davidson, Clev St, Indiana St, etc., mid majors were starting to feel an almost entitled confidence when playing Vandy. And Vandy was no doubt feeling the inverse pressure. Every Vandy fan watching this game started getting that familiar “here we go again” feeling after the initial MTSU 8-0 run.
But, this time, this team rose to the occasion. They felt the urgency and looked the demon right in the eye. Call me crazy, but I believe this team will gain more confidence from this win than a 20 point win over an SEC opponent.
I always go first half - coffee, second half - beer, because In LA, the games start at 10:00 a.m.
WIN!
Nice to see the team win a game where neither team had more than a 2-possession lead and we were actually losing 3/4ths of the way through the second half, and to do so by protecting the ball, rebounding, and shooting free-throws. We shot ZERO 3-pointers in the last five or six minutes and at the end of the game we never looked rattled. I think MTSU played very well and hopefully we have learned something about how to win tough games and in the last 5 minutes.
Game was closer than it should have been.
I though we played very well against them, and believe they have a very good team, but they were able to keep things close by hitting a ton of tough shots. OTOH, we were able to score a lot of their defense despite shooting poorly from three. They were really trying to take the three point shot away from us, and we adjusted and continually got the ball inside and forced them to foul us. Tons of credit to Ezeli for hitting his FT’s today.
Overall, we did a good job on the boards and limited our turnovers to single digits against a team that creates a lot of TO’s. We also got to the line frequently. You have to give credit to MTSU for making a bunch of shots to keep things tight until the end, especially against a defense that has been shutting down teams with decent frequency. But the game felt to me that they were not going to be able to stop our offense, and they were unable to get second chances when they missed on their end.
give me a freaking break
closer than it should have been, face it , you were handled the entire game. thanks to a terribly one sided officiated affair you managed to barely scrape by. the true meaning of home cooking was on display today. ask your coach if he wants to play mtsu again. i think not. no sec championship for vandy this year.
One sided?
Give me a freaking break, “Vandy (MTSU) Fan”. Our coach doesn’t really care to play MTSU because WHEN we beat you guys, it is greeted with a collective yawn by the basketball world. But should we happen to lose again, it would typically be considered a very bad loss, given that you guys are usually a mid-tier team in a low-major conference.
If you guys don’t knock down pretty much every tough shot you put up, we win by 15 points.
BTW, you guys have been a fouling team this season. Bottom third of all DI teams despite playing a very weak schedule. We, OTOH, are a team that doesn’t typically foul – style of defense and all – you should look into it next time before making a fool of yourself. Festus drew a ton of fouls, completely unsurprising since he was generally being guarded by players who gave up 2 or 3" to him and about 20-30 lbs as well.
You guys gave it probably your best effort, but were beaten by a better team. It certainly wasn’t the fault of the refs that lost you that game.
by Jason Fukuda on Jan 29, 2012 8:25 AM EST up reply actions
"handled the entire game"
Funny, that usually denotes that the team that was handled, well, you know…lost.
by Christian D'Andrea on Jan 29, 2012 9:36 PM EST up reply actions
"One sided officiated affair"
MTSU was whistled for 23 fouls. Two were intentional at the end of the game. So that leave 21 regular foul calls. MTSU’s season average is just over 19. Was it a tightly called game? Yes. Was it explicitly favorable to one side or the other? Nope. Vandy was whistled for plenty of ticky-tack fouls of their own.
Now, the refs were shitty on both ends, but to chalk up Vandy’s win as a function of crooked refereeing discredits our win and MTSU’s fan base.
by Christian D'Andrea on Jan 29, 2012 9:43 PM EST up reply actions
LOL
If you think officiating was the problem, I think you need to google “four factors” and read up on free throw rate.
Vanderbilt’s defense on the season is allowing opponents to generate a free throw rate of 28.7 — good enough for 30th in the country. MTSU’s aggressive defense is allowing opponents to generate a free throw rate of 40.9 on the season — good enough for 249th in the country. That is a huge statistical disparity. With the return of Festus Ezeli, Vanderbilt is also MUCH better than their season statistics in getting to the foul line. This is MTSU’s weakness against Vandy — the Dores are bigger and they took it right to the rim in order to exploit a weakness. It worked.
Festus Ezeli shot 13 free throws. He probably should have shot more than that, but you’re going to have no calls some. Needless to say, MTSU’s game plan for him was to foul and to foul hard. That game plan failed.
Bottom line: MTSU gets called for a lot of fouls. They play an aggressive defense. Conversely, Vanderbilt doesn’t foul a lot on defense. This is by design by both coaches. There is no conspiracy, and the officials did a pretty good job in my opinion, particularly when it got a little chippy. I saw a few occasions where double-technicals might have been warranted, and I’m glad that the officials snuffed out the issues without having to use their whistles.
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by KingJamesIV on Jan 30, 2012 10:52 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Good win! - Middle is legit!
A close one like this will serve us well down the stretch and in the tourney. VU played a nice game and Middle was very impressive. Yes, Middle made their fair share of tough shots, but also got plenty of good open looks by being well coached and running their offense with discipline. This was clearly anyone’s game until the last minute. I’m glad we finished strong and hope we TCB in Fayetteville! Go Dores!
by WestEndDynamite on Jan 28, 2012 7:20 PM EST reply actions
Dropping Like A Rock
How far in the hole is Kyle Fuller that he doesn’t get any PT when Brad and Kedren are in foul trouble? Plus, after watching some of the MTSU players and coaches antics, do they think they NEVER commit a foul?
by VandyVern on Jan 28, 2012 7:38 PM EST via Android app reply actions
We should be ranked dammit
Enough with this Big East bias, I realize we have blown a few games to deserve some doubt with the voters but if we don’t crack the top 25 this week and teams like Georgetown, Michigan, Michigan State, SDSU, and Marquette still stay ranked, I am calling B.S. Hopefully regardless of ranking, we can get a 5 or 6 seed and actually win a tournament game for a change!
I think we should probably be ranked in the polls, especially being 9-1 over our last 10 games including win at Marquette and loss to Mississippi State. The Big East is overrated, but I expect UConn to tumble having lost 3 straight. Will we move up in the polls posting wins over UT and MTSU?
That being said, I don’t really care too much what the rest of the country thinks. Only what the selection committee thinks in March.
UConn and K-state
Should both fall out of the polls. Whether we take either of those spots is another matter.
by Aaron Novick on Jan 29, 2012 9:03 PM EST up reply actions
festus walks everytime he touches ball
no travelling calls on big man and officials made sure that vandy made a steady parade to the free throw line.
Seriously?
That’s a joke. Sounds like an angry MTSU fan to me
FTs
Vandy shot 8 more free throws, and 4 of those are due to intentional fouls at the end. Hardly unbalanced.
Agreed
The ESPN board is full of angry MTSU fans indicating this game was unfair and we had the refs in our back pocket.
If Festus traveled
it was ABSOLUTELY due to the constant shoves of MTSU players. You complain of the officiating, but you benefitted from more no-calls than you could possibly fathom.
I sit front row beneath one of the baskets. If they had called it really tight, Festus would have shot about 30 free throws. And this was a strategic decision by Kermit. Ask him and he’ll tell you.
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by KingJamesIV on Jan 30, 2012 11:17 AM EST up reply actions
Exactly.
There was plenty of foulable contact on Festus nearly every time he attempted a shot at the basket. He could have been attempting FT’s at a much higher rate, and with the way he was hitting them, the margin of victory would have been that much higher.
by Pope Vanderbilt on Jan 30, 2012 2:32 PM EST up reply actions
The Big Three -
Vanderbilt responded with a superlative effort from their “big three.” John Jenkins, Festus Ezeli, and John Jenkins combined for 64 points..
Jenkins is so good, he’s mentioned twice!
Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid. - John Wayne
True Story
That is me in the bottom left of the picture above, right at the MTSU player’s knee.
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VUCommodores.com
Just on all-access, I believe.
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Yes, and it works. I had not been able to get some previous games to replay there, but this one will.
On review
I watched the replay. What a game. First, regarding all the comments from many (MTSU fans) about the officiating—-I felt that most calls against MTSU were good calls and that the majority of the questionable calls (or non-calls) went to MTSU’s favor. Second, for a team that seems to rely so heavily upon the 3 point shot, we won this game taking the ball inside, either passing to Festus or driving from Lance, Jeff, Brad, and John. This game-plan eventually won out. As in games previously, this attack led to several free throw opportunities for us, where we were largely successful. Outside of Jenkins, we were 2-8 from three. Third, Festus was great. He still isn’t finishing as well as he should, and he needs improvement on both ends of the court, but he converted at a significant rate and shot well from the free throw line. If he continues to shoot that well from the free throw line, the opposing defense will not be able to foul him or defend him as aggressively. Fourth, Jenkins subjectively had a bad night shooting, but objectively just had a slow start and ultimately was awesome. His ball handling led to one or two turnovers, but also resulted in several successful drives to the basket (even going left). Jenkins taking the ball inside was nice to see. Fifth, our defense wasn’t as bad as I recall. We forced them into taking jump shots, many of which were contested. They made them at a significant rate. They were only sporadically able to get the ball inside with any success. Even then, many of Dendy’s shots were a bit circus. For the most part, Festus played him well without fouling. Festus can’t afford to get in foul trouble in close games, and he didn’t. Where our defense seemed vulnerable was when they tried to run on us. Finally, the bench gave us good minutes, although one could say we broke-even with the bench play. They held their own, but the bench was not great and still need to improve for us to compete against better teams.
The final 2:30 was the best part to watch. We stuck to the game plan of taking it inside, we didn’t take any jump shots. We either made lay-ups, free throws, or both. Even though we were down by one with less than a minute we never looked rattled, scared, or like we were playing with any sense that we were close to losing. That confidence and maturity won the game and was great to see.
I’m looking forward to the Arkansas game, will be tough to get a win in Bud Walton. Hoping for the best.
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