There's a lot of he-said, she-said concerning the recruitment of Rod Odom. While I won't be delving into any of the specifics of any rumors right now, I will say that it certainly seems to be a reasonable assumption at this point that the Vandy coaching staff and the Arizona coaching staff do not see eye to eye at the moment, considering Mr. Odom originally announced his commitment to Arizona, de-committed and then committed to Vanderbilt.
I think if you spoke to fans of either team, both were possibly looking toward this matchup, albeit in the championship of the Invitational.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to catch either of Arizona's Maui games. Here is a link to TSN's preview of the game:
Commodores vs Wildcats preview
Wise, the Wildcats' top returning scorer with 15.7 points per game in 2008-09, is averaging 18.2 through four games this season. He scored 16 of his team's final 19 against the Buffaloes, who overcame an eight-point deficit with 52 seconds left to force overtime. Wise was 9 of 15 from the field -- including 5 of 9 from 3-point range -- and added six assists.
In lieu of beating a dead horse, I've got a statistical breakdown. I hope you find this a bit more interesting.
Arizona leads Vandy in several categories among the starters. This really is too small of a sample size for it to be very revealing at all. I'm experimenting with keeping some deeper stats during the basketball season, so we'll see if this endeavor ends up being a big bust. Vandy needs to get untracked against a quality opponent. While it's still very early in the season to be able to glean how good or bad this team can be this season, a strong showing versus the Arizona wildcats would do wonders to "right the ship" in the eyes of Commodore fans.
Looking for more of an Arizona perspective? Take a gander over at Arizona Desert Swarm for their analysis.
What do you think? Post your game predictions in the comments.