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The Statistical Is Not In A Good Mood Today

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Seriously... what was that?

By Tom Stephenson
Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports

Trifecta: Jones-Fisher-Davis-Baldwin

All seemed to be going well for Vanderbilt.  The Commodores built a 40-25 lead over Dayton and seemed to be well on their way to victory.  And then...

Well, the first thing that happened was that the tips they picked up from the Stephen Rivers School of Throwing the Ball to the Other Team kicked in.  That allowed Dayton to close the lead to 40-32 by halftime, and then, while Stephen Rivers continued softly whispering in the players' ears, the team also completely forgot how to shoot layups or defend the pick-and-roll or rebound or even, at times, throw down dunks.  The 24 percent shooting in the second half is even worse when you consider how many of those missed shots came from within two feet of the basket.

I'll grant that the referees, who decided to simply ignore the new emphasis on things like "freedom of movement" and "moving screens," were not helping matters.  The fact that each team was whistled for 21 fouls does not absolve the officials, since making the fouls even required an inordinate number of no-calls on moving screens and things that many states would classify as "assault" on Dayton's end, while also whistling Vanderbilt for a number of love taps.  (*I may be exaggerating here.)  But, Vanderbilt still spent much of the second half playing as though they were afraid of success, and that's inexcusable.

Dayton tried to gift Vanderbilt the win in the last couple of minutes with a bunch of missed free throws, which naturally resulted in offensive rebounds or, if Vanderbilt did rebound them, missed layups.  No, seriously, though.  That was awful.

Dayton Four Factors

Seriously though, the rebounding was awful.

Player Min FG FGA 3FG 3FGA FT FTA ORB DRB REB PTS PF AST TO BLK STL AdjGS GS/Min
Damian Jones 33 7 12 0 0 4 8 4 4 8 18 3 2 1 2 1 28.4 0.86
Matthew Fisher-Davis 27 4 8 3 6 0 0 0 7 7 11 1 0 2 3 0 15.2 0.56
Wade Baldwin IV 31 4 12 0 2 10 11 0 0 0 18 3 2 4 0 1 13.9 0.45
Riley LaChance 36 4 10 3 6 0 0 1 2 3 11 4 1 3 0 0 5.2 0.14
Josh Henderson 15 0 2 0 1 4 4 0 2 2 4 3 0 1 1 0 2.9 0.2
Nolan Cressler 14 1 3 0 2 0 0 1 4 5 2 1 0 1 0 0 1.4 0.1
Jeff Roberson 29 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 3 3 1 4 1 1 0 1 1 0.04
Joe Toye 12 1 4 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 -0.3 -0.03
Samir Sehic 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 -0.7 -0.23

Yes, for those who didn't know before, it IS possible to post a negative Game Score.

  • At least Damian Jones came to play last night.
  • The turnovers wouldn't seem that bad if they weren't primarily on passes that looked like they were thrown by Stephen Rivers.
  • How you go through a game with six assists as a team is beyond me.
  • This team should have the depth to overcome injuries to Luke Kornet and Camron Justice.  The bottom of the chart begs to differ, however.

If there is anything at all I can think that's positive right now, it's that compared to the first eight games Vanderbilt played this year, last night seemed completely out of character.  It simply looked like a different team, and not in a good way.

There are lessons to be learned from games like this, but when things like this even need to be said:

...then SOMETHING is not right. (I mean, Carter Josephs and Nathan Watkins are still on the team, right?  RIGHT?!)

Anyway, it's probably best we just forget about this game.  But hopefully the players will not.

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