Anchor Drop, December 16, 2018: This Isn’t Good

Good morning.

We admit to not writing about Vanderbilt’s women’s basketball team a lot, largely for the reason that at the moment, it’s just not fun to write about. Earlier this week, the team added Jackie Welch — who just finished her senior season on the soccer team — to the roster. Welch was one of seven Commodores who suited up for Saturday night’s game against Central Michigan.

Welch only played one minute, but the reason behind that — Autumn Newby went down with an injury, and LeaLea Carter fouled out — is a bit telling. Welch got into the game because the other option was to literally play 4-on-5.

Oh yeah, and Vanderbilt lost to Central Michigan, 66-57, dropping its record to 4-6 on the season. Losing to Central MIchigan isn’t inherently bad — the Chippewas are a year removed from a Sweet 16, after all — but the state of the program at present is summed up as, Vanderbilt is legitimately in a situation where it has six players available for its next game against Miami on Thursday night.

In a sport where you’re allotted fifteen scholarships, there is never any excuse to have six players available for a game at any point, much less a situation where you had to borrow a player from the soccer team just to get to six. The injuries have been bad, no doubt — by my count, sophomore Chelsie Hall, freshman Jordyn Cambridge, freshman Brinae Alexander, freshman Isabella Paldrmic, and now sophomore Autumn Newby are unavailable, and senior Bree Horrocks just returned last night. Still, Vanderbilt went into the season with ten players on the roster (and I don’t pay enough attention to know if any of those were walk-ons.) In a sport where you’re allotted fifteen scholarships. Five players being injured at the same time would take a toll on just about any basketball team, but it’s disastrous on a team that started out playing shorthanded.

It’s really hard to figure out where this went wrong. Stephanie White seemed like a good hire on paper, but since a 10-1 start in her first season, the Commodores are 15-45. There seem to be some good individual talents on the roster; this isn’t a roster that should be losing to teams like North Alabama, MTSU, and Central Michigan.

We all know how this ends. Now let’s file this away until sometime around March.

Vanderbilt News

This one flew a bit under the radar, but redshirt junior offensive lineman Jared Southers is going to Georgia Tech as a graduate transfer. Southers had previously announced that he was transferring to Temple, but will apparently follow former Temple coach Geoff Collins to Georgia Tech.

And in case you missed it, the football team got a commitment yesterday.