Game 4: Austin Peay Governors at Vanderbilt Commodores — Open Game Thread

You probably haven’t heard of the Vanderbilt Invitational, but that’s the double-secret name for the five-team round robin that will take place over the next eleven days, which is really another way of saying “Vanderbilt gets to play four home games, but under NCAA rules this counts as an exempt event much like the Maui Invitational, an actual invitational and not this sham of an excuse for Vanderbilt to play extra games while avoiding real competition.”

Anyway, Austin Peay has already opened the Vanderbilt Invitational (noted on their schedule, but not ours, because we don’t want to admit to this apparently) with a 72-65 loss at Tulsa on Saturday. Austin Peay also lost 97-75 to Western Kentucky in their other game against Division I competition this season, and KenPom — no fan of this Vanderbilt team — sees Vanderbilt winning this game 77-70.

It’s worth noting that the Governors have never beaten Vanderbilt in thirteen tries. The closest they came was a 58-56 loss in 2013; the last time they met, in the opener of the 2017-18 season, Vanderbilt sleepwalked through a 73-54 win. Austin Peay’s best player is Terry “The Red Rooster” Taylor. The junior from Bowling Green, Kentucky, averaged 20.5 ppg last season and is averaging 21.7 ppg so far this season. Their second-leading scorer is Jordyn Adams, a 6’3” freshman from Silsbee, Texas, who somehow ended up in Clarksville.

Vanderbilt should probably win this, I guess, though anything is possible with this team.