Game 9: Liberty Flames at Vanderbilt Commodores — Open Game Thread

After an 11-day break (if you want to call finals at Vanderbilt a “break”), your Vanderbilt Commodores are back in action tonight as they welcome the Liberty Flames to Memorial Gym and oh my God, Liberty is favored in this game? What has this program come to?

Well, okay. Liberty is undefeated on the season, though here’s the list of teams they’ve played: Radford (66-60), Maryland-Eastern Shore (66-55), South Carolina State (65-39), East Carolina (77-57), Navy (55-48), Morgan State (89-48), Rice (71-59), UMKC (62-49), Kentucky Christian (88-42), Trinity Baptist (87-28), and Grand Canyon (70-61.) Real murderer’s row there, and it’s not a stretch to think Vanderbilt would also be undefeated if they’d played that schedule. In fact, literally every team that Liberty has played is ranked lower than Vanderbilt in KenPom.

The names to know for the Flames are leading scorer, 6’6” senior Caleb Homesley (11.4 ppg/5.1 rpg/2.6 apg), as well as 6’8” senior Scottie James (10.5 ppg/7.6 rpg) and 5’9” sophomore Darius McGhee (10.1 ppg/3.3 rpg/1.9 apg.)

Vanderbilt leads the all-time series against Liberty 2-0; the first meeting with the Flames was a 96-61 win in 2001. The second meeting came last year on November 16, with Darius Garland scoring 33 points in a 79-70 Commodore win that improved the team’s record to 4-0, and nothing of note happened after that.