Vanderbilt Basketball Player Report Card: Trey Thomas

I talk a lot about Vanderbilt’s struggles to open the 2021-22 season, when the Commodores started 5-4 and picked up losses to VCU, SMU, Temple, and Loyola-Chicago, and that ultimately might have been the difference between sneaking into the NCAA Tournament and being an NIT team. Part of the problem, of course, was being without Liam Robbins and Rodney Chatman; but another big problem was that Trey Thomas shot a ghastly 6-of-37 from three-point range during that stretch — and if you remove a 4-of-6 night at Pitt, he went 2-for-31.

Thomas is one of those guys who has one job, and his job is to make three-pointers. As a 5’11” guy who’s not really a point guard and is limited defensively because of his size, Thomas is always going to be a fringe player at this level, but you can easily tolerate him if he’s dropping nearly 40 percent of his threes as he did as a freshman. Other than that, he doesn’t really provide you with much; it’s actually pretty damning to make that many threes and still be a below-average offensive player (Thomas’s Offensive Rating as a freshman was 99.5, and it dropped to 96 as a sophomore when his season-long three-point percentage dropped.)

With all that said, from December 18 on, Thomas made 40.2 percent of his threes — and 41.1 percent in SEC play. You can always find a use for a 40-percent three-point shooter, and Thomas seems to have carved out a niche. That said, it’s entirely possible that he’ll be recruited over to the point of barely getting off the bench next season.

Grade: B-