Tough enough

by Barca Blog

Vanderbilt hasn't played a game for a week since playing four games in six days on their trip to California and Hawaii.

With time to focus on fundamentals, what have the Commodores been working on leading up to tonight's contest with Missouri?

"We've been working on rebounding, taking care of the ball, as well as doing a better job in our half-court and full-court defense," head coach Kevin Stallings said. "Those are a couple of areas that need some improvement. You could always say those areas could get better, and we need to get better at everything, but those areas in particular are the ones that we've tried to identify and work on this week."

When asked if toughness and aggressiveness were an issue with the team after the loss to Cincinnati in Maui, Stallings said:

"We're really just going to have to wait and see because we had played with a pretty good degree of toughness through our first couple of games. I'm not sure if we lacked toughness against Cincinnati because we played the same way in that game on Monday as we practiced the day prior, so I don't think it had to do with our opponent. We practiced very heavy-legged and just looked out of sorts in that game.

"Obviously, the Arizona win was big for us. I was hoping that imposters jumped into our jerseys and played that day against Cincinnati. But I would say, unfortunately, the jury is still out. I think we've got to see about that aggressiveness and that toughness and whether we're going to bring it every night. I think we will."