Commodores go both directions in rankings
After splitting last week's slate, Vanderbilt climbed one spot to 16th in the Associated Press Top 25 today, but fell from 19th to 20th in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches poll. Click Here to view the complete rankings.
Latest NCAA bracket predictions
ESPN's Joe Lunardi moved Vanderbilt up from a 4th seed to a 3rd seed.
CNNSI's Andy Glockner kept the 'Dores as a 4th seed.
CBSsports' Jerry Palm thinks VU deserves a 4th seed as well, up one spot from the previous week.
FoxSports' Chris Kulenych and Craig Gately also projected Vandy as a 4th seed for the second week in a row.
More talk about the 'Dores
ESPN's Mark Schlabach and CNNSI's Andy Glockner still consider Vanderbilt to be a lock for the NCAA Tournament.
In the latest Weekly Watch, ESPN's Andy Katz thinks the 'Dores are one of five teams to keep an eye on:
The Commodores couldn't beat Kentucky. That's OK. Vandy will be fine in the NCAAs. The Commodores can work on their seeding in the coming weeks.Finally, CNNSI's Seth Davis has been burning up the phone lines with coaches from major conferences to get the lowdown on the top teams in the country. He offered up this scouting report on the Commodores:
Honestly, I don't know that they have a real weakness. I was surprised they didn't beat Kentucky, though you're obviously not going to beat many teams shooting 2-for-20 from three. Jermaine Beal is a strong lead guard who can score, and he runs their team. They have good perimeter shooting with [Brad] Tinsley and [John] Jenkins, an athletic wing in [Jeffery] Taylor and good size with [A.J.] Ogilvy, [Festus] Ezeli and [Andre] Walker.
This is the most athletic team Kevin Stallings has had there. The main thing with Ogilvy is you can't allow him to get deep with the ball. He's bigger than people think, he can go right or left shoulder, he shoots it quick. You have to make him a jump shooter.
Maybe their one weakness is when they face a lot of pressure. They have to be better at that because they'll turn it over some. Like if they played Clemson or someone in the second round who is committed to pressing for 40 minutes, that could give them problems.
Hmm... I think Seth Davis hasn't paid much attention to Andre Walker this season. He credits Walker for his size, but not his ball-handling ability. I think from what I've seen this season, we turn the ball over much more when we are in our half-court offense than when we are being pressured. In fact, I don't remember much of anyone being able to consistently turn us over with a full-court press and its because of Walker's sneaky ball-handling ability. Especially when you have Beal, Tinsley, and Walker on the court at the same time, who are you gonna trap in the backcourt? None of those guys cause any of them can dribble around you and set up an open look in transition.
ReplyDeleteTurnovers could be our undoing, but its more likely going to be an inability to draw the foul calls when we attack inside. We just aren't finishing our layups when there is any sort of contact inside. If we aren't getting the foul calls on contact inside, we don't get to the line, which is where we have such a huge advantage over our opponents this year. 3 SEC games we haven't led our opponent in FT attempts and those are the 3 SEC losses. Our biggest weakness is the inability to hit the layups when we get bumped at all.