Following Vanderbilt's dominant 90-67 win over Lipscomb last night, the Commies stand at 9-0 and poised to crack the [insert excessively-homerish estimate of ranking here]. Ogilvy dropped in 26 points (his best scoring effort so far), with 18 of them coming in the first half. When Lipscomb went to a zone in the second half to try to contain the Croc, Shan "The Truth" Foster started lighting it up from outside. He finished with 21.
This team continues to impress with its scoring ability. Shan and OG are certainly the 1-2 punch that makes the headlines, but I think the attack has been very balanced. While Foster and Ogilvy are both averaging about 20 points per game right now, Red Gordon and Ross Neltner are both averaging about 10. On top of that, Beal and Metcalfe are both adding about 7.5 ppg, with Beal distributing 5 assists per contest.
While RPI is a pretty crude proxy at this point in the season, it's worth at least mentioning that we are #4 nationally in RPI.
I'm not expecting DePaul to roll over, but there is no reason for Vandy not to put a hurting on them this Wednesday given their 2-3 record that includes a loss to North Carolina A&T. Seeing as this will be our last game out of Nashville until conference play starts, it should be a decent test of how they handle a gym without baseline benches and fans beneath their feet.
Let's hear some chatter, Commie fans.
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12 comments:
why are the titans sucking so hard at trying to blow this game right now? vandy basketball is now officially my only hope. as the beatles once said, "don't let me down"
Of note, Duke has received permission to speak with CBJ about their coaching vacancy.
american idol blows like the wind
This win demonstrates that this team is focused. This could have been a trap game against a cross town rival.
Especially coming off two big wins. I am not saying that we were going to lose this game, rather that it had the potential to be a much better game.
Anonymous i think you are a closet American Idol fan, i bet you love Simon and his tight t-shirts. I bet you vote every night. I bet you own all the albums from the winers and the losers.
You room is probably covered in Ryan Seacrest and Ruben posters.
Admit it!!!
american idol... the titans... is this not a vanderbilt blog?!
getting back to the topic at hand, A.J. Ogilvy has made this season magical. Shan is equally as impressive and currently has a higher ppg stat, but without the Aussie down low, we would we a one dimensional team that would be easy to guard. I love Shan's quote, "How would I defend Vanderbilt? Stay at home." While over-stated and egotistical, there is some validity to this comment. the 1-2 punch that we have in AJ and Shan forces teams to have to guard from the inside out. zone defense, shan will win the game, but switch to man, and AJ will have his way. i've been to at least 80% of the home games each season for the past 21 years, and this is the most exciting vandy squad i've ever watched...
That being said there are things we need improvement on:
1) defense - we are giving up alot of points
2)Oglivy needs to improve his rebounding (nice that he pulled down 10 against L-comb but against the big boys in the SEC he is going to have to be better
3) OG needs to also stay out of foul trouble
4) I would like to see a consistent double digit scorer. I think Neltner can be that guy and Red some of the time, but he falls in love with his own shot too often
I actually thought the "stay at home" comment was pretty clever what with the double meaning and all.
The rebounding has bothered me as well. Even though I've watched every game from the terrible gamecast on the vandy website, it seems as if we're giving up a lot of offensive rebounds.
Another good stat: Keegan Bell is averging 2.6 assists in his 12 minutes of play a game. The proration is favorable and gives the impression that he has gained some good initial experience. And although his relatively poor play versus GTech and Wake Forest indicates his inexperience against good teams, he nonetheless has shown that he can be a very god role player, dishing out assists if the starting backcourt gets into foul trouble.
20th in AP, 21st in coaches.
Yo Stanimal,
Generally coaches "trade up," rather than going from a program that is arguably on the brink of SEC contention to one that must be built from square one.
But the ACC is a much weaker conference on the other hand...easier to build a contender there. Look at Boston College...They would have been 8-4 or 7-5 in the SEC east this year.
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