Saturday, January 10, 2009

We're Just Too Young

Kentucky obviously heard my rants and decided to turn it up a notch, because the Cats really owned us in the second half of Vandy's 70-60 loss at Rupp Arena. Despite a valiant come back in the last four minutes of the game, we simply couldn't pull it out. 5 things I observed:

1) We are just too darn young. This was truly Vanderbilt's first test of a hostile environment and they didn't handle it well early in the second half. Kentucky really knocked us out of our rhythm and forced us to make bad decisions and mistakes. We lost our cool and never really recovered until it was too late.

2) Heal fast Croc OG, because this team needs you on the floor. Without AJ, I felt like we lacked some leadership and poise. We were definitely hurting in the paint as well, though we did an excellent job rebounding, beating Kentucky on the boards 35-34.

3) John Jenkins can't get here fast enough. This team needs shooters in a bad way. Vanderbilt was an abysmal 32% from the field and 28% from behind the 3-point line. Tinsley will get better with more experience, but the lack of any kind of perimeter scoring threat really hurts this team.

4) Jeffery Taylor is going to be a tremendous stud when its all said and done. He had his second double-double of the season with 15 points and 11 rebounds, and displayed a lot of athleticism today. He also had four steals. Props should also go out to Dolla Beal who really showed that his offensive game has improved by leading the team with 18 points.

5) The talent is there, experience just needs to catch up. Watching this team is gut-wrenching at times. They have a good run for a while, but then self-implode when things start going the other way. They'll overcome that eventually, but for right now we're just going to have to deal with the frustration.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

we haven't really been shooting that poorly this season. i think we're in the 45% range for the year, but today we really blew it. obviously when our big man isn't able to play, we're going to lose out on a lot of points in the paint and our field goal percentage will probably drop.

problem is, we typically hold our opponents to roughly 35% shooting and the Cats hit about 45% of their shots.

with next to no post presence thanks to Ogilvy being out, the defenses can focus their attention on our "shooters". ezeli is not a threat down low unless the other team is really short. no one else really even plays post on vanderbilt.

Tony Arnold said...

On the road, first SEC test, Rupp Arena, AJ being out, and young . . .

I was highly encouraged. We have more speed and talent than I have ever seen. I don't think the shooting hurt us as much as two things:

1. Team is not playing 40 min. of hard defense yet. Youth issue. Stallings will get that fixed. Noticed how well we rebounded this game compared to earlier this season. Just a matter of time and molding.

2. Having to re-adjust the offense strategy at the last minute due to AJ's injury. Coaches did not have enough time to completely adjust to this. You can tell the players a new strategy, but without at least 1-2 days of practice to instill it is hard.

We have never had the number of players on the floor before that we have now that have the speed off the dribble to create shoots inside the 3 line. That makes me see bright horizons for this team.

IRONPIGPEN said...

Hey look at these about a former Commodore:

search

'How Much For David Price?'
'Price Should Pitch In AAA This Season'

lvironpigs.wordpress.com

the last article has a link that goes to the counterpoint in Philadelphia about Price

Aaron said...

Vandy women are awesome

Tony Arnold said...

Vandy women are indeed awesome! And the basketball team is very good too.

IRONPIGPEN said...

Hey how about Pedro Alvarez of the Pittsburgh Pirates?

"The New David Price?"
"Vanderbilt A Baseball Shipyard?"
(Jeremy Sowers, Jensen Lewis, Jeff Sues, Ryan Mullins, Casey Weathers)

lvironpigs.wordpress.com

Go Commodores

Anonymous said...

Are we getting spammed by the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs?