Vandy Uber-Recruit John Jenkins scored a career high 60 points Saturday against Gallatin. This is good news on the same day that the Men scored 18 points in the first half against UT. I can't wait to see what this kid does in the Black and Gold next year.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090216/SPORTS07/90216057/-1/PREPSFACTORY
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This is really random, I know, but I was thinking about this the other day and wanted to bounce it off of some other knowledgable Vandy fans.
There are eight players on the roster this year that are either true freshmen or redshirt freshmen. The law of averages would suggest (along with CKS' track record with retention) that at least one of those eight will transfer after this season. I know that most of us have no inside knowledge of the program, but does anyone have guesses about who the transfer(s) might be?
Me and Stan talked about this briefly. Looking at the roster while there are 8 freshman only 5 of them play real minutes. Jordan Smart and Aaron Noll are walk on's (Jordan had offers to play at Harvard so maybe he might transfer but no big deal). Hinkle plays some mins here and there but he wouldn't be a big loss either. I think the most likely transfers would be Andre Walker and Darshawn. They are going to be juniors next year and I really don't see where they are going to get significant minutes on the team next year. Basically Beal, Brad and Jenkins will get all the guard time. Making JT and Lance split some 3/4 time. Then AJ, Festus and Steve get the rest of the 4/5 time. I also wouldn't be surprised if George Drake decides not to come back. If he is on track to graduate I doubt he comes back to get mop up duty time.
prob walker. he is a real contributor when on the floor and it would be big to lose him.
The thing about Walker, is given his injury, he might be able to get a medical redshirt. What I don't know, is whether he would be entitled to that if he transfered somewhere else. I don't think he's played all season long, and if he got the red-shirt, he'd still have 3 years of eligibility.
It's a nice problem to have, but Vanderbilt is young and deep. I am (thanks to Stan) very concerned Lance could go. JT and Lance (to be) appear to be comparable players. While Jeff is a better slasher, Lance is a better shooter and defender. Still, Taylor is an emotional player (something the Commodores currently lack). I'd love for their to be a way to get both these guys on the floor more, With all that said, how do you keep a scorer like John Jenkins appears to be on the bench?
I think you will see some time where you have 2 guards, 2 small forwards and AJ. I think they can do this because 1) Jeff Taylor is an excellent rebounder 2) we have tall guards 3) Jeff and Lance play the 3 in very different ways and I think can compliment each other on the court. I like the idea of Beal distributing the ball to Tinsley/Jenkins/Lance on the outside and clearing out room for Jeff and AJ downlow.
vandy has 3 current walk-ons, 2 guys who were given scholarships after walking on to give a total of 5 players who do little or nothing to contribute. i would assume none of these will likely leave and they are good for some garbage minutes at the end of the game.
who plays the 4 spot? we have a LOT of players who are decent in size but they play way more of a guard game than a forward game.
does jenkins start immediately and if so, does he take tinsley's spot or does jenkins play the 3 and taylor plays the 4?
i've got to imagine that beal, tinsley, taylor, ogilvy are all starters next year.
i can't see drake, hinkle or mcclellan getting any additional playing time next year is walker comes back as good as or better than he was. walker may not start but he would replace probably all of those 3's minutes.
i imagine that tchiengang,goulbourne and walker will be fighting for minutes coming off the bench.
Like I said, I'm most worried about Lance, because he could be a great contributor. I love Daag's statement about how he and JT could play at the same time though. They do play different kinds of games, and the more I think about it, the more I think they could co-exist a little better than anticipated.
But predicting who'll transfer is going to be tough for this crew, if any transfer at all. Frankly, we really can't have anyone who was a contributor this year transfer. I've always said that transfers hold this program back, and I would argue that if we could have one transfer back (DeMarre Carroll) we wouldn't be struggling as bad as we are now. That being said, We need Walker, we need Goulbourne, we need Tchiengang and Festus, we need Darshawn, and we need Drake. If any of those guys leave it will hurt the program because we'll lose experience and depth.
As for Jenkins, it's obvious he's a prolific scorer, but he's gotta earn his way on the floor. All four of our recruits this year were also prolific scorers. Jenkins could be a total stud but he'll have to outplay either Tinsley or Beal for time.
The important thing is that we need to hang on to our contributors. This isn't like Keegan Bell, who didn't fit in the system. We can't lose experienced players at this point if we want to make waves next season or the season after.
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