Saturday, January 8, 2011

Vanderbilt Loses to South Carolina 83-75

Commodores squander double-digit 2nd half lead.

Begin ranting below

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Unbelievable

Anonymous said...

That was about lack of effort in the second half. They wanted it more than we did

Anonymous said...

I agree that they wanted that win more than we did. What a disappointing loss. I really don't know what else to say.

Chuck Heston said...

A tepid performance by JT. Simple as that. No excuse for the premier player to have <10 pts. w/ 10 min. left in the game. At least a couple time JT drove the ball to the rim, and then put up a floater that clanged off the rim.

Quite frankly, USC got lucky. Some of those shots were circus-like.

A tough loss, but shake it off and focus on hosting the team that knocked off UK.

Anonymous said...

VU is a sissy team - should wins games like this and Missouri and Murray State by 15 points. Poor performance by players and coaches. JT and Fes did not show.

Anonymous said...

One has to get past the other team being lucky.... really weak performance.

Anonymous said...

This is more about coaching than it is about the players, and represents a problem that has shown up a lot in the past two years.

Stallings is a great preparatory coach, great with the x's and o's, but his game management - specifically with personnel choices - has a tendency to be mystifyingly poor. Taylor should never shoot 3's, yes, never. Gouldbourne, though he played well today, needs to be relegated to a 2nd string rebounding and off-ball defender (he's simply a glue guy, nothing more). Stick with a 1 pg line-up, we cannot afford to have both Tinsley and Fuller on at once, nor can we afford to have Tchiengang on without either previously mentioned gaurds. Side note: Walker needs to get and stay healthy - he deserves all that talk about lance and more.

Moreover, he allows many of those 2nd string line-up errors to go unchecked for far to long (Note to Stallings: you don't have Coach K's talent, you cannot put that much trust in your guys on the floor).

1.) Stick with whats working.
2.) If you move into game-planning that is less effective (see secondary line-up against Mizzou), make the appropriate changes to return to success.
3.) Be a motivator, those kids looks dis-interested and rarely show any passion.

I would love to see Stallings take a more assertive approach, much like Huggins at WVU.

Anonymous said...

The coaching was questionable yes, but I dont think its time to panic just yet. Id rather get these early season kinks out now opposed to the end of the season...(big home losses against UK and SC, Murray St. last year) We peaked early last year and sizzled down the stretch. I still think this team has what it takes to win the East but have to beat teams we should beat...like SC. UGA is up nexted and that wont be easy. Im kind of nervous we could start 0-3. Its very possible.

Seth said...

This was embarrasing. You dont win the SEC by lossing the SC on the road. The Georgie game on Wednesday has just become must win if they want to stay in the hunt...

macpfled said...

wow, why so many negative feelings towards CKS and team? this team has been the best team on the court in every game they've played and tonight was no different. we were a few momentum possessions away from winning by 20 on the road to quality conference oppenent. yeah i know you can't blame referring and lucky shots, but this game comes down to the fact that they shot the same percentage from the field on circus shots as we did from great looks. it comes down to the fact that the stupid freshman ellington hit 6 contested, off balance threes. It comes down to Muldrow playing 36 minutes of high contact post play with only 4 fouls and 9 blocks (ezeli would have been called for 10 in the same time period). yeah, congratulations USC, but in the end we were and are the better team.
two complaints:
1) why the zone? seemed like our D played awesome for 30 min before we tried these wacky zones, which we always give 2 shots/possession in.
2)why not scout muldrow? clearly you cant take it to the rim when he is around, but we couldn't seem to figure that out.

other than that, i thought jenkins, stevie T, tinsley, and lance could have all had there best games of the season. honestly, i thought it was the best ive seen us play until the miracle street ball run courtesy of barnum and baileys.

Anonymous said...

No go to person or leader has stepped up - needs to be inside go to person, Taylor or Fes.

Anonymous said...

Festus was not tough enough inside when it counted, and neither was Taylor. This team has got to get tougher and more aggressive. We should have been able to impose our will on USC during those last 5minutes when they were coming back but instead we failed to show up.

Anonymous said...

Exactly right! It goes for both the offensive and defensive side. That is why we are 1-3 in close games this year against teams with less talent.

Seth said...

Agree with most of the statements. Everyone has bad days, including 18, 19, 20 and 21 year old kids. However, Fes is not clutch in big games and this needs to be addressed. He had 7 points yesterday and a pitiful showing against Mizzo a few weeks back. CKS said some of the guys still get nervous and I think Fes is one of them. Also, who thinks Taylor has played a complete game of basketball? I sure don’t. He has been explosive in one half and then gets lost in the other. He is by far our least consistent go-to-guy. Not trying to bash the team because I think we can be GREAT! We just need more consistency from our big players.

I don’t think this SC loss will haunt us too bad. At this point last year we had losses to WKU, Cincinnati, and Illinois…none of which were NCAA tourni teams. SC is a tough, scrappy, young team and will pull more upsets this year. I think they can beat any Western division team and will be a headache for opposing teams (almost like Georgia a year ago). It should also be noted their record heading into yesterdays game was 9-4 with losses to Mich St., Ohio St., Boston College, and Furman (yea this one was really bad). However, only two Western division teams, Ole Miss (12 wins) and Arkansas (10 wins) had better out-of-conference records with even worse losses than SC.

Its not time to panic yet in Commodore Country, but Wednesday nights game against Georgia became that much more important. Don’t forget about the UT game on Saturday, which is one ESPN’s College GameDay. If we loose both of those game and end up 0-3…then its time to panic.

And I love CKS. He made some questionable decisions yesterday but has made far better ones in the past to make up for it. Think we’d be better off without him? Let’s see how that works out for us…Go Dores.

Anonymous said...

Definitely better off with CKS as head coach; however, he does have a tendancy to fail in making timely and accurate adjustments. He either relies too heavily on his game-plan or relies too much on his players.

I'd like to see him get in their faces once in a while. Ogilvy is a perfect example of how soft CKS allows his players to get. I really don't want to see Fez go the same way.

If he continues to fail in disciplining these guys (not in execution, but in toughness), then we will fall apart without a Derek Byars, a guy who could take on the role of a passionate leader.

Ogilvy should have been heated to a pulp in practice, forced to go up strong continually until he could no longer get off the floor. Never happened.

After we shot ~50% from the line at Mizzou, our guys should have been in the gym running for every one they missed the next morning.

Today, they should be running puke-inducing defensive drills and getting reamed out.

This is about winning, If you can execute but not win, no one cares. Get the proper personnel on the floor, adjust, and discipline your team.

Anonymous said...

Losing sucks.
american idol sucks.

Does:
A) Losing = american idol
B) american idol = losing
or
C) won't matter if we don't man up and beat Georgia on Wednesday night.