Saturday, March 5, 2011

Vandy-Florida Postgame Open Thread

Florida was the better team and the wheels started falling off the wagon when Stallings picked up a technical foul at 9:19 with the Gators leading 56-53. True to CKS-era form, Vandy once again loses its last home game of the season and limps into the SEC Tournament. Comments are welcomed.

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can JJ win the SEC player of the year now? I think not....

Anonymous said...

I'm just happy the ESPN announcer made it clear, "Sorry, John, but you are not ready for the NBA."

Anonymous said...

Not sure why Fes was pulled early on after he had 7/9 VU early points --- later in the game when the zone slowed FL and VU got back in the game why did we go back to man?

the Technical foul turned the game for FL...

Not sure we see this team more than the 2 games they have coming..

AspenVU said...

Bottom line - lost last 3 of 4.

We limp into post season.

JJ does not deserve POY

Anonymous said...

JJ is not a good man defender. He gets beat by quicker guards, can't handle the post (I wouldn't really expect that anyway), and trails too far behind on screens. He's a great shooter, but isn't great at handling the ball in traffic. Still I love having on my team. When he's on, he can win us a game by himself (see Kentucky).

I still have high hopes for this team. It starts with hustle. We have been outhustled in these last few losses (the Kentucky loss wasn't as bad as Tennessee and Florida). You see it loose balls being won or outrebounding your opponent. We didn't get either tonight.

Foul shooting was poor tonight and Florida shot much better on FTs than they did in Gainesville (or for the year for that matter).

Tinsley's dunk was sick in person. We seemed to lose some momentum though after it. I attribute that to poor defense. You can't leave Parsons wide open. Definitely a 2 minute lapse there that has been a consistent problem for this team.

On the "charge" against Jenkins...one ref was in the process of calling it a block which is what set Stallings off. An obvious turning point, but we still need to recover from that and get a stop. We another defensive lapse after that. Boynton buried us and Walker cleaned up from the foul line.

I really feel like this team will go far if they commit to defense and outhustling their opponent.

That's what I've got.

Anonymous said...

The only silver lining to the last 4 games is that historically VU's play at the end a regular season usually has no bearing on their performance in the post-season. I still get a sense that VU will get a 6 seed, but it will require at least 2 wins in the SEC Tourney.

VandyDave said...

While I still have hope, we need to realize this team went 1-3 in its final four games. The win was against LSU, now officially the worst team in the SEC thanks to the loss at Auburn. That technical was Stallings fault and incredibly stupid. I get your frustrated, but you don’t go charging at the refs. Who knows, the two refs could have talked it over and talked about why it was a charge. It changed the momentum of the game, which was in our favor at the time. He and his staff have done some questionable moves in these last 4 games and he needs to quit being his stubborn self and fix it.

Great, we are playing either Auburn or LSU in the SEC tourni… what happens if we lose to either of those teams? Our seeding will tank. Anyone who thinks 2nd is better than 3rd for us is an idiot. What are we now in the NCAA… a 6 seed? 7 seed? 8 SEED?

I have some terrible feeling, Stallings and his staff is saving Andre Walker for the NCAA tourni, thinking it’s a genius move. If that happens I will be pissed. I was optimistic until tonight. If this team wins its first round NCAA tourni I will be shocked. SHOCKED.

VandyDave said...

I meant 3rd better than 2nd ...sorry, writing in frustration is tough

Anonymous said...

I thought Ezeli and Taylor both played well. I don't know why we went away from Festus.


How in the heck can a player be a NBA lottery pick when he can't even dribble more than twice before turning it over???? Maybe Jenkins' ego will come back to earth. He's no Ray Allen, more like a poor man's JJ Redick.

Anonymous said...

I think everyone jumped on the JJ is not just a shooter, but a scorer boat a little prematurely. He is great at catch-and-shot, and a few times when he was completely unguarded he made it to the rim, but if he has to move the ball either: 1)goes off his foot; 2) is stolen or; 3) JJ makes a terrible pass. Root for him hard, but man I get nervous when he does anything else but shoot it.

Also, after searching in a number of beers, I have found a silver lining ... at least LG didn't take a bevy of ill advised shots tonight.

joey d said...

Way to stick it to the analysts and get 4th in the east instead of 5th. Hows that moral victory feel now against UK?

JJ has the most inopportune turnovers due to dribble diarrhea.

Stone cold lock if the tourney... bet it all against Vandy.

KHayes said...

CKS is now 1-11 in final regular season games @ Memorial - this is a problem....

AspenVU said...

Can't believe regular season is over - analysis of JJ is correct. In the end this team has no identity and never learned how to grab the game when it was there. Frustrating how we always fold at end of the season.

First USC game and both UT games kept us from winning the SEC.

I predict 8-9 seed.

Anonymous said...

I really have to say, this is just typical Vanderbilt. Time to accept that this team, while somewhat better than others, is still a Vanderbilt team.

Anonymous said...

In the last few games I notice that the guard play on the defensive end was really bad. Seems like we can't defend against quicker guards or fight through picks / screens and just play good fundamental defense. The 3,4,5 spots were ok. Both Tins and jj were not good at the defensive end the entire game. JJ is a really good SEC guard, but I agree with espn analyst that he is not ready for the NBA. Not even close.... Solid guard play at the defensive end is going to be critical in the tournament.

AspenVU said...

it's nice we arent sweating the bubble

Go UK today!

JT comments on how they "relaxed" after the Tin dunk sheds light on how this team lacks full game focus and killer instinct. This kind of lull occurred all year. Maybe CKS needs to start calling TO when the going looks good.

Anonymous said...

I don't think we should tear into JJ too much, he has been the leading SEC player of the year candidate up until this week ( and he might still win it). He's really expanded his game since last year, with another summer of ball handling drills he may approach 25+ ppg next year and then be ready to test the NBA.

Anonymous said...

This team has been the most frusturating team in memory to watch as a fan. Vastly underachieving and never fixed mistakes that have plaqued us all year. There is no leader on this team which has killed us the last two years. I will be hugely surprised if we win a game in the tournament.

Greg M said...

I will say it once again, "is there any coach in college bball who gets less out of his tallent than Coach Kevin Stallings?" No finish his teams. Wish he was finished at VU but pretty sure we would make a poor hire and end up with somebody worse. Oh well, what is Eddie Fogler doing now? Would love to have him back.

Dore.ZA said...

The almost insignificantly silver lining is that at least now we can all go back to hoping UT loses today. Not only does that give us a slightly better seeding in the SEC tournament - it also means that our first 2 games won't be in the middle of the workday (which they will be if we get the 4 seed).

Anonymous said...

It seems that CKS has done a great job in the last three to four years building a good base of recruiting of consistent talent that Vandy would not have had in the past; however, there is some intangible missing that can take that talent and build it up to "go for the jugular". We have seen this timid nature repeat itself at the end of the season the last couple of years most notably. It seems to be a "between the ears" problem that I think starts with the coaching staff.

If you could take the technical and recruiting ability of our coaching staff and combine it with the motivating/cheerleading aspect of a Bruce Pearl (minus the sweaty orange jackets and cheating parts of course), Vanderbilt basketball would be mentioned with the likes of the top programs every year.

One thing is for sure, with the blogging phenomenon in place now, the current makeup of the Vandy fanbase that expects concrete results, and the city's sports competition for the fans' loyalty and dollars, the "good ole days" are over. Vandy does not have the luxury anymore of keeping at least a modest fanbase in place and having bad to mediocre revenue-producing programs just about every year.

I have been a Vanderbilt fan since my teen years, and I have received lots of somewhat friendly taunts from my peers over the years who love the color orange. I have no choice but to support Vandy, as this loyalty is in my blood at this point. I am getting somewhat tired of only being able to use the comeback "our students are smarter than yours".

Everybody strap yourselves in for the mega matchup of Vandy vs. LSU or Auburn on THURSDAY!

KarenA said...

I think y'all are being too hard on JJ. Look at the points he's scored for us. He's a sophomore. If he comes back (and he would be stupid not to come back) he'll be better at the other things. Fes will improve, too, and not make the kind of mistakes that kept us from beating Kentucky at the end. We had a lot of injury problems this year. That hurt. When it came together right, we were awesome. It just didn't happen enough of the time. I still love this team. We need more from Stevie T, too. He's trying. I'll give him that.

Seth said...

I 100% agree with the comments above. Stallings is just a stubborn man and it starting to act out like he did when he was on the “hot seat” before the 07 season. The guy accepts no responsibility for the problems that plague this team and throwing his played under the bus. He does absolutely nothing to motivate his team for a big game. Yesterday he said Lance’s play in the game was just like his practice… not very good. So what did you do about Stallings?! Did you meet and talk about with him? Did you just stare at him? What did you do?!

Ive also heard him say things, like after the Miss St. game, “our press worked, maybe we should do it more.” Yes, the press helped us win that game, but now we only do it when we are down with less than 2 minutes to go. “Our team plays better when I yell at them”, like at the LSU game, and yet he still doesn’t do it in games against UT and UF.

He also thinks its normal for teams to beat him in the last regular season game because “we play each other for 16 games/ are familiar with each others play.” I didn’t see Alabama, Kentucky, or Florida struggle with any of that this past weekend. You’re right Stallings, EVERYONE struggles with that…

I like Stallings, even if my tangent doesn’t show it. He’s a good coach with one HUGE flaw… he fails to motivate his players and teams, especially in big and late game situations. I’d much rather have him than not, but he has to start realizing he’s had much better talent to work with since the 07 Sweet 16 team. Yet, we have not hung any conference, tournament, or significant round banners from the NCAA tourni. There is absolutely no excuse for this teams losses against USC, both UT games, and yesterdays UF game. Going back to last year, there is no excuse for the Murray St. loss. We need motivation from this coaching staff to their team or it’s another 1st round loss.

Anonymous said...

I like Karen's spirit but I just can't think of a time when this team was anything close to awesome. Yes we beat Kentucky at home, but every who played UK at home beat them. I guess I just don't consider wins at Mississippi State and LSU awesome, and that is really the best we got in conference play.

Sure JJ scored a ton of points, but I am not sure he scored enough to make up for his turnovers and poor defense, at least in some games.

I think the best way to show the Dores that you love them is by being realistic about their capabilities and not saddling them with expectations they cannot meet. Just my two cents...

DRW said...

When do we find out exactly who we're playing on Thursday?

Anonymous said...

Its LSU. 3rd in the East vs. 6th in the West

AspenVU said...

Yep, fundamental reason we lost to UT twice and USC. No fire.

But We make big run in NCAA !

Anonymous said...

I think there is a lot of overreacting going on here. It seems like a lot of commenters bought into the mid-season hype when this team started playing well together. If someone had told me before the season where we'd be right now and that i would be disappointed with a locked up tourney bid I'd have called you crazy. This team had a lot of question marks coming into the season. Some have been answered for the better (Fez, the freshmen), some for the worse (JT), and some remain open (Stallings, JT's non-shooting attributes). Generally speaking this has been a succssful regular season, if not wholly satisfying.

That being said, there is some merit in questioning Stallings and his inability to win late in the season. There is some truth to the "same old vandy" argument. I personally plan to reserve all judgment until after the ncaa tournament where we will certainly be playing.

This team is built to go far even if it didn't end the season on a good note.