Saturday, March 3, 2012

Vanderbilt Falls to Volunteers 68-61

Tennessee is playing as well as anyone in America right now, but Vanderbilt did not put their best foot forward today. The Volunteers do what Cuonzo Martin teams do: play good defense. At the end of the day, however, this game was won at the free throw line where Tennessee was 21-27 as compared to Vanderbilt who was just 8-16 and who missed their first 7 attempts.

The Commodores will be no worse than a 4 seed in next week's SEC tournament, but for a few hours Vanderbilt fans will have to do something that is anathema to being a Commodore: root for Kentucky. If Florida beats the Wildcats tomorrow at the O-Dome, Vanderbilt will be the #4 seed and find themselves on the same side of the bracket as Kentucky. If they Wildcats get their 16th conference win, Vanderbilt will earn the #3 seed in the SEC Tournament.

Sound off, VSLNation

4 comments:

AspenVU said...

Last year's Fes never showed this year and JT only shows up about half the time. Frustrating, but this won't change in the next 2 tournaments. Glad we don't depend on SECT to get into the NCAA.

DoreDevil said...

Have to agree. A bummer 'cause this was gonna be our year.

Very puzzling about Taylor.

Andrew Smith said...

1. For all that we did badly, I think the key to that particular game was something no one has mentioned much: free throws.

They attempted 13 more of them and made 15 more. I doubt we have ever won a game under such conditions.

As I watched the game, I felt like many of their "blocks" would have been called fouls if we had done the same thing, but I'm a Vandy fan.

I spent the night dreaming up unlikely conspiracy theories whereby the SEC wanted an extra team in the NCAAs and thus handed UT a quality win and an SEC seed that might allow another couple wins, giving them a decent argument. I realize this is reasonably unlikely.

Whatever the actual cause, Stallings priority #1 needs to be figuring out why we took so many fewer free throws and making sure it does not repeat. Not ever.

Stanimal said...

We'll beat them on a neutral court if we can get through to a rematch against them.