"Gonna free fall out into nothin'... gonna leave this world for a while... " -Tom PettyI seem to remember having this discussion about Vanderbilt in the preseason. It went something like this:
"They're so overrated it hurts. They'll be lucky to go .500 in conference. You can't win in the SEC with defense like that."
At the time Vanderbilt was ranked in the Top 15 and was sporting a nifty, perfect 16-0 record and a 1-0 start to conference play.
Since then, they've played five games and lost four of them. The Commodores lost @ Kentucky, @ Tennessee, @ Florida and as of last night, @ Ole Miss. Their lone win came over LSU.
Losing four road games to two ranked opponents (the Vols and Ole Miss are both Top 25 teams) and a team on the rise (Florida, which is now ranked #19 in the AP Poll) in a "murderer's row" scheduling stretch shouldn't be enough to cause the Vandy faithful to go running for the panic button. But losing three of those four games in blowout fashion should. The 'Dores were hammered 80-60 by Tennessee, 86-64 by Florida and 74-58 by Ole Miss for a combined losing differential of 58 points in three games.
Not good. That's pure free-fall mode right there.
But Vandy has a chance to turn things around. The Commodores' schedule was ridiculously front-loaded; many of their toughest road games all came together in one nasty two-and-a-half week package. They'll be able to ply the advantages of their funkily-arranged Memorial Gym against Auburn, then face two winnable road games (@ Georgia and @ South Carolina) before returning home to again face the teams that blew them out on the road.
Vandy's now 2-4 and frankly, an 8-8 conference record seems like a long shot at this point. Looking at their remaining schedule, I see four winnable games which could be decided in the final minute of play (the home and away with Georgia, the road game against the Gamecocks, and Auburn). The rest look very tough for a team which just doesn't seem to have any defensive answers and has been easily taken out of their half-court offense by the teams which beat them.
FanHouse predicts: 6-10 conference record, NIT.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-31-2008 @ 11:59AM
VU said...
So Vandy will drop all 4 road games and lose 2 times at home? Or will they win 1 of 4 road games and lose 3 times at home?
More importantly, in either scenario, who are they losing to at home (besides possibly UT)? Memorial is one of the best homecourt advantages (possibly in the country); especially for a team that is easily swayed by its environment. Vandy will not lose more than 1 of the remaining 6 home games, and they will win 1 of 4 road games, to finish 8-8. Re-read this post come selection time.
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1-31-2008 @ 3:40PM
Gamecock Man said...
Frankly, I'll have to agree with you now. I was impressed with their offense earlier in the year, and thought they'd win a lot of games simply by outscoring opponents, but against teams with tougher Ds they've not been able to get the kindof shots they were getting earlier in the year. And they're not going to win games with their D. So yeah, I'd agree and say this team will have trouble getting to the NCAAs. Frankly, at this point they're not even playing as well as some of the conference's lower-tier teams like Bama, Carolina, and UGA.
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2-18-2008 @ 1:21PM
August West said...
Just to show how dumb and shortsighted this article and those comments were, here's how Vandy is doing 2 1/2 months later:
AP Ranking: 16. Vanderbilt 22-4 (7-4 in the SEC)
HAHAHAHAHAHA. Dumbasses.
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