A week from now, this article is going to look either prophetic or foolish. But for now, the rest of the Southeastern Conference needs to watch out for Vanderbilt.
On Wednesday, Vanderbilt will play a motivated and angry Tennessee Volunteers basketball team in Knoxville. Bruce Pearl’s team was dominated this weekend in Athens by a Georgia team who had not won a conference game in three tries and had lost to Wofford and St. John’s earlier in the year.
The Volunteers will be eager to cushion their fall from the top 10 with an impressive home win over the streaking Commodores.
And on Saturday in Lexington, they will play the number one team in the nation on the road for the first time since 2007, when they lost by ten at Florida. The Kentucky Wildcats hold the nation’s final undefeated record at 19-0, the nation’s most electrifying freshman guard duo of Eric Bledsoe and John Wall and the nation’s hottest coach in John Calipari.
The Wildcats’ shot at a number-one seed in the NCAA Tournament hinges on their ability to hold serve at home.
But for now, if they haven’t established themselves as serious contenders for the outright SEC title, the Commodores certainly have legitimized their right to be in the conversation.
Saturday’s 82-74 victory over Auburn showed exactly what the 2009-2010 Commodores are capable of. When the Commodores came out flat in the first half, Brad Tinsley kept Auburn within reach with 11 first-half points, highlighted by a fast-break dunk with 2:13 left that woke up the student section.
In front of a sellout crowd at Memorial Gym, Vanderbilt erased an 11-point halftime deficit in eight and a half minutes and never gave the Tigers a chance to breathe, controlling the pace for the entire second half.
Any one of seven or eight Commodores has the ability to step up and supply Tinsley’s surge in production in any given game, which creates a terrifying amount of uncertainty for opposing defenses. But by the end of January, Vanderbilt must find out which of its players are committed to playing at a consistently high level for every single game. Coach Kevin Stallings subbed frantically on Saturday as the Tigers jumped out to an early lead, searching for the lineup of the day, and the offense’s continuity suffered as a result.
With an understanding of the improvements that need to be made, I think the Commodores will be playing late in the SEC tournament. Moreover, I think they can take one or both of this week’s tough road games.
Tennessee’s lack of depth will catch up to them, and wouldn’t it make sense that that weakness would manifest itself against an extremely deep Vanderbilt team? Kentucky is too young; they’re good, but they will lose at least one game this season that will make you double take at the box scores the next morning.
Who’s to say that game won’t be one of their two meetings with the Commodores?
By next Saturday evening we’ll know a lot more about where the road to the SEC Championship runs through. But for now, Nashville is as good an answer as any.
