Won their fourth in a row. The tourney they dominated this week had 4 top 5 & 10 top 25 teams. Their 5 man won the individual title. Oh, and they beat UT by 44 shots.

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Myles hit both a "bomb" from deep straight-on plus, perhaps, a rally or momentum breaking shot from the right-wing on Saturday when MSU closed the gap in the 2nd Half between us and them. Overall, he hit 4-8 from "3" . . . consistent with the team's performance and fought again as an undersized . . . both height and weight . . . inside player, particularly against Smith and McNair. Of course, Myles took an ill-advised quick "3" toward the end of the game when he should have held the ball and, along with his teammates, run 20 or 25 seconds of clock.

In order for us to continue to have success without Liam, we need Myles to be a consistent threat from "3", in my view.

As an optimist, when we get to the NCAA Tourney, Myles' performance, as illustrated below, against non-conference foes is noteworthy, in particular, his performance in those contests played at neutral sites.

Here are Stute's updated numbers from "3":

• All Games: 72-188, or 38.3%
• SEC Home Games: 15-49, or 30.6%
• SEC Away Games: 17-54, or 31.5%
• All SEC Games: 32-103 or 31.1%
• Non-Conference Home Games: 16-45, 35.5%
• Non-Conference Away Games: 13-19, 68.4%
• Non-Conference Neutral Site Games: 11-21, or 52.4%
• All Non-Conference Games: 40-85, or 47.1%
• All Home Games: 31-94, or 33.0%
• All Away Games: 30-73, or 41.1%
• All Neutral Site Games: 11-21, or 52.4%
• All Non-Memorial Gym Games: 72-188, or 38.3%

Some refer to this as Championship Week. To me it is Elimination Week. There is already one elimination game on deck and Boise State and Utah State will play each other if they both advance past their next game.

Based on Joe Lunardi’s latest version of Bracketology, here is who the following teams play next in their respective conference tournaments

Last Four Byes
Boise State vs. winner of UNLV - Air Force
NC State vs. winner of Virginia Tech – Notre Dame
Pittsburgh vs. winner of Florida State – Georgia Tech
Penn State

Last Four In
Mississippi State vs. Florida
Utah State vs. winner of New Mexico vs. Wyoming
Rutgers vs. Michigan
Nevada vs. San Jose State

First Four Out
Oklahoma State vs. Oklahoma
Wisconsin vs. Ohio State
Arizona State vs. Oregon State
UNC vs. winner of Boston College - Louisville

Next Four Out
Michigan vs. Rutgers
Charleston vs. UNC Wilmington
Clemson vs. winner of NC State vs. winner of Virginia Tech – Notre Dame
Oregon vs. winner of Washington State vs. California

Vanderbilt vs. winner of LSU - Georgia

UNCW (4) just beat Hofstra (1) in the CAA tournament. Hofstra was the only team in conference to beat Charleston this year. Charleston is considered one of the “first four out” right now. They play Towson tonight, so Vandy either needs to root for a Charleston loss tonight or for Charleston to win the CAA tournament and take an automatic bid, rather than one of the bubble spots.

Is it possible that VU gets extra consideration from the NCAA due to graduation rates, it’s extra wokeness, lack of NCAA violations? In short, doing things in what they may consider “the right way”.

We are on that list for men’s basketball…for the first time in…I don’t even know how long.

Ole Miss has allegedly already spoken with Chris Beard about their opening. It will be interesting to see if there is a backlash against him from Oxford and the faculty.

Ok, I lied, I can't help myself. @Chris Lee take a look at this. I've been saying find me a team with top 20 SoS (afraid after VU's round one game it will drop below that, currently 19) that finished at least 4 games over 500 that didn't make the tourney. Everyone focuses on NET ranking and other things, but consistently over the yrs the committee has talked about who you played and who you beat, how you did on the road, how you scheduled in the non conf. VU got in with 15 losses and that was I think just the 2nd time in history a team got in with that many losses, at 18-15, but they had the #1 Sos (and their predictive numbers were good, but I'm telling you the predictive numbers were not that big of a thing in 16/17)

Well, just last yr, Oklahoma went 18-15 in the regular season, finished with the #7 SoS (not sure what it was before tourney games), and got a 1 seed in the NIT, so first 4 out. Now, compare their numbers to VU's currently:

VU 18-13 OK 18-15
VU 11-7 in SEC OK 7-11 in B12
VU road record 5-6 OK 3-8
VU Sos 19 OK Sos 7 (higher before tourney play???)
VU NonConf Sos 115 OK 170
VU Q1 4-9 OK 5-12
VU Q2 5-1 OK 6-2
VU Q3 4-2 OK 1-1
VU Q4 5-1 OK 6-0
VU 83 NET OK 39
VU KPom, BPI and Sag average 78.67 OK's 33
VU KPI/SoR average 46.5 OK 55

So, IF big if VU can manage to win that first game, which I think at that point decision will be pretty much made on VU making it or not, in comparison to OK, which was one of the last 4 teams not to make it as they got a 1 seed in the NIT, I think VU's resume looks darn good to them ESPECIALLY if like everyone says the NET ranking number doesn't mean alot in terms of that number.

I mean, VU will have a better record, a much better conference record, a better win pct (slightly) in Q1, better win pct in Q2 and of course then better overall win pct in combined Q1 and 2, Better road record, better non conf SoS, better results metrics. Really only place they lose out is on the NET ranking (bad lose) which of course means they lose on predictive measures badly as well, and the 1 Q4 loss (do have 2 Q3 losses, but OK went 1-1 so I don't look at 4-2 as much different, plus both of VU's Q3 losses were high Q 3 losses and OK was a middle Q3 loss.

I mean, I look at these two resumes and I think VU's is better, and OK got a 1 seed in the NIT.

This is what I've been saying that EVERYONE in terms of bracket folks do not talk about. SoS, SoS, SoS and how you overall do agains that has always been the number one most consistent thing the committee has done over the yrs. IF VU can finish 5 games above 500 and that SoS is around 20, they have shot. If it was top 10 I'd call them a lock. So that is really the only thing that worries me, is top 20ish enough to get them there? Will committee look at theirs as maybe 19 and pretty much make a decision if VU wins Thursday they are in? Tough, I don't know?

It covers all fourteen teams.

It actually talks positively about VU for once. Amazing what winning two SEC games does for public opinion.

Does anyone know the severity of his injury?

What do we need to do?

The no hitter was great especially with limited amount of runs scored against a 0-10 team. Why did Futrell not pitch as scheduled?

Praise for Wright, Lawrence, and Manjon:

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Vanderbilt kept its NCAA tournament hopes alive with a win over Mississippi State, and meanwhile, the Commodores went 2-1 against the Big Ten in baseball in a weird park with weird announcers. Chris Lee and Luke Wyatt digest all that and more.

Stories like this are the reason you love college basketball…

-Stack is hired, doesn’t know what he’s doing, doesn’t know how to get players, etc.

-Stack’s first recruit is Jordan Wright, an undersized 4, a slow 3, or a bad shooting shooting guard. A classic tweener who wasn’t very highly recruited at all.

-Wright shows flashes throughout his career but for the most part, his shooting holds him back and he’s still too small to play the 4 and too small / slow to play the 3 but, he keeps working to transform his body and keeps working on his handles and shot.

-After playing a key role as a junior, Wright is poised to have a huge senior year and is pegged as one of our team leaders. Expectations were high for JW.

-Fast forward to this year and Wright laid an egg early and was at least, in part, responsible for our 7-6 non conference record (either poor play or back injury).

-Stack retools the leadership and roles on the team and Wright had a few really nice games during wins in SEC play (Arkansas and Tenn), albeit

-At LSU was Jordan’s undoing. Heading home and instead of being the team leader as a senior, is relegated to a lesser role and has one of his worst games he’s ever had at VU. That loss may have cost him his one shot at an NCAAT and I guarantee he blamed himself.

-Fast forward to Florida at home and Jordan has done everything but turn in his uniform to Coach Stackhouse. I was concerned that he actually quit on his team. Stack was actually crying in the postgame interview, after a 16 point win, over the fact that he felt like he couldn’t have a positive impact on Wright. Stack was sad that this is how things turned out for his first recruit and somebody he clearly loved. It was heartbreaking to hear that in Stack’s cracking voice…

-Then last night happened….

Jordan Wright is shining example of why we love college sports and college basketball in particular. I couldn’t be more proud of that young man for digging deep and finding just a little more gas in the tank. No matter what happens from here on out, Jordan Wright has etched his name in Vanderbilt Basketball history by hitting the game winning shot at Rupp and will go down as one of my favorites because of his decision to tough it out.

Proud of that young man.

10 teams to watch that need a strong finish to ensure an invite to the dance, article by Andy Katz.

No, we aren't one of the 10. I'm posting this here because we need most, if not all, of these 10 to be one and done in their conference tournaments for us to have a chance. Oh, and we need to win a couple ourselves.

The last 2 games have explicitly shown how terrible we are at rebounding now without Robbins. What can this team do to change this?

We have gotten by barely, but I don't think we survive another game against UK giving up 21 pts and 20 rebs to Tsheibwe, or even another Tolu Smith-type game. Luckily only two or three other guys in the league are in the same realm as them, but still.

Maybe Dort is back and not completely out of game shape?

Since there was some debate on this, I'd just thought I would throw my 2 cents in on this.

1. If you don't think there is luck involved (examples coming) in winning close games, you might as well stop reading here
2. If you don't think it should matter that you win by 1 rather than losing by 1, you should stop reading here

And, basically, the above is my problems with computers. They seem to really only use one of the 2, instead of figuring a way to combine the two (the quads try to).

Folks say you don't get credit for WINS in predictive metrics, and that is true. Same for losses, you don't take hits for losses. You take credit/hits based on margins/efficiencies. So losing a 1 point game vs winning that same game by one point in a game with 120-150 combined possessions is negligible.

So, then, are you a much better team if you win , say, 5 games by 3 points or less vs lose those same 5 games by 3 points or less. My answer is Yes and No.

Yes is based on I think it shows a well coached team that is able to win close games, make the plays when need be, make the plays throughout games to keep it close to give you a chance to win. Hard to win games when you are down by 10-15 points late. There is some credit that should be given to that.

The no is a longer explanation: A call here, a bounce here, a luck shot here. I mean, is MO better because it hit two desperation 3's this yr for two wins (one over UT) or would they be a worse team if they hadn't hit either of those shots? Is Vandy better because UT decided to bypass a gimmie layup, that they missed the front end of a 1 and 1 to give them a chance to hit the game winning 3 than if UT had of made both FT's? Vandy had zero impact on UT missing that FT, nor would they have any impact on if he had made them. There was luck involved in them winning that game at the end. Now, they were good enough to be in it for the chance, they were good enough for them to take advantage of the miss. They should get credit for that, shows they are a good team in many ways, but also know there was luck involved in winning. Is UT a better team if they had of hit those FTS, if VU had of missed the 3pnt shot, if MO had of missed the desperation 3? There the same team either way. That is just many examples I can give you of how both luck is involved. I mean, take the last two games, if the KY guard had of hit the 3 (which was a good look) is VU a worse team? If that same KY guard, who scored what, well over 30 points vs AR, had a shot like that or anywhere close to that vs VU. If VU had of shot vs MSST like they did vs KY, they lose MSST, or if they shoot like that vs KY maybe they blow out KY and now their KenPOm numbers greatly improve. Different day, different time, its humans and luck is involved in most every sporting event.

Does this mean I agree with all the computers and the emphasis put on them, nope (see below). Ultimately, my problem with KenPom (and I'm saying this as a KenPom fan, I've followed his stuff since he first got started) is he doesn't weight who you play near enough, meaning, you can beat, or, say, team number 300 by 35 and that will make you look better than if you lose to team #20 by 2. And, you get zero credit for wins/losses other than the luck factor. I think he needs to put a W/L factor into his overall rankings, but with efficiencies I know its hard to do that.

But at the end of all this, the problem is Humans, who are greatly flawed and not consistent in term of physical or mental from day to day, try to program a computer to be able to predict or rate teams that perform differently from game to game, its an in exact science that will NEVER be able to predict or statistically rank teams (the latter could happen if teams played the exact same schedule, exact, but even then injuries / sickness can get in the way of that) to where you know what will happen game to game, therefore ANY computer metric is ALWAYS going to be very flawed.

Nm

Anyone know the best place to get tickets to vandys game Thursday night? So use to getting free tickets to the opening night game