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FB Recruiting Davin Chandler

3-star DB Davin Chandler (6-2, 183) has decommitted from Virginia and is heavily favoring Vanderbilt at this time.

He recently visited Vanderbilt when the Commodores hosted Texas. His stock has been on the rise during his senior season so he might play this out into the holidays.

The Maryland native comes out of the same program as current Vanderbilt freshman tight end Brycen Coleman.

General observations about the Women .

I watched the Lipscomb game and inevitably compared this team to the 2024 Dores. Some of my thoughts :

1. This team is quicker.
From last season’s team, we lost Jordan Cambridge, who had the quickest hands of any player I’ve ever seen . But we added Blake’s, a healed Madison Greene, Lelani
Kampinus, , and Jane Nwaba. Blakes and
Greene have just as quick feet and better
handles than Jordyn. The others have good quickness , too, and make for a deep team that won’t tire and lose quickness because of the depth in quickness. We will be able to press and pressure throughout games.

2. This team will make fewer turnovers.
We had a good back court with Cambridge and Moore last season, but neither had great handles against pressure. We turned it over a lot. Lipscomb was slow and didn’t present much of a challenge, but
Our ball handling looks better overall. Fewer turnovers lead to more chances to win .

3) . This team is better conditioned. Blake’s looks like she could run all day. Makurat is no longer razor thin . Aiyana Mitchell is jacked . No baby fat and muscled. At 6’4 ( Coach says 6’5’) and soft as a freshman, she looks like an athlete now. If she could contribute 10 to 15 quality minutes, we can compete better in the post. Nwaba looks like a linebacker. Kapinus was physical at Penn State. The outlier is freshman post Trinity Wilson , who in contrast to the others is overweight and slow . But nobody expected her to play much this season anyway. The net change : We aren’t going to get pushed around as much this year.

4). 3 key pieces are missing . Pissott, Kapinus, and Sacha Washington are out with injury or illness. Every one of them would play and play a lot. Without them , our potential is severely restricted. With them , we are much much tougher.

5). Experience for tight games is present.
Overall , one could call us a young team with a big sophomore class . But we have a veteran senior post in Sacha Washington , a steady senior who makes few mistakes in Jordyn Oliver, and and veteran guards in junior Iyana Moore and graduate player Kapinus. They are unlikely to panic and choke in tight games .

  • Locked
Let's flip Kai Trump.

Y'all may think I'm off on another political rant, but hold on. Hear me out.

Kai Trump is in fact the Grand Daughter of President Trump, and a bonified college golf prospect. She announced her commitment only a few days ago to play golf for the University of Miami. Vanderbilt's women's golf team and frankly AD Candice Lee should be all over this and trying to flip her to play at Vanderbilt. It's not about some stupid publicity stunt. This young woman has legit skills and I can't even begin to imagine the likely contributions to the VUAD and NIL Funds that would come pouring into VU. Not to mention contributions to the University itself.

I'll also note that young Kai is no dummy. Anyone that saw her speak before millions of viewers at the GOP convention this past summer could not help being very impressed with her poise, elegance, and intelligence as well as her athletic good looks. A rare combination.

C'mon Vandy, show me something. Start thinking outside the box. MVUGA !!!

Mike Griffith owned it

Mike Griffith was just on the Bill King show.

Bill always starts off asking "Griff" a Georgia question, since Griff covers Georgia.

Griff said, "Bill, before I answer that, I need to do something first". He then played Dynamite on the radio, and apologized to Vanderbilt and Clark Lea. He said he disrespected them, and the season that they're having. It was about a 2-3 minute apology.

He ate his crow. Nicely done, Griff!

Unable to Watch Last Night's Game due to a Conflict but I Wanted to Contribute Something . . .

Will watch the replay in the next day or so . . . . Anxious to see the team in action (with almost a full squad)

What else but . . . transfer stats (abbreviated, of course)

  • DeZonie . . . off the bench . . . 1 for 7 from the field, 3 points, 7 rebounds, 1 assist, 28 minutes [Temple]
  • Dorsey . . . starter . . . 5-11 from the field, 16 points, 1 rebound zero assists (versus a D-3 school) [William & Mary]
  • Dia . . . starter . . . 2-5 from the field, 7 points, 5 rebounds, zero assists, 11 minutes [Ole Miss]
  • Lawrence . . . starter . . . 1-4 from the field, 7 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 34 minutes [UGA]
  • Presley . . . DNP (Texas]
  • Rivera-Torres . . . Plays Tonight [San Francisco]
  • Shelby . . . Redshirt (I think) [Kansas]
  • Stute . . . starter . . . 2-5 from the field, 6 points, zero rebounds, zero assists, 17 minutes [uSc]
  • Thomas . . . starter . . . 6-11 from the field, 17 points, 3 rebounds 1 assist, 33 minutes [BGSU]
  • Ven-Allen Lubin . . . off the bench . . . 2 for 4 from the field, 4 points, 7 rebounds, 2 blocks, 17 minutes [UNC]
  • West . . . off the bench . . . 1 for 2 from the field, 2 points, 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 15 minutes [Samford]
Dorsey and Thomas . . . now both more than one year since playing for VU . . . both made a good transfer decision, in my view, as they placed themselves at the right level of play within D1 and have performed very well as multi-year starters. DeZonie has under-performed, in my view, or, you might tell me he was over-rated while I won't comment on Stute since I don't want to stir the pot on this forum while the jury is out on Dia in my opinion.

two casual observations about MBB

Just from watching: 1. Everyone contributes. It just seemed like every player contributed in a positive way. 2. Rebounding: I liked how there were a lot of white shirts on the defensive boards every time. While there is some technique and strategy involved in rebounding, it is mostly a "want to" skill. Maybe that can help to make up for lack of size inside.

MBB: Even more GM1 thoughts and reactions

It's nice to have written proof of how wrong I will ultimately end up being, so here we go:

Tyler Tanner
He looks like he belonged. Looks super comfortable playing fast. He wasn't just surviving his first college minutes, he was helping us. But what I was most impressed with was his defense. His size will never allow him to be elite on that end, but his play on that end was actually good. Not saying he'll ever be a stopper for us, but he's more advanced?useful? than I expected from a 6'0 thin freshman whose rep out of HS was not exactly glowing on the defensive side.

Grant Huffman
Pretty much exactly what I expected. Solid ball handler and passer. Good on ball defender. Tougher than he looks. Never going to stuff the stat sheet, but he does enough good things that he doesn't hurt you. Side note: Looks like he has Tourettes when he shoots FTs.

MJ Collins
Probably the player I was least focused on. I kind of just assumed he was going to play competently. I'm sure he'll have games where his play demands more attention. The 2-7 from the field last night isn't ideal, but it's one game.

Jason Edwards
He's just fun to watch. A jitterbug who can shoot. He also led the team with 5 assists, which was a pleasant surprise. He could have very easily chosen to be more selfish. He was getting to the rim at will. Nice to see him buy in to the team philosophy from game 1. Seems like the natural pick to be the fan favorite. He's going to have some massive scoring games.

Chris Manon
Did not like his first half. Seemed a step slow. Looked out of place on both ends. Then in the second half looked like a different player. Will never be a stat stuffer. But second half Manon does a lot of little things well and contributes in enough ways to justify minutes. He's a connector. We put him in the high post a few times with the ball, and he looked comfortable in that role. One thing that bothers me is that he takes long strides on D rather than short, controlled steps. If it works it works (and historically his D has been good), it's just a little off-putting. I have a bad feeling that he'll be a guy that gets a lot of heat, because at the end of the night fans will look at the box score and feel his shooting/scoring won't be good enough. If you choose to think of him as a more athletic Scott Hundley, I think it'll be easier to appreciate his game.

Tyler Nickel
Would like to see more impact outside of scoring. That said, clearly a good shooter. Can get it off super quick. His man D wasn't bad. MES hit a lot of mid-range fallaways. Nickel had more than his fair share of those against him, but honestly you live with those. His positioning and contests were fine. Ultimately if he shoots like he can shoot, and if he's not hurting you on D, you live with it.

Devin McGlockton
Holy $#!+. Clearly, he won't be able to replicate that production each game. Especially against larger teams. I absolutely love watching guys who play that relentless style of ball. I enjoyed every single part of that 24 pt 13 rb game from him. I said in the offseason he'd be a fan favorite. That effort is why.
And there's more to his game than we saw. He can legitimately play on the perimeter.

Jaylen Carey
Hoss. With his weight, athleticism, length, touch and skill around the basket - completely comfortable with him at the 5. This dude's going to put up some numbers for us. His defense needs work, but it's not bad. I have a feeling a lot of our fans watched the game and realized he was much better than they realized.

JQ Roberts
The athleticism and potential are still there. But right now it still feels more like potential than something that will actually turn into production. He had some nice moments in cleanup duty. But it just kind of seems like some of the natural basketball hand-eye coordination isn't quite there. The balance, footwork, weight shifting, body movement once you've left the ground, etc... it's all got a way to go. I think the goal this year with him might be getting him to a point where you feel comfortable putting him in the rotation. That might feel like a low bar, but right now he isn't on the level of the guys in the rotation ahead of him.

Jordan Williams
Yep, he's still on the team. He made a nice hustle play. But with Hoggard coming back, we probably don't need to see him again. We have plenty of depth with the scholarship guys.

Offense
Organized Chaos. It's just a touch stressful to watch. Probably much more stressful to defend. Guys actually move and pass the ball. It doesn't always accomplish something, but it makes the defense move. I will take that all day over what we've seen since Stallings. Passing the ball around the perimeter is the worst offense to watch and the easiest offense to defend. The defense gets to relax. And it forces terrible end of shot clock shots. Were all of our shots good? Nope. But it got Nickel some good looks. It got Edwards some layups because guys were in rotation. It got Glock some open layups and dunks. It got Carey a mismatch or two inside.

As hectic as we felt, we didn't feel out of control. Edwards, Huffman, Collins, Tanner, and second half Manon all felt completely in control of what they were doing. No panic. Hoggard only going to make that better.

We're not going to be a great % shooting team. But taking a high number of 3s is important in this offense. You've got to keep those driving lanes open. And we move so much it's going to invalidate scouting reports to a degree. When everyone is moving and passing quickly, it's wildly difficult for a defender to say "oh, I can back off of Huffman". You're just in scramble mode.

Defense
This is where we're going to lose games this year. As often as we'll go on runs on offense, we're going to have some had defensive spurts. One issue is we're not where we need to be with everyone knowing where they're supposed to me. The man concepts of when to switch, when to go over, when to go under, etc. are going to take time. And when you shoot a lot of 3s you have a lot of long rebounds that lead to breaks. There were a lot of times where guys didn't seem sure of when to go after the long rebounds vs when to go back on defense.

The good news is that a lot of this is playing together. We should get better. If it was all freshman, we'd be in trouble. These guys have been around, and they'll figure it out.

This may be the best Vanderbilt football team in my lifetime

I don't want to jinx it with 3 games left, but when you look at the record, the teams they beat, and the margin of their losses, I really can't think of a season that has been better since I started following the team when Bobby Johnson started coaching. If ever.

Huge credit to Clark Lea for making the necessary changes to turn the program around. Huge credit to the AD because Clark Lea tells me so. I was a doubter, but the results have converted me.

Player Grades - Game 1

I know a lot of us are unloading game thoughts, so sorry if this is overkill but I'm excited...

Devin McGlockton: A+ - 10/10 from the field, 4/5 from the stripe, 24 points and 13 rebounds. I doubt he matches that performance again this year, but it shows that he comes ready to play and contribute. Glock is our glue guy because he can score around the bucket, gets tough rebounds and fights for everything on both ends.

Jaylen Carey: B - the only reason his grade isn't higher is 3/9 from the free throw line. I was most impressed with Carey's ability to go get a rebound out of his area and if that truly is one of his qualities, we have a special player. His footwork for a man his size is elite. His shooting needs work.

Jason Edwards: C- - To be clear, this is his one game grade, not what I think of him. To score 19 and dish out 5 dimes and for a fan to say that was a C- performance for him sounds crazy, but I think he was a little off. For those that didn't watch him play, wow, this dude is fast. I was telling my son that I believe he could score as many points as he wanted to every night because he appears to be unguardable. So fast, so quick, very snakey into the lane and just has a bunch of different ways to get to his spots. His jumper isn't great technically speaking, but he works hard at it and I think he's going to be a fan favorite. I can see nights where he scores in the 30's.

Grant Huffman: B- - I don't think we're going to need a lot in terms of points from Grant and I don't think he cares. He was 0-1 from the field scoring 1 point, but I liked what he brought on both ends of the floor. Huffman also grabbed 3 boards, had 2 assists, a steal, and a block. On offense, he moves the ball well and helps get the ball to open spots for his teammates. GH is a guy we can depend on.

Tyler Nickel: B - Nickel is a big key to this team and how he performs is going to say a lot about how good of a season we have. At his size (6'7), he is going to get a lot of open looks from 3. He only had 1 rebound last night but that's mainly because Glock and Carey took them all, but his ability to defend and defensive rebound are going to be big keys to watch for this team. Because we really only have 3 Bigs, Nickel and will have to box out and board to make sure teams don't crush us on the offensive glass.

MJ Collins: C- - MJ is another wildcard for this team. I thought he defended well and had a couple of nice passes but defenses are going to force the ball into his hands A LOT and he's going to get a lot of wide open looks so he needs to be working his tail off on his jumper. My preseason bias on this kid may be clouding my judgment here but I'm worried about his ability to produce on offense.

Tyler Tanner: B - Tanner is a little better than I thought. He is an extremely smooth athlete and probably the most skilled player on the team as a freshman (due to the way he trains) but the big surprise was his defense. He is a tenacious on ball defender AND a solid help defender and that bodes very well for his ability to help this team. He won't get into AJ Hoggard's minutes, but when he gets on the court, there is no significant drop off and what that means is that the opposition is going to have to guard our backcourt for 40 minutes of high paced action. Having a guy like Tanner means opposing guard will be exhausted by the end of our games. They may be playing 35 minutes while our backcourt studs will be 25-28 with little drop off.

Chris Manon: C - Manon was fine, but missed a few he probably makes. I do like this dude's game though. Because of the style we play, the scouting report for our entire team is close out and get a hand up (because we're going to chuck 30-35 3's per game) and a guy like Manon just feeds off of that close out energy. He will pump fake and get to the rim in 3 steps and that is a really nice compliment to the rest of the guys and why I think he's a nice fit on this team. I believe he can defend and rebound as well so Manon is a nice piece.

JQ Roberts: B+ - The first thing I noticed was that Roberts appears to have worked on his body with the trainers to be able to play the 4 and 5 exclusively. I could be making that up, but that's what it looked like. If Wright doesn't come back, JQ is going to be a big part of how we're able to compete with bigger teams. There is no way to survive a 30 game schedule with only 2 bigs and not have foul trouble become an issue and that's where JQ comes in. His ability to box out, grab defensive boards and be physical enough to hold his ground on that end could be one of the biggest story lines this season. I don't love typing that, but it seems inevitable to some extent....

DNP: AJ Hoggard, Alex Hemenway, Karis Bilal, Kijani Wright

We didn't learn a ton from MES but we found out that we have some very nice college basketball players on this team.
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