Figured after tonight that it's as good as time as any to post some thoughts about the basketball team/program. It's unfortunate where we are at right now. I would not have ever thought we'd be in the position we're in right now. Before the season began, I was more excited for this year of basketball than I could ever remember. I haven't been around as long as a lot of people on this board, but I've been attending games since the first year CKS was coach and I watched some of the latter VBK years before that as a young teen. I knew we had a thin roster and needed to stay healthy and that a couple guys couldn't get injured. If that happened, I thought we were in for a real treat this season. Turned out the best player we had was the one to get injured. Now I know this has been said a bunch already, but I know that hurt this team and I still think this was a NCAA tourney team with him despite some underwhelming play by others on the team. Now with where we are at, I would still expect better than what we are getting without Garland. Unfortunately, we don't have as much talent as I thought we had going into the season.
As for the players, I'd say our most talented are Shittu, Lee, and Nesmith. The problem with that though is 2 of those 3 are terrible shooters. Those same two players are most responsible for our free throw woes. It's unfortunate because they are the two best drivers we have on the team, and typically your best drivers are the ones most likely to get fouled. I know I'm pointing out the obvious here, but I still feel like it needs to be said because the free throw woes are really on them. I know it's a team effort, but we wouldn't be having this conversation if Shittu and Lee were 80% free throw shooters. As for the other of the three (Nesmith), he finally broke out of his shooting slump with a big game tonight (which was great to see). Hopefully we see more of that going forward, because most of the year he's been an average shooter at best. I like Nesmith's game, and I think he can be a big time player for us before his career is done. He's got a ways to go and needs to become a more consistent scoring threat. Hopefully that comes with experience. I do wish he'd stop taking so many hard hits/falls. The poor guy seems to take a rough blow to the body either from the court floor or another player just about every game. The effort is certainly there with him.
Back a bit to Shittu and Lee. First starting with Shittu….I don't think Shittu deserves as much criticism as he's been getting. He's obviously a very talented big man, and I can see why he was a 5 star. I know Chris Lee had a good article showing his numbers compared to other 5 stars this season, and his numbers were fine. He does have some deficiencies particularly on fundamental defense, but I think he's gotten better with that. He's the best passer on the team and can certainly make some "wow" plays at times. I didn't expect him to be a terrible shooter from the perimeter though. I would like for him to get off more shots in a game. Lately, he seems to be a bit more passive with taking shots. Earlier in the season, I felt he was looking to shoot every time he got the ball. I'm guessing there's some growing pains there where he turned the ball over too much and Coach Drew had to reel him in some. I think right now he's trying to be more efficient on the offensive side of the ball and turn it over less. That's a great thing to be doing, but at the same time I think he needs to be looking to score 20 a night. He's really effective around the basket, and I think they need to run a few more plays with him down on the block. I know he's more of a slasher and plays like a guard, but he's still a good option on the block from time to time, so I wish he'd get a few more looks in the post each game. That could hopefully boost his scoring output some and hopefully help with the team's scoring woes.
As for Saben Lee, he's disappointing me in his sophomore season. Near the end of his freshmen season, he seemed to be developing more of an outside shot and even made some mid range jumpers. The talk in the offseason was he was the most improved player on the team and had improved his shot. So far into this season, that seems like a load of crap. I like Lee a lot, but I feel like he's regressing with his shot. I love that he can get to the basket as well as he does. However, he's not really creating much for others when he penetrates. He's usually just taking it all the way to the basket. If we're lucky, he finishes with a basket. A lot of the time, he gets fouled (and we know how that's been going lately). I know Saben doesn't seem to be a traditional point guard. He can certainly work on his vision. I felt like he penetrated and dished to open shooters more last year. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but it certainly feels like he was better in some areas last year as a freshman than he is this year. Part of that may be attributed to Garland running the show this year and he was reserved to another role. However, he wasn't the point guard last year either, as LaChance ran the point most of the time. I don't mean to be bashing Lee as much as I am, but I do think he's had an underwhelming season and I expected more from him. Maybe I'm overly harsh with him since I just saw him make a couple very poor decisions late in the game tonight. I definitely think there's room for improvement with both Lee and Shittu this season, so hopefully we get to see that and get some wins to help make this season a little more bearable.
As for the rest of the team, there are some decent parts but overall just not a lot there. When you put everything together, it's not a very good team unfortunately. Right now, we don't have that go-to scorer that can go get us a basket when we need it. We also don't have a big man that can dominate the paint. Also, we just don't have a good shooting team overall. Sometimes we may over analyze things to try to figure out what's wrong with a team, but that's the one GLARING problem this team has. They don't shoot the ball well overall, and that's the main reason why they're a weak team right now. Just like any sport, you need a good offense and defense. The defense can certainly be better, but it's been good enough to win lately. Right now, Vandy's offense is what's hurting them the most because of it's inability to make shots. They had a spurt out of the gate against Kentucky where they looked good because they were hitting their shots. Of course that was just against the norm and we saw after that brief spurt that Vandy went back to their usual selves and can't hit the broad side of a barn. Tonight we had a really good opportunity for a win and that had a lot to do with Nesmith having a good shooting night. It stinks we lost tonight because it's rare we get a scoring performance from a player on this team like Nesmith gave tonight. Shittu's our leading scorer right now at only 14 ppg. Not bad, but not great. Even Shittu hasn't scored 23 in an SEC game yet. For a team that's struggling with scoring, we could use a guy that was averaging closer to 20 ppg. To average 20 ppg though, you need to have a more diverse array of ways to score. Again, Lee and Shittu don't have an effective perimeter shot or midrange game. Plus, they both have hurt us when it comes to free throws to the point that it's cost us a couple SEC games. To be a good team, your best player is usually more reliable. Think about a lot of other good teams in college basketball. They usually have someone that they rely on to go out and score them a good bit of points every night. Sure, they may have a subpar game a few times over the year, but you tend to expect them to have a good scoring night. Think about past Vandy teams, for example. Frejie, Byars, and Foster are some guys that come to mind. We just don't have that guy. Come NCAA tournament time, the teams that go deep into the tournament usually have at least one big time scorer unless that team is so balanced that they don't need one guy to try to get them 20 every night. Obviously you prefer a team with about 3 or 4 of those guys that can take over a game but you're such a strong team that you just let the game flow and see which of those top guys have a big night. It's safe to say Vandy isn't in a position where they can say they have any guys right now with a track record of taking over a game. I think they have some guys with that potential in the future, but not right now.
As for the players, I'd say our most talented are Shittu, Lee, and Nesmith. The problem with that though is 2 of those 3 are terrible shooters. Those same two players are most responsible for our free throw woes. It's unfortunate because they are the two best drivers we have on the team, and typically your best drivers are the ones most likely to get fouled. I know I'm pointing out the obvious here, but I still feel like it needs to be said because the free throw woes are really on them. I know it's a team effort, but we wouldn't be having this conversation if Shittu and Lee were 80% free throw shooters. As for the other of the three (Nesmith), he finally broke out of his shooting slump with a big game tonight (which was great to see). Hopefully we see more of that going forward, because most of the year he's been an average shooter at best. I like Nesmith's game, and I think he can be a big time player for us before his career is done. He's got a ways to go and needs to become a more consistent scoring threat. Hopefully that comes with experience. I do wish he'd stop taking so many hard hits/falls. The poor guy seems to take a rough blow to the body either from the court floor or another player just about every game. The effort is certainly there with him.
Back a bit to Shittu and Lee. First starting with Shittu….I don't think Shittu deserves as much criticism as he's been getting. He's obviously a very talented big man, and I can see why he was a 5 star. I know Chris Lee had a good article showing his numbers compared to other 5 stars this season, and his numbers were fine. He does have some deficiencies particularly on fundamental defense, but I think he's gotten better with that. He's the best passer on the team and can certainly make some "wow" plays at times. I didn't expect him to be a terrible shooter from the perimeter though. I would like for him to get off more shots in a game. Lately, he seems to be a bit more passive with taking shots. Earlier in the season, I felt he was looking to shoot every time he got the ball. I'm guessing there's some growing pains there where he turned the ball over too much and Coach Drew had to reel him in some. I think right now he's trying to be more efficient on the offensive side of the ball and turn it over less. That's a great thing to be doing, but at the same time I think he needs to be looking to score 20 a night. He's really effective around the basket, and I think they need to run a few more plays with him down on the block. I know he's more of a slasher and plays like a guard, but he's still a good option on the block from time to time, so I wish he'd get a few more looks in the post each game. That could hopefully boost his scoring output some and hopefully help with the team's scoring woes.
As for Saben Lee, he's disappointing me in his sophomore season. Near the end of his freshmen season, he seemed to be developing more of an outside shot and even made some mid range jumpers. The talk in the offseason was he was the most improved player on the team and had improved his shot. So far into this season, that seems like a load of crap. I like Lee a lot, but I feel like he's regressing with his shot. I love that he can get to the basket as well as he does. However, he's not really creating much for others when he penetrates. He's usually just taking it all the way to the basket. If we're lucky, he finishes with a basket. A lot of the time, he gets fouled (and we know how that's been going lately). I know Saben doesn't seem to be a traditional point guard. He can certainly work on his vision. I felt like he penetrated and dished to open shooters more last year. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but it certainly feels like he was better in some areas last year as a freshman than he is this year. Part of that may be attributed to Garland running the show this year and he was reserved to another role. However, he wasn't the point guard last year either, as LaChance ran the point most of the time. I don't mean to be bashing Lee as much as I am, but I do think he's had an underwhelming season and I expected more from him. Maybe I'm overly harsh with him since I just saw him make a couple very poor decisions late in the game tonight. I definitely think there's room for improvement with both Lee and Shittu this season, so hopefully we get to see that and get some wins to help make this season a little more bearable.
As for the rest of the team, there are some decent parts but overall just not a lot there. When you put everything together, it's not a very good team unfortunately. Right now, we don't have that go-to scorer that can go get us a basket when we need it. We also don't have a big man that can dominate the paint. Also, we just don't have a good shooting team overall. Sometimes we may over analyze things to try to figure out what's wrong with a team, but that's the one GLARING problem this team has. They don't shoot the ball well overall, and that's the main reason why they're a weak team right now. Just like any sport, you need a good offense and defense. The defense can certainly be better, but it's been good enough to win lately. Right now, Vandy's offense is what's hurting them the most because of it's inability to make shots. They had a spurt out of the gate against Kentucky where they looked good because they were hitting their shots. Of course that was just against the norm and we saw after that brief spurt that Vandy went back to their usual selves and can't hit the broad side of a barn. Tonight we had a really good opportunity for a win and that had a lot to do with Nesmith having a good shooting night. It stinks we lost tonight because it's rare we get a scoring performance from a player on this team like Nesmith gave tonight. Shittu's our leading scorer right now at only 14 ppg. Not bad, but not great. Even Shittu hasn't scored 23 in an SEC game yet. For a team that's struggling with scoring, we could use a guy that was averaging closer to 20 ppg. To average 20 ppg though, you need to have a more diverse array of ways to score. Again, Lee and Shittu don't have an effective perimeter shot or midrange game. Plus, they both have hurt us when it comes to free throws to the point that it's cost us a couple SEC games. To be a good team, your best player is usually more reliable. Think about a lot of other good teams in college basketball. They usually have someone that they rely on to go out and score them a good bit of points every night. Sure, they may have a subpar game a few times over the year, but you tend to expect them to have a good scoring night. Think about past Vandy teams, for example. Frejie, Byars, and Foster are some guys that come to mind. We just don't have that guy. Come NCAA tournament time, the teams that go deep into the tournament usually have at least one big time scorer unless that team is so balanced that they don't need one guy to try to get them 20 every night. Obviously you prefer a team with about 3 or 4 of those guys that can take over a game but you're such a strong team that you just let the game flow and see which of those top guys have a big night. It's safe to say Vandy isn't in a position where they can say they have any guys right now with a track record of taking over a game. I think they have some guys with that potential in the future, but not right now.
