No.5 seed Vanderbilt Men’s Basketball in OKC Thursday for first round of NCAA’s; Women’s bball in first Round Saturday
After a phenomenal effort in the SEC Tournament, where we came up a little short to Arkansas in the SEC Championship Game at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, our No.5 seeded Vanderbilt Commodores Men’s Basketball team alights in Oklahoma City tomorrow, Thursday, at the Paycom Center to face the McNeese Cowboys at 2:15 P.M. CT/3:15 ET on truTV in the South Region. We are favored by 11 1/2 points.
Tyler Tanner, Tyler Nickel, Devin “Glock” McGlockton, Jalen Washington, AK Okereke, the prolific Duke Miles, they all are for that matter, and superb freshman Chandler Bing will try to lead our team and University to another victory this season and a critical one as we HAVE to win going forward. In one of my ESPN brackets (for free by the way), I have us defeating Arkansas in the National Championship Game, 90-88. I’m going to stick with that bracket here on this forum. We’re going to keep it positive because there is so much to be positive about with this team.
Tyler Tanner has racked up the honors both in the SEC and Nationally, and Coach Mark “By” Byington has too.
But it’s about all these guys. Jalen Washington was tremendous in the SEC Tourney. Duke was a dominant player. T Nick was superb from trifecta on Sunday versus Arkansas and gave us through the roof effort throughout the tourney. AK was awesome. Dev may not have had his best games, but we HAVE to have him step up. Chandler was terrific. And T Tanner always is spectacular.
We are averaging 86.4 points per game and McNeese is at 80. We are holding opponents to 75.2 per game, while McNeese is at 66.45, so they get after it on defense. We rebound at 35 per game, and they’re at 35 as well. We have 277 steals on the season, and they have 348.
They are fast paced and athletic, so we’ll have to match them with our athletic ability and intensity. T Tanner leads us in scoring at 19.1 points per game. Duke is at 16.5, and T Nick is at 13.5.
They are led in scoring by 6’4″ guard Larry Johnson, who averages 17 per game. Six foot one guard Tyshawn Archie averages 14.3, and 6’3″ guard Javohn Garcia adds 12 per game.
Glock leads us in rebounding at 6.7 per, and J Wash is next at 5.7. Their leading rebounder is Johnson at 5.5 per game.
The Cowboys are going to try and run and gun, and we can do that some, but we may want to keep it more deliberate and dominate them on the glass. Would love to see Glock and J Wash have big days on the boards and in blocking shots. T Tanner and Duke will have to contain those lightning quick guards McNeese has, though Tanner and Miles are quick as hiccups as well.
I like our chances, as always. This team is special. If we can defend well, like we have been recently, and dominate down low, get boards and keep them off balance on offense, we will advance.
That’s what I’m predicting. It’ll be tough, but I like our guys to get the job done in OKC Thursday.
Vanderbilt 88, McNeese 84
Our No.2 seeded Women’s Basketball team faces No. 15 seeded High Point Saturday at 6 P.M.CT/7 ET on ESPN News. We are in the Fort Worth Bracket.
We will be playing in Memorial in Nashville. Will have more on our superstar Mikayla Blakes and her teammates as that game approaches.