Vanderbilt Basketball versus Yale tonight in the first round of the NIT

The disappointment of not getting into the NCAA Tournament resonated throughout the Vanderbilt nation. It was highly disappointing that a 20-14 team, 11-7 in the SEC, that won 9 of its last 11 defeating NCAA Tournament teams Tennessee, Kentucky, twice, Auburn, Mississippi State and along the way and defeating tourney teams Arkansas and Pittsburgh earlier this season, was not selected in the field of 68.

Pittsburgh and Mississippi State are playing in a NCAA play in game tonight at 8:10 CT on TruTV and we beat them both? How does that work when our resumes are similar and we defeated both teams head to head?

Tough to take.

But despite the incompetence of the NCAA Tournament Selection committee, we’ve still got to move on. We face Yale tonight in the NIT @Memorial at 8 CT on ESPNU.

Yale has 5 players who average double figures. They lost to Princeton in the Ivy League Championship game after defeating them twice during the regular season. That doesn’t seem to be fair to Yale either.

The Bulldogs are 21-8 overall and were 10-4 in their conference. This is a major IQ game in the country this week. Wow.

Yale is led by 6’8”, 220 pound senior power forward EJ Jarvis, who averages 13 points per game and pulls down 6 1/2 rebounds per game. Junior small forward, 6’6” 205 pound Matt Knowling, averages 12.9 and 5.4 rebounds. Six-four sophomore guard Bez Mbeng averages 12.8 ppg and accumulated 49 assists on the season. Sophomore guard John Poulakidas averages 12.6. And junior 6’4” guard August Mahoney averages 11.8. The Bulldogs shoot 48% from the field, 37% from trifecta, and 68% from the line. They average 36 rebounds per game to their opponents’ 32. Their power 6 losses were to Colorado of the PAC-12, 65-62, Butler of the Big East, 71-61, and Kentucky of the SEC, 69-59. They had a nice season, and their coach, James Jones,is in his 23rd season at Yale, and always has excellent teams. We have played Yale a few times in the past and we’ve won those games. But the games were hard fought and came down to the end. They are a tough out.

Liam Robbins led us in scoring at 15 points per game and also led in rebounds at 6.8. But the great Liam, the SEC Defensive Player of the Year, and a top five player in the conference this season, was lost in our second meeting with Kentucky at Rupp four minutes into the game. Liam suffered a broken bone in his lower leg. Hoping for Liam’s swift recovery as he will most likely move on in his career and try to make it in the NBA. But we won that Kentucky game, we won the next Mississippi State game and defeated LSU and Kentucky, again, in the SEC Tournament, to advance to the semifinals, where we fell 87-75 to Texas A&M. We looked tired in the A&M game. Two nights in a row of hard fought basketball, particularly against Kentucky, in a phenomenal victory, took its toll. But what a season Stack and the team put together.

Junior Tryin Lawrence was awesome from the moment he sank that game winning shot at the buzzer versus Tennessee at Memorial on Wednesday, February 8th off a beautiful assist by Ezra Manjon in our 66-65 victory. The Memorial Magic was back with that “One Shot.” Tyrin averages 12.5 ppg and 4.1 rebounds. What an athlete and player for us. The same can be said about senior Jordan Wright, who averages 10.8 ppg and 5.1 rebounds. J Wright was tremendous down the stretch for us. And our great senior point guard, Ezra Manjon, averaged 9.9 points, but had so many key buckets late in the season. And his 133 assists against 49 turnovers was almost a 3:1 ratio. Ezra averaged 3.9 assists per game. Those guys were and are our Big Three.

We averaged 72.5 ppg as a team and gave up 72.1/ We shot 43% from the field and our opponents shot 43.4%. We were 34% from triple. Our opponents were 31%. And we were 71% from the line, while out opponents were 70%. We averaged 36.2 rebounds, while our opponents averaged 36.6. We averaged 10,8 turnovers per game to our opponents’ 10.1

We’ll need to play well tonight to defeat a stellar Yale team. We need to be on from distance and in the paint, we need to rebound, sink our free throws and get after it on the defensive end.

Would love to see us emerge victorious tonight and make a deep run in this NIT all the way to the Final Four at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, Tuesday, March 28th, and cut down the nets there on Thursday, March 30th. That would be spectacular.

Maybe Jordan Wright will be so fired up about this that he will come back for another year. Not sure if Ezra can also, but would love to have him back, too, if that’s the case.

Let’s get it done tonight at home and charge into the second round.