Our great, talented, athletic freshman Chandler Bing is figuring out college basketball in a hurry. (Photo courtesy of theScore.com)
Our two Tylers, Nickel and Tanner, lit up the Kentucky Wildcats Tuesday Night and power forward Devin McGlockton added a double-double as our 17th ranked Vanderbilt Commodores Men’s Basketball team blasted the Wildcats, 80-55, before a surprisingly solid and electric 10,135 fans @ Memorial Coliseum despite the difficult, cold and icy conditions Nashville has been besieged with the past couple of days.
Nickel and Tanner both finished with 19, Tanner added 5 assists and 4 steals, and Nickel was 7-of-14 from the field, and 2-of-6 from trifecta. But both triples were beautiful shots. On one of Nickel’s, he was moving to his left from 22 feet. He sank another from the corner. When T Nick gets hot, it sure helps the cause.
Tanner was 6-of-8 from the stripe, while Nickel was 3-of-3. We finished 20-of-25 from the line, 80%. That’ll help win games.
McGlockton finished with 11 points and 12 rebounds. Devin connected on 3, triples in the first half that were tremendously important shots and also perfect looking shots. Dev was a stud once again. When our big three get it going, we’re tough to beat.
We out-rebounded them, 43-37, which is always a big deal.
Our defense was also terrific. We held them to 32% from the field, and 25% from three. They were 11 of 19 from the line, 58%. We just put so much pressure on them on the ball. We got 15 turnovers, and gave it up only 9 times. We were swarming on the defensive end. Nickel posted two steals and freshman Chandler Bing added two more steals.
On our superb, young, just turned 18 year old freshman-can’t find his exact birth date on the website, but Mark said after the game Chandler just turned 18, he was phenomenal. Bing went for 11, sinking a pair of triples and throwing down a monster slam. Tyler T had another massive slam as well. We’ve got some athletes on this team.
With Duke Miles and Frankie Collins out for a little while longer, but not too much longer, we’ll have to rely on our depth. Love how Chandler, our young freshman from Pace Academy in Atlanta, is developing. He is a superb athlete. Chandler averaged 27 points his senior season at Pace. He’s a very good rebounder and excellent defender also.
The defense was so good last night. I can’t state that enough.
AK Okereke, our graduate transfer from Cornell, gave us another solid night with 9 points and 4 boards. Mike James looks like he’s starting to emerge a little more. The 4 star transfer from Louisville sank a three, was 2-of-2 from the stripe, and made several hustle plays.
Jalen Washington, our 4 star transfer center from UNC, 6’10”, 245, didn’t score, but pulled down 9 boards. Jalen is a good offensive player also, so we’ll need him to be a good on the offensive end going forward. He gave us good minutes though. He always does.
And I loved what I saw from freshman center Jayden Leverett. Our 6’11”, 257, first year player was 3-of-3 from the field, finishing with 6 points pulling down 3 boards, and doing some really athletic things in the post. We’re going to really like our freshman from Chapin High School in El Paso, Texas going forward.
So much to be excited about with this team. We hit a slight valley a couple of weeks ago and into last week, losing three in a row, but have worked our way out of it.
Mark said in the postgame that Duke will have surgery on his injured knee today, but could be back as early as the Oklahoma game, a week from Saturday, February 7th, at home at 2:30 P.M. on the SEC Network.
Frankie is getting closer to returning. From the intel I’ve been getting, Frankie may be a week or two away now. He tore his meniscus in December. Once we get those two guys back to help Tyler T in the backcourt, we’ll be extremely dangerous.
We already are. We’re playing through the injuries superbly well so far. And they’ll be back soon.
We moved to 18-3 overall and 5-3 in the SEC, while Kentucky dropped to 14-7 and 5-3.
Mark said after the game he hoped this brought some pleasure to the people of Nashville. Mark’s house lost power on Sunday, so he’s been sleeping at his office. What a Coach. People in Nashville and Atlanta and other places in the Southeast and throughout the country are in our thoughts and prayers. Know it’s been a difficult time. Hoping you guys can get back to normalcy as soon as possible.
Next up is @ Ole Miss Saturday at 7:30 CT/8:30 ET on the SEC Network. Will keep you informed.
Thanks a lot, have a super day and how ‘Bout them Commodores.