Bulldogs 75, SDSU 65 AND Vanderbilt (3-1, 0-0) vs. Drake (2-1, 0-0) Preview

Been AWOL recently with the holiday week. Have had a few long days at work, some holidays with the family, and an illness that has been rocking my world. I've been fighting whatever this is for about a week now, and it has been nothing short of an epic showdown between my immune system and the mystery illness. Momentum has shifted back and forth on some clutch baskets, I think we've had about 15 lead changes, and we are just getting set for triple overtime.

Quick recap on Drake 75, South Dakota State 65:

It was an absolute treat to see Josh Parker play more. 19 minutes allowed him to provide a spark off the bench and show exactly why he should be in the starting lineup. He continued his ridiculously productive streak with 12 points, and defensively, he really helped create a spark. While he was only credited with 1 steal in the final boxscore -- he was sure on the ball and helped create several more.

Even more exciting was a heavy dose of the lineup of Stanley-Young-Parker (with two bigs). At any point in time with that combo, you have three guys that can act as a point guard and can break their man off of the dribble and dish. Plus you have two legit three point shooters. It's an incredibly tough lineup to defend and sure was a heck of an exciting one to watch in the second half of the SDSU game.

While the final score might not be too encouraging, let me show you why I wasn't too worried about it:

This game flow (courtesy of ESPN.com) shows that Drake was absolutely in the driver seat the entire game. You can tell they jumped on top of SDSU and really kept that gap the entire game. While we surely didn't end up winning by 20 or so, I'd rather see Drake in a game where they control it the whole time and just can't land one of their knockout blows than see them in a game where they struggle but then pull away by 15-20 in the last five minutes.

Even more encouraging was the fact that we had five guys score in double digits. Despite a tough shooting day (3-11) Josh Young still somehow managed to drop 14 points. Bucky Cox had a solid 15 points and 9 rebounds, and we saw double digit scoring from Parker (12), Heemskerk (12), and Templeton (13). Overall, Josh Young is going to get his points -- but I'd much rather see him average 17.5 points a game and see two or three other guys average 10+ PPG than see Josh average 22.5 a game and see everyone else average 5. We are so much more incredibly difficult to defend when we have multiple options and move the ball so well. It was great to see that on Sunday.

Overall, I have to say that I'm impressed with Coach Phelps as well. Bucky Cox mentioned in his postgame interview with Larry Cotler that Phelps made some adjustments on offense, moving to more of a motion offense. This is considerably different than the post-oriented offense we were trying to implement early in the season that just wasn't working. Many were on Phelps (myself included) for the lack of offense in the Butler game. It's encouraging to see that he sees something not working and takes steps to improve it. That's the sign of a good coach, and while Phelps is only two games into his head coaching career, it is definitely a great early sign. Lots of young (and old) coaches have their ego and "my way or the highway" mentality with things, particularly with x's and o's. I am very impressed with Phelps' ability to check his ego and do what is best for the team and maximizes the talent at hand. Keep it up coach.

A few concerns of this game were the fact that the Jackrabbits really only had three or four D1 caliber players, and two of them (Sargent, Callahan) really opened it up and kept SDSU in the game in the second half. Combined between the two, they shot 8-15 from 3PT range and scored a total of 35 points. We left them way too open on defense, and against better teams, that is going to be a significant issue.

Another issue was that we allowed Anthony Cordova, one of their big men, to get 5 offensive boards. Overall, this was a very small team that we had a definitive size advantage on -- as evidenced by Heemskerk's 12 and 10 (some posessions on offense were not even fair... they let him catch the ball virtually under the basket). We're not going to be playing a lineup of 6-2 and 6-5 guys when we get to Valley play, so you can certainly see cause for concern if we allow smaller teams to keep in the rebouding battle overall (we only outrebounded them 32-25) and certain players to get significant amounts of offensive boards.

While we are talking about Cordova, I have to say that, in this game, he had maybe the worst trip to the line I've ever seen in Division 1 basketball. In addition to horrendously airballing the first one, he followed that up with a shot attempt that even Shaquille O'Neal would have called awkward. Basically, it was some sort of line drive that nearly missed the rim completely, but just managed to clip enough of it and the backboard to somehow rocket off towards the corner of the court for an easy Drake rebound. I really hate to be so critical of the guy's shooting since I know he's trying out there... but all I can say is that when this occurred, somewhere in the midwest, Blake Ahearn simultaneously felt a piece of himself die.

Anyway, back to business and Vanderbilt. I was able to dig up the following breakdown from Chris Low of ESPN.com (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/notebook?page=notebook/shootaround/sec):

Kevin Stallings has been so consistent at Vanderbilt that it's easy to take the
Commodores' success for granted. They've been to two Sweet 16s in the past five
years and won 26 games last season. Most of all, Stallings has taken the
recruiting to another level, which is why it's not a stretch to think that
Vanderbilt will be just fine next season despite losing SEC Player of the Year
Shan Foster. Joining 6-11 sophomore A.J. Ogilvy in the middle will be 6-11
redshirt freshman Festus Ezeli, who has a 7-5 wingspan and possesses the
capability to change the way teams try to attack the Commodores inside. That's
important because Vanderbilt could never sustain the kind of defensive
consistency that Stallings was looking for last season. Junior Jermaine Beal
returns at point guard and will need to take his game to another level. One of
Stallings' key recruiting pickups was 6-3 guard Brad Tinsley, who got out of
his letter-of-intent with Pepperdine and picked Vanderbilt over Oregon and Wake
Forest. This might not be Stallings' deepest team, but it shapes up as
potentially one of his most talented.

So far, 6-7 G/F Jeffery Taylor, another freshmen, is leading the Commodores in scoring at 14 a game, and is also chipping in 7 boards a game. Ogilvy, their sophomore stud, has been at 13.5/7.0 through the first four games. Ezeli, the huge beast that Low discussed, has seen lots of clock and has already had four blocks off the bench. Beal has been excellent so far… looking through the numbers he has been at 10 PPG, 4 RPG, and has had 15 assists to 9 turnovers in just their first four games. In addition, let’s not forget about freshmen Brad Tinsley who averages 11.0 PPG and has been in double figures in all four games, shooting 45.5% from the three.

I think you get my drift. Thinking about this team, they are young (I think their average age is about 13.5), enormous (two listed at 6-11 that actually play and at least four that play at 6-7), talented (see the statistics above), and deep (five players AVERAGE in double figures).

One potential weakness I see, however, is that it appears that Tinsley is their only reliable three point shooter. They have only had two other players take 10+ attempts (Beal and George “I Love the” Drake), and they are only a combined 8-25 (32%) on them. If this sounds like not enough of a sample size, I looked at their career statistics (since, outside of Ogilvy, it seems like Beal and Drake are the only two non-freshmen on this team) and they are definitely career 30%ish shooters. Not too much concern from me.

Vandy's only loss on the year came against Illinois. While we are definitely not Illinois, a few things stick out from the analysis above and from that game in particular that I think help drive keys to tonights game:

• Tempo/Three Point Shooting. Given the disparity between size between us and the Commodores, I think this is an area that we might be able to leverage. We’ve seen Drake struggle defensively with some outside shooting (I’m thinking of the Butler game and the second half of Sunday’s SDSU game). But, given that this is Drake’s mantra and Vandy looks to struggle from behind the arc – I’d sure love to see Drake push the tempo and get into a three point shooting contest. Stallings is a good coach, so he’s probably going to keep that from happening. Nonetheless, if we can pack the paint on defense, limit the inside opportunities, and force them to shoot the three all day, I have to say I like our chances. Illinois forced Vandy to take 15 three point attempts. I’d like to see at least that many, maybe more closer to 20.
• Rebounding. Vandy has outrebounded their opponents 149-113 through four games. This definitely plays into their size strength, and I think is a key to our matchup. We’re not going to grossly outrebound them – just not going to happen. But, if we can keep pace with them, I think that gives us a distinct advantage. Despite the statistic I quoted above, Vandy was outrebounded by Illinois 37-30. I don’t know if we have the personnel to do that, but if we end up in the 32-32 or 33-29ish range, that might help us out considerably in the flow of the game.

If we can do those two things well tonight, and keep the offense going, I’ll have to tell you, I absolutely love our chances. What do you say dawgs!?!?!?!? Let’s go get ‘em!!!!!