UK

[admin]

It'll be interesting to see how the team responds to the Kentucky challenge. A lot of folks have written vandy off for the NCAA but I think if we just keep winning good things will come. This has been a fun season.

[Go Vandy!]

That latter part has! The earlier part left a little to be desired.

[charlestonalum]

What we have seen is continued improvement and as exhibit A there is the steady improvement in SEC record. The SEC is late season and we are doing better and as long as Stack is coach I expect continued improvement all done the right way and without drama of other places like Bama. Looking forward to a better performance vs UK Wednesday.
And then there is memorial magic complete with student and fan excitement of late that some posters this season had predicted impossible - labelling it the equvilaent of memorial mausoleum (I should copyright that.) Long live memorial magic!

[Obvious]

It'll be interesting to see how the team responds to the Kentucky challenge. A lot of folks have written vandy off for the NCAA but I think if we just keep winning good things will come. This has been a fun season.

Two huge games to close the season. Winning at rupp against a good Kentucky team and then knocking miss state off the bubble could put give us a slight chance of getting in. I keep hearing the SEC will get 8 teams in the tournament and wonder if we could steal miss states spot.

[UltimateVUFan]

If SEC actually gets that many in the NCAAT, you would think conference finish matters. Not to mention VU had one of the tougher conference slates, facing three of the top 4 (Bama, UT, and UK) twice.

[historybill]

The whole March Madness projection thing is based on the idea that the best teams will continue to be the best and the teams toward the bottom of the field of 64 will continue to play as predicted, and the teams that are out (69 through 80) will not pull major upsets and go on winning streaks at the last minute.

Obviously.. IF Vanderbilt pulls an upset AT Kentucky, that changes everything.

[BWSeven]

VU ended long losing streaks to TN and FL this season. We have not won at Rupp in years. That streak will end Wednesday as well.

[bernstml19]

I am actually not sure it changes much. The analytics say a thing and we have a big enough sample size of inconsistency that even a win at Rupp probably won’t pull us up ahead that much. Kenpom, NET, etc all are going to have us in the 60s+ even if we win out and get to the SEC tourney finals.

[doubledore9603]

If Alabama is actually required to do what’s right here and vacate their wins from the last 6 weeks, our NET will jump 15-20 spots.

[docdore]

If Alabama is actually required to do what’s right here and vacate their wins from the last 6 weeks, our NET will jump 15-20 spots.

who would enforce that? bama self-enforce? sec? ncaa? u.s. supreme court? FAT CHANCE!

[docdore]

"experts" now say the cats are a lock to dance, after calling them left for dead a few games ago....and those "experts" are ignoring us (again). we can hope they might take their foot off the gas as they look toward arky and the tourneys. for dore fans, hope springs eternal, no?

[mathguy]

UK (sadly) is looking considerably more formidable now than they were before they came to Memorial. That doesn't bode well for us. Still, you never know. Robbins vs Tschiebwe should be a treat. And if one things can be said for this team, they are scrappy and fight hard (well, except for @Bama).

Here's hoping!

[commadore]

The loss at LSU was a back breaker. I think we have to win out and make it to the finals to have a chance for the tourney.

[charlestonalum]

We are playing better and more people are helping - hope for the upset in next 2 games.

[Obvious]

We are playing better and more people are helping - hope for the upset in next 2 games.

If we win out we might have an opportunity for a Thursday bye as well. That puts us just two games away from a sec final matchup. It’s not that far-fetched. We still have a little bit of hope left.

[Jason94]

The loss at LSU was a back breaker. I think we have to win out and make it to the finals to have a chance for the tourney.

Yes and no - the LSU loss was bad mainly because we were left with very little margin for error. But overall, it is no worse a loss than Southern Miss and it was a less bad loss than Grambling St., because it was on the road and the latter two were at home, and the tier rankings account for this. Beating a the 75th best team on the road is considered the same as beating a 30th best team at home. And while Southern Miss has had a good season, their ranking places them several spots outside of it being a quad 2 loss and is considered a quad 3 loss. The problem is that LSU cannot be considered an isolated case of us losing to a bad team having a good night. We have three such instances, which is not common for teams in the tournament.

The NET explainer noted that quad 1 wins were good and quad 3 and 4 losses were bad. Currently we have the same number of Quad 1 wins as we do quad 3 and 4 losses. When you compare this to a bunch of teams who have NET ratings in the 50's (which is generally considered to be on the outside of the bubble, there are teams like Penn State, Arizona State, Michigan and Oregon who have as many or more Quad 1 wins and fewer Quad 3 and 4 losses. It is difficult to see us ahead of those teams without winning out and picking up at least two more Quad 1 wins, and even then it will be difficult.

Our NCAA resume is actually not significantly better than it was last season, because last season we did have two Quad 3 losses, but zero Quad 4 losses and the same number of Quad 1 wins. So yes the LSU loss was really bad from a resume standpoint, but it wasn't great to begin with. I've noted this before, but our pre-conference season was devastatingly bad from a tournament resume standpoint. It is what is keeping us off of the bubble right now. And our 9-7 conference record is nice but not quite enough to make up for what happened in Nov/Dec.

[commadore]

The loss at LSU was a back breaker. I think we have to win out and make it to the finals to have a chance for the tourney.

Yes and no - the LSU loss was bad mainly because we were left with very little margin for error. But overall, it is no worse a loss than Southern Miss and it was a less bad loss than Grambling St., because it was on the road and the latter two were at home, and the tier rankings account for this. Beating a the 75th best team on the road is considered the same as beating a 30th best team at home. And while Southern Miss has had a good season, their ranking places them several spots outside of it being a quad 2 loss and is considered a quad 3 loss. The problem is that LSU cannot be considered an isolated case of us losing to a bad team having a good night. We have three such instances, which is not common for teams in the tournament.

The NET explainer noted that quad 1 wins were good and quad 3 and 4 losses were bad. Currently we have the same number of Quad 1 wins as we do quad 3 and 4 losses. When you compare this to a bunch of teams who have NET ratings in the 50's (which is generally considered to be on the outside of the bubble, there are teams like Penn State, Arizona State, Michigan and Oregon who have as many or more Quad 1 wins and fewer Quad 3 and 4 losses. It is difficult to see us ahead of those teams without winning out and picking up at least two more Quad 1 wins, and even then it will be difficult.

Our NCAA resume is actually not significantly better than it was last season, because last season we did have two Quad 3 losses, but zero Quad 4 losses and the same number of Quad 1 wins. So yes the LSU loss was really bad from a resume standpoint, but it wasn't great to begin with. I've noted this before, but our pre-conference season was devastatingly bad from a tournament resume standpoint. It is what is keeping us off of the bubble right now. And our 9-7 conference record is nice but not quite enough to make up for what happened in Nov/Dec.

I simply meant we had 4 games left. Two were considered hard to win: KY on the road and Mississippi St at home. The two win able games were a weakened Florida and a LSU team who'd lost 13 in a row. We lost that one, making it hard for us to even go 2 & 2. Now we have to beat two supposed tourney teams.

[OldDude]

Geez, Jason. I had enough trouble with calculus !

[utahozzie]

Vanderbilt is one of the 68 best teams in the country.

[Jason94]

Vanderbilt is one of the 68 best teams in the country.

That is a statement I disagree with. Unfortunately we did not play like that for two months of the season, and it is really hurting our case. This is similar to last season, where we were one of the best 68 teams by the end but having to play so many games without Chatman and Robbins cost us.

This is why I am wanting to see CJS make adjustments - he is really close to making the tournament and just by doing things that have not so much to do with coaching could get him over the top.