WHAT THEY BRING

Really, really wish Nesmith was playing

Well, this section was actually going to be kinda fun to preview. In Year Zero/One of Jerry Stackhouse, Vandy’s gone all-in on Shot Selection Philosophy, which is a fancy way of saying 84% of their shots have either been within four feet of the rim or from three. Here’s the thing: they were/are hitting a ton of said shots. Vandy ranks 24th in 3PT%, 56th in 2PT%, and has gotten to the line more than just about any school in the SEC. Even on the back of four consecutive losses and their reaffirmed status as the worst team in the SEC, they were at least going to be a pretty watchable bad team. The Washington Wizards of Nashville, if you will.

And then Aaron Nesmith went down with an injury. They’ve only had two games without him, but neither has exactly been a lovely event: Texas A&M, an awful team, waxed Vandy by 19, and Arkansas demolished the ‘Dores on Wednesday. There’s been very few reasons to intentionally watch Vandy play basketball this season, but Nesmith was the runaway #1, a massively talented sophomore scoring 23 a game, shooting 52.2% from three, and utterly dominating his competition on the offensive end.

In what could be his final college game (Nesmith is expected to be a 2020 first-round pick), it’s fitting that one of his lower-scoring outings of the year (18 points) still resulted in a 4-of-6 outing from deep.

The onus now falls on Saben Lee and Scottie Pippen’s son

You remember Lee from his excellent outing in Vandy’s near upset of then-#1 Tennessee at Memorial Gym last season – 21 points, 7 assists.

For…reasons, surely, Lee has spent the season as Vandy’s sixth man until the Nesmith injury forced him into the starting lineup. I guess if you’re desperate to make your second-best player a non-starter, you do it. Whatever. Anyway, Lee is exceptional from inside the perimeter (35.1% from three) and is ruthless in his attempts to get to the rim. Lee regularly flies off of ball screens to the rim, with Vandy running them pretty frequently.

Behind him is the starter at point guard, Scotty Pippen, Jr. Yes, it’s Scottie’s son; no, he’s not nearly as good as Scottie yet.

Pippen’s eFG% is just 44.3%, thanks to missing a bunch of mid-range shots and being a just-okay three-point shooter. He’s probably got the worst shot selection of anyone on Vandy’s roster, but in Nesmith’s absence, he’s basically the only non-Lee player that is well-equipped to usurp some of his shots. Pippen, like Lee, also loves to run off of screens, whether that’s creating a pull-up opportunity for himself or passing it out to a shooter.

Others of note

Maxwell Evans, who feels as if he’s been on this team for six years, is somehow only a junior. He’s a pretty efficient role player, shooting 38.3% from three and 56.3% from two, taking almost no bad shots. Vandy likes getting him the ball in spot-up situations wherever possible.

Dylan Disu is the starting center, but he’s almost a non-existent presence inside; Synergy credits him with just an 9-of-15 hit rate at the rim 16 games in. Instead, he prefers to take threes (20-of-66, 30.3%).

Jordan Wright and Matthew Moyer are a combined 6-of-47 (bad%) from three. Gross!

Ejike Obinna: great rebounder, little else to report on.

Quite literally, the worst SEC defense in 12 years

It sucks! Real bad! It sucks real bad! As a reminder, Tennessee plays 26 different opponents this regular season, and several of them are “buy games” where the opponent is outmanned from tipoff. Vanderbilt ranks 24th among Tennessee’s opponents in defense, below the following buy opponents: Murray State (165th), Chattanooga (183rd), Florida A&M (195th), and Jacksonville State (197th). Vanderbilt, at 246th, offers the single worst defense among Big Six programs. Tennessee is going to look like garbage again, because of course they will, but I need to unpack this for you.

Vanderbilt’s 16 games into their season. So far, they’ve held an opponent below 0.9 PPP once: a 0.859 PPP outing for KenPom #330 South Carolina State in late November. Otherwise, it’s been a gross affair: 1.124 PPP allowed to #82 Richmond in a loss, 1.055 PPP to #186 Austin Peay, 1.086 PPP to #98 Loyola Chicago.

Lately, it’s cratered, with four straight losses in which the opponent dropped 1.226, 1.212, 1.101, and 1.075 PPP. They’re an average rebounding squad that doesn’t force a ton of turnovers, plays poor shot defense, and fouls more than they need to.

Pretty great stuff all around!

 

Interior defense gets blocks, gives up everything else

About the only thing Vandy’s done truly well this season is block shots; they rank 83rd nationally in Block Percentage. That’s nice.

However, again: same deal as previous opponents where they block some shots but let a lot of others in. Vandy’s rim protection when removing post-ups on Synergy ranks in the 25th-percentile nationally.

If you’re curious, they have the same PPP allowed in this stat as Detroit University and Dartmouth. (Tennessee ranks fifth in D-1 in it, hooray.)

Over 40% of opponent attempts are at the rim, and for good reason; Vandy is somehow no better at defending it in half-court than they are in transition. Pound-for-pound, they’re probably worse.

Perimeter defense: also not good

Once you get away from the rim – and really, you shouldn’t – Vandy offers little restraint against shooters. Their Guarded/Unguarded split sits at 51.5%/48.5%, which is below-average, and they’re allowing a 35.2% hit rate from three.

It’s nice that they’re limiting three-point attempts in general, of course, as that’s the stat they rank highest in. That said, they simply don’t do much of anything well in terms of shot defense. Currently, this is the worst SEC defense since 2007-08 Auburn (finished 248th nationally). Surely…SURELY…Tennessee can stumble their way to a 1+ PPP outing.

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