This season, Vanderbilt’s improved perimeter depth provided hope for better defense and a faster pace.
Through two games, however, the influx of new players seems to be hurting more than helping.
In Friday’s win over Austin Peay and Monday’s loss to Belmont, the Commodores’ offense looked at best disjointed and at worst directionless. Head coach Bryce Drew toggled between lineups to find one that works, and new players like Larry Austin, Jr. and Maxwell Evans look unsure where their shots should come from. Meanwhile, returners Matthew Fisher-Davis and Payton Willis continue to fight through injuries that have disrupted their preseason preparation.
The result was a combined 133 points, 30 turnovers, and 27 percent from three against two poor defensive teams. There were plenty of bad perimeter shots and not enough points in the paint. Until Vanderbilt’s problems naturally fade away (if they do), it’s up to Riley LaChance and Jeff Roberson to carry the load. So far, they haven’t done so.
“I thought our defense was pretty good for the most part,” Drew said after the Belmont loss. “We held them to 41 percent, which, any time you can do that to Belmont, especially in their home gym, you’d feel like you would have a good chance to win that game. Unfortunately, we shot even worse at the three-point line than they did.”
Vanderbilt looked bad for much longer last year and still turned things around, so this is hardly a crisis. Having said that, Drew needs to make a few quick fixes if Vanderbilt hopes to have decent showings in its four games through the end of its Thanksgiving tournament in Brooklyn.
The first issue is the best lineups need to play together more. It sounds simple, but it isn’t happening as much as it can. LaChance is clearly Vanderbilt’s best offensive player right now, yet he’s only averaging 30 minutes per game.
At a crucial juncture in the second half against Belmont, Drew ran out a lineup of Austin, Willis, Fisher-Davis, Clevon Brown, and Ejike Obinna. While I like the idea of playing Brown at center, he’s below average offensively at power forward. How does Vanderbilt expect to score against decent competition with that lineup? Fisher-Davis is the only proven college shooter in that group, and he and Willis are both coming off injuries.
Drew promptly realized his mistake and put his starters in the game with Saben Lee in for Austin, so it seems he’s started to figure out which combinations work. Along those lines, the offensively challenged Austin played only 10 minutes against Belmont despite starting, presumably because the ‘Dores couldn’t score. Putting the ball in Lee’s hands with the floor spread should work (a Lee-LaChance-MFD-Roberson-Brown lineup sounds good), and that means Austin’s starting spot is in jeopardy.
It’s possible that these problems on offense could continue all season, but I think they’re fixable. Vanderbilt doesn’t need a post presence to have a good offense; Luke Kornet was poor in the post last year. The larger issue is that Djery Baptiste, Brown, and Obinna, all non-shooters, need to be able to catch the ball and make a basic move to the basket so that the opposing defense respect them. That’s something the three can improve upon through the year, and I think Brown can already do it on occasion. Against Belmont, the Commodores gave up multiple offensive rebounds and offered no resistance at the rim when they went small; they need to find a way to keep a big man on the court.
“You’d like to go a lot bigger,” Drew said. “Unfortunately, if you go bigger, you have to be able to take advantage inside, be able to score in the post, and protect the paint. We weren’t doing that, and so we figured we’d go small. I thought we had a couple of good stretches there when we did it, but obviously that’s not ideal.”
As ugly as the Belmont loss was, it’s hard to build chemistry when most of your ball-handlers are new to the team. We see this in the NBA all the time, and Kentucky is experiencing the same problem right now. With Vanderbilt’s difficult schedule, there will be plenty of chances to earn quality wins once the team settles in. The challenge will be treading water until that happens.
“We’re trying to find an identity right now; [Belmont] knew who they were two seasons ago,” Drew said. “They’ve been doing the same thing; we have a new team, young players trying to figure it out, and we won’t see this style again the rest of the year.”