Sixty percent of the way through the regular season, it’s already clear Vanderbilt’s season will be considered a failure.
That might sound unnecessarily mean, but Vanderbilt has some talented players who have been a part of successful teams; it would be disrespectful and patronizing of me to suggest they can’t do much, much more.
The 6-12 start is amazing, really, considering projections for the team.
The Commodores ranked 38th in Ken Pomeroy’s preseason rankings, while the SEC media poll picked them seventh. According to Pomeroy, Vanderbilt ranks 48th out of 351 Division I teams in minutes continuity from 2016-17 to this year at 66 percent.
A good team that brought back the majority of its production now sits at 6-12 and 111th in Pomeroy’s rankings. Why?
The answer might not be what you think. It might not be what head coach Bryce Drew has suggested in interviews. It isn’t just the loss of Luke Kornet (and Nolan Cressler), and it isn’t just the difficult schedule.
When you break down the numbers, Vanderbilt’s players aren’t improving.
Losing Kornet hurt, but the Commodores could have been reasonably expected to survive without him by getting increased production from younger player growing into bigger roles.
Unfortunately for Vanderbilt, that hasn’t happened. Joe Toye, Payton Willis, Clevon Brown and Larry Austin, Jr. have all either stagnated or regressed as players.
Let’s take a look at how.
Joe Toye
Toye’s struggles this season have probably been the most obvious of the four players on this list. As a sophomore last year, Toye played over half of Vanderbilt’s available minutes and shot nearly 40 percent from three.
He grew into a consistent role over the second half of the season and became a better, more aware defender with the type of quickness and athleticism on the perimeter Vanderbilt lacked otherwise.
This year, Toye seems to have lost it. Data from Hoop-Math.com suggest his shot distribution is similar to last year’s, but he can’t buy a bucket from long range. Toye is 18 percent from three this year, and while every player hits an occasional slump, it’s uncommon to see a player drop more than 20 percent from three from one season to the next.
It would be one thing if Toye were only struggling from three, but he’s also drawing fewer fouls (3.0 per 40 minutes, down from 3.5 last year and 4.8 as a freshman) and shooting only 56 percent from the free-throw line.
His turnover rate has increased from 14.6 as a freshman and 19.4 last year to 23.8, an unacceptable number for an upperclassman wing who doesn’t handle the ball much. He also continues to rebound at a below average rate for a wing of his size and athletic ability.
Toye continues to play hard, which he deserves credit for. I am in no way implying he won’t bounce back next season; perhaps Toye is simply in his own head.
But I can’t remember a more bizarre step backward for a good player that figured prominently into his team’s plans.
Payton Willis
Willis’ case is more complicated due to his preseason injury.
Despite playing at less than full strength to start the season, Willis has improved his three-point percentage to a rate I expected him to start at coming out of high school. He’s at 35 percent right now, and I see that number getting better over the next two years.
Having said that, Willis went from shooting nearly 60 percent on two-pointers last year on about two attempts per game to 38 percent on one attempt per game this year. Kornet’s absence means the lane is more clogged this year than last, but that’s still a steep drop-off.
Willis’ 77.8 percent shooting at the rim last year may not have been sustainable, and maybe his 46.2 percent shooting there this year is entirely due to the loss of Kornet. But he’s taking only 19.4 percent of his total shots at the rim after taking 25.4 percent last year, which is a bit concerning.
Willis has nearly cut his turnover rate in half, and he deserves praise for that. He hasn’t, however, made much progress on defense. He could also do with tightening up his form on his jumper; his release is on the slow side, especially compared to Riley LaChance’s.
I’ll be intrigued to see what Willis can do next year after a (hopefully) healthy offseason, but he hasn’t made a jump this season.
Clevon Brown
It’s no secret that Vanderbilt’s biggest hole this year is at center. Brown has had plenty of opportunities to seize control of the position, but he still can’t shoot.
I watched Brown shoot threes with an assistant coach multiple times at practice last year. In an empty gym with perfect passes being fed to him in rhythm, Brown shot roughly 45 to 55 percent when I watched.
While that serves as a reminder of just how good these athletes are, that number generally doesn’t translate to a respectable in-game percentage. Maybe that sample wasn’t indicative of how he normally shoots, but his on-court play hasn’t earned him the benefit of the doubt.
At 6’8”, 233 pounds, Brown doesn’t have the size of a traditional center. At the same time, he doesn’t make up for that with perimeter skill.
Brown has shot four of 25 from three, and he’s also eight of 18 on free throws. While he’s a better finisher at the rim (an excellent 70 percent) than Djery Baptiste due to being quick off his feet, he doesn’t have much of a post game either.
Brown has actually taken a step forward as an offensive rebounder, grabbing 10.2 percent of Vanderbilt’s misses while he’s on the court. His 12.6 percent defensive rebound percentage is awful for a center, though, and he doesn’t give Vanderbilt enough offense to play power forward.
Like Toye, Brown continues to play hard. He’s been smarter with the ball, cutting his turnover rate from 24.5 percent to 15.0. He’s still fairly effective as a rim protector, and he’s mobile on the perimeter for a center.
Still, his offense hasn’t improved enough for him to be a net asset this year for the Commodores.
Larry Austin, Jr.
With a year to sit out and work on his game, Austin’s season might be the second most disappointing after Toye’s.
I have no reason to doubt the time and effort Austin put in on the court with coaches last year, but it hasn’t paid off so far.
I’ll start with the good: Like Willis and Brown, Austin has cut way down on his turnovers from his time at Xavier. If he can either get significantly stronger (at 6’2”, 182, he doesn’t have a strength advantage over most SEC point guards) or learn to shoot, he could be a valuable two-way player.
This year, however, he’s been a non-threat on offense and hasn’t offered enough defensively to make up for that.
At Xavier, Austin showed off quick hands by posting good steal rates of 2.8 percent as a freshman and 3.0 percent as a sophomore. He’s down to 0.9 percent this year, albeit in a somewhat less aggressive defensive. Austin hasn’t been the lockdown one-on-one defender I hoped he could become, however, and plenty of Jordan McLaughlin’s 35 points for USC on November 19 came against Austin.
Austin has cut down on his negative plays, but he hasn’t created enough positive ones to earn consistent minutes. He’ll turn 22 in February, and he’s playing against plenty of guards who are two or three years younger than him. It’s possible that he isn’t ever going to be a good enough shooter to add value.
From my time around the team at practices last year and from observing his behavior on the bench during games, I think Austin is a great teammate and a nice guy.
Unfortunately, his on-court production hasn’t improved like I hoped it would during his redshirt year.