More About Vanderbilt, Memorial Gymnasium

Yesterday, in the wake of Vanderbilt's win over #1 Tennessee, we made note of Vanderbilt's impressive historical record of defeating #1 teams in games played at Vanderbilt's Memorial Gymnasium.

"Vanderbilt (24-4, 9-4) has hosted the No. 1 team nine times in its 56 years at Memorial Gym, and the Commodores improved to 6-3 overall in those games with victories in the past four, including then-No. 1 Florida last year. The Commodores also now have won all 18 home games this season and 31 of their last 32."

Rush the Court has more about the legendary Memorial Gymnasium.

Vanderbilt Knocks Off #1 Tennessee

Four days after winning the biggest game in the history of their basketball program (Saturday's 66-62 win over then #1 Memphis), Tennessee was upset by #18 Vanderbilt 72-69 Tuesday night.

Tennessee was ranked #1 for the first time in school history when this week's AP Top 25 was released on Monday, but the Volunteers' stay at #1 appears certain to be short lived.

In the wake of Saturday's historic win over Memphis, head coach Bruce Pearl and his Tennessee squad were the beneficiaries of a tremendous amount of media attention. Tennessee, it was said, had climbed the mountain to elite basketball status. So it's fitting that Tennessee's sudden downfall came at the hands of their old in-state conference rival Vanderbilt.

Vanderbilt has a history of knocking off #1 teams. As the above Sports Illustrated article says (see the link in the first paragraph of this post):

"Vanderbilt (24-4, 9-4) has hosted the No. 1 team nine times in its 56 years at Memorial Gym, and the Commodores improved to 6-3 overall in those games with victories in the past four, including then-No. 1 Florida last year. The Commodores also now have won all 18 home games this season and 31 of their last 32."

Over the course of the last four days, two different basketball programs from the state of Tennessee have held the #1 ranking in the nation, and both of those programs have been knocked off by in state rivals.

This season, the state of Tennessee has become the epicenter of college basketball; a title that has, historically, belonged to states that border Tennessee: Kentucky and North Carolina. And despite the college basketball mania to its North and East, college football has always been king in the Volunteer state.

But, at least for 2008, things have definitely changed.

One more thing: although he's built a great program at Vanderbilt (and may well be content to stay there), head coach Kevin Stallings is certain to be a hot prospect to fill one of the big name coaching vacancies that will arise at the conclusion of the college basketball regular season. One can expect to hear his name associated with some of the more well publicized coaching searches (especially Indiana).

Underrated Freshmen

2008 has been called the "year of the freshman" in college basketball. Superstar freshmen like Indiana's Eric Gordon, Memphis' Derrick Rose, UCLA's Kevin Love and Kansas State's Michael Beasley have been among the most hyped college players in recent memory, regardless of class. And O.J. Mayo has practically had a network (ESPN) devoted to chronicling his every move.

Today, Jason Brubaker of Collegehoops.net takes a look at some freshmen who've been having outstanding seasons, despite being largely overlooked by the national media machine.

Brubaker highlights Purdue's Robbie Hummel, Mississippi's Chris Warren, Vanderbilt's A.J. Ogilvy, St. Mary's Patrick Mills and Gonzaga's Austin Daye.

But Drive and Dish wonders: where's the love for Hummel's Purdue teammates Scott Martin and E"Twaun Moore? And why no mention of Ohio State's duo of Kosta Koufos and Evan Turner?

What's more, Duke fans will cry foul over the slighting of Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith. And Kentucky fans will wonder why there was no mention of Patrick Patterson.

Vanderbilt Hands Kentucky 41 Point Loss

Yesterday, Drive and Dish marveled over how new coach Billy Gillispie and Kentucky had righted their ship and were beginning to make up for their early season woes.

We noted that Kentucky had won its previous five games. We mentioned their upset wins over Vanderbilt and Tennessee. We even said that Kentucky basketball was undergoing a resurgence.

Well, no sooner did Drive and Dish coronate Kentucky college basketball's "comeback kids" of 2008, than did Kentucky stumble off Vanderbilt's raised court as the owners of a 41 point loss courtesy of the same Vanderbilt Commodores team that they had triumphantly upset a mere month ago.

Vanderbilt embarrassed Kentucky, 93-52.

Call it payback. Call it revenge. Call it schadenfreude.

Call it what you will.

But whatever you call it, there's no denying what Vanderbilt did to Kentucky last night: Vandy absolutely put the smack down on Billy Gillispie and the Wildcats.

Just when Kentucky was starting to surge, they went out and got handed the program's worst loss since an ignominious 150-95 drubbing by Kansas in 1989 (Rick Pitino's first year as Kentucky's coach).

Kentucky is now 12-10, and 6-3 in the SEC.

The Wildcats are still, technically, on the post season bubble. But tonight's humiliating loss put a crushing halt to Kentucky's recent momentum. Worse yet, the damage done by tonight's beat down could be enough to derail Kentucky's "resurgence" altogether.

Time will tell.

But Billy Gillispie is on the clock (again).

The Resurgence of Kentucky Basketball?

Today, Jason Brubaker at CollegeHoops.net argues that Kentucky basketball is undergoing a resurgence under first year head coach Billy Gillispie.

Gillispie got off to a rough start at Kentucky as the Wildcats lost to several "cupcake" teams early in the season, including an embarrassing season opening loss to Gardner Webb.

But Kentucky has been playing much better since the new year and the start of SEC play.

Don't look now, but Kentucky has won five straight games, has pulled off big upsets of Vanderbilt and Tennessee, and is currently ranked second in the SEC East.

In November and December, Kentucky fans were busy debating how long Billy Gillispie would last as the Wildcats' coach. Now they're debating how highly the Cats will be seeded in the NCAA Tournament.

Kentucky and Iowa Pull Shocking Upsets

Saturday, Kentucky upset Vanderbilt, who was previously undefeated and ranked #13 by the AP, 79-73 in double Over Time. It was UK's first big win of the Billy Gillispie era.

Vanderbilt is an interesting team. Last year's team made it to the Sweet Sixteen, and would have been in the Elite Eight, if not for a missed traveling call on Georgetown's Jeff Green that produced Georgetown's game winning basket. And although they lost some key players from last year's team, they've managed to be one of this season's runaway successes. But despite this season's impressive record, they've turned in some very underwhelming performances. And they've escaped with squeaker wins over some less-than-stellar opponents (see: Bradley, DePaul).

Vanderbilt didn't look terribly athletic or strong against Kentucky. And even though the Wildcats are ecstatic that they pulled off their first big win, Vanderbilt just never quite looked like a legitimate top tier team in that game.

Michigan State Falls to Iowa

Although it didn't get the attention that Kentucky's nationally televised win over Vanderbilt did, #6 Michigan State's 43-36 loss at Iowa was the biggest upset of the day. Iowa may be the worst team in the Big Ten (Drive and Dish has previously noted the Hawkeyes' profound Godawfulness). Yet they managed to slow the game down and "ugly" the whole thing up, which got Michigan State to play down to their level.

I'm glad that I didn't see that game. It would have been brutal to watch, as most of Iowa's games are. But I feel bad for Michigan State. They're a legitimate top 10 team, and there's no way that they should have lost to Iowa -- let alone only score 36 points in the entire game.

Tom Izzo is probably running his team into the ground right now. Each one of his players will probably drop five to seven pounds of water weight before their next game (thanks to all the running they will have done).

Look, Iowa is a tough place for visiting teams to play. With the exception of the Iowa Presidential Caucuses (which only come along once every four years), there really isn't much going on in Iowa. That's why Iowa Hawkeyes' football, wrestling and basketball are so important to the locals. As such, far too many Iowans derive their sense of self worth from the success of Hawkeye athletics. So, for Iowans, it's win at all costs -- which is why visiting teams often find that their hotel rooms have no warm running water, have no functioning air conditioning or heat, have mysterious power outages, have an unusually high number of fire alarms in the middle of the night, etc.

What's worse, when the visiting teams arrive in the visitor's locker room, they often find that -- in addition to being painted pink, from ceiling to floor (including lockers, benches, toilets, urinals, sinks, fire extinguishers . . . literally everything in the room) -- the visitor's locker room lacks running water. Which really sucks because, since their hotel rooms frequently lack warm water, teams often bypass using the showers and the toilets in their hotels, and wait until they get to the locker room to take care of those necessities.

But that stuff is par for the course in Iowa City. Ask the 2005 Illinois Fighting Illini. They went to Iowa City undefeated and ranked #1 in the nation. But, after they found it difficult to get restful sleep in their hotel rooms, and couldn't find warm water in either their hotel rooms or in the locker room, the Illini played their ugliest game of the season. Illinois was lucky to sneak out of that place with a win that year. They almost didn't.

By the way, I wouldn't necessarily trust the food in Iowa City either. I think that if I were coaching a team that had to play at Iowa, I'd pack enough sack lunches to take care of each of my team's meals.

Iowa is just that way.

In fact, many Iowans actually pride themselves on that kind of stuff. I know some of those kinds of Iowa fans.

But that's still no excuse for Michigan State's horrible loss in Iowa City.

See You In The ATL: Florida, Georgetown Set Final Four Field

Florida handled Oregon and Georgetown shut down North Carolina, in overtime, to advance to the Final Four. Ohio State and UCLA earned Final Four spots yesterday.

This year's field consists of two one seeds and two two seeds from four BCS conferences: the Big Ten, the Pac 10, the Southeast, and the Big East. Florida, the reigning National Champion, and UCLA are making return appearances. They will meet for a rematch of last year's Championship game. Also, for the second straight year, no team from the ACC will be in the Final Four.

The staff here at Drive and Dish wish to congratulate all four teams. But we offer this reminder to Georgetown: you shouldn't be here. Jeff Green's game winning shot, in Friday's game against Vanderbilt, should not have counted. He traveled before he shot the ball. The officials blew the call. Vanderbilt should have advanced to play North Carolina in the Elite Eight. Georgetown should have been watching today's Vanderbilt vs. North Carolina game from home.

Instead, Georgetown is headed to Atlanta. Jeff Green (as pictured above, with Roy Hibbert) gets to play on the big stage.

Make no mistake: the Hoyas' were convincing in their overtime win over the Tar Heels. They absolutely shut North Carolina down in the second half. Georgetown then outscored North Carolina 15 to 3 in overtime. North Carolina looked outclassed. That was impressive, to say the least. Georgetown proved that they belong in the Final Four. But they still shouldn't be there.


Edit:


This past Tuesday, we ran another installment of our, ever popular, "Separated at Birth ?" posts. Tuesday's "Separated at Birth?" featured a side by side of North Carolina forward Tyler Hansbrough and Canadian psycho chainsaw massacre-er Gregory Despres. Hansbrough and the chainsaw-wielding freak sported similar facial expressions (same crazy look in the eyes) in their respective pictures. Today's loss to Georgetown featured several great television shots of the crazy-eyed Hansbrough. One such shot is pictured below, with the chainsaw wielding freak's mugshot underneath.


North Carolina forward Tyler Hansbrough


Chainsaw wielding psycho killer Gregory Despres.



It has also been brought to our attention that there are more Hansbrough look alike pieces circulating on the world wide web (like the Hansbrough-Beeker comparison below).



We'll continue to highlight some of them, as circumstances warrant.

Missed Layups Cost Southern Illinois, Texas A&M and Tennesseee

Missed layups proved costly in Thursday night's NCAA Regional games. In three games that saw teams lose by one basket (or one point-Texas A&M and Tennessee) Southern Illinois' Bryan Mullins, Texas A&M's Acie Law IV, and Tennessee's Ramar Smith all missed easy transition layups that, ultimately, may have prevented their respective teams from winning. Mullins and Law IV were pressured by defenders. Smith got caught showing off-he turned what should have been an easy layup into an around the back "hot sauce" finger roll. But he missed. Ouch. As one of my high school coaches once screamed, "can somebody please make a friggin' layup?"



Update:

In the opening line of his 1991 classic, "Mama Said Knock You Out," L.L. Cool J announced: "(d)on't call it a comeback; I've been here for years." In the last two days, Ohio State and North Carolina have made amazing second half comebacks en route to knocking their opponents out. Last night Ohio State overcame a seventeen point second half lead by Tennessee. Tonight, North Carolina came back from trailing USC by sixteen in the second half.

That's hard to do. Especially this late in the Tournament (every team in the Sweet Sixteen is legit).

North Carolina and Ohio State are such talented teams that they've been able to overcome their own poor play. Tennessee and USC outplayed their opponents for much of their respective games, but, in the end, just weren't in the same league as the Buckeyes and Tar Heels. Ultimately, however, both teams will have to play much better as they will face opponents who are nearly as talented as they are - if they make it to the Final Four.



Georgetown is really, really lucky. In the final seconds of their game against Vanderbilt, with Vanderbilt up by one point, Georgetown's Jeff Green hit a basket that won the game for the Hoyas. Unfortunately, Green probably traveled on the play. The picture above shows Green going up for the shot in question.

Green was tied up by two Vandy defenders. He pivoted and pivoted and pivoted. Then he pivoted, spun and threw up an off balance bank shot, which went in. But in the process of pivoting and pivoting some more, Green appears to have picked up his pivot foot. If so, Green traveled. Vanderbilt should be in the Elite Eight. Oh well.