Vandy looks to bolster NCAA chances by beating Kentucky

Of course, basketball is about who you play and where you play. But it’s also about when.

On Saturday, Kentucky plays Vanderbilt at a less-than-optimum time.

With victories over Georgia and at Florida in the last week, the Commodores seem to have emerged from a season marked by dashed hopes and puzzling disappointment.

“There’s a lot of positive energy running through our team right now,” point guard Wade Baldwin IV said Thursday.

Center Damian Jones gets credit for leading Vandy out of the wilderness. He grabbed a career-high 16 rebounds against Georgia, then scored a career-high 27 points at Florida.

“We’re a different team when he plays that way,” Coach Kevin Stallings said. “If there’s anything I hope for going forward, it’s that Damian continues with that kind of effort and that kind of aggressiveness and that kind of emotion.”

Revived hopes of playing in the NCAA Tournament inspire Jones and his teammates. “Been my dream forever,” Jones said.

A bid that seemed out of the question a few weeks ago would also represent sweet redemption. The Commodores have a 2-7 record against teams in the top 30 of the Ratings Percentage Index. So they see a victory over Kentucky, the first-place team in the Southeastern Conference, as validating their postseason credibility.

“I think there’s a different sense of urgency,” Baldwin said, “especially with all the expectations coming into the season and where we should be. We let it slip a little bit, but now we’re here and the opportunities are right ahead of us.”

This season began with Vanderbilt mentioned as a Final Four contender.

In Jones, the Commodores had a 7-footer who was expected to enter his name in the 2016 NBA Draft.

Baldwin was coming off a season in which he was one of only two freshmen who averaged at least nine points, four rebounds and four assists. D’Angelo Russell of Ohio State was the other.

Another Vandy sophomore, Matthew Fisher-Davis, made more three-point shots (71) than any SEC freshman last season.

Incoming freshman Camron Justice scored 3,588 points for Knott County Central. That was the third-highest total in the history of Kentucky high school basketball. Nolan Cressler, a transfer from Cornell, was yet another dead-eye perimeter shooter.

Before Vandy played Baylor on Dec. 6, ESPN’s Dino Gaudio hailed Stallings as “one of the great offensive minds in all of basketball.”

Barely two months later, amid speculation about the need for a new coach, Vanderbilt Athletics Director David Williams II said he would wait until after the season to evaluate Stallings’ job status.

“Unfortunately, the perception with our team is that it’s an extraordinarily talented team,” Stallings said Feb. 18. “That’s really an unfair perception because it’s still a very young team, and a team that doesn’t know how to win, and a team that doesn’t accept coaching the way that it needs to. . . .

“There were all these crazy expectations that we haven’t handled well, quite frankly. All of us.”

Stallings compared the current Commodores unfavorably to the program’s last NCAA Tournament team of 2011-12.

This season’s team has “nicer guys,” Stallings said. “More personalities where they don’t want to offend their buddy. . . . In some cases, it’s a case of being too nice.”

Stallings’ candid assessment came two days after the Commodores lost at Mississippi State 75-74 after leading by as much as 17 points in the second half. That was the fifth time Vandy had lost a game in which it led by 10 or more points, and the second time after leading by as much as 16 points.

An injury to Luke Kornet, whose grandfather taught at the University of Kentucky and father played for Lexington Catholic, hurt Vandy’s development. The Commodores only beat Wofford and Western Michigan in the five games he missed.

During weekly SEC teleconferences, Stallings struggled to explain Vandy’s “woefully” inconsistent play (6-8 record from Dec. 6 through Jan. 30).

“It might be ball care one week,” he said on Feb. 8. “It might be rebounding one week. It might be foul trouble one week. It shifts.

“It has to do with approach, mindset and mentality. Until a guy wants to make that decision, you can’t force it on them.”

At the Maui Invitational during Thanksgiving week, Kansas Coach Bill Self called Vanderbilt “a rhythm team.”

If so, the Commodores have been in a better rhythm in February. Aside from losses to Ole Miss and Mississippi State, both of which saw double-digit leads disappear, Vandy has built momentum with a 17-point victory over then-No. 8 Texas A&M, and within the last week, victories by double-digit margins over Georgia and at Florida.

Stallings sensed his team turning a metaphorical corner.

“It feels like we are a little bit . . . ,” he said. “Our play has been pretty solid. We’ve been pretty consistent.”

But given this season’s bumpy ride, Stallings was reluctant on Thursday to say Vandy had left behind the toil and trouble, especially with Kentucky the next opponent.

“I’m too hesitant to say we’ve done anything or arrived or come to a major finding or anything like that,” he said. “We seem to be gaining and gathering more confidence. We seem to be achieving more consistency.”

This story was originally published February 25, 2016 at 6:42 PM with the headline "Vandy looks to bolster NCAA chances by beating Kentucky."