Tennessee-Vanderbilt Preview: The Vols should get an easy win
The Tennessee Volunteers will be playing Basketball in TBA West on Saturday. The Vanderbilt Commodores are a horrendous basketball team, and that’s being nice about things. They can’t score, don’t have any notable presence in the paint, and aren’t even the best college team in their own city when it comes to scoring defense (Tennessee State ranks 163rd in the country while Vanderbilt comes in at 181st). However, as a battered Vol fan, you always have to be wary of “Memorial Magic”. The Vols held on for dear life in 2019 as the number-one-ranked team in the country, and Grant Williams had to drop 43 points for the Vols to pull out an overtime win. Go back to 2008 and the Vols rolled into Nashville again ranked number one but ended up losing to the Commodores that night. Even last year the Vols fell victim to the magic as the Commodores secured their first win over the Vols since the 2016-2017 season with a buzzer-beater. However, the simple fact about this game is if the Vols play well no amount of voodoo bullshit should play a factor.
Tennessee is a top 5 team that has superior talent while Vanderbilt’s roster is downtrodden after an off-season that saw them lose key pieces from last year’s team. Rick Barnes is a hall-of-fame coach while Jerry Stackhouse is encountering heat from his fanbase while he runs his once respectable program into the ground. All the signs point to a huge victory for the Vols on Saturday night if they show up ready to dominate. Who does Vanderbilt have that can guard Dalton Knecht or Jonas Aidoo? What can Vanderbilt do on offense throughout the game that can consistently beat the always lockdown Vol defense? The bottom line is that Tennessee has a chance to give Vol Nation a stress-free Saturday night and avenge the heartbreaking loss in Nashville last February. I tend to believe that is exactly what the Vols are about to do in a mostly orange Memorial Gym.