Vanderbilt men's basketball all grown up this season
Two Vanderbilt basketball players became 7-footers over the offseason. Damian Jones is projected as a possible NBA Draft lottery pick. And Riley LaChance has some stubble on his chin.
It appears Vanderbilt’s once fresh-faced basketball team is all grown up and ready to face the heightened expectations of the upcoming season.
“We are far, far ahead of where we were a year ago, and I think that’s reflected in where we are ranked and where we’re picked to finish,” said coach Kevin Stallings, whose team opened preseason practice last week. “… (But) there’s a big difference between talking about it and doing it, so we’d rather be doers than talkers.”
The Commodores return seven of their top nine players, including four starters, from a team that posted a 21-14 record and a run to the NIT quarterfinals last season. Cornell transfer Nolan Cressler also becomes eligible, giving Vanderbilt another backcourt scorer on a squad that led the SEC in 3-point shooting (39.2 percent) last season.
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A year ago, Vanderbilt debuted a rebuilt roster full of freshmen. Now those players return as seasoned SEC players on a squad with plenty of size. Jones and reserve center Josh Henderson now top seven feet, alongside 7-1 forward Luke Kornet and 6-10 freshman Djery Baptiste.
“Last year it was us kind of coming in to start at ground zero,” said Kornet, the SEC’s top 3-point shooting (40 percent) big man. “But now we are picking up where we left off. … It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Most preseason publications place Vanderbilt in the top 25 and see the Commodores among the few contenders to Kentucky’s throne atop the SEC.
“We feel like we’re a good team, but there are so many different positions (in preseason publications) — whether it be in the top 25, out of the top 25, this or that,” said point guard Wade Baldwin, who broke Vanderbilt’s freshman assist record last season. “We know who we are, and we’re going to continue to learn who we are.”
Baldwin (9.3 ppg, 4.4 ast.) and LaChance (12.3 ppg) earned SEC All-Freshman honors last season, and Jones (14.5 ppg, 6.5 reb.) was voted an All-SEC first-teamer.
LaChance said the team needs to approach this season the same as last year, despite the brighter spotlight.
“We know the expectations are big this year, so we are ready to get going,” he said. “But we aren’t doing anything different. We are putting in the same work, doing the same things, playing the way we know how. We don’t really listen to all that (preseason hype).”
Vanderbilt’s returning players accounted for 82 percent of the team’s points and 79 percent of game minutes last season. That continuity is a welcomed sight for Stallings, who saw six players leave the program early over a year-and-a-half before the current sophomores arrived in 2014.
“For us as coaches, this is certainly what you want. You don’t want to be rebuilding it every year and putting it together from scratch every year,” Stallings said. “We went through a couple of hard years to get it together and get it right again.
“… I know I have seven or eight guys who can do it. I know that because I’ve seen them do it.”
Reach Adam Sparks at 615-259-8010 and on Twitter @AdamSparks.
SEASON OPENER
VANDERBILT vs. AUSTIN PEAY
When: Nov. 13, 7 p.m.
TV/radio: None/1510-AM, 95.9-FM