Three Keys and a Prediction: Vanderbilt vs. Arkansas

NASHVILLE---Time to see if Vanderbilt basketball can get back to its standard. Its two losses against Florida and Texas are behind it, only one way for it to get back now.

“To an extent,” Vanderbilt wing Tyler Nickel said in regard to the idea that there’s positives to take from Saturday. “Our standard is to be the best team in the country, be better than every team in the country is with whatever points you want to point to. We weren't tonight, so we got we get it right.”

Vanderbilt has a chance to get it right on Tuesday against Arkansas. Here's what it's going to take and a prediction as to whether the Commodores can do it.

Tyler Tanner winning the matchup with Darius Acuff

Two of the SEC’s best point guards will share the floor on Tuesday night.

Tanner and Acuff are perhaps the two biggest contenders at point guard for All-SEC first team. Tuesday’s matchup could catapult one of them into poll position over the other if one stands out significantly. Tennessee guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie and Mississippi State Josh Hubbard are also contenders for the award.

Get your popcorn out. This might be the best individual matchup that Vanderbilt sees this season.

Force long Arkansas twos

That’s an area in which Vanderbilt can exploit on Tuesday night.

Arkansas is 251st in the country in average two-point distance and is susceptible to be baited into bad ones–particularly its young backcourt of Acuff and Meleek Thomas. Vanderbilt can trade twos for 3s in that case and can outpace Arkansas as a result.

That appears to be an analytical difference that could win this thing for Vanderbilt.

Guess this one

This may as well be listed in every three keys and a prediction story for the rest of the season. It will be until Vanderbilt consistently demonstrates that it isn’t an issue.

Vanderbilt has to keep its bigs out of foul trouble, or at least mitigate that, and it has to rebound enough to win.

The Commodores entered last week ranked No. 28 in the country in defensive rebounding efficiency. After their losses to Texas and Florida, they’re No. 52 in that category. It’s been a rapid fall for Vanderbilt in that area. It’s not even that it has personnel incapable of rebounding at a high level, part of this is also related to the idea that Vanderbilt often has to worry about its bigs playing through foul trouble and being unavailable.

The good news for Vanderbilt; Arkansas is No. 98 in the country in offensive rebounding and No. 179 in defensive rebounding. It can still get to Vanderbilt on the glass, but it doesn’t have the fundamental ability that Florida and Texas did on the glass despite the bodies that it has.

Prediction: Arkansas: 88, Vanderbilt: 83

Predicting Vanderbilt to lose a third-consecutive game isn’t necessarily a matter of Vanderbilt being able to bounce back as much as it is the Commodores going on the road to play a talented team in a harsh environment.

Arkansas’ guardplay is scary and it has more capable bodies at the four and the five than Vanderbilt does. That makes this a difficult matchup for the Commodores.