Vanderbilt Basketball Snake Bitten Again, And Again, And Again

There's bad luck and then there's the stretch of bad luck the Vanderbilt Commodores are enduring of late.

First, it was Darius Garland, then Clevon Brown. Then it was Brinea Alexander going down,  now Aaron Nesmith and Autumn Newby have sustained injuries in the last week that will and could have major impacts on both the men's and women's Vanderbilt basketball teams.   

Garland's injury a season ago sidetracked the team and started the downward spiral that led to a seven-win season, none of them in the conference and the firing of former head coach Bryce Drew. 

Enter Jerry Stackhouse, the former NBA all-star whose team was showing improvement early in this season, but then Brown went down to an injury that has him still out with no definitive timetable to return. Still, the team managed to win some games and encouraged everyone with their strong showing last week at Auburn.    

Saturday was supposed to be the day the streak ended. The Commodores 21 game conference losing streak would surely be over when Texas A&M came to Nashville, after all, most experts labeled the Aggies the worst team in the conference.  

It was not to be as shortly before game time it was announced that Nesmith, their star player, and likely future first-round NBA draft pick would not play because of a stress fracture in his right foot. That win evaporated as the visitors produced their best game of the season against a staggering Commodores squad and walked away with a 69-50 win, that wasn't as close as the final score indicated. 

Following their blowout loss Stackhouse, in his post-game ann press conference announced that Nesmith would be out for at least six weeks, effectively ending his season and leaving the Commodores to figure out where to go for the second year in a row without their best player.    

Earlier this season, the Commodore women lost sophomore standout, Alexander, arguably their best player was lost to a season-ending injury. Sunday the injury bug bit the women again when Autumn Newby went down with an injury in the final seconds of their blowout loss to 4th ranked South Carolina at Memorial Gym. 

While the extent of her injury is still unknown, it was severe enough at the time that she had to be carried off the floor. 

Head coach Stephanie White and her squad survived the loss of Alexander and have had a remarkable turnaround season in the process, but how many injuries can they sustain before things get bad, especially in a conference like the SEC. 

injuries are an unfortunate part of sports and no team is immune to them, but the Commodore basketball teams have had their share. Here's to hoping that those left standing will be able to make it to the finish lines of their respective seasons in one piece.