Vanderbilt Basketball Reflections: Standout Metrics, Collins' Passing, More

Vanderbilt has bigger aspirations, but it’s got the unofficial title of analytics and college basketball sicko’s favorite team.

The Commodores haven’t caught the eye of the national–or local–spotlight at this point, but they’ve done enough in their 8-0 start to become a darling of sorts for basketball nerds that gravitate towards a fellow one in Mark Byington.

Vanderbilt is ranked as the No. 4 team in the NET Rankings, No. 1 SEC team in KenPom, KenPom’s No. 4 offense in the country, the No. 6 overall team in Bart Torvik, the No. 2 offense in Bart Torvik and the No. 11 team in Evan Miya’s team ratings. Perhaps the AP Top 25 hasn’t caught on fully yet, but the analytics sites appear to have plenty of reason to.

At this point, they’ve got plenty of reason to. Vanderbilt has a rèsumè among the strongest in college basketball after wins over Saint Mary’s, VCU, UCF and convincing wins in all of its buy games. It’s got bigger aspirations, but its 3-0 week in Atlantis–in which it won a championship–was good enough to raise its stock for now.

“We did what we were supposed to do in the Bahamas,” Byington said after the Commodores’ win over Saint Mary’s. “The only thing offered today was to win this game and win this championship and we took advantage of that.”

The Tyler Tanner leap

Here’s some evidence of a leap, via the counting stats.

Tanner is averaging 15.0 points per game relative to his 5.7 last season, is shooting 54.1% from the field relative to his 46.5 percentage last season, has taken a jump to 51.5% from 3-point range after shooting 26.6% from beyond the arc last season. The sophomore guard also appears to be significantly more comfortable running the show now that he’s more consistently in ball screens as the ballhandler and is up to 4.1 assists a night this season as opposed to his 1.9 a year ago.

Vanderbilt thought its point guard was significantly better this season than last and it appears to be correct in its assessment.

An underrated defense?

This Vanderbilt team–for good reason–is regarded primarily as an offensive juggernaut, but its defense has been a catalyst in its early-season rise as well.

Vanderbilt has held four of its eight opponents to under 40% shooting from the field and all but UCF to under 50% shooting from the field. It’s got the No. 26 defense in KenPom and appears to have enough size and defensive-mindedness on its roster to preserve that ranking when tougher competition presents itself.

That appears to be demonstrative of its ability to keep itself afloat when shots aren’t falling.

Tempo

When Byington arrived at Vanderbilt, he declared all summer that he wanted to play fast in order to make that part of the identity of the program he had set out to build.

Vanderbilt is playing significantly faster this season–No. 39 in KenPom–than it did in year one under Byington–when it finished 68th. The increase in speed doesn’t directly correlate with results in most cases, but it does appear to indicate that Vanderbilt is more comfortable running as a result of the differences in style that its two point guards and bigs present these days rather than the players at those positions who made up the roster last season.

That appears to be a trend that can continue.

Frankie Collins’ standout assist numbers

Collins was a name that wasn’t said all that much throughout Vanderbilt’s week in Atlantis, perhaps it should have been.

The Vanderbilt point guard didn’t eclipse 10 points at any point throughout the week, but had nine assists against Western Kentucky and six assists in the Battle 4 Atlantis championship against Saint Mary’s.

There’s a world in which Collins doesn’t average over double figures this season, but is among Vanderbilt’s most effective players. The veteran guard is a dogged defender, is a leader and clearly has a knack for running the show.

Don’t worry about Tyler Harris

Harris didn’t eclipse 15 minutes in a game throughout the week in Atlantis, which appeared to be odd on the surface. If the trend continues it will be noteworthy, but it doesn’t appear as if it will.

The Vanderbilt wing’s shooting numbers are down–45.2% from the field and 32.4% from 3-point range–but the Vanderbilt staff still appears to believe in his upside longterm and that he can be a go-to guy for it down the stretch. The indication is that they’re managing Harris’ long-term health and workload while finding time for freshman wing Chandler Bing–who they’re high on–to get some early-season reps.

Expect Harris’ minutes to tick back up.