The Commodores got another oustanding performance from
freshman center A.J. Ogilvy. Ogilvy scored 20 points
and had 9 rebounds. Vanderbilt Coach Kevin Stallings
had this to say about Ogilvy: "I asked him how he did
that and he said it's all those five-point shots he
took. He's a special player. He just takes a beating
down there every game. I mean he takes a beating.
Thank goodness he can shoot free throws. I'd hate to
have somebody go to the line that often that wasn't a
good free throw shooter." Ogilvy was 12-13 from the
free throw line. The Commodores also got double-digit
points from Shan Foster with 20, Alan Metcalfe with 14
and George Drake with 10.
Once again Vandy struggled on defense, but it
didn't hurt them in the end because of their ability
to score. "When you can't guard, it's really a good
thing to score," Coach Stallings said.
Stallings is not sold on his team's ranking. He knows
they need to play better defense to win games once the
enter South Eastern Conference play. "Based on how
we're taking care of the ball and how we're playing
defensively, we are the most overrated team in the
country," Stallings said. "Now I didn't say anything
about our ability to score." And score the Commodores
did. The 97 points they put up was their highest
output of the season.
The Commodores only led by five at the half after
Iona's Kyle Camper hit a three with 11 seconds left in
the first half. Vanderbilt showed their ability to
score by opening the second half on a 26-5 run.
Metcalfe had this to say about that run: "We've been
working on getting pressure on the ball and then
getting stops and rebounds. When you play hard on
defense, it helps carry over to offense. As a post
player, you swivel harder, you try to get better
position and once we got pressure on the ball and got
stops, we got confidence going down and the guys just
got me the ball in the right place."
Foster said the Commodores knew exactly what they had
to do in the second half: "We knew exactly what we had
to do. It was just the case of not being smart on a
couple of possessions and we realize that we still
have work to do defensively, but we had the effort. I
think it was a little bit discouraging in the first
half being that we played so hard and were only up
five. We realized that if we kept that same intensity
and came out and played a little bit smarter that
things would fall in to our favor."
Iona was led in scoring by Gary Springer who had 17
points. They also got 15 from Devin Clarke.
The Commodores will attempt to go 14-0 on January 3rd
when Rice travels to Memorial Gym. That game tips off
at 7 p.m.