"Brad's a very good offensive player, and we knew with their zone, he had a chance to have a good night because he can really shoot it," said Vanderbilt head coach Kevin Stallings. "It was a good performance out of our guys tonight. I thought we played real hard, intelligently, and we took care of the ball when they tried to press us in the second half. I was pleased with how we played, Brad Tinsley in particular."
The Dores opened the game on an 11-5 run that started and ended with threes from Tinsley.
"I think the big thing about our hot start tonight was that we got it in to A.J., like we try to do every game, and against their zone, our shooters moved around very well on the perimeter and A.J. did a good job of finding them. From there, we just hit shots," said Tinsley.
Vandy opened up a 22-11 lead after going on a 9-0 run. That run was capped off by an impressive dunk from Jeffrey Taylor. Taylor continued his hot start with 15 points and 4 rebounds.
Vanderbilt would take a 37-26 lead intermission after a layup by Darshawn McClellan. Those would be McClellan’s only two points of the game, but he gave the Commodores some very valuable minutes filling in for Andre Walker who is out for the season with a torn ACL.
A.J. Ogilvy would get Vandy off to a good start in the second half when he scored a jumper on their first possession of the half. Those were his first points of the ballgame.
"When you look down at the half, and we're up 11, and A.J. had not scored yet, we felt pretty good about that," said Stallings.
The Dores got a complete effort from the whole team and never allowed Drake to get back into the game in the second half.
In addition to Tinsley and Taylor Vandy got double digit points from Jermaine Beal with 14 and Ogilvy with 13.
Drake was led in scoring by Jonathan Cox and Josh Parker with 12. They also got 10 from Josh Young.
The Commodores will return to action on Sunday night in the finals of the Cancun Challenge at 9:30. The game will be televised on the CBS College Network.