CANCUN – The Vanderbilt Commodores claimed an impressive, 72-57, win over the Drake Bulldogs Saturday evening at the Moon Palace Resort in Cancun, Mexico. The win moves VU to 4-1 on the young 2008-09 campaign.
Freshman guard Brad Tinsley led an array of Vanderbilt scorers in double figures with a career-high 19 points on 7-of-14 shooting, 5-of-8 from three-point range. Another freshman, Jeffery Taylor, added 15 points, while junior Jermaine Beal chipped in 14 points, and sophomore center A.J. Ogilvy notched 13 points, all in the second half.
“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.”
“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.
The Commodores, who trailed early by two points early in the contest, never trailed after that and held a comfortable margin the rest of the way. Vanderbilt led by as many as 23 in the second half, and had many players who had not seen considerable playing time in their careers step up and contribute significant minutes in the game.
Redshirt freshman guard Charles Hinkle played a career-high 31 minutes and scored five points, but his presence on the defensive end of the floor and steadiness on the offensive end was a bright spot for the Commodores, who are competing with only eight scholarship players with the absence of Festus Ezeli, Lance Goulbourne, Andre Walker, and Steve Tchiengang this weekend. George Drake and Joe Duffy also played well off the bench in a total team effort by Vanderbilt on Saturday night.
The Commodores shot 46.2% on the night, and was 45.5% from three and 82.4% from the charity stripe, and held Drake’s leading scorer, guard Josh Young, to only 10 points, 12 under his average, on only 1-of-9 shooting. Bulldog forward Jonathan Cox led the team with 12 points on the night.
Vanderbilt held a 37-26 lead at the half behind Tinsley’s 13 points and an 11-point effort from Taylor. Ogilvy was held scoreless and only played six minutes in the first half because of foul trouble, but the rest of the Commodores picked up the slack on both ends of the floor. Vanderbilt held Drake to only 31.8% from the floor, while the Commodores scorched the nets at 54.2% and 63.6% from three-point range. VU also forced 10 Bulldog turnovers in the first half.
“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 Commodores will face off against VCU Sunday night in the championship game. Eric Maynor scored 18 points to lead the Rams (3-2) to a 67-55 victory over New Mexico late Saturday night. Tip time is set for 9:30 p.m., with the action being aired live on CBS College Sports. The radio call can be heard on the Vanderbilt/ISP Sports Network.
