Nov. 2, 2010
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Vanderbilt GameNotes vs. Alabama Huntsville 
Vanderbilt Opens Exhibition Season With Alabama Huntsville
The Vanderbilt Commodores open their 2010-11 campaign with an exhibition game with Alabama Huntsville on Wednesday night. Tip off is set for 7 p.m. CT, and the game can be heard live on the Vanderbilt Sports Network from IMG College with Joe Fisher and Tim Thompson on the call. The game can also be heard on vucommodores.com as a part of the All-Access package.
The Commodores, after finishing 24-9 and winning a Stallings-era best 12 SEC games in 2009-10, are back in 2010-11 with renewed energy and spirit after a stellar summer. Twelve letterwinners return from a year ago, and most attended summer school in 2010.
Alabama Huntsville Familiar Exhibition Foe
The Commodores are 1-0 against Alabama-Huntsville in the regular season, but this is the third consecutive year the two teams have met in an exhibition game. Vanderbilt claimed the 2008 meeting, 84-65, and the 2009 contest, 91-56.
Limited Number of Single Exhibition Game Seats Available
There will be a limited number of single game tickets available for the Commodores’ two exhibition games against Alabama-Huntsville and Southern Indiana. Tickets are $17 per game and can only be purchased at the Memorial Gym box office. The box office will open 90 minutes before tip off at 5:30 p.m. There are also a very limited number of season tickets available for purchase and if fans want to guarantee a seat to Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, and the rest of the home schedule, season tickets are the only way that occurs.
Season Preview – Guards
Gone is Jermaine Beal at the point guard position, who averaged a team-high 14.6 points per game a year ago, and in steps Brad Tinsley, a 6’3 junior who has played at both guard positions in his first two years with the Commodores. He has participated in all 64 games and made 55 starts over that period, mostly at the two-guard position. He has a very well-rounded game and is exceptionally talented passing the ball, which should bode well for Vanderbilt playmakers on the wings and in the post. Tinsley can also score, making 100 threes and averaging 9.2 points per game in his career.
6’4 sophomore John Jenkins returns to start at the shooting guard position. Jenkins, the 2010 SEC Sixth Man of the Year and a member of the 2010 All-SEC Freshmen team, averaged 11.0 points per game and his 48.3% from three ranks as the third-best single-season three-point percentage in the program’s history and the 11th-best single season in SEC history. It is also the third-best career percentage in SEC history with 100 to 199 career three-point attempts. Jenkins and his shooting stroke could become a national phenomenon if he keeps up his current pace.
New to the fold is 6’1 guard Kyle Fuller from Moreno Valley, Calif. Fuller averaged 27.6 points, eight assists, six rebounds, and four steals per game as a point guard at Rancho Verde High School. and was the winningest player in Rancho Verde history. He was a four-year captain, a three-year starter, and was named a first team All-C.I.F. Division IAA selection and the MVP of the Inland Valley Conference in 2010. Fuller will be counted on to back up Tinsley at the point guard position.
Other guards on the roster include senior Chris Meriwether and sophomore Jordan Smart. Both are walk-ons, and both Meriwether and Smart played very limited minutes in 2009-10.
Season Preview – Forward
Vanderbilt returns a plethora of forwards, in fact every forward on last year’s roster returns. Leading the way is junior Jeffery Taylor, who is the Commodores’ top returning scorer at 13.3 points per game and a preseason All-SEC first team selection. The 6’7 Taylor, from Norrkoping, Sweden, has started in every game in his two-year Vanderbilt career, and scored in double figures in 24 of Vanderbilt’s 33 games, including a career-high 26-point effort against Tennessee in Memorial Gym (2/9).
Also returning is starting four man Andre Walker, a 6’7 redshirt junior forward. Walker played in 32 games in 2009-10, started 31, and averaged 6.1 points per game. He also averaged 5.4 rebounds and 2.5 assists per contest, and acted as another ball-handler for the Commodores when needed. Walker was back at full strength in 2009-10 after tearing his ACL two games into the 2008-09 campaign.
Other forwards returning for the Commodores are four-year seniors Joe Duffy and Darshawn McClellan, and juniors Lance Goulbourne and Steve Tchiengang. Newcomers Rod Odom and James Siakam will also be thrown into the forward mix.
McClellan played in 30 games last season and made one start as a junior, and averaged 1.9 points and 1.2 rebounds per contest. McClellan has made 13 starts in his career, and has assumed a leadership role with the team this summer.
Goulbourne is an explosive wing player who will come off of the bench to spell Taylor at the three spot and possibly get minutes at the two and four spots. Goulbourne played in 31 games as a sophomore in 2009-10 and averaged 3.3 points and 2.1 boards per contest. He also scored 18 points, a career-high, in 26 minutes of action, also a career-best, in a home win over LSU on February 13, 2009.
Tchiengang, who played in every game in 2009-10 and averaged 3.4 points and 2.5 rebounds per game, will see some time at the four and five positions this season for the Commodores. Tchiengang is a very physical presence who can pop out and hit a three to keep defenses honest.
Duffy played limited minutes in 2009-10, and averaged 0.3 points per game in eight games. However, Duffy is a solid presence in the locker room and in the community – last spring he raised nearly $3,000 for the Nothing But Nets charity, an organization that buys mosquito nets to protect children from malaria in Africa.
Odom, from Central Islip, N.Y., is a 6’9 freshman forward who was a three-year starter in basketball at the Middlesex School in Massachusetts, where he averaged 25.6 points, 14.0 rebounds, 6.0 assists, and 3.1 blocks in his senior season.
Siakam, a 6’7 athletic forward, was a spring signee from Brehm Prep in Carbondale, Ill., where he averaged 18 points, 10 rebounds, and five blocks per game.
Season Preview – Center
There are officially two centers on the roster to replace the departed A.J. Ogilvy – redshirt junior Festus Ezeli and true freshman Josh Henderson.
Ezeli will be called upon as the likley starter at the center position for Ogilvy, who departed as the school’s 13th all-time leading scorer with 1,469 points. The 6’11 big man played in 32 games, made five starts, and averaged 12.7 minutes per game and averaged 3.8 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks per game. His 43 blocks is the sixth-best single season total in the history of the program.
Henderson, a 6’11 center from Roanoke, Va., averaged 20 points, 11 rebounds, four blocks, and four steals per game in his senior season at Cave Spring, where his Knights’ team won two district titles, two region titles, and two state titles, and captured the Holiday Hoopla tournament in 2010.
