Feb. 17, 2010
After playing two consecutive games at home at Memorial Gym, #17/19 Vanderbilt will take to the road to take on SEC West opponent Ole Miss Thursday night at Tad Smith Coliseum. Tip off is set for 6 p.m. CT, and the game can be seen live on ESPNU. The radio call can be heard on the Vanderbilt-ISP Radio Network and vucommodores.com, with Joe Fisher and Tim Thompson courtside with all of the action.
The Commodores have won two straight games after defeating LSU, 77-69, Saturday afternoon in Nashville. Vanderbilt was led by sophomore forward Lance Goulbourne, who scored a career-high 18 points and had a career-best nine rebounds off of the Commodore bench. Senior guard Jermaine Beal added 17 points, sophomore forward Jeffery Taylor scored 15 points, and junior center A.J. Ogilvy chipped in 12 points in the Commodore win.
Vanderbilt played the LSU game shorthanded – the Commodores were without the services of starting forward Andre Walker, who missed the game with a sore shoulder, and top reserve John Jenkins, who was still recovering from a bout with the stomach flu that hospitalized him on February 9.
The Commodores defeated the pesky Tigers with a stellar day at the free throw line, making 31-of-43 shots for a 72.1% clip. Vanderbilt attempted 27 more free throws than LSU, and forced three Tiger players to foul out in the game. It marked the second consecutive game Vanderbilt had attempted 43 free throws, and the Commodores continued a trend of getting to the charity stripe in SEC play. Vanderbilt has played 10 SEC games, and has been to the free throw line an SEC-best 312 times, an average of 31.2 times per game. In fact, the Commodores have made 225 in SEC play, which is more than seven teams in the SEC have attempted in conference competition. The 43 attempts are both season highs and Stallings-era highs (1999-00). Taylor and Ogilvy each attempted 11 free throws to lead Vanderbilt – the Commodores moved to 17-2 in Ogilvy’s career when he shoots 10 free throws or more.
Vanderbilt and Ole Miss will meet for the only time this regular season and for the 1110th time overall. Vanderbilt leads the all-time series, 70-39, but Ole Miss leads the series in games played in Oxford, 30-21. This will be Vanderbilt’s fifth meeting with an SEC West opponent – the Commodores are 4-0 so far this season against the west.
Vanderbilt head coach Kevin Stallings has a 7-4 overall record against Ole Miss as a head coach and is 2-3 against the Rebels in Oxford.
Beal leads the team in scoring, averaging 14.8 points per contest. Jeffery Taylor is next at 13.9 points per game, with A.J. Ogilvy (13.3) and John Jenkins (10.4) also averaging double figures.
Ole Miss enters the game Thursday with a 17-7 overall record, 5-5 in SEC competition. The Rebels last played on Thursday, February 11, at Mississippi State, a game they lost, 71-63. Eniel Polynice had 14 points to lead Ole Miss.
Junior guard Chris Warren leads the Rebels in scoring, averaging 16.2 points per game. Sophomore guard Terrico White is next for Ole Miss with 14.8 points per game, and Polynice also averages double figures with 10.8 points per contest.