March 4, 2016
Vanderbilt Gamenotes 
| Texas A&M Gamenotes
Vanderbilt will close out their regular season this Saturday morning when they travel to College Station, Texas, to take on Texas A&M at Reed Arena. The game will tip off at 11 a.m. CT and will be televised on ESPN2, with all of the action also available on the Vanderbilt IMG Sports Radio Network.
Vanderbilt improved to 19-11, 11-6 in SEC play after the 86-69 win over Tennessee Tuesday night at Memorial Gym, their fourth consecutive win and sixth win in their last seven. Vanderbilt swept Tennessee for the first time since the 2009-10 season.
Wade Baldwin IV led four players in double figures with 17 points. He also added seven assists and six rebounds. Damian Jones and Jeff Roberson each scored 14 points, and Nolan Cressler chipped in 11 in the Commodore win.
The Commodores posted a season-best 62 bench points in the win over the Volunteers, and outscored Tennessee, 62-14, in bench points. Vanderbilt also posted a season-high 10 steals.
Dores 7-2 since February 4
Since the February 4 in a win over the Aggies in Nashville, the Commodores are 7-2, including winning six of their last seven. During that time, Damian Jones is averaging 16.0 points and 8.1 rebounds per game and shooting 66.3% from the floor. Baldwin is averaging 14.8 points, 7.0 assists, and 4.7 rebounds per game, while Jeff Roberson is averaging 12.1 points and 5.8 rebounds per game, and is shooting 52.2% from three (12-23).
Matthew Fisher-Davis is averaging 11.7 points per game during that span, and Luke Kornet is averaging 10.3 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks per game.
Chance at SEC Regular Season Title
With a win over Texas A&M and a LSU win over Kentucky on Saturday, the Commodores would lay claim to their fourth SEC regular season championship, joining the 1993, 1974, and 1965 teams.
Game 31/ Vanderbilt (19-11, 11-6 SEC) vs. #20/18 Texas A&M (23-7, 12-5 SEC)
College Station, Texas – Reed Arena – 11 a.m. CT
TV: ESPN2
TV Talent: Mark Jones (pxp), Kara Lawson (analyst)
Radio: Vanderbilt Radio Network from IMG College, vucommodores.com
Radio Talent: Joe Fisher (pxp), Tim Thompson (analyst)
Satellite Radio: Sirius 132, XM 191
Live Stats: vucommodores.com
Twitter Updates: @VandyMBB
Series Information
Series Record: Vanderbilt leads, 5-1.
Last Meeting: VU win, 77-60, on 2/4/16 in Nashville.
Record at Vanderbilt: VU leads, 4-0.
Record at TAMU: Tied at 1.
Record at Neutral Site: NA
Coach Stallings vs. TAMU: Coach Stallings is 4-1 vs. Texas A&M.
Quick Hitters
- Saturday will be the seventh meeting between the two schools, with each team winning a game in College Station in the series.
- Jones was named the SEC Player of the Week after averaging 21.0 points and 7.5 rebounds per game in two Commodore wins last week. Jones scored a new career-high 27 points against Florida on 12-13 shooting from the floor, which set a new program record for field goal percentage in a game with 10 or more made shots (92.3%). In a win over Kentucky, he scored 15 points and had eight rebounds.
- Nationally, Vanderbilt is fourth in the nation in 3FG defense at 29.1%. Vanderbilt also ranks 6th in FG% defense (38.4%), 12th in blocks (5.5), and 20th in 3FG% (38.9%).
- Vanderbilt ranks first in all games in the SEC in 3FG% defense (.291) and second in scoring margin (+10.4), FG Defense (.384), 3FG% (.389), blocks (5.5), and 3FG made (8.4).
- Kornet leads the SEC in blocks in all games and in SEC games only, and Jones is eighth in all games and ninth in SEC games only. Roberson is third in the SEC in all games in free throw percentage at 84.0% and is second in the SEC in league games only at 87.7%. Fisher-Davis is first in the SEC in all games in 3-Point Field Goal Percentage (.453).
- Ten players have scored in double figures in a game this season – Wade Baldwin, Luke Kornet, Damian Jones, Jeff Roberson, Riley LaChance, Matthew Fisher-Davis, Nolan Cressler, Camron Justice, Josh Henderson, and Joe Toye. Baldwin, Kornet, Jones, Roberson, and Fisher-Davis have each posted double-doubles.
- Head Coach Kevin Stallings, the school’s all-time winningest coach, is in his 17th season with the Commodores and 23rd overall as a head coach, and is now the dean of SEC coaches. Stallings has 332 career wins at Vanderbilt and 455 overall as a head coach. He has eight 20-win seasons in the last 12 seasons, with 11 total postseason appearances, six NCAA tournaments, and two Sweet 16’s (2004 and 2007). He is also one of five SEC coaches to win 300 or more games at one institution, joining Kentucky’s Adolph Rupp, Florida’s Billy Donovan, and LSU’s Dale Brown and Harry Rabenhorst, and is in 6th place all-time on the SEC wins list.
- Saturday’s game against Texas A&M is a familiar matchup for the Commodores, with five players on the Vanderbilt roster hailing from the state of Texas. The five players on the Vanderbilt roster that played high school basketball in the state of Texas – Luke Kornet (Lantana, Liberty Christian), Jeff Roberson (Houston, The Kinkaid School), Djery Baptiste (Plano, Prestonwood Christian Academy), Carter Josephs (San Antonio, Tom C. Clark), and Samir Sehic (Cypress, Cy Woods). Vanderbilt has already made two trips to Texas this season (at Baylor, at Texas), and are 0-2 in those games.
- Nine of Vanderbilt’s 11 league wins have come by double digits this season, and 16 of 19 overall.
- Vanderbilt swept Florida and Tennessee for the first time since 2010 (4 wins), and for only the second time since 1965-66, when VU knocked off Tennessee twice and Florida once that season.
961
Vanderbilt has made a 3-pointer in 961 consecutive games, a streak which began at the inception of the 3-point line in 1986-87. The Commodores rank second only to UNLV for the longest streak in Division I basketball. Vanderbilt, UNLV and Princeton are the only three schools in college basketball to have made at least one 3-pointer in every game played since the 3-point line was implemented.
Academic Success
Eight members of this year’s team were named to the SEC Academic Honor Roll or the SEC First-Year Academic Honor Roll for 2014-15. Junior Luke Kornet was also recently named to the CoSIDA All-District Three Academic Team.
Damian Jones Coming On
Damian Jones is showing why he is considered one of the nation’s top big men at the end of the season. Jones, a Wooden Award, Lute Olson Award, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award watch list member, who was also named as a preseason All-SEC First Team member, has scored 20 or more points in six different games this year and the engineering major from Baton Rouge, La., leads the SEC in field goal percentage in league games only (62.7%) and second in all games (59.2%).
Home Sweet Home
The Commodores finished the season 14-2 at home, their best winning percentage (.875) at home since 2009-10. Vanderbilt won eight in a row at home to the end the year, and averaged 80.2 points per game and posted a scoring average of +16.8. VU shot 47.9% from the floor in the 16 home games and limited opponents to 37.8%, and converted on 40.7% of its shots from three. Opponents shot only 29.9% from three for the year at Memorial Gym.
Block Party
Junior Luke Kornet is 8th in the nation in blocks at 2.84 blocks per game, and he has spurred the team to 165 blocks on the season (already 4th all-time team total in program history) and blocking 10 or shots in a game on three separate occasions. Damian Jones is second on the career blocks list with 165, and his 1.72 blocks per game career mark is the best in program history, while Kornet is fifth in the program’s history in career blocks per game (1.40) and fifth in total blocks (126).
Finishing Strong
The last two Februarys have been very kind to the Commodores, with Vanderbilt posting a combined 12-4 record in the last two years. Vanderbilt has won six of last seven games this season, and in 2015, the Commodores won their last five regular season league games of the season and eight of their last 10.
Ranked Opponents
The game with Texas A&M will be Vanderbilt’s eighth ranked game of the season, and the eighth ranked games is the most a Vanderbilt team has faced in a season since the Commodores had 10 games against ranked foes in 2011-12. The most games against a ranked foe in a single season came in the 2002-03 campaign, when the Commodores faced 12 ranked teams.
About Texas A&M
- Texas A&M enters the game with a 23-7 overall record and a 12-5 mark in league play.
- The Aggies are led by Jalen Jones, who is averaging 15.7 points per game. Danuel House (15.5) and Tyler Davis (11.1) also average double figures.
- The Commodores won an earlier meeting between the two schools, 77-60, on February 4 at Memorial Gym.