Sept. 29, 2017
The 2017-18 basketball season begins in earnest on Friday afternoon at Memorial Gym when the Commodores participate in their first official practice of the upcoming season.
The Commodores’ mix of eight returning letter winners and six newcomers should be very familiar with each other after a seven-day trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands in August and 10 practices in preparation for the trip.
Core senior trio returns to lead Vanderbilt
The Commodores return three seniors, Matthew Fisher-Davis, Riley LaChance, and Jeff Roberson, to the fold in 2017-18, along with junior Joe Toye who has also seen a good amount of playing time.
Fisher-Davis, LaChance, and Roberson have combined to play in 303 career games and accumulated 234 career starts. In their careers, the trio has made 497 three pointers and made three-pointers at an astounding rate during their career – a combined 40.3% (497-1233).
Look for those three to have standout seasons this year in their last go around with the Black and Gold.
Fisher-Davis, LaChance 1,000 point scorers
Matthew Fisher-Davis and Riley LaChance each surpassed the 1,000-point barrier last season, with Jeff Roberson only 169 points shy of the mark entering his senior season.
Commodores faced tough slate in 2016-17
Vanderbilt had five top-25 wins, six top-50 victories and 11 top-100 RPI wins a year ago, the overall toughest strength of schedule and toughest non-conference schedule in the nation, and were the only SEC team to sweep Florida. The Commodores tied for the second-most top 50 wins in SEC with Florida with six – only UK (8) has more. The Commodores played 11 teams that advanced to the NCAA Tournament (Marquette, Bucknell, Butler, Minnesota, Middle Tennessee, Dayton, Kentucky, Florida, Arkansas, Iowa State, and South Carolina) and four teams in the 2017 Postseason NIT (Belmont, Alabama, Georgia, and Ole Miss). Twenty of Vanderbilt’s 34 games came against teams that advanced to the postseason.
2017-18 will be much of the same for Vanderbilt, including home games with NCAA Tournament teams USC, Kansas State, Middle Tennessee, Kentucky, and Florida.
Season tickets are on sale now, with season tickets starting at $123, which comes out to $6.83 per game! Get them here.
Austin Peay game would mark 1,000 consecutive games with a three
Vanderbilt has made a 3-pointer in 999 consecutive games, a streak which began at the inception of the 3-point line in 1986-87. The Commodores rank third only to UNLV and Kentucky 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.
LaChance made threes at high clip in 2016-17
Riley LaChance, who played the point guard position in 2016-17 and will slide over to his more natural two-guard spot in his senior season, made 49.3% of his three-point attempts last year, which is the third-best in a single-season all-time for the Commodores – only Billy McCaffrey (51.2%, 1992-93) and Barry Booker (50%, 1986-87) have had better seasons from three. LaChance led the SEC in three-point shooting in 2016-17.