Dec. 20, 2009
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VU Notes
TV: None | Radio: 104.5 the Zone | XM: None | Sirius: None
Less than 48 hours since its 84-71 win over Tennessee State, Vanderbilt welcomes the Mercer Bears to Memorial Gym for a Monday night matchup. The game tips off at 7 p.m. CT, with the action airing live on the Vanderbilt-ISP Radio Network and vucommodores.com, with Joe Fisher and Tim Thompson courtside calling all of the action. There will be no network TV for the contest, but vucommodores.com will have a live webcast of the game.
The Commodores defeated the Tigers after an eight-day break because of final exams, with sophomore forward Jeffery Taylor leading the way for Vanderbilt. Taylor scored 20 points on 10-of-11 shooting, while also adding five rebounds. The 90.9% shooting performance against Tennessee State is the second-best shooting percentage in a single-game in the Kevin Stallings era. It was also the second consecutive game Taylor has scored 20 or more points.
As a team, Vanderbilt was a torrid 67.9% (36-53) from the floor against TSU, which did set a new record in the Stallings Era for a single-game field goal percentage. The previous best came on March 13, 2008, against Auburn at the SEC Tournament in the Georgia Dome, when the Commodores connected on 67.3% (33-49) of their shots from the field.
Three other players, redshirt sophomore center Festus Ezeli, junior center A.J. Ogilvy, and freshman guard John Jenkins, also scored in double figures. Ezeli tallied 10 points in his fourth start of the season, Ogilvy chipped in 11 points, and Jenkins finished with 12 points.
Monday’s meeting with Mercer will be the 14th between the two schools, but the first since the 1976-77 season, when Vanderbilt knocked off the Bears, 35-33, at Memorial Gym. The previous meetings between the Bears and Commodores all came before the 1928-29 season.
The Bears enter Monday night’s game with a 4-5 record, and have not played since an 87-62 win over Piedmont on December 10. Senior guard James Florence leads Mercer in scoring at 23.1 points per game, with E.J. Kusnyer (13.4) and Daniel Emerson (12.0) also averaging double figures. Emerson averages a double-double, adding 11.6 rebounds per game to go along with his 12.0 points per game.
