March 5, 2007
Vanderbilt Comes Full Circle, Wins Another Championship
By Will Matthews
Visit Our SEC Tournament Central Site for Complete Commodore Championship Coverage
Championship Recap: Vanderbilt 51 LSU 45
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| Carla Thomas – Tournament MVP |
DULUTH, Ga. – For a team that prides itself on finesse and its ability to shoot the basketball from the perimeter, Sunday’s Southeastern Conference Tournament championship game was not the typical Vanderbilt outing.
But after watching her team scrap for nearly 40 minutes against a physical LSU team that successfully controlled the game’s pace from the opening tip, Vanderbilt Head Coach Melanie Balcomb breathed a sigh of relief with 4.6 seconds to go and began hugging everyone on the Commodore bench.
Vanderbilt had pulled it out.
It wasn’t a thing of beauty, to be sure. But in earning their third SEC Tournament championship in the past six years, the Commodores proved they could play with anyone in the country – and do so while playing just about any style of basketball necessary.
“I know it wasn’t as pretty as our first two games,” Balcomb said in the aftermath of Vanderbilt’s 51-46 defeat of LSU, the team’s second win over the Lady Tigers in ten days. “I think what is really important is that we showed that we can play any tempo. I know it was in their tempo. They are a low-scorer, but we battled. We battled down the stretch.”
Sunday’s performance was a far cry from the blitzkrieg they laid on Florida two nights earlier when the Commodores torched the nets with 66 percent shooting from the field – including 73.3 percent from three-point range – en route to scoring 105 points and becoming the first team in nearly a decade to surpass the century mark in the SEC Tournament.
Vanderbilt was held to just 42.2 percent shooting by LSU and the Commodores, one of the best three-point shooting teams in the nation, didn’t make a single three-point basket until senior guard Dee Davis connected from long distance nearly midway through the second half – the only three-point shot the team would make all night.
But in the end it didn’t matter. The Commodores managed to find a way to claim their first title since 2004 anyway.
“Everyone played so hard,” said senior guard Caroline Williams. “Tonight we had some off shooting. But we showed so much heart and so much courage. It says so much about our team to be able to step beyond that and still hit big shots when you have to and get stops when you have to. It means so much to all of us.”
Vanderbilt compensated for a poor shooting night by doing the things defensively that Balcomb said all weekend win championships. The Commodores pressured LSU into just 28.8 percent shooting, they limited second chance points by keeping the Lady Tigers off the offensive glass and they held LSU without a field goal in the game’s final six minutes.
“We did an awesome job of just going after the basketball and wanting it,” Balcomb said. “I just am really proud of how bad they wanted this game and how they gutted it out. And that is just effort. They showed a lot of heart. It is so nice to coach a team that I don’t have to coach effort, because you can’t coach effort.”
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For the senior trio – of which Williams is a part and that has led Vanderbilt from day one – Sunday’s victory was the fulfillment of a goal they set for themselves at the beginning of the season. Williams and fellow seniors Dee Davis and Carla Thomas were freshmen on Vanderbilt’s last tournament championship team in 2004, but hadn’t managed to get past the semifinals the past two years. They wanted to bookend their collegiate careers with a second title.
“It is sweet,” said Thomas, who scored 13 points, pulled down six rebounds and played strong interior defense to contain LSU star Sylvia Fowles Sunday to cap a tremendous weekend performance that earned her tournament Most Valuable Player honors. “It is bittersweet, but it is a great feeling. You know you are going out, you know you are finishing up, but you went out the right way.”
The tournament was held just 50 miles outside of Williams’ hometown of Rockmart, Ga. so she was able to play this weekend in front of a boisterous contingent of family and friends. She couldn’t have drawn up the end of her SEC career any better than it played out.
“It is a storybook ending,” Williams said.
It has been anything but storybook for Vanderbilt at times in recent years. The current senior class has suffered a number of defections since they came in as freshman four years ago and the team suffered a disappointing early exit in the NCAA Tournament last season.
So it was that Balcomb found herself trying to choke back some emotion when reflecting on the ability of Davis, Thomas and Williams to successfully end their SEC careers in the same way they began them: as champions.
“It is awesome,” Balcomb said. “That is why I coach – to see them be happy and to accomplish this. They have been through a lot and have worked really hard for it. And I am so happy for them.”
Will Matthews spent three years as an investigative reporter with the Los Angeles Newspaper Group in Southern California. He is currently in his third year at Vanderbilt Divinity School.
