Throughout the season, RTC’s Gerald Smith will be bringing you off-the-cuff and odd recaps of games: Quick, Fake Summaries. This first one of the season involves Vanderbilt‘s shocking 71-58 home loss to Cleveland State Sunday afternoon.

Vanderbilt was flying high into this season. Despite another early NCAA Tournament exit, the Commodores returned seniors Jeffery Taylor and John Jenkins to a team that led the SEC in scoring last season. They opened up their gym to two teams of green; one (Oregon) self-destructed with unforced turnovers on Friday. Today, the other green team was glowing and sapped the strength from the Super-Seniors.

Cleveland State’s quick guards hindered Jenkins (5-14 FG, 2-8 3FG, 5-7 FT for 17 points), preventing him from getting comfortable shooting behind screens. Those quick-as-a-Flash guards nullified senior point guard Brad Tinsley (two asists, three turnovers) by making him a defensive liability; head coach Kevin Stallings was forced to play Tinsley only 21 minutes and sophomore guard Kevin Fuller (three turnovers) fared little better. The senior forward Taylor was practically nonexistent with just nine points, four rebounds and six turnovers.

The Vikings’ broad-shouldered Aaron Pogue out-muscled senior forward Steve Tchiengang (five points, ten rebounds, one block). With senior center Festus Ezeli out with an injury and suspension, Vanderbilt had no inside-out post game. Well, no post game completely: the Commodores scored just 10 points in the paint. Without any offensive push and no ability to stop the Viking’s constant scoring, Vanderbilt wimpered all the way into the pool of defeat.

Gerald Smith (39 Posts)

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 13th, 2011 at 2:54 pm by Gerald Smith and is filed under microsites, sec. Tagged: brad tinsley, jeffery taylor, john jenkins, kevin fuller, steve tchiengang, vanderbilt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.