With Kentucky and Florida on deck, Commodores’ NCAA chances hang in the balance

Vanderbilt Hustler February 25, 2017 – Riley LaChance (13) and Jeff Roberson (11) celebrate during the Commodores' 77-48 win against Mississippi State Saturday afternoon in Memorial Gym.
When Vanderbilt got demolished in a key road game against SEC bottom-feeder Missouri February 11, the Commodores’ postseason hopes appeared to be dead.
While an NIT bid wasn’t out of reach, Vanderbilt’s 12-13 record after losing to a Tigers team ranked around 250 in RPI suggested any hopes of an NCAA tournament appearance were gone. No team with more than 15 losses has ever made the Big Dance without winning its league’s automatic spot, meaning the ‘Dores had to go on a long hot streak to stay in the conversation.
With six games remaining, Vanderbilt’s longest winning streak this season was a measly two games in length. According to statistician Ken Pomeroy’s rankings — generally considered the best predictive system available — the Commodores had less than a one percent chance to win out. A despondent performance in Columbia provided little optimism for the team going forward.
“It looked like [Missouri] had eight guys out there to our five,” head coach Bryce Drew told Joe Fisher of the IMG Radio Network after the 72-52 loss. “They pretty much dominated the glass, dominated every loose ball.”
Four wins later, things have changed. Head coach Bryce Drew’s squad has tossed its season-long inconsistency aside and crawled back onto the NCAA tournament bubble. As of Monday night, 56 of 108 bracket projections aggregated by BracketMatrix.com since the Commodores’ win against Mississippi State have Vanderbilt in the tournament if the field were selected now. The website projects Rhode Island as the first team left out, as the Rams appear on 50 entries.
But what must Vanderbilt do to separate itself from its bubble competition?
The Assembly Call’s Andy Bottoms, the Matrix’s No. 1-ranked bracketologist, believes the relatively weak crop of bubble teams means ...


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