Vanderbilt Women’s Basketball Looks to Regroup After Back-to-Back Losses
What Is Wrong With No. 5 Vanderbilt Women’s Basketball?
After a historic 20-0 start to the season for the No. 5 Vanderbilt Commodores Women’s Basketball team, they have since dropped two consecutive games. While they are no doubt a tournament team and have built themselves a cushion for adversity such as this, there are things that must change if they would like to make a deep run in March.
So what is wrong with Vanderbilt women’s basketball?
The main things that Head Coach Shea Ralph mentions, such as toughness, competitiveness, discipline, and focus, are fixable as it is really a mindset thing. They have the skill, they just have to execute on the floor and execute from the beginning, and not wait after the first 20 minutes have passed.
“So, you know, that’s just not gonna cut it in this league, and it’s not a matter of technique or tactic,” said Ralph in response to Alaina Morris of Vandy 247 after the loss to Ole Miss. “It’s just toughness and competitiveness and having the discipline and the focus to be able to do it for 40 straight minutes.”
The Commodores, even in some wins, had a tendency to come out a little slow. Granted, those moments were mostly just missed shots, and when they started to drop, the Dores took total control of the game. However, the last couple of games and even the first half of the Auburn game, the turnover bug has been a main cause of Vanderbilt’s struggles.
The Dores have averaged more than 12 first-half turnovers over their last three games, totaling 50 points surrendered off those giveaways. That has to be cleaned up, and the team knows that. The question is, how quickly can they turn that issue around? Vanderbilt’s right back on the floor as Florida comes to Nashville on Sunday, followed by a road game at Kentucky on Thursday against a Wildcats team currently on a three-game losing streak.
These next two games are crucial for Vandy to gain a couple of wins and to get their focus and confidence back up before Oklahoma and Texas come to town the next week. The remaining schedule leading into the SEC Tournament presents several opportunities to grab their momentum back against formidable opponents and continue building what they have all season.
To do that, the focus and discipline have to be there, and it starts in practice. Over a long season, and especially when things are going well, focus can wander a bit.
“I’ll say that the week of practice hasn’t been great. So it wasn’t a surprise to me that we had a little bit of a hiccup there in the first half as it related to energy and effort and discipline and communication,” said Ralph. “We just looked lackluster, but so did some of our practices. How we practice is how we’re going to play.”
The Commodores can right this tough phase and get back to winning basketball. We saw it in the second half in Birmingham against Ole Miss. That second half yesterday against the Rebels showed what the Commodores look like when they are firing on all cylinders.
They won the second half and just about doubled up Ole Miss’ paint production, outscoring them in the paint 30-16 in the second half to finish the game tied 44-44 in that category. When Vanderbilt drives, gets to the rim, and rebounds, good things happen. That is just simple basketball, right?
This team hasn’t forgotten how to play the game of basketball. It really just comes down to the mental aspect and the want to. Time to bring out the Dawg mentality and jump on teams from the tip.
When asked what the biggest thing to fix on tape was ahead of Sunday’s game against Florida, Ralph made it clear it’s not about X’s and O’s.
“I don’t think there’s like a tactical thing. It’s not that. It’s focus and the will to prepare, energy, that kind of stuff. That needs to be different tomorrow than it’s been the last week. When we have that, then we’re good,” said Ralph. “There is no like, what do we need to fix? We have what we need. We just have to show up and prepare the right way with the right amount of focus and discipline to make sure that we take care of Sunday’s game.”
The Dores tip off against the Florida Gators at 3:00 PM CT at Memorial Gymnasium on Sunday. You can catch the game on SEC Network. This is also a great opportunity to pack Memorial for the women’s basketball team, and wear white.
Visit vucommodores.evenue.net to purchase $1 tickets for the “Grow the Game” promotion while tickets last.
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