It’s Monday morning, so it’s time for me to let you all know what’s been on my mind the past week or so (or for this one, mostly the past 15ish hours).
Today will mostly be NCAA Tournament thoughts since we finally know where the Tigers are headed.
Basketball Thoughts
1. How could we start anywhere else?
The Tigers are headed to Wichita for a matchup with the Drake Bulldogs on Thursday at 6:35 p.m.
Drake is good. My initial response when the draw was announced is it’s going to be a tough matchup, especially pairing the Tigers against former Northwest Missouri State coach Ben McCollum.
Drake hasn’t been bad in a while, but when Darian DeVries left for West Virginia, there were some questions about whether a DII powerhouse coach could make the jump to the next level.
Clearly, he can. And he’s already being mentioned for some power-conference jobs opening up this offseason.
But - and I’ll dive deeper into Drake through the week’s coverage leading up to the matchup (let me know if you guys are interested in Texas Tech/UNC-Wilmington stuff, too. I don’t want to jump any guns, but I also don’t want to end up without time to do the pre-game coverage you guys might be looking for) - there is a pretty big flaw the Tigers should be able to take advantage of with Drake.
No one on the roster is taller than 6-foot-8.
Now, don’t get too excited, no one who plays regularly for Vanderbilt is taller than 6-8 either and we saw how that can work for the shorter team pretty recently.
But we also saw how it can work for the taller team the first time the Tigers and Commodores matched up this season.
With Mark Mitchell expected to be fully ready to go - that was the whole point in not playing him Friday after all - I think he should be able to control the paint like we’ve seen from him a lot recently. Especially as he's going up against non-SEC bigs that are going to generally be a little weaker. Add in Josh Gray’s rebounding advantage ...
