Mobile Version: mobile.mauinews.com
RSS:
Member Login: Email: Password:
Search: Local News Classified EZToUseIslandPages Web
Real Estate Maui  50th Anniv. of Statehood  News  Obituaries  Weather  Local Sports  Blogs  CU  Jobs  Classifieds  Vac Rentals  Saturday Homes  TV
Local Sports

Vandy closes with two straight wins, places fifth

By MATTHEW CARROLL, Staff Writer
POSTED: November 25, 2009

Article Photos


Advertisement

LAHAINA --- During their pregame shootaround on Wednesday, Vanderbilt players donned warmup jerseys with the words ''No Ka Oi'' printed on the back.

The Commodores weren't the best, but they were better than Arizona.

A.J. Ogilvy scored a game-high 20 points and Jermaine Beal added 18 as Vanderbilt, ranked 24th by The Associated Press, claimed fifth place in the EA Sports Maui Invitational with an 84-72 victory over Arizona at the Lahaina Civic Center.

Trailing by five at halftime, the Commodores (4-1) shot 69.2 percent (18-of-26) in the second half.

Vanderbilt won its final two games on the Valley Isle after a lackluster opening-round setback to Cincinnati on Monday.

''We had such a bad taste in our mouth after Monday,'' said Commodores coach Kevin Stallings. ''I told the team today that we were in the unfortunate position of feeling like this was an abysmal trip if we didn't win, if we didn't play better and play well. I'm glad they responded or did whatever they did because we played much better.''

Jeffery Taylor contributed 13 points --- eight in in the last eight minutes as the Commodores closed the game on a 15-5 run --- and also had 10 rebounds.

''That looked a lot more like we expect our team to look,'' Stallings said. ''I realize these guys are 18, 19, 20, 21 years old and they're not going to be the same every day, but there's a pretty big discrepancy for us in how we played on Monday and the way we played today.

''I thought that was really a good college basketball game,'' he added. ''If you like watching good basketball, I think that was a really enjoyable game to watch.''

Ogilvy, one of five Australian players in this year's field, finished with seven rebounds and time after time preserved Vanderbilt's precarious lead.

Arizona's Jamelle Horne followed a Kyle Fogg miss with a two-handed slam and Solomon Hill, who had a team-high 17 points, added a pair of free throws for a 51-46 edge with 14:09 left.

Then the man from Down Under delivered down low.

After Brendon Lavender drained a 3 in the face of Ogilvy, the 6-foot-11 junior exacted his revenge seconds later with a hard drive to the hoop, converting the three-point play after being fouled and capping a 6-for-10 shooting stretch for the Commodores.

Beal briefly tied the game with a midcourt steal and layup and John Jenkins started a 7-0 run with another three-point play, but the Wildcats (3-2) whittled their deficit to two on three different occasions. Each time Ogilvy stretched it back to four --- twice with layups and the third time when he took the ball in the low post, spun around Williams and flushed it through the net with 4:40 left.

''A.J. was really on top of his game today, I thought it was going to be important for our entire offense for us to be able to throw it inside and get a basket and A.J. really gave us a great offensive post presence today,'' Stallings said. ''That's what we need from him and that's what we've kind of come to expect from him. And he lived up to it.''

Ogilvy picked up one of his four blocks with under five minutes to play, leading to yet another and-one situation for Vandy --- this time Taylor converted the three-point play.

''He's no longer a young SEC performer, he's older now. He's a junior, he's been through 200-plus practices, he's run the same system for a couple of years and you could really tell he's a special player,'' Arizona coach Sean Miller said of Ogilvy. ''I was surprised at how agile he is being able to drive the ball. He took advantage of our youthfulness inside and we need to address that.''

Steve Tchiengang hit a shot and ensuing free throw for the Commodores' fourth old-fashioned three-point play in a nine-minute span, expanding the lead 10. The Wildcats got no closer than six after that.

''We knew we had to get some stops,'' Beal said of the second-half difference. ''Down the stretch we made some shots and we kind of pulled away at the end.''

Arizona lost to Wisconsin in Monday's opening round before sneaking by Colorado in overtime on Tuesday.

''They may be the best of the three teams we played,'' Miller said of the Badgers.

Hitting five of their first six shots, the Wildcats darted out to a 12-4 lead on the heels of four points from Derrick Williams and a rattled-home 3-pointer by Wise, who was held to just nine points after scoring 30 against the Buffaloes. Five consecutive misses, though, coupled with three turnovers in five possessions allowed the Commodores to creep within two on a baseline hook from Ogilvy.

Vandy knotted it at 16 when Jenkins converted a four-point play, but Lamont Jones delivered back-to-back 3-pointers and Wise culminated a quick 8-0 run for a 41-34 Arizona edge. Taylor cut the gap to five with a tip-in as the first-half buzzer sounded.

''We came here without a lot of room for error,'' Miller said. ''We won one, lost two, but in my opinion, we probably learned more about ourselves than any team in this tournament.

''I think we have a clear understanding of where we go from here,'' he added. ''We have to become better defensively, we have to become better rebounding and offensively, I think we show a lot of promise.''

Matthew Carroll is at mcarroll@mauinews.com

 
Share:
Facebook  MySpace  Digg  Stumble    Mixx  Fark  del.icio.us   LiveSpaces
 
 
Real Estate Maui  50th Anniv. of Statehood  News  Obituaries  Weather  Local Sports  Blogs  CU  Jobs  Classifieds  Vac Rentals  Saturday Homes  TV