Prepping for the Dores

I’m cautiously excited about tonight's game against Vanderbilt. It’s our first opportunity against a solid opponent of the caliber we’ll face when we get into ACC play, our first road challenge, plus playing at Vandy is always interesting thanks to Memorial Stadium’s more than unique setup.

My excitement is not in the fact that I expect us to go down there and beat Vandy by 20 and shock the nation, in fact I don’t really even expect to win. But if we play good defense against a very strong team, put enough points on the board to stay close, and leave having lost the game by less than ten points, the trip will have been a success in my mind. Generally speaking I’m not in to moral victories. A loss is a loss, and I’d much rather not have any of them, but I won’t be nearly upset if we lose by four tonight as I was when we did it against Charlotte. I believe we have the talent to win this game, but even if we don’t, I like the fact that our guys are getting an opportunity against a really good opponent at this point in the season.

I haven’t done to much pre-game analysis of Vandy’s team. I know they lost a couple guys from last year’s run, but I believe they also picked up a pretty good freshman or to. I’m sure a pretty good statistical breakdown of Vandy can be found here.

I’ll be back tonight to make some comments throughout the game, so make sure to spend some time with the Old Gold & Blog.