Razorbacks report
In Vanderbilt’s 72-59 victory over the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville last season in Walton Arena, Willis scored eight points.
Road struggles
Vanderbilt is 0-8 on the road this season, including 0-6 in SEC games.
“Winning on the road as we all know is really hard, and it’s harder this year in the SEC than as far back as I can remember,” Commodores Coach Bryce Drew said. “Closing out games is something we’ve got to continue to improve at.
“We give so much energy to stay in the game or have a lead early, sometimes it gets down to the last five minutes and the other team picks it up a level on their home court and we’ve already played at our highest level for the first 35 minutes.
“So somehow we have to be able to extend that high level for 40 minutes and hopefully a team will miss some shots at the clutch time there on the road.”
No Fisher-Davis
Vanderbilt lost senior forward Matthew FisherDavis to a season-ending shoulder injury after 16 games.
Without Fisher-Davis, who averaged 11.9 points and 5.1 rebounds, the Commodores top players are senior forward Jeff Roberson (16.3 points, 7.2 rebounds) and senior guard Riley LaChance (13.0 points).
“When you put your offense in at the beginning of the year, you put a lot of things in to help your best offensive players, and our three seniors are the ones we centered around,” Vanderbilt Coach Bryce Drew said. “Matt’s the most explosive scorer we had returning. We’ve had to tweak some of the things we do on the offensive end with his absence.”
Arkansas Coach Mike Anderson praised Drew for how the Commodores have adjusted their lineup, which includes three freshman starters in Lee Saben, Maxwell Evans and Ejike Obinna.
“They’ve scored over 80 points in the last four games,” Anderson said. “So that’s a sign that they’re getting better. They’re getting comfortable not having Fisher-Davis.
“Sometimes with subtraction, you get addition, because now other guys get an opportunity to showcase what they can do.”
Last time in Fayetteville
After Arkansas rallied from a 15-point deficit with less than six minutes left to win 71-70 at Vanderbilt last season, the Commodores came into Walton Arena two weeks later and beat the Razorbacks 72-59.
The margin in
Fayetteville wasn’t as close as the final score indicated as Vanderbilt jumped out to a 25-4 lead in the first nine minutes and never trailed by fewer than 12 points the rest of the game.
“They came in and played awfully well here,” Razorbacks Coach Mike Anderson said. “We want to make sure they’re a little bit more uncomfortable than they were last year.”
Vanderbilt Coach Bryce Drew said it was one of the better games the Commodores played last season, and they caught the Razorbacks having an off night.
“I think as a coach you look and have a game here or there where you don’t play as well as you would like,” Drew said. “I would say if Arkansas pointed to one game all year, that would be the one game they’d point to. We all have those as teams.”
81 times 4
Vanderbilt has scored 81 points in each of its past four games. The Commodores beat TCU 8178, lost at Kentucky 83-81 in overtime, lost at Auburn 9381 and beat Georgia 81-66.