Mississippi Valley State @ Vanderbilt preview
Memorial Gymnasium
Vanderbilt resumes its interrupted season Sunday afternoon when Mississippi Valley State comes to Nashville.
Due to multiple coronavirus-related cancellations, the Commodores (1-0) haven't played since a season-opening 77-71 victory against Valparaiso on Nov. 27.
Scotty Pippen Jr. scored a career-high 25 points and Maxwell Evans added 16 points as Vanderbilt overcame a five-point deficit with 6:52 remaining.
Head coach Jerry Stackhouse's Commodores lacked depth a year ago but had 11 players see at least 10 minutes of action against the Crusaders.
Five were playing their first game at Vanderbilt, and that included a pair of starters in D.J. Harvey (eight points) and Quentin Millora-Brown (zero points, four rebounds), transfers from Notre Dame and Rice, respectively.
Pippen said all the new pieces are still getting used to playing together.
"It's our first time playing against a new defense and a new offense -- it's just new and we got a lot of new guys," Pippen said. "We have a lot of freshmen playing, we have a lot of new transfers playing, so it's new for all of us. We haven't been playing basketball (together) in quarantine so just being out there and playing with so many new people it's something to adjust to."
It's been a rough start for Mississippi Valley State (0-6), which entered Saturday as the worst team in Division I according to the Ken Pomeroy rankings. The Delta Devils lost 142-62 to Arkansas in their opener and their closest game was a 96-69 loss to Western Kentucky.
MVSU has four players -- Kam'Ron Cunningham (13.5), Terry Collins (12.5), Devin Gordon (11.3) and Caleb Hunter (10.3) -- averaging double figures in scoring. Collins has missed the team's past two games.
Hunter, the son of Delta Devils coach Lindsey Hunter, was the Southwest Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year after averaging 15.7 points a season ago. He scored 15 in each of the team's last two games after being held in single digits the previous three.
--Field Level Media