I cut my holiday vacation in Houston short and traveled to Nashville on Friday to celebrate New Year’s Eve with Base Rich and, of course, to attend Davidson’s game at Vanderbilt this afternoon at 4:00pm CST. 

We’ve been anticipating this one for awhile. To get ourselves into the right state of mind, we again watched the DVDs of Davidson’s wins over Gonzaga and Georgetown in the 2008 tournament.  While a win today over Vanderbilt would be a bit less dramatic than that tournament run, this 24th-ranked opponent is one of the toughest we’ve faced since 2008. 

Davidson will need to play its best game of the season to win this one.  We think they can do it, but it’ll require hot shooting from Mckillop, and smart, efficient play from Cohen, Kuhlman et al. to keep us in the game.  We hope, as always to see more Eze.  Downing will need to spark us when we inevitably fall into an offensive rut, and newcomer Czerapowicz will probably see some time as well after his impressive 15-point first game against St. Joseph’s (ME).   

The “unofficial” Vandy blog has a nice statistical breakdown of the game.  We’ll be heading over to the Calyspo Cafe for the pre-game alumni gathering, and then make our way to the stadium to try to catch the warmups.  Our seats are apparently behind the Davidson bench, which is an odd location at Vanderbilt.  Our vantage point will be much like it was at MSG for the West Virginia game about two years ago.  In fact, as BR reminded me today, that was the last Davidson game I saw live.  Here’s hoping for a similar result.

GO CATS!

4th Watts