Purdue at Vanderbilt: Times, TV, Odds, Streaming, Etc.

Black and Gold will reign supreme tomorrow night in Nashville as Purdue visits Vanderbilt for a rare matchup. This series was hatched from Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings, a former Purdue player and assistant coach under Gene Keady. Despite that, this is the first time Stallings will coach against his alma mater while at Vanderbilt.

It has been a very long time since Purdue has beaten Vanderbilt. In fact, John Wooden was still at Purdue as a player the last time it happened. The last time the two teams even played was 36 years after that last Purdue win. For the first two meetings you have to go all the way back to 1902.

So this has not been much of a rivalry despite both school's affinity for gold and black. The only interactions I can think of between the two are a few baseball games and we received a football player from them a few years ago as a transfer. We do owe Stallings a solid, however. Since Vanderbilt won the SEC Tournament in 2012 they had to go through Kentucky to do it. They handed Kentucky its second of two defeats that year, the other being The Greatest December Win In College Basketball History. Had Kentucky won that tournament they would have had only one loss on their national championship team and IU fans would be even more insufferable about "restoring the honor of the 1976 team" than they are now.

So what do we know about the Commodores? So far this season they have beaten some lower conference schools but they are 0-2 with two tight losses to Power Conference teams. They lost 66-63 at home to a decent Baylor team in last week's SEC/Big12 challenge. They also lost to Rutgers 68-65 in Brooklyn. Like Purdue, they were just under .500 last season at 15-16 and finished on along losing streak.

People like to make a lot of Vanderbilt's gym, which will be our first true road game of the year and our first visit there ever. They have the weird elevated floor, benches at the end, and odd basket stanchions, but the dimensions of the floor are the same as our gym back in Hickory West Lafayette. I'm not afraid of bench placement or an elevated floor, and if our players are, well, perhaps basketball is not their game.

Vanderbilt hasn't beaten anyone of note yet. Their best win is over LaSalle and they have a non-D1 win over Trevecca. They are led by Damian Jones, an excellent 6'10" sophomore center that averages 17.7 points and 7.9 rebounds per game. Like A.J. Hammons, Jones will step outside for the occasional three (he is 1 of 3 on the year), so Purdue won't be able to keep Hammons and Haas in the post defensively as much. That can open a few things up.

Luke Kornet (12.4 points, 4.9 rebounds) and Riley LaChance (10 points, 2.7 assists) handle the rest of the scoring with Wade Baldwin IV (the most Vanderbilt name of all) averaging 8.9 points and 5.6 assists as the facilitator. Baldwin and LaChance are both freshmen while Kornet is a sophomore. Kornet is also a 7-footer that plays at the same time as Jones, and Kornet is even more dangerous from three at 15 of 26 on the year.

This is a young team with size, and almost a mirror image to our own. James Siakim (7.7 ppg, 5.2 rpg) is the only senior on the roster that plays regular minutes. At 6'7" he makes sure their front three is all over 6'7", so we have the rare team where we are at a rare size disadvantage, especially since Kornet and Jones both play together while Haas and Hammons are interchangeable. They also have 6'11" Josh Henderson on the bench averaging almost 8 minutes per night.

This is a good team that might be on the fringe of the NCAA Tournament depending on what they do. Like Purdue, they need a strong non-conference showing and they have already lost a pair of major conference games. The SEC is not going to help them as much as the Big Ten will help us, either.

Vanderbilt is not afraid to put up some points. They average 70 per game, but they also turn the ball over 13 times per game. They are decent from three led by Kornet, Baldwin, and LaChance. Purdue has been better at 77.3 points per game and against better competition, quite frankly. I am expecting a close game here because both teams are still so young. Both teams have freshmen and sophomores playing a lot of minutes, so it ends up being a very good test for our Boilers. I do think Purdue is better, however, and as long as it does not have a Kansas State or North Florida type letdown it should win.