Vanderbilt basketball finished near the bottom of the SEC last season. Yet, with a top-15 recruiting class coming in, the tide could be turning in Nashville.
Vanderbilt basketball struggled this past season. For the year, the Commodores finished way out of NCAA Tournament consideration with a 12-20 (6-12) record. After making the Big Dance in each of the prior two seasons, it was certainly a disappointing, although somewhat expected, campaign. Looking ahead to this next year, though, there are plenty of reasons to be excited about the Commodores’ future.
While the program is losing some key seniors this offseason (Riley LaChance, Jeff Roberson, and Matthew Fisher-Davis), head coach Bryce Drew is bringing in a top recruiting class that could put the team back near the top of the SEC. Considering how strong the conference projects to be during the 2018-19 season, this will not be an easy task whatsoever. Regardless, though, these three incoming recruits could push Vanderbilt back into NCAA Tournament considering.
This recruiting class comes in ranked at No. 13 in the country. All three of the recruits coming in are ranked within the top-100 of the class and should be immediate contributors for the team. This is easily Vanderbilt’s highest-rated recruiting class in recent history, with the top two commitments in program history (in 247Sports’ database) both in this class. For Coach Drew, this could be a program-defining group of recruits.
So, with the introduction out of the way, let’s break down what each player can bring to Nashville and the impact they could have on the program.