Three Standouts From Vanderbilt Basketball’s Exhibition Game Against Virginia – si.com

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It may be late September, but it is never too early for the new college basketball season. The hunger college basketball fans have had for months on end was cured Sunday with Vanderbilt basketball playing an exhibition game against Virginia.
The Commodores and Cavaliers played an outdoor game in Charleston, South Carolina at Capital One Arena. The game gave a very early look at Vanderbilt as it looks to improve on its trip to the Round of 32 last season.
There were both new and familiar players that were active in Sunday’s exhibition. Here are three Vanderbilt standouts from the Commodores’ win.
Who saw this type of performance coming, even in an exhibition game? Leverett had what could be one of the better performances he will end up having in his Vanderbilt career.
Leverett was near perfect in the exhibition, scoring 15 points on 7-for-8 shooting and hitting on his only three-pointer attempt. Leverett also finished the game with seven rebounds with two of them being offensive rebounds.
Leverett looked much better than he did as a freshman. He looked much stronger and most importantly, more conditioned running the floor. The game he put on in Charleston was easily the most surprising of any Vanderbilt player. 
With the team Vanderbilt has this season, Leverett is expected to be a depth guy that could come off the bench and give some productive minutes. But if he plays like he did in Sunday’s exhibition, his role of productive minutes will certainly be more than that. 
“My main key was to have fun. This is a learning experience. I have a bigger role this year so I just made sure to utilize what I knew from last year and improve on myself,” Leverett said on the postgame broadcast. “Having Rodney Terry on the coaching staff staff, we’ve been working on rebounding and conditioning, so he’s a great developer. All offseason we’ve been making sure I rim run and be in condition.”
A very encouraging day from Leverett, who could prove to be more of a factor this upcoming season than initially thought.
It was not the most efficient day for Dak in the scoring column, but he was still highly active on both ends of the floor.
Dak scored seven points on 3-for-9 shooting, but where he really made an impact was on the glass. Dak grabbed eight rebounds, three of them being on the offensive end and even blocked two shots.
Vanderbilt added Dak from Colorado through the transfer portal in the offseason, hoping that he would be a guy that could be a rim protector and also help run the floor offensively for the Commodores. Sunday, he showed flashes of that. 
Obviously, Dak has to be more efficient in his shooting than he was against Virginia. But it is not anything to worry about right now given that Vanderbilt was playing outside, where there were some wind conditions that could have had an impact on the shooting of both teams.
Vanderbilt guard Ace Glass is another guy the Commodores got from the transfer portal over the offseason. The former Washington State guard was brought over to be the running mate to Tyler Tanner.
In the exhibition game, Glass showed that he can be the ideal partner in crime to Tanner. Though Glass did not make any of his three-pointer attempts, he did show the ability to drive inside the arc and find ways to score. Glass shot 4-for-7 inside the three-point line and finished the game with 10 points and two rebounds.
That will play in an exhibition game still over a month from the beginning of the regular season. At Washington State, he set the single-season program record for three-point with 71 made threes. If he can do that on an improved shooting percentage this season, Vanderbilt’s offense will not have much to worry about.
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Graham Baakko is a writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI, primarily covering football, basketball and baseball. Graham is a recent graduate from the University of Alabama, where he wrote for The Crimson White, WVUA-FM, WVUA 23 as he covered a variety of Crimson Tide sports. He also covered South Carolina athletics as a sportswriting intern for GamecockCentral.
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