Three reasons the Kentucky Wildcats will lose to Vanderbilt – Sports Illustrated

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Kentucky ended its three-game losing streak on Tuesday night as the Wildcats took down the South Carolina Gamecocks, but a much tougher test lies ahead for Pope’s squad. The Vanderbilt Commodores are going to make the trip north from Nashville to Lexington for a rematch with the Wildcats. When these two teams first met in January, Vanderbilt dominated Pope’s team, winning 80-55.
In a season full of bad losses, this one to Vanderbilt takes the cake, but now Kentucky will look for revenge on its home floor. Earlier, we wrote about three reasons why Kentucky is going to win this game at home but now let’s look at the flip side of this coin.
Let’s take a look at three reasons why the Vanderbilt Commodores will beat Kentucky to pull off the regular season sweep.
Over the last four games, the Wildcats have turned the ball over 14 times per game. In January, when these two teams met for the first time, Kentucky turned the ball over 15 times. If Kentucky does not value the basketball, they will lose on Saturday. Every turnover is one less shot for Kentucky and one more shot for Vandy. The Wildcats can not give a Vanderbilt team that has played good basketball this season extra opportunities. If Kentucky is careless with the basketball and Vanderbilt turns this into a lot of points, the Wildcats will lose another game on their home floor.
Vanderbilt ran the Wildcats off the floor in their first meeting and this game, without one of their better guards, Duke Miles. The veteran guard is the second leading scorer for this team, and Vanderbilt is much better with him on the floor. The trio of Tyler Tanner, Tyler Nickel, and Miles will be really hard for Kentucky to slow. If Miles has a big game against the Wildcats, it will be hard to get the win.
In the first meeting between these two teams, Vanderbilt shot 26 threes and made ten of them, shooting 38% from deep. The sharpshooter for this Vanderbilt team is Tyler Nickel, and he was 2-6 in this matchup. The Commodores are unstoppable when he is hot from three, so the Wildcats will have to make sure they guard the three-point line, but this has been a titanic struggle for Pope’s team. If the Commodores are hot from three on Saturday, they will win this game and perhaps run the Wildcats off of their home floor.
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Andrew Stefaniak is the publisher of Kentucky Wildcats On SI and host of the Wildcats Today Podcast.
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