Show Me My Opponent, 2022-23: Vanderbilt (#1)

more like the bore report

Tennessee welcomes the Vanderbilt Commodores to Knoxville for the 204th meeting in a series that has featured no toxic discourse about either school’s academic credibility or fan behavior whatsoever. Traditionally, this is a fairly competitive rivalry where Tennessee has won 63% of the games but has also managed seven losses (out of 25 tries) as a ranked team versus an unranked Vandy.

This year it would be unusually difficult to pull that off. Tennessee enters as a giant 19-point KenPom favorite over a moribund Vandy team that is 5-31 in their last 36 SEC road games. The actual point spread wasn’t available at the time of writing but if that’s it it’s the largest point spread in the rivalry since that began being tracked. This is a sensical thing, as Vanderbilt owns three losses to sub-100 KenPom teams and its best win away from home was a two-point overtime win over #136 Temple.

Tennessee has won 10 in a row in this rivalry, the longest streak by either side since a 10-game Tennessee win streak from 1978 to 1982. The only streak longer is an 11-game Tennessee run from 1943 to 1949. This is the most experienced team (by D-1 experience years) of the Jerry Stackhouse era; it appears to have no effect on the actual results they’ve put forth. Luckily, they did not just give him a contract extension for no real reason.

BELOW THE LINE: Davidson vs. Davidson ($)