Georgia vs Vandy: A Night For Nickel

If I had a nickel for every Tyler Nickel three tonight, I’m hoping we have at least three nickels. And you couldn’t ask for much better of a matchup against the Georgia defense. Georgia essentially tries to play like a mini Vandy. Run and gun and shoot a bunch of threes, but they are nowhere near the 3PT shooting team that Vandy is. Georgia shoots under 33% from deep which ranks 244th in the country while Vandy is above 36%, ranking 60th. So I essentially see this as a game where Georgia is going to try and beat Vandy at their own game. How do I think that goes? Not well for the Dawgs.

The big difference between the two is that Vandy has a top 25 3PT defense in CBB while Georgia is a lot closer to average. And they get destroyed above the break. They defend the corners relatively well but give up a ton of open looks ATB, especially as of late. 

In Georgia’s last five games, they’re allowing teams to shoot 44.7% on above the break threes, the worst mark in CBB. Wanna guess where Tyler Nickel shoots from?

Almost exclusively above the break. Vandy run so many different actions that result in open looks for Nickel ATB. Some may even call him THE above the break shooter in CBB both in terms of volume and efficiency. He attempts 7 per game which is one of the highest marks of anyone in D1 and shoots a ridiculous 68.5% on them.

Definitely helps that Nickel is coming off of a tough game, too. He shot 1-6 from three in Vandy’s last game against Tennessee, as well as 1-8 overall from the field. And you guessed it, the Vols are much better at defending the perimeter ATB. The last relatively comparable bad ATB 3PT defense Nickel faced was two games ago against Missouri, where did get this 2.5 number shooting 3-9 from deep.

Should be a high-scoring, uptempo matchup in Nashville tonight with a 164.5 total and two teams that love to run in transition. Great matchup in a great game environment, with confidence that we will have the volume from Nickel in this one. Tonight he knocks them down.