As two of the final teams selected to take part in the tournament that did not win their respective conference tournaments, the 11-seed Commodores and Shockers must play in the NCAA’s “First Four” with the winner taking on the 6-seed Arizona Wildcats in Providence, R.I., Thursday night. The tight turnaround is an anomaly in college basketball, as NCAA Tournament teams normally have three or four days to prepare for their first opponent.
“We’ll have them prepared. We’ll have our team prepared and we’ll go through our normal preparation,” Vanderbilt head coach Kevin Stallings said Sunday night. “It’s a little bit less time, but you know what, they have a little less time too.