Defense wins championships.  You’ve heard it before and Vanderbilt’s 2011 season has (so far) shown that defense can win you a few games.  Yeah, Vandy leads the nation in interceptions (14) by a wide margin over the Ohio Bobcats (9), but points decide the outcome of a game.

Statisticians calculate Scoring Defense by averaging the number of points an opposing team scores per game.  That’s lazy because not every point is scored on the defense.  Here is how each point has been scored against Vanderbilt after four games in 2011:

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Xavier adds another piece - Vandy transfer Walker

CBSsports.com link

"Sources told CBSSports.com that Walker chose Xavier over Northwestern, Wichita State and Marquette... He’ll join a Xavier team that is led by guard Tu Holloway but doesn’t have someone set at power forward. Walker will likely battle talented redshirt Justin Martin and Monmouth-transfer Travis Taylor for minutes."

Good luck Andre.  We will applaud your final appearance in Memorial Gym when Xavier comes to town this December.

Vandy to play in Preseason NIT?  That’s the rumor.  Each year, the preseason NIT tournament selects 4 teams from power conferences to host a regional of 4 teams (1 mid-major and 2 cupcakes).  The winner of each regional will earn a Thanksgiving Day visit to Madison Square Garden.   Scheduling is an issue, but it seems the South host will represent the SEC and likely be Florida or Vandy (first invite since 1996).  The East host is rumored to be Virginia Tech and includes George Mason as the mid-major.  The North region host is rumored to be Syracuse.  Let’s hope Lance and Rodom get a homecoming.

Season, Postseason, AJ and Moats after the jump.

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Baffling stat of the day:  Vanderbilt has won every game that leading scorer John Jenkins has scored fewer than 21 points.

After the February 12th game against Kentucky, John Jenkins' season average of 19.8 ppg includes five games which he scored more than 22 points.  The Kentucky game was the first victory of the five.  Here's the breakdown courtesy of ESPN.com:

I think it is safe to say that the SEC Coach of the Year race is likely down to essentially one candidate with a second in tow for consideration.  Sure, Calipari won the conference with 14 total wins, but name one respected media analyst that picked Kentucky to finish worse than first during the preseason media days?  Anyone?  Even Vegas thought Kentucky was a slam dunk – here was the prospect bet on November 12 for the SEC East champion:

By default, the coach of the conference champion is normally the coach of the year winner.  But because Kentucky was a clear frontrunner from the beginning, I would encourage the voters to take a closer look. (hold your “but he can recruit” BS)

Going back to the original COY analysis, you will find that the starting five for Kentucky includes four 5-star recruits while Vanderbilt starts four 4-star recruits.  The predictive player effectiveness calculations based on actual results shows that Kevin Stallings (+3.19) got more production out of his players than John Calipari (+.76)

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After the loss to Kentucky, I heard a number of national sports radio hosts discuss how John Calipari could be the national Coach of the Year.  Calipari is an excellent recruiter and damn good motivator (components of a good coach), but he should not be national coach of the year.  But, I quickly realized the velocity that this message began to circulate throughout sports circles.  So, I thought I would use a test sample of SEC East programs to determine who would be the best coach in the division.  The winner is Kevin Stallings.

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