Vanderbilt’s Rodney Chatman will face an opponent he knows well in the second round of the National Invitation Tournament on Sunday in Nashville: Dayton.
Chatman graduated from Dayton in 2021, but instead of returning to the Flyers for his final year of eligibility, he transferred to Vanderbilt.
Chatman had 334 points and 144 assists in 43 games as a Flyer over two seasons after arriving from Chattanooga, where he played the previous two seasons.
He has 115 points, 20 assists and 32 rebounds in 14 games with the Commodores this season, as he missed a portion of the season with a knee injury.
“It’s something I definitely didn’t expect. It’s just a full-circle moment,” Chatman said. “(Dayton coach Anthony) Grant is a great coach; I still love him to this day. It’ll be a fun game. I kind of wish it was at UD Arena so we could go there — it would have been special. But we got a home game, and that’s much better for our team.”
Fourth-seeded Vanderbilt (18-16) posted an 82-71 victory over visiting Belmont in the first round Tuesday to clinch a winning record for the first time since 2016-17. The Commodores won just nine games last season.
Vanderbilt is led by Scotty Pippen Jr., who is averaging 19.9 points a game, giving him the chance to become the first SEC player to average at least 20 points per game in consecutive seasons since LSU’s Ronnie Henderson from 1994-96.
Top-seeded Dayton (24-10) is coming off a 74-55 win at Toledo on Wednesday in a game that marked the Flyers’ first postseason victory since a second-round win in the NCAA Tournament in 2015.
Dayton’s DaRon Holmes, who averages a team-high 12.7 points per game, had 20 points, six rebounds and three assists. Koby Brea added 13 points and 10 rebounds and Kobe Elvis chipped in 11 points, eight assists and seven rebounds.
The Flyers posted wins over Big 12 tournament champion Kansas and ACC tournament champion Virginia Tech during the regular season. But a loss in the semifinals of the Atlantic 10 tournament to Richmond cost them a trip to the NCAA Tournament.
“We took a step in a different direction,” Elvis said after the Flyers learned they didn’t receive an at-large berth in the Big Dance. “We thought, ‘We’ve got to get ready for next year and find a way to gel together.'”
–Field Level Media
