There wasn’t really a ton to complain about in Vanderbilt’s 92-79 win over Winthrop to open the regular season, but there are a few things to nitpick.
For one thing, Winthrop managed to shoot 24-of-44 inside the arc — that the Eagles still had a 46.3 percent effective field goal percentage was a reflection of the fact that they couldn’t hit anything from outside. The latter tends to be much more variable and less influenced by the defense. (Ken Pomeroy’s work suggests that defenses can exert some influence on the number of three-point attempts but can’t really do much about the percentage, so banking on every opponent shooting 21 percent from three isn’t a great idea.