NASHVILLE—Vanderbilt basketball will get its first real test Thursday. Time to see if it can answer the call. 

Mark Byington and company will face Wake Forest as the Demon Deacons return a home and home that started with Vanderbilt running them off the floor in Winston Salem a year ago. Both rosters are almost entirely different now, though, and neither has faced a power-five opponent in a regular season game yet. Now, both will get a litmus test of sorts. 

Here’s three keys to Vanderbilt passing that test and a prediction as to whether it will or not. 

Figure out defensive assignments

Vanderbilt overwhelmed Bellarmine into an embarrassing offensive performance on opening night, but the word coming out of the Huber Center following the matchup was that Vanderbilt still has plenty to work on defensively. 

Clearly Bellarmine’s offense–in which it doesn’t utilize ball screens–was a change for Vanderbilt, but Vanderbilt’s defenders were drifting aimlessly too much. Bellarmine just didn’t have the shotmaking prowess or athleticism to really punish Vanderbilt for that. 

Wake Forest has enough shotmaking on the perimeter and athletes in the dunkers’ post to make Vanderbilt pay for being out of position. Byington’s messaging in practice coming out of Monday night clearly pertained to be in better position on the defensive end. Thursday will be a test of whether this group has gotten that through its head.

Demonstrate the benefit of two-point guard lineups

KenPom–which accounts for the end of last season and Wake’s opener against Maryland Eastern Shore, in which it forced 18 has Wake Forest No. 35 in the country in percentage of turnovers forced. 

As a result, Vanderbilt will figure out how composed its ballhandlers outside of Tyler Tanner really are at this stage. Byington appears to be relieved that he’s got three capable ballhandlers outside of Tanner, but now he’ll get to see what he really has in his backcourt. 

Time for Ant Brown, TO Barrett and Ace Glass to answer the call by taking care of the ball. 

Play sound enough fundamentally to let the talent gap manifest

Vanderbilt spent between three and four times what Wake Forest did on its roster this offseason and should clearly have the more talented roster, but Steve Forbes will position Wake Forest to compete with Vanderbilt if Vanderbilt doesn’t have it figured out. 

Byington has a young, albeit experienced, group on his hands that will obviously show some cracks Thursday. Whether it plays well enough to let its talent manifest in the result will be the question, though. 

Can it run good enough offense and stay on task enough defensively for that to happen? 

Prediction: Vanderbilt: 84, Wake Forest: 67

KenPom has a similar projection here with a 84-69 final in Vanderbilt’s favor. This could easily be a bigger margin than that if Vanderbilt plays to its standard, though. 

Wake Forest has yet to put out an impressive showing in its exhibitions or season opener and Vanderbilt has a better roster overall. This should be a significant Vanderbilt win, but don’t count out Forbes from keeping his group in the game.

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