Our series of Vanderbilt basketball roster previews continues with a look at freshman forward Dylan Disu.
Pre-Vanderbilt
The Bryce Drew staff landed Dylan Disu's commitment on Sept. 4, 2019. Disu picked the Commodores over Texas A&M, Illinois and SMU. Disu's high school coach, Dustin White, broke down Disu's game extensively for us in this piece last December. In short, he's a former guard with outside shooting ability who had a huge growth spurt, then, became a real defensive force after that.
2019-20 outlook
When I talked with coach Jerry Stackhouse this summer, he didn't have much on which to evaluate Disu, based on personal experience. That's because Disu had a leg injury (I believe it was a knee) that hadn't allowed him to participate in spring and summer workouts. Stackhouse was quite clear that, although Vanderbilt desperately needed bodies, he was open to redshirting Disu this year if he wasn't able to advance quickly enough in workouts.
How things have changed.
Practice access was basically non-existent this fall, but I did get about a 25-minute glimpse of Disu in an inter-squad scrimmage. Sometimes, it takes a year or two for skills to translate, but, that didn't seem to be the case for Disu at all: He was hitting from the outside while showing dexterity and athleticism to convert inside. And while nobody disputes that Aaron Nesmith is the team's best player, if all you knew was what you saw that day, you might have walked away thinking it was Disu.
That's lofty praise, so let's bring things back to the middle a bit: Disu's a freshman who's had recent injury issues. He doesn't have a tremendous supporting cast and he was also scrimmaging against other freshmen, as well as a group of upperclassmen who've lost their last 20 games. But the skills and physical ability were also undeniable, to the point that Stackhouse, unprompted after practice, talked about the possibility of losing Disu early to pro ball one day. (I've linked the video below. If you have issues getting it to play, access it through our YouTube channel, here.)
There's probably a wide range of outcomes for Disu his freshman year, but it's clear that his athleticism, outside shooting ability and defensive acumen are going to earn him a lot of minutes this year, health willing.
