Four-year basketball player Jeff Roberson makes the VandySports 100 at No. 81.
Honors and awards: 2018 second-team All-Southeastern Conference
2018 SEC Player of the Week (Feb. 19)
In the VU record book: Career rebounds: seventh (755)
Before VU: Played at Houston, Texas's The Kinkaid School, where he left as the school's all-time leading scorer (1,743 points). Averaged 10.8 points and 7.0 rebounds as a junior and signed with VU in the late signing period as a senior.
Freshman (2014-15): Played in 33 games and started 24 on a team that went 21-14 (9-9 SEC) and won two games in the NIT. Had single-game highs of 12 points (Tennessee) and eight rebounds (Lipscomb, Baylor). Scoured in double figures three times.
Sophomore (2015-16): Played in 32 games and started 25 for a 19-14 (11-7) team that lost in an NCAA tournament First Four game. Averaged 11.0 points and 5.7 rebounds in Southeastern Conference play. Shot 43.5 percent from 3. Scored in double-figures 18 times, with a high of 20 vs. Texas A&M, during which he went 8-of-10 from the floor. Had 13 rebounds vs. St. John's. Finished fifth in the league in free throw percentage in all games, and second in league games (87.7).
Junior (2016-17): Started all 35 games for a 19-16 (11-7), got a 9-seed in the NCAA tournament and lost to Northwestern in its first game. Led the team with 31.7 minutes and 7.0 rebounds per game. Scored in double-figures 20 times and had three double-doubles. Scoring high (23) came vs. Mississippi State; that included five 3-pointers in a five-minute span. Had six assists vs. LSU and Iowa State.
Senior (2017-18): Played all 32 games and started 31. His eight double-doubles was the most for a Commodore since Will Perdue's 16 in 1987-88, and his scoring average (16.9), the highest since 2012 (John Jenkins). Led the team in scoring (16.9), rebounding (7.1) and free-throw percentage (85.4). Scored in double-figures 29 times, and topped 20 points 13 times. Scoring high was 30 (Auburn) and best rebounding game (13) came against Seton Hall.
Post-VU: Roberson went un-drafted, then, played two years in the G League. Roberson played just two games last season before the Maine Red Claws traded him to the Greensboro Swarm on Feb. 28.
Final thoughts, and why I ranked him where I did: Roberson had one of the more underrated seasons of any athlete I've covered at Vanderbilt with his 2017-18 campaign. It was basically a meaningless, 12-20 (6-12 SEC) season in which the players on that team got caught in the middle of coach Bryce Drew's phasing out of Kevin Stallings's guys to make room for his recruits.
I am not arguing that Roberson deserved to be the league's Player of the Year that year, but, I did outline an interesting case that, in terms of doing a lot of things well, he may have had the best year statistically of anyone in the league. The fact that VU was irrelevant explains why he was second-team All-SEC, but I felt the season merited him a spot on the league's eight-man first team.
Before that, Roberson started about 90 percent of the games for two NCAA tournament teams, and played an important role on the young 2014-15 squad, which really came on at season's end and was an entertaining bunch to watch.
Roberson was a player who literally did a little bit of everything well. For his career, shoots 39.5 percent from 3 and 80.2 percent from the line and averaged over seven rebounds a game in two seasons, and there's not a large percentage of players who had that kind of skill set. If you want to pick a career weakness, it's that he had more turnovers (195) than assists (185), but that's still a better ratio than non-guards typically post.
Between the steady contributions, the postseason appearances and the one truly great peak season, Roberson has to be included on this list.
