This team started to hit its stride when Newton moved the 6-9 Kornet from power forward to center, going smaller with Derrick Wilcox into the starting lineup at point guard.

A decade before Adolph Rupp III played for Vanderbilt, he was an 8-year-old boy in the unfinished Kentucky arena that bears his grandfather’s name.

Wednesday night’s verbal commitments from 2022 four-star center Lee Dort and four-star guard Noah Shelby could be a program-making moment for Vanderbilt men’s basketball coach Jerry Stackhouse.