It’ll be on primetime. ESPN College GameDay is in town. And to borrow a line from John Calipari, the Vanderbilt fans are treating it like it’s their Super Bowl.

Yes, Kentucky-Vanderbilt, slated for a 9 p.m. tip on Saturday at Memorial Gymnasium, is going to be a madhouse. Already 3.5 games back of UK for the Southeastern Conference lead, Vanderbilt essentially has to win Saturday if it hopes to have any shot at a league crown.

Vanderbilt has struggled recently, losing three of its last six games, but the Commodores still have two of college basketball’s most prolific perimeter scorers in John Jenkins and Jeffery Taylor, plus 6-foot-11, 255-pound Festus Ezeli is one of the most complete big men in the country. They also make 8.9 3-pointers a game, eighth in the country, and have defeated four straight top-ranked teams at home, dating back to 1987.

Given the buildup entering this game, I decided to post some comments from Vanderbilt’s media opportunity on Thursday, as they relate to the UK matchup. You can watch the video interviews on Vanderbilt’s official athletics site. I’m headed down for UK’s media availability in a few minutes, so I’ll have a full written feature on the game and video later.

Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings

On the primetime stage of UK-Vanderbilt …
“I don’t know if you ever look forward to playing a team that’s as good as they are, but we’re here and I know our guys will be excited about it, and our fans will be excited about it, so I’ll act like I’m excited about it if that makes everybody feel better. We’ve got a tall challenge in front of us because they’re obviously terrific. They’ve lost one time and somebody had to slop one in to beat them in that one. They’re a great team; they really are. You’ve got to give their coach a lot of credit for bringing a group of guys with a lot of youth – a lot of talent, but a lot of youth – and making them this effective this quickly and this consistently.”

On Anthony Davis …
“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anybody like him. There’s a lot of things to like about him, but I think the thing I like the best is his demeanor. He plays. He doesn’t look like he gets caught up in all the great things that people are saying about him. He just plays the game real hard and real effectively, so you kind of admire guys with that youth that are able to – apparently, from my perspective, and I’m quite a distance away from them – seemingly, he has kept it all in a very good perspective, at a very good level, and he just continues to get better and better.”

On whether this is the best UK team he’s ever faced …
“I don’t know about that. We’ve played some great ones. It’s certainly one of them.  I wouldn’t have any way to compare that. From a won-loss standpoint, I don’t remember playing a Kentucky team that only had one loss at this juncture of the season.  But we’ve played against some terrific teams of theirs. The one that they had a couple years ago with (John) Wall and that group was really fantastic. Even though they didn’t get to the Final Four, that was a great team, too.”

On how effective Marquis Teague is running the Dribble Drive Motion Offense …
“They don’t run dribble-drive motion very much. So I don’t know if you’ve watched them or not, but they don’t run it very much. That’s one of the big fallacies of Kentucky basketball is the dribble-drive motion. They run a set play about every time down. Every once in a while, they run a little dribble-drive play, like two or three times a game. So the dribble-drive is more of a figment of people’s imagination. They run some set plays and they’re great at them. They isolate their best players and they isolate advantages, and they’re great at what they do offensively, but the dribble-drive is not very much a part of it.”

On the importance of perimeter shooting in this game …
“I think perimeter shooting is always a key when you play a college basketball game with the 3-point line. It’s such an equalizer and can be such a difference-maker. Obviously Davis changes the game around the goal, and he makes you think about other options, because trying to take it in, in front of him is not a very intelligent option most of the time. They’re very, very, very, in my opinion, underrated defensively. Their shot-blocking gets a lot of attention, but I don’t think they get enough credit for how good they are defensively. Davis can go out of the game and they’re still outstanding defensively. Now they don’t have that game-changer at the goal necessarily when he’s out of the game, which is not for very long, but they’re really a great team defensively, in my opinion. That’s the thing that’s very underrated about John’s teams. When John’s teams are good, they’re really, really good defensively.”

On playing John Jenkins tight last season in Lexington …
“Well, after he got 32 the first time, we kind of anticipated that they might try to guard him in some ways differently than they did the first time.”

On that opening up opportunities for Festus Ezeli down low …
“Oh, I don’t know. They’ve shown different post coverages. They’re going to play John tight. They’re going to play Jeff tight. We don’t play anyone that doesn’t play those guys tight. What they do on the post in terms of digging down or coming with a post trap, they’ve shown different things over the course of the season. They’re obviously capable of doing different things. Whatever they do, we’ve seen it. Just like whatever we do, they’ve already seen what we do. At this stage, there aren’t any surprises. Knowing what to expect is not the issue. It’s being able to be effective against them. That’s the difficult part.”

On whether his guys will shoot more jumpers to counter UK’s shot blockers …  
“Well, I don’t expect to see a lot of layups because Kentucky doesn’t give up a lot of layups. I think you have to make adjustments. Anthony Davis makes you make adjustments, and he’s not the only one. They’ve got other guys in there. I’m telling you, they’re great defensively. I wish they weren’t. I wish they were terrible on defense and ranked No. 1. But they’re great defensively and it’s going to be a challenge for us. But we’ve got some good offensive players, and it comes down to we’ve got to have the will to execute and grind it and get it to where we need it. Then when we get it to those points where we need it on those occasions when we can, then we have to be successful with it. It’s a challenge. You watch them play and it’s an absolute, difficult challenge. They’re not ranked No. 1 because somebody just decided to put Kentucky at the top. They’ve earned their way there, and for good reason. They’re good on offense, they’re good on the boards. Every statistic you look at, their league statistics are completely dominant. So it just is what it is; they’re a tough team.”

On surviving UK’s runs …
“College basketball in general tends to be a game of runs. They have spurtability, if you will, because of their ability to get stops. You can’t make runs without getting defensive stops. That’s where all the runs begin. There is no run if your opponent keeps scoring against you. And so, it’s about their ability to get stops and turn those stops into points. They look like a track team after (Davis) blocks a shot. It’s the fastest thing you’ve ever seen going from defense to offense. When that shot gets blocked, they are fast to the other end. When they convert those into points, that’s why you have runs.”

Vanderbilt guard John Jenkins

On the upcoming game …
“It’s going to be a fun time, just like last year. The crowd’s going to be crazy and it’s going to be a really tough game for us. This is what you live for. You play basketball for these type of games. No. 1 in the country, it’s going to be a good time.”

On what it means to face Kentucky …
“They’re a prestigious team. We all know that. The name Kentucky means a lot, not just in the SEC but around college basketball in general. We’ll be ready for them.”

On what UK did differently to defend him the second game last year …
“They were just really tight to me and didn’t let me get open. I think the first time I did a great job of getting open. The second time I did it good in the second half instead of the first and second half.”

On Anthony Davis’ impact …
“He blocks everything down there. We’ve all seen that watching the games they’ve played. So you’ve got to stop and maybe shoot a floater or just don’t drive all the way in there.”

On what it would take to upset UK …
“I’d say just winning the fight, matching their intensity. They’re going to come in there hyped. It’s going to be a tough game, so we have to stay poised and be aggressive.”

On whether Vandy’s experience counters UK’s athleticism …
“It’s going to be hard to do that. They’re young and they run fast and everything about them is really good. We just have to go out there and fight hard.”

On defending Doron Lamb …
“Their whole team is going to be hard to defend. Lamb is a great shooter and they have good inside guys, so you can’t just focus on one too much.”

On defeating four straight No. 1 teams at home …
“That doesn’t mean nothing now. We’ve got to win this one.”