JEFF DRUMMOND:

Survive and advance. Kentucky coach John Calipari warned us that the first game in Tampa might be the hardest, and it certainly was a major challenge. Vanderbilt came in confident it could take down the Cats, and with a break here or there, the Commodores may have pulled it off. My big takeaway from tonight was the re-emergence of the "superstar" version of TyTy Washington for the first time since his ankle injury. He was sensational and came up with the biggest buckets of the night when UK needed them the most. Twenty-five huge points. I thought Jacob Toppin was outstanding, too, with his 10 points and three blocked shots despite suffering a broken nose early in the game. He showed a lot of toughness playing through that. This sets us up for the rubber match with Tennessee on Saturday. It could be a classic.

JUSTIN ROWLAND:

Maybe I shouldn't let real-time comments on forums or social media get to me, but I thought a lot of the concern, more so the pessimism, was off the mark tonight. Vanderbilt is an 11 seed. They're 7-11 in the league. But they're playing at a really high level and Calipari knew that. He said so at halftime. I didn't think Kentucky played bad tonight. Everyone wants their team to come out looking like a steamroller when the postseason starts but these are win or go home, do or die games for every team Kentucky plays so nobody is laying down. TyTy Washington scoring 25 points in his first postseason game is really interesting. It wasn't an easy 25 points, but he hit some really big shots in the second half. Jacob Toppin had a really big impact on the game. UK defended Pippen Jr very well and that was as small an impact as a Kentucky fan could have hoped for. On to Tennessee in the semifinal with the chance to play into a one seed.

TRAVIS GRAF:

Now that the season is in do or die mode, the Cats did what they needed to do, which was advance. It doesn’t matter how ugly or boring the game may be, just win, baby! Kentucky held Pippen to his career-low against the Cats and really made other players beat them. Kentucky’s main objective was to get TyTy back into a high-volume rhythm, which they did. It wasn’t pretty at times, but he showed flashes of the TyTy of old. All of the backcourt has some things they need to clean up — Grady needs to be more aggressive still, Wheeler got out of control without a plan at times, and there were defensive lapses. Jacob Toppin was really the X-factor and it may be time to look into him getting a lion’s share of the minutes at the 4 spot moving forward. He just makes winning plays and changes the game with his two-way ability.

DAVID SISK:

Fans shouldn’t dismiss this win because their team only beat Vanderbilt 77-71. The Commodores were a good and healthy team at the end of the year. Kentucky played in spurts. They had a couple of runs that separated them. However, if they are to beat Tennessee tomorrow they will need a full 40-minute effort. One other thing they need is the TyTy Washington they had late in the game. He ended with 25 points. When he is in the flow Kentucky is one of the few teams who can legitimately think Final Four. The Vols defense will make UK work. They will definitely need more offensively from the rest of the cast than they got tonight.