Vanderbilt Basketball Recruiting Class of 2021 Currently Top 20

It's early and there are only two players committed, but the trend is a good thing to see for Vanderbilt fans.

Jerry Stackhouse and the Vanderbilt men's basketball team received their second commitment for the class of 2021 on Sunday afternoon with the announcement that four-star shooting guard Gabe Dorsey had committed to the Commodores. 

Dorsey, from Pottstown, Pa. joins Peyton Daniels, a four-star point guard from Atlanta in the class that currently sits ranked No.20 nationally and No.1 in the SEC. 

While those numbers are not likely to last given that the John Calipari recruiting machine that is Kentucky basketball hasn't gotten fired up just yet. 

Still, the fact that the Commodores are breathing rarified air, if only for the moment, should be a boost to the egos of fans who have seen their program drop from the upper tier of the conference to the basement over the last few seasons.    

For decades, Vanderbilt's basketball was the lone bright spot for the university in athletics. The Commodores, while never a perennial national title contender, was a program that was capable of winning on any given day over anyone in the nation, and has multiple wins over Kentucky when the Wildcats held the top spot. 

To prove that point, it was 2012 when the Cats last hoisted the nation's top prize, winning the NCAA Tournament by defeating Kansas for the crown, capping a 37-2 season. However, for those who might have forgotten, Cal's Cats weren't the SEC Tournament champs that season. 

That tile will forever belong to the Commodores, who took down Anthony Davis and the eventual national champs by a final of 71-64 in New Orleans to claim the ring.

Past the history lesson, the Commodores are trending in the right direction, at least at this moment, coming off a season in which Stackhouse in his first season managed to find three league wins from a team without it's best player and little if any real inside presence on the squad. 

In short, he did an excellent job coaching and developing what he had along the way. We wrote it then and will emphasize it now. 

 There's still a long road with much work to do for this class, and Stackhouse, but as of now, he's sitting where he wants to be and holding momentum   

Follow Greg on Twitter @GregAriasSports and @SIVanderbilt or on Facebook at Vanderbilt Commodores-Maven.