What you missed: Following a crucial game against Arkansas in the Moody Center, the Longhorns suffer back-to-back losses following a [SCORE] defeat in Nashville against the Vanderbilt Commadores.
The participants: Texas Longhorns @ Vanderbilt Commadores
Tale of the Tape: Vanderbilt came into this matchup ranked 50th in KenPom, and 46th in the NCAA NET Rankings making this a Quad 1 opportunity for the Horns. The Commadores are the second shortest team amongst major conference teams, but as they say, “it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog,” and boy was that on display. Vanderbilt came into this matchup as the second shortest team amongst power conferences, however if you look at the box score let’s just say they wouldn’t come across as that.
“Does anyone have an answer?”: Despite being held to 2 points in the first half combined, Vanderbilt Guards, Jason Edwards and AJ Hoggard, were having their way with Texas to close out the game. The two combined for more than half of the Commadores 51 second half points pouring in 29 points, 9/14 FG, 8/8FT to close out the game, and were a true nightmare for the Longhorns.
The supporting cast… Flat out needs to be better, not only does Vanderbilt have the second shortest rosters amongst Power Conference teams, but the offense was at a complete disjunction in the second half. Key contributors such as, Arthur Kaluma and Jordan Pope, were held to a combined 5 points, 1/11 FG, 1/7 3FG.
The momentous moment: This game was full of momentum swings and scoring runs, however there were three significant moments that I saw were the catalysts for a Vanderbilt victory, Jason Edwards was a headache for the Longhorn defense in the 2nd half and the downfall for the Horns in this one came around 6 minutes left in the second half:
And one of the many solidified daggers in this game came with about 4 minutes left, when Commadore big man, Jaylen Carey, just kept rolling with his Paint presence:
Keeping it a buck: This is now back-to-back key games Texas had to have in order to bolster their odds to go dancing for the NCAA Tournament, and while their past two opponents have shown the skills to upset any ranked opponent on any day of the week, Texas simply didn’t show up. The pros for what’s next, Longhorns next two games are at home. The cons, they host #3 ranked Alabama on Tuesday (2/11), and #14 Kentucky Saturday (2/15) two of the elite teams in the country let alone the SEC. Safe to say the Longhorns will have to shock the nation in their next two while also getting a chance to boost their resume.
