Despite Jason Rivera-Torres' best efforts and breakout performance, Vanderbilt fell 78-75 in its Southeastern Conference opener at Memorial Gymnasium.

That moves the Commodores to 5-9 on the season while Alabama moved to 9-5.

"That was a really entertaining game, I thought both teams competed really hard. We gave ourselves a chance," Vanderbilt coach Jerry Stackhouse said.

Rivera-Torres and Tyrin Lawrence led the Commodores with 20 points a piece while SEC leading scorer Mark Sears led Alabama with 21.

"Tyrin, this is probably his second game really playing some pretty good basketball," Stackhouse said of Lawrence. "Still not as efficient as he would want to be or we need him to be but he's trending in the right direction."

All things considered, Vanderbilt made out ok through the first 20 minutes and kept itself in the game.

Alabama scored 33 points in the first 10 minutes of the game but ended the half with just 40 points after ending the half on a 4:40 scoring drought.

Two 9-0 Vanderbilt runs late in the half completely flipped the feel of this one and cut the lead to four heading into the break.

Vanderbilt didn't let this one get completely out of hand as a result of improved offensive production. In fact, the Commodores cut it to five at one point but never led in the second half as Ven-Allen Lubin and Ezra Manjon watched from the sideline due to injury trouble.

"It's definitely difficult, Ezra's our top guy man," Lawrence said of playing without Manjon," It hurt not to have him out there."

Stackhouse said that Manjon wanted to come back into the game but the doctor didn't feel comfortable with him coming back into the game. The fifth-year head coach also touched on Lubin's injury.

"Yeah, he didn't look good to me," Stackhouse said. "I wanted to keep him to three minute spurts."

The Commodores fell for the fifth time in their last six games but looked like they belonged with one of the nation's top offensive teams.

Three quick takes:

Jason Rivera-Torres gave Vanderbilt some invaluable things

As Alabama looked to pull away down the stretch and Ezra Manjon went down, it was Rivera-Torres who took control of the offense down the stretch and kept the Commodores in this one.

The freshman guard isn't a finished product yet but can do some tremendous things off the bounce that not many guys on Vanderbilt's roster can.

"Jason, he's a shot maker," Lawrence said. "We know he can make shots and defensively he's got instincts that you can't teach."

It was particularly telling when Stackhouse ran a baseline out of bounds set for Rivera-Torres in the mid second half.

"He's a guy that we want to run things for," Stackhouse said. "He's a shotmaker, he's proven that not only in practice but in games. He's someone that's gonna be on team's scouting reports."

The 6-foot-6 guard finished Saturday's contest with 20 points while shooting 8-for-13 from the field and 3-for-4 from the free throw line.

Perhaps a largely under-ranked freshman just showed the SEC that he's arrived.

Stackhouse does still want to see Rivera-Torres take better shots, though.

"He's an exciting player but I want him to make sure he focuses and uses that energy the right way," Stackhouse said. "We need you to get back instead of kinda celebrating."

Vanderbilt has quietly been very good in the turnover department

Outside of a 17 turnover night, Vanderbilt has taken care of the ball at a level that it really hasn't for a lot of this season and last.

Heading into Saturday, the Commodores turned it over less than 10 times in four of their last five games with an average of just 7.5 per game outside of that Memphis game.

Vanderbilt followed that up by winning the turnover margin 16-9 on Saturday afternoon and generating 15 points off of those turnovers.

In the past, Vanderbilt has taken itself out of games because of the turnover battle, but if it can start to consistently win in that category it has a chance to stay in or win some games that it otherwise wouldn't.

5-9 is 5-9 but Vanderbilt seems to be playing better basketball of late

Moral victories don't count, but as Vanderbilt has gone toe-to-toe with Memphis and Alabama it's hard to not feel good about the Commodores' chances to find a way to win some SEC games that they were previously counted out of.

Vanderbilt looks significantly better than it did against Presbyterian, Central Arkansas, USC Upstate, Texas Tech and Arizona State. There's still stretches of poor defensive play and deficiencies, though.

"We have to get better at that," Stackhouse said of defensive communication. "We just don't have a really loquacious defender."

Stackhouse also wants to see improvement from beyond the arc, where Vanderbilt shot 7-for-25 on the day.

"We've been struggling a little bit from 3," Stackhouse said. "With a team like this you have to make shots, you know that they're gonna score."

Even without Manjon and Lubin on the floor for a lot of this one, Vanderbilt still pushed Nate Oats' team in a way that the 13.5-point spread wouldn't have indicated.

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