Nashville, TENN-- Former Vanderbilt wing Jordan Wright brought it today and so did LSU as the Tigers took down Vanderbilt 76-61 at Memorial Gymnasium behind Wright's 15 points on 5-for-8 shooting in his return to Vanderbilt.
LSU swept Vanderbilt on the season on Saturday as the Commodores fell to 8-21 on the season.
Wright got this one started with a bullyball type finish around the rim to put LSU up 2-0, from there Vanderbilt never led as LSU cruised to a win without leading scorer Jalen Cook.
"It was really good to be back. It brought back a lot of emotions, a lot of good memories," Wright said. "I met my best friends, guys I'll be having at my wedding one day here. I'm forever grateful to be a part of this Vanderbilt family."
Wright tried to keep the mindset that this was just another game. That was difficult, though.
"Oh yeah, no doubt. No doubt," Wright said when asked if there was any extra energy today. "I think it was imperative for me to get a good start just to get the jitters out, get the nerves out. Ultimately it was just another game for me, I wanted to take that mindset."
Vanderbilt trailed by as much as 22 on Saturday and struggled to get into much of a rhythm offensivley for most of the afternoon.
Tyrin Lawrence led Vanderbilt in scoring with 21 points while Ezra Manjon also got into double figures with 17. LSU had five double-figure scorers with Wright leading them.
That's Lawrence's second-straight outing with 20 points or more.
Those efforts didn't matter as this one got out of hand early.
The Commodores trailed 42-22 at the half after shooting 29.6% from the field.
Vanderbilt made a few pushes and outscored LSU 39-33 in the second half but still never got this one under double digits after the 9:27 mark of the first half.
"We dug ourselves a hole," Stackhouse said. "Everytime we got it to 10 they made a play and that was usually a second-chance play. We played pretty good initial defense but we wasn't able to secure the rebound."
LSU grabbed 14 offensive rebounds and out-rebounded Vanderbilt 41-29 as a whole.
Stackhouse's team moved to 3-13 in Southeastern Conference play. It would possess the 13 seed in the SEC Tournament if it started today and it would face off against the loser of the tiebreaker between Arkansas and Georgia.
Three quick takes:
Wright's return went well for him. Not for Vanderbilt, though.
Wright's return to the place he started his career was a reminder of some of the better times in the program's recent history but also what the Commodores are missing after Wright's departure.
Stackhouse still looks at Wright's time here fondly, though.
"I'm happy for Jordan," Stackhouse said. "He's been a big part of our build. He's kind of the epitome of a kid to come here and got better and better and better. Obviously he had an opportunity to go to his dream school, go back to LSU, go back home."
It still feels as if Vanderbilt took what Wright gave it for granted and mishandled his situation in a some ways that weren't just limited to playing time, though.
On Saturday, Wright reminded them of why that was a mistake.
The former Vanderbilt wing's 15-point performance also included a look at the defensive presence he provides, his expanded ballhandling role and rebounding. Wright finished with seven of those.
"I think it was well rounded," Wright said of his performance. "I came out and I needed to score in the beginning to get us going a little bit and I did that and as it progressed into the game it was more so just playing defense making sure I get stops. Playing defense on Ezra or Tyrin or whoever my assignment was and rebounding the ball. I think I did that.
"Good overall game."
Vanderbilt probably isn't a tournament team with Wright but there's no doubt that it would be better. There's also no doubt that Wright is in a better situation than he would have been had he stayed.
Vanderbilt's 3-point shooting. Man.
Basketball is sometimes intricate and complex. Sometimes it's really, really simple, though.
When one team is shooting 0-for-12 from beyond the arc at halftime and the other is 8-for-17, the result isn't hard to predict most of the time.
Especially when the 8-for-17 team is also the more physical and talented team.
"I thought we got some really good looks but we just weren't able to get any of them to fall," Stackhouse said.
The Commodores finished Saturday shooting 14.3% from beyond the arc on 21 attempts. They will almost never win like that.
There's gotta be something done about depth this offseason
Vanderbilt's bench numbers generally haven't been an eyesore this season, but it's felt like the Commodores really only have Ezra Manjon, Tyrin Lawrence and Ven-Allen Lubin to rely on.
"Not enough contributions," Stackhouse said of his role players. "Our key guys, our main guys played heavy minutes tonight and they gave us what we needed. We just didn't get enough from the supporting cast to give us a chance to win."
Colin Smith, who is now out of a boot after a severe achilles injury, would've helped with that. The Commodores need more margin for error, though.
Stackhouse saw that particularly in the frontcourt.
"I thought their frontcourt dominated us in the second half and that was the difference in the game," the fifth-year coach said. "The production from their bigs and our bigs was lopsided there in the second half."
The Commodores were able to consistently string together some wins last season because of how multi dimensional they were. Unless you have a Scotty Pippen Jr. it has to be that way.
If Ven-Allen Lubin, Ezra Manjon or Tyrin Lawrence don't have it then this team doesn't have much of a chance.
Saturday was evidence of that.
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