Vanderbilt dropped two games below .500 in its 76-54 loss to Texas Tech at Dickies Arena.
The Commodores hadn't played in 10 days but trailed by 24 at one point en route to their second straight loss.
Vanderbilt found itself trailing 33-25 at the half after shooting just 33.3% from the field as well as 27.3% from 3-point range.
Texas Tech shot 44.3% from the field as well as 57.1% from 3-point range in the half. Pop Isaacs led the Red Raiders with 11 points while Ven-Allen Lubin led the Commodores with five points through 20 minutes.
Vanderbilt remained within striking distance but a 7-0 Texas Tech run brought the score to 40-29 and demoralized Jerry Stackhouse's team.
From there, Texas Tech ran away with this one.
Three quick takes:
Move it!
Heading into Saturday night, Vanderbilt ranked 229th in the country in assist-to-turnover ratio while averaging less than an assist to every turnover through its first nine games.
That trend continued early on in Saturday's contest as the Commodores had just four assists to Texas Tech's 11 in the first half. The Commodores had two more turnovers than they had assists.
Vanderbilt finished with 11 assists and nine turnovers on the day, some of those coming in garbage time.
The Commodores seemed to struggle to get good looks against the highly-touted Texas Tech defense all night. Largely as a result of its lack of ball movement and settling for bad shots early in the clock.
Stackhouse's team isn't good enough to win without playing together, getting good looks and moving the ball. That's been evidenced by the start of this season.
Colin Smith being significantly injured would be a real blow
It didn't look good for Smith, who went down in the first half on a non-contact play and was immediately sent to the locker room.
“The early signs, I haven’t gotten complete confirmation from it but it looks like it’s a significant Achilles injury," Stackhouse said of the injury.
If healthy, Smith looks to be in line for a legitimate step forward. Unfortunately for the sophomore forward, that largely hasn't been the case.
The Texas native missed two games with a concussion and finally returned to the starting lineup on Saturday for the first time since Thanksgiving day.
Smith is Vanderbilt's leading rebounder and provides it with some real lineup versatility, he'd be a loss that it feels Vanderbilt can't afford at this point.
A beatable team looks better than it should
Texas Tech moved to 8-2 with Saturday's win, but this one said more about Vanderbilt than it did the Red Raiders.
The Red Raiders are far from unbeatable but are just flat out better than Vanderbilt is. They have an identity, they play together and play to their strengths. They looked like the only team on the floor on Saturday night that could say those things.
Vanderbilt got ran off the floor by a team that is ranked in the 70s nationally and a team that lost to Butler. That isn't uncharacteristic at this point.
This was far from a surprise. A team doesn't become 4-6 on accident. In Vanderbilt's case it is far from it. There's enough wrong to where it won't fit in three quick takes.
Another embarrassing loss.
