Vanderbilt defeats Alabama A&M in telling outing

It wasn’t anywhere near as easy as the 18-point spread would have indicated, but Vanderbilt came out victorious in its final game before Christmas, beating Alabama A&M, 70-62, inside Nashville, Tenn.'s Memorial Gymnasium on Thursday afternoon.

Vanderbilt's Jordan Wright hit a 3-pointer from the right side, giving the Commodores a four-point advantage with 44 seconds to play.

The Commodores trailed by five with 11:58 remaining.

Liam Robbins led the ‘Dores with 14 points and was one of three Commodores to score in double figures. Ezra Manjon and Wright (12 apiece) were the other two players to produce double-digit scoring performances in Vanderbilt’s hard-fought victory.

If Vanderbilt thought it was going to be able to sleepwalk through Thursday’s game, it was rudely awakened by two quick buckets from Garrett Hicks and Dailin Smith that put Alabama A&M up 5-0 to start things out.

After falling behind by as much as eight, Vanderbilt finally regained the lead at the 7:28 mark behind a timely 3 by Noah Shelby.

Green Bay transfer Emmanuel Ansong extended the lead to seven after knocking down two more from distance and altering a shot at the rim.

The Commodores led 34-28 at the half behind six-point halves from Ansong, Colin Smith, and Robbins.

The half was certainly 3-point heavy for the Commodores, who had 73.5% of their shot attempts come from beyond the arc in the first half.

Alabama A&M regained the lead at the 13:31 mark after an off-balance 3 by Messiah Thompson.

The Commodores took back the lead and held it throughout much of the half. Wright’s late heroics proved to be enough as the Commodores ended Thursday’s contest with an eight point win.

Liam Robbins shows out again as Vanderbilt gets back to .500

Vanderbilt’s 7-footer continued to cement his case as the ‘Dores best player on Thursday afternoon.

While facing another 7-footer, Robbins produced a fourteen point-performance that also included nine rebounds and two blocks in just 15 minutes of play.

The Minnesota transfer did that while shooting 50% from the field and converting on 6-of-7 attempts from the free throw line.

It’s hard to imagine where the Commodores would be without Robbins contributions down the stretch, it certainly isn’t easy to see how they would’ve found a way to win without their man in the middle on Thursday afternoon.

Three quick takes:

Vanderbilt’s rotations were odd.

Coach Jerry Stackhouse certainly hasn’t been conventional in the way that he has handled his lineups and minute distribution this season. Today was another example of that.

Smith and senior forward Quentin-Millora Brown returned to the starting lineup in the place of Wright and Robbins.

Robbins didn’t check in until after Wright, Manjon, and Shelby. Shelby had only appeared in three games before Thursday afternoon.

The senior big man, who was Vanderbilt’s second leading scorer heading into Thursday’s matchup also only charted five first-half minutes.

Stackhouse has certainly centered his rotations around which members of his group are producing and which are best equipped to set the tone defensively, but that has added some variance to the playing time of Vanderbilt’s best players.

It’s hard not to wonder if the inconsistency in minutes played and when a player enters a game interferes with their ability to get into a rhythm.

Vanderbilt has something in Colin Smith.

It was clear from day one that Smith was the most college-ready freshman in Vanderbilt’s highly ranked 2022 recruiting class.

The 6-foot-8 forward hasn’t had his breakout game yet, but has been a major bright spot for Vanderbilt in its darkest moments.

Smith has proven to be a key part of Vanderbilt’s future throughout those moments.

When the Commodores were flat in the opening minutes against Southern Miss, it was the freshman who energized them. That was the case in Thursday’s game as well when Smith scored Vanderbilt’s first four points and prevented Alabama A&M from pulling away out of the gates.

The freshman has only charted one double-digit scoring outing on the season and has only shot 35.1% from the field along with 29.2% from three, but has shown flashes of excellence throughout the non-conference slate.

Those flashes were evident on Thursday afternoon when Smith worked a mismatch in the post and knocked down a post fadeaway. The intensity that the freshman possessed early got the Commodores into the scoring column but also showed up in another aspect of the stat sheet.

Smith grabbed three offensive rebounds on Thursday and has proved to be a tremendous spark on the glass throughout the course of the season.

The Dallas, Texas native may not end up being a Saben Lee or Darius Garland caliber player, but has certainly shown that he has a chance to be a core piece of the next era of Vanderbilt basketball.

Unfortunately for Vanderbilt, Thursday’s performance wasn’t uncharacteristic.

As nice as it would be to think that Thursday afternoon was a one-off performance from Vanderbilt, that hasn’t proven to be the reality.

Alabama A&M entered Thursday’s game as Kenpom’s 330th-ranked team in the country and an 18-point underdog. The thought would generally be that a game like this would be a cakewalk for a power five team.

After their losses to Southern Miss and Grambling State it wouldn’t be truthful to say that the Commodores' “buy games” have been anything close to cakewalks.

Although Vanderbilt came out victorious on Thursday, calling it easy wouldn’t be a fair assessment.

Even in the late victory, Vanderbilt showed plenty of its recurring flaws.

Stackhouse’s team was overly reliant on shots from 3-point range in their outing that included 34 attempts from beyond the arc. The Commodores shot just 23.5% from deep on the afternoon.

Another apparent area of weakness creeped back in the win as well, turnovers. Despite taking care of the ball better than it had in the past, Vanderbilt still lost the turnover battle.

Vanderbilt’s backcourt contingent just couldn’t rattle Alabama A&M’s talented trio of guards that combined for 32 points while turning it over just six times as a group.

Eventually frustration boiled over for the Commodores as Myles Stute earned a flagrant foul after extending his leg into the groin of an Alabama A&M defender before Vanderbilt eventually pulled away.

The Commodores did enough to win, but were far from perfect in their win in front of a Memorial Gymnasium crowd that felt much smaller than the listed attendance of 5,010.

Notes:

Stackhouse made a few starting lineup changes on Thursday by starting the afternoon with Smith, Trey Thomas, and Millora Brown as opposed to Manjon, Robbins, and Wright.

Vanderbilt outrebounded Alabama A&M 43-28 and grabbed 17 offensive rebounds.

The Commodores ended the game on a 7-0 run.

Shelby appeared in his fourth game of the season today and scored three points on 1-for-5 shooting, all five attempts were from beyond the arc.

All Vanderbilt players were available today.