A night with an odd feel from the beginning ended in an 80-62 Vanderbilt loss to Boston College in the ACC/SEC challenge.
The Commodores now sit at 3-4 with three losses to teams outside KenPom's top 100.
Vanderbilt trailed by as much as 24 at one point en route to its 18-point loss. The Commodores also never led this one.
After a challenging last few days for Vanderbilt's players, it felt like this one was going to be difficult for Vanderbilt's guys to get up for a basketball game.
“Obviously, Lee Dort was arrested earlier this week," Jerry Stackhouse said. "That’s something we take very, very seriously here. It’s been a rough couple of days for our guys.”
A first half with no offensive flow and few defensive answers ended in Vanderbilt trailing 44-23 to the ACC's 12th ranked team in the preseason poll.
Vanderbilt finished the half shooting 28% from the field and 10% from 3-point range while Boston College shot over 50% from the field.
Things have just felt off for Vanderbilt over its past few games, Stackhouse feels a similar sentiment.
“I can’t really put my finger on it. We still haven’t had our best five together at any point. Things are off a little bit right now, we have to find a way to settle those things.”
It felt like Vanderbilt's slow start put it in too much of a hole to come back and win this one.
Vanderbilt fell below .500 as it ran off the Memorial Gymnasium floor discouraged.
Vanderbilt had no answer for Quentin Post.
One of the ACC's best big men looked the part on Wednesday night.
So did his statline.
The 7-footer finished with 24 points, seven rebounds and shot 9-for-15 from the field as Boston College stormed past Vanderbilt.
Vanderbilt was without Colin Smith due to a concussion, but it feels as if Post exposed Vanderbilt's interior defense as a weakness on Wednesday. It also didn't feel as if the Commodores' big men adequately guarded Post on the 3-point line where he poured in four makes.
Post isn't the only good big that Vanderbilt will face this season. When it runs into another good one, it feels as if that will be a real challenge for the Commodores.
It's getting harder and harder to see the path
Stackhouse's teams have historically gotten better as the year goes on, but at this rate that won't matter this season.
When Vanderbilt fell just short of the NCAA Tournament in 2022-23, it was hindered by two quad three losses and a quad four loss. That paired with a low margin of victory in some other lower quad games kept it out of the tournament.
If KenPom was representative of what the NET says, Vanderbilt would already have the same amount of quad three and four losses as it did last season. Its margin of victory would obviously also be an issue because of games like USC Upstate and Central Arkansas.
It's still November but it feels like Vanderbilt has dug itself a real hole.
Feel
Plenty has been made of Vanderbilt's attendance numbers over the years. Wednesday wasn't about the attendance, though. It was a sad reality of where things are right now.
A place that felt like the place to be every time Vanderbilt took the floor just a few months ago felt dark and eerie on Wednesday night. Non-conference play is never a time with sold out Memorial Gymnasium crowds anymore, but there seems to be a real level of apathy nowadays.
Perhaps Vanderbilt can get that electricity back in the gym at some point, but right now there seems to be a dark cloud hanging over it.
"The last couple days didn't feel like our usual days," Stackhouse said. "I thought we'd have a little more energy than we did but I understand the circumstances because it hasn't been easy on any of us."
It also feels as if Vanderbilt's guys had a cloud hanging over them after Lee Dort's arrest, it's been a challenging week or so for Stackhouse and his players. It's worth noting how challenging playing a game is after everything that's happened within the program since Saturday night.
