NASHVILLE — To understand just how much Vanderbilt toyed with Kentucky basketball on Tuesday, just glance at one second-half possession for the Commodores. Sophomore guard Tyler Tanner, who already had the game in the palm of his hand to that point — and may be on his way to All-America status by the end of this season — decided to embarrass UK big man Andrija Jelavić.
With Jelavić guarding Tanner on the perimeter, the star sophomore crossed him up. Tanner then took a few dribbles inside the 3-point line that had Jelavić on his heels.
Then, Tanner unleashed a vicious stepback 3.
Nothing but net.
Victory already was well in hand for Vandy at that juncture; Tanner’s triple merely pushed the lead to 20 points, 51-31, with 15 minutes to go.
It didn’t get much better for the Wildcats after that. Not that they had much going for them prior to Tanner making a mockery of Jelavić’s defense.
In the end, Kentucky‘s five-game win streak met a decisive end Tuesday at Memorial Gymnasium, as Vanderbilt barely broke a sweat in an 80-55 home triumph.
“I don’t think you ever move beyond having to come compete and bring your A-game and bring all the intensity,” UK coach Mark Pope said. “That never goes away. We just didn’t do that tonight.”
Like clockwork, the Wildcats (14-7, 5-3 SEC) dug themselves a double-digit deficit early. And as so often happens, they faced an alarming score at intermission — the Commodores (18-3, 5-3) led by 20, 43-23.
Unlike games earlier this season, in which UK engineered rallies to grab a victory from the jaws of defeat, there would be no comeback on this ice-cold night in the Music City.
This wasn’t Indiana or St. John’s. Or Mississippi State, Tennessee or LSU.
Given how lopsided the outcome was, the Wildcats presumably wish it had been a member of that quintet instead of these Commodores who showed them no quarter.
“I just think our guys just never let up,” Vandy coach Mark Byington said. “And you’ve really got to be that way, because they have the potential to come back. (They’re a) talented team. And so we played 40 minutes. All the way to the end.”
That’s true: The Commodores led stem to stern, never trailing in a virtuoso performance.
“Listen, this was a disastrous effort from our team in both halves tonight,” Pope said. “And it is exactly what it is. And so we have to pick up the pieces and do better. We’ve done that before. … We’ve gotta find some way to avoid this disaster tonight.”
The obligatory question, of course, is how Pope’s group strikes upon that solution. Because as any follower of the program knows, Tuesday was not an anomaly. Not even a trait confined to this season’s team. No. As UK statistician Corey Price shared during Tuesday’s halftime, Pope’s teams have trailed by 15 (or more) points after the opening 20 minutes in nearly a quarter of their matchups against Power 4 competition and Gonzaga — 9 of 40 (22.5%).
Pope himself is at a loss for why his team struggles so mightily in the early portion of games.
“It’s obviously an area of concern for us,” he said. “We have to make some progress in the way we do things in practice, the way we do games — things in game prep.”
For what it’s worth — supporters of the winningest program in the history of the sport wouldn’t pay this much heed — Pope said he felt his “guys had good juice” Tuesday.
“We just didn’t have the intensity to hit first. We got punched in the mouth pretty good, and we just didn’t respond — at all — in this game,” he said. “And so us getting ourselves to an emotional, heightened point, where we come to compete from the tip, where we want to be the instigators of confrontation rather than receivers, is really important.
“You don’t get a lot of second chances in this league, especially on the road.”
More concisely, rallying from significant deficits, yet still winding up in the win column, only can happen so many times. Vanderbilt, which was ranked No. 15 in the USA TODAY Sports Men’s Basketball Coaches Poll and No. 18 in the AP Top 25, is a far sturdier unit than, say, LSU or Mississippi State. (Vandy didn’t begin this season 16-0 by accident.) Even so, Pope doesn’t want his players’ mentality to change. He’s continually praised their cool under pressure. How they’ve stared down seemingly insurmountable halftime odds numerous times this season, then emerged from the locker room a different squad altogether.
That must remain, he said.
They just have to figure out the other piece of the equation.
“We think we can be down at halftime and come back, and we have to do a better job (at the beginning of games),” Pope said.
Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.
