Oklahoma (11-12, 1-9 Southeastern Conference) at Vanderbilt (19-3, 6-3)
When: 2:30 Central on Saturday
Where: Memorial Gymnasium (14,316)
How to watch: SEC Network
How to listen: 102.5 The Game
Net rankings: Vanderbilt 14, Oklahoma 85 (this is a Quad 3 game for Vanderbilt)
Vanderbilt, winners of three in a row, will try to extend its winning streak without a pair of key players when it faces Oklahoma on Saturday afternoon.
Friday’s SEC injury report confirmed that Vanderbilt will again be without guards Duke Miles (16.6 ppg) and Frankie Collins (7.8), leaving Tyler Tanner (17.8 ppg) to again shoulder much of the ball-handling load. Tanner has played at least 33 minutes in every SEC game and after scoring in double figures just twice last season, has reached that mark in every game this year.
The Sooners, after winning their SEC opener against Ole Miss, have lost nine straight, the last being a 94-78 defeat at Kentucky on Wednesday. Xzayvier Brown’s 21 points on 5 of 9 three-point shooting led the Sooners, who also got 16 from Tae Davis.
Brown (16.4 ppg) and Nigel Pack (15.8) lead Oklahoma in scoring, with Davis (12.7) and Derrion Reed (11.9) also averaging double-digits.
Pack, after playing at Kansas State and Miami (which he helped to a Final Four in 2023), leads the Sooners in 3-point shooting (42.4%). He’s in his sixth year after being granted a medical redshirt due to a foot injury suffered nine games into the season.
Reid is one of two former Alabama players on the Oklahoma roster along with Mohamed Wague, who leads the Sooners in rebounding (6.7) and blocks (1.4).
Six of Oklahoma’s nine losses in the skid have come by 10 points or less, including a one-point overtime loss to Missouri (the Tigers hit buzzer-beating 3s to send the game to overtime and then win it there) and a two-point home loss to Alabama.
The Commodores come off a much-needed week off, nearly running out of gas at the finish line in a 71-68 win over Ole Miss last week. Vanderbilt led the whole way but survived a pair of missed Rebel 3-pointers in the game’s final seconds.
Tanner (24 points) was again Vanderbilt’s best player, while AK Okereke added a season-high 17 points and Mike James set season highs in minutes (26), points (nine) and rebounds (nine).
Other than Tanner, little about the Commodores in that win looked like the team that started the season 16-0, from the slow tempo (a season-low 64-possession game, per Ken Pomeroy) to off-games from Devin McGlockton (a season-low two points and just three rebounds) and Tyler Nickel (a season-low five points, equaling what he scored against Western Kentucky).
Coach Mark Byington had listed McGlockton as questionable on the availability report heading into that one, then noted that Jalen Washington (four points and two rebounds in 16 minutes) threw up in pregame warm-ups.
Keys to the game
1. Get a good start and find the right pace the rest of the way. When Vanderbilt has started strong, it wins. And then there were the losses to Arkansas, Florida and Texas; Vanderbilt trailed by 12 at the 10-minute mark in the first, fell behind by nine at that same point in the second and was tied at 22 against the Longhorns before trailing by five at half.
The slow-it-down game the Commodores played last week and in the second half of the Kentucky game doesn’t suit the pace that Byington wants to play, but it’s understandable given the physical beating Tanner (who makes a lot of plays at the rim) sometimes takes. The Sooners, like Ole Miss, like to grind teams on the defensive end, with an average possession length of 17.6 seconds, compared to the Rebels’ 18.3.
The Commodores were a bit fortunate to escape a week ago, and despite the record, the Sooners are good enough to sneak a win on the right day. Vanderbilt has to find a workable solution that keeps its guys fresh but also doesn’t stagnate its offense at the end.
2. Better performances from the supporting cast. Nickel, McGlockton and Washington all get a pass for various reasons last week’s off-games; Nickel has particularly been consistent as a scorer and McGlockton and Washington have given the Commodores a contribution somewhere in most of their games. A week to heal should help and if Vanderbilt gets the usual contributions from those three, it should win.
3. Big-game James? The blessing in the injuries to Miles and Collins is that it’s given James a chance to help. After logging just 93 minutes in the Commodores’ first 18 contests, James has played 77 minutes in the last four.
The first of those was the disastrous Arkansas contest, during which James scored just three points, but looked like one of the few Commodores interested in defending in his 20 minutes that day. He’s kept up that intensity since and after being a non-factor offensively, he’s scored 14 of his 31 points this season in the last two games, shooting 4 of 9 from distance. That included perhaps the game’s biggest shot, a 3-pointer with just over two minutes left in the Ole Miss game as the Rebels made a late charge.
James isn’t exactly a point guard, but he is a guard, and with Vanderbilt in desperate need of help there, James’s play could be a big factor again.
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