No. 19 Vanderbilt Runs Out of Time of Miraculous Comeback As Early Mistakes Lead to Loss to Missouri – Sports Illustrated

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It was a near-answered prayer for Vanderbilt at the buzzer in Columbia, Missouri Wednesday night. Tyler Tanner stole the ball off a Missouri inbound pass with 1.8 seconds left and heaved a half-court shot before time expired. The shot rolled around the rim, but ultimately fell out and Vanderbilt’s fate was sealed in a 81-80 loss to the Tigers.
It was a game that was reminiscent of when Vanderbilt took trips to Arkansas and Texas earlier in conference play until the eight-minute mark of the second half. That’s when the game started to resemble the Commodores’ near miracle against Oklahoma on Feb. 7.
Trailing by 21 points with 8:30 to go, Vanderbilt finally found a rhythm offensively and roared back with a 31-13 run over the course of 7:23. Vanderbilt was able to hit shots consistently and finally got Missouri to collapse under its full court pressure sets to allow the comeback to be possible.
Ultimately though, Vanderbilt could not have fallen shorter given how close Tanner was to making the half court shot at the end. But looking back on how Vanderbilt dug itself a deep hole to begin with was the bigger issue of the night.
“Incredible fight to be able to get back. And TT’s [Tyler Tanner] shot was halfway down. To get in that situation when you’re down 21 with eight minutes to go, it was an incredible fight,” Vanderbilt head coach Mark Byington said.
While it was not a bad start on the scoreboard Vanderbilt has had in some of its other conference losses, the offense was just as choppy as it has been when the Commodores have lost.
There was no rhythm of offense whatsoever for Vanderbilt up until its comeback effort. In the first half, the Commodores only trailed by six points but they did not have their best performance shooting the ball. Vanderbilt shot just 11-for-30 and just 27 percent from three. Devin McGlockton got going early and Tanner got going toward the end of the first half, but there was not much production outside of those two.
But what really hurt Vanderbilt was Missouri guard T.O. Barrett and Jayden Stone. Both Barrett and Stone had 12 points apiece in the first half as the two finished with 16 and 19 points in the game, respectively. 
Barrett and others drove to the paint early and often throughout the night, but Vanderbilt had a tendency to collapse the defense and leave a player like Stone open on the three-point line and he made the Commodores pay. Stone hit four of his six three-point attempts.
It seemed that part of Vanderbilt’s game plan defensively was to try to take away Missouri forward Mark Mitchell in the paint and force someone else to beat the Commodores. While Vanderbilt did defend against Mitchell fairly well, it led to more open shots. Again, Vanderbilt’s defense collapsed in the paint onto Mitchell and left Stone or Trent Pierce open on the perimeter or on a backdoor cut to the basket.
All those mistakes helped Missouri build its 21-point lead. And in hindsight, it was any one of those mistakes that prevented a “what could have been” moment for Vanderbilt to end the night.
“To get down 21, we were just out of character. On offense I didn’t recognize some things we were doing and on defense we were making mistakes. You hope you’re going to snap out of it, but we did it too late,” Byington said.
Graham Baakko is a writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI, primarily covering football, basketball and baseball. Graham is a recent graduate from the University of Alabama, where he wrote for The Crimson White, WVUA-FM, WVUA 23 as he covered a variety of Crimson Tide sports. He also covered South Carolina athletics as a sportswriting intern for GamecockCentral.
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