Will This Vanderbilt Basketball Team Get To Its Ceiling Again? That's a Real Question; Column – Sports Illustrated

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LEXINGTON, KY—Remember when each Vanderbilt player ran into the tunnel at Memorial Gymnasium after a dismantling of this same Kentucky team? What happened to those guys? 
Remember when just about every game indicated that this group was capable of making a deep run? Ah, the times. That win over Kentucky was perhaps the best this group had. It did it in blowout fashion without Duke Miles in the lineup. It guarded its tail off. It demoralized a blue blood. Now, that magical night at Memorial Gymnasium is a distant memory. 
It’s the type of memory, though, that makes the expectations surrounding this Vanderbilt team significantly higher. Nobody expects it to be that good all the time. But, it can clearly be something, and that night proves it. If only it could figure out how to get whatever it had bottled up that night back and turn it into wins. If only it looked like a real contender in the SEC right now.
Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington sends out a reminder that although his team has lost three of four, his team was right there with Missouri on the road and could’ve knocked off Tennessee if it had made a few late plays. Byington indicates that he believes it’d be better to zoom in on Saturday’s performance rather than zoom out at the last four games, but he does admit that there’s still something left to be desired here. 
“We got outmatched in this one,” Byington said postgame. “I don't think it's looking at a big thing. I think it's zoom [in] a little bit. Today we didn’t play well, and that's the one we got to fix.”
For as good as that outing in Nashville was, this one was equally as bad. Vanderbilt wasn’t sharp in its actions. Its go-to guys were outclassed by Kentucky’s. It missed a number of bunnies. It couldn’t often force Kentucky to beat it in the halfcourt. Kentucky was as good in the first half as it’s been in any half this season, and it wasn’t much worse in the second half. 
This just wasn’t good enough, and every number indicated it. 
Kentucky beat Vanderbilt 91-77, Vanderbilt was down by as much as 22, led for just 18 seconds and was only tied with Kentucky for 58 seconds. Vanderbilt shot just 51.7% from the field, 25.0% from 3-point range, allowed Kentucky to shoot it 58.8% from the field as well as 50.0% from 3-point range. 
“I thought they were sharp and I thought in the second half, we were better, but it's just too big of a deficit to come back in here and not have everything go right,” Byington said. “I thought Kentucky was right from the start at a high level today.” 
At the time of its win over Kentucky, Vanderbilt’s ability to boatrace Kentucky appeared to indicate that it was a contender for a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. While that’s still possible, that outing appears to be solely an indicator of what can happen when this group plays at a level close to its ceiling. That level is darn high and forces you to avoid counting it out. If only the best way to evaluate a team was its ceiling. 
Unfortunately for Vanderbilt, there’s a lot more that goes into this. Namely consistency, which Vanderbilt can’t seem to unlock these days. 
This is what the quintessential Vanderbilt vs. Kentucky matchup at Rupp Arena would’ve produced semi-often over the past half decade or so. This was a Kentucky team completely overmatching a Vanderbilt team. The difference here; this should never have happened. Vanderbilt was a 1.5-point underdog on Saturday and has aspirations of making a real push down the stretch here. 
Vanderbilt’s players thought that its Wednesday-night win over Georgia–in which it finally had the most complete roster that it’s going to have this season–represetened it beginning to turn the corner now that it’s got its best guys fully healthy. It appears as if the corner has still yet to turned, though. 
It’s been so long since Vanderbilt put together a complete effort that the idea of waiting for this group to turn that proverbial corner is a fool's errand at this point. That would’ve sounded absurd as it ran off two excellent back-to-back performances against Mississippi State and Kentucky a few weeks ago, but that possibility has to be at least considered at this point. 
Vanderbilt finished the season with four-consecutive losses last season and lost something as it approached the most important games of the season. It’s still got time to fix this, but its indicators aren’t all that encouraging these days despite its full body of work.
They certainly weren’t on Saturday. 
“There were certain things that we got to do better, and we have done them,” Byington said. “We've wanted tough road environments, we won three non-conference road games, we won three in the league. 
We've been good on the road, but we weren't today.”
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Joey Dwyer is the lead writer on Vanderbilt Commodores On SI. He found his first love in college sports at nearby Lipscomb University and decided to make a career of telling its best stories. He got his start doing a Notre Dame basketball podcast from his basement as a 14-year-old during COVID and has since aimed to make that 14-year-old proud. Dwyer has covered Vanderbilt sports for three years and previously worked for 247 Sports and Rivals. He contributes to Seth Davis' Hoops HQ, Basket Under Review and Mainstreet Nashville.
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