Commodores Blow Out South Carolina State 97-60
The Vanderbilt Commodores played host to the South Carolina State Bulldogs on Friday night in the second ever meeting between the two schools as the Commodores improved to 5-1 with a win at Memorial Gym.
The teams traded baskets early in the first half before the Commodores began a 13-2 run midway through the first half to buld a 32-19 advantage led by Dylan Disu with 9 points in the first 15 minutes of the half.
In what was the second best shooting half of this young season-67% in the second half in their last game versus Austin Peay on Wednesday is first- as the Commodores scored from everywhere on the floor in the first twenty minutes.
Vanderbilt hit on 17 of 28 in the half, good for 60.7% with nine coming from long range where the Commodores knocked down 4 for a 44.4% mark. They also managed to knock down 8 of 15 from the free throw stripe, good for 60.0% in the first half.
Clevon Brown led the Commodores in the first half with 13 points, followed by Aaron Nesmith with 12 and Disu with 10 as they took a 47-26 advantage to the halftime break. .
Damani Applewhite led the Bulldogs with seven points in the first half as South Carolina State ended the first 20 minutes shooting 10 of 26 for a 38.5% mark.
The second half began with the Bulldogs hitting 5 of their first 6 shots while the Commodores could amange just 2 of their first six in that same time as the Vanderbilt lead was cut to 52-39 with 15:44 left to play at the first media timeout of the half.
The Bulldogs would trim the lead to 12 with 13:38 remaining when Saben Lee connected on a driving layup and was fouled. His free trhwo pushed the advantage back to 15 and was the first of four consecutive possesions with a basket.
In the end the Bullodgs were able to cut the Commodores lead to 10 points, but were unable to get closer as Vanderbilt had an answer for the Bulldogs run when with 10:37 left to play, a dunk by Brown, followed by a Lee layup and two Brown free throws on consecutive possession pushed the advantage back to 17 points.
From there it was all Vanderbilt as the Commodores would stretch the advantage to as many as 36 as they cost home to their fifth win of the season.
Nesmith once again lead the team in scoring with 20 and was aided by six other Commodores in double figure as Brown finished with 19, Maxwell Evans with 15, Scottie Pippen Jr. with 13 and Saben Lee with 12 as nine Commodores ended the night with their name in the scoring column.
The Commodores finished the game hitting 35 of 58 field goals, good for 60.3% for the game. They also shot 60% in the second half, marking the third consecutive half they were over 60% shooting.
The Commodores play host to Southeastern Louisiana on Monday in a 7pm tipoff at Memorial Gym.
