Slow Start, Lack of Defense Bites Vanderbilt in the End Against Oklahoma

The Commodores were just short in recovering from a slow start in Saturday’s loss to Oklahoma.

Feb 7, 2026; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Oklahoma Sooners forward Derrion Reid (35) backs down Vanderbilt Commodores guard Tyler Tanner (3) during the second half at Memorial Gymnasium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Roberts-Imagn Images | Steve Roberts-Imagn Images

NASHVILLE – There was an eerie hush in the crowd of Memorial Gymnasium as Oklahoma guard Xzayvier Brown drove into the paint, turned around and hit a midrange fadeaway shot to put the Sooners up 26-10 over No. 15 Vanderbilt in the Commodores 92-91 loss.

Coming off a midweek bye, Vanderbilt was coming in looking to make it four in a row matched up against the team in dead last in the SEC standings. But Oklahoma had other plans. Whether it be somewhat of a rust from not playing earlier in the week or something else, Vanderbilt came out of the gates looking sloppy on offense and on defense.

It looked like the return of the team fans had seen when the Commodores lost three in a row in the middle of January. There was no fast start. The shotmaking was not there. It did not look like Vanderbilt was playing with the same kind of passion and energy it had been late until very late in the game.

“We obviously didn’t prepare well and we weren’t ready to play. So, we got to own it. I didn’t do a good job of getting them ready to play and the preparation and the urgency. We showed some fight towards the end, but that wasn’t us tonight,” Vanderbilt head coach Mark Byington said of the start of the game.

Going down 16 is something that Vanderbilt is not necessarily a stranger to. It had experienced those deficits on the road at Texas and Arkansas, but was unable to punch back. Saturday, Vanderbilt did punch back.

The Commodores made it a game again with a 19-7 run to cut the deficit to 33-29 with 4:36 remaining in the first half. There was a spark back in the team and in the arena. Vanderbilt had made defensive adjustments with ball pressure and made life difficult on Oklahoma offensively to make it a close game again.

But then the middle eight minutes of the game happened. Over the course of the final 4:30 of the first half and the first four minutes of the second half, Vanderbilt was outscored 28-11 and watched the deficit it worked so hard to cut down balloon back up to 21 points.

“We got impatient on offense. We started taking bad shots, which led to them getting transition breakouts, and we were scrambling on defense with the transition,” Byington said. “In the second half, we just did not come out ready to go. In the second half, they came out and got layups.”

And perhaps it were those eight minutes that defined the game looking back on it. Down 82-63 with 3:37, Vanderbilt stormed back in what was almost a magical, miraculous moment in Memorial Gymnasium. The Commodores applied pressure on the ball, forced turnovers and scored at will seemingly every time down the floor.

All of the sudden, a game in which fans headed for the exits down 21 with five minutes to go was a one-possession game with 25 seconds left. And Vanderbilt had the ball. However, with the game on the line, Vanderbilt turned the ball over and gave way for Oklahoma to regain control of the game and eventually shut the door with four seconds remaining.

A game in which Vanderbilt was far out of turned into a game that makes fans run through all the “what if” scenarios in their heads. What if Vanderbilt finished the first half strong after cutting the lead to four? What if Vanderbilt is able to make one more free throw?

While it may be worth it for some fans to run through all those scenarios, it does not take away from what the story of the game was. The story of the game was that Vanderbilt came out flat, dug itself a big hole and could not get enough stops to complete a comeback and grab a lead in the game. For Byington, that is priority number one as Vanderbilt looks to its next game.

“I got to figure out why we were that way tonight. We had a couple of practices there to kind of get used to the lineup. And really, if you’re lacking energy then you’re not playing hard. We got to fix that immediately. I got to do better. And I know these guys can do better too,” Byington said.