Takeaways From Vanderbilt Basketball's 84-73 Win Over LSU

NASHVILLE—Vanderbilt basketball is now in rare air after Saturday’s 84-73 win over LSU.

Mark Byington’s team is 16-0 and is just one win away from setting the program record for most-consecutive wins to start a season. Here’s a few takeaways on the Commodores’ win and where they stand.

It felt like it could be a trap game, but Vanderbilt survived

The stage was set for this to be a grinder after Vanderbilt picked up its biggest win of the season on Wednesday against Alabama and faced a physical LSU team in an early game.

Vanderbilt let LSU play the way it wanted to for a stretch on Saturday–as it forced the Commodores into a 6:30 period in which they didn’t score a point from the field–but Vanderbilt blitzed the Tigers to open the game and never let LSU lead.

Perhaps it wasn’t Vanderbilt’s best showing, but it was enough for it to continue to be undefeated.

Evaluating Vanderbilt’s frontcourt

LSU is far from the best frontcourt Vanderbilt will see down the stretch of SEC play, but it’s good enough to provide some sort of litmus test for a team that still hasn’t proven how good it is at the four and the five.

Vanderbilt passed the test on Saturday as it outrebounded LSU, held Tigers’ big man Michael Nwoko–who averaged over 15 points a game prior to his trip to Memorial Gymnasium–to six points and saw its three frontcourt pieces go for 27 points combined.

Saturday was a particularly convincing showing for Vanderbilt center Jalen Washington–who went for 11 points on 3-for-5 shooting and grabbed eight rebounds. Vanderbilt forward AK Okereke went for 12 points on 5-for-7 shooting and hit a big shot from 3-point range to build on a Devin McGlockton putback to end an LSU run.

LSU couldn’t keep pace

If LSU was going to find a way to win on Saturday, it was going to be a result of its ability to slow Vanderbilt down and to make this thing into a slugfest of sorts.

Matt McMahon’s team is likely the more physical team and can keep itself in games if it gets to play the way it wants to, but it’s at a significant disadvantage when it gets sped up and has to engage in a shootout of sorts.

LSU got its way for a stretch of the second half in which Vanderbilt didn’t record a field goal for over six and a half minutes, but it never had much of a chance to keep pace when Vanderbilt was playing like Vanderbilt.

Approaching history

The season that preceded Vanderbilt as it got out to a long undefeated stretch to start this off was the 2007-08 season–in which Kevin Stallings’ team went 16-0 to start the year.

Vanderbilt is now on even footing with that team from a record standpoint after Saturday’s win and appears to have more of a ceiling than that team did.

If it makes it to 17-0, it will set the program record for most-consecutive wins to start a season.

Tyler Nickel

Perhaps the most significant moment of the afternoon for Nickel came as he flew up on the defensive end and pinned a ball on the glass as if to indicate that he meant it when he declared that he wanted to be known for his defense, not only his offense, after Vanderbilt’s win over Wake Forest.

If that was the case, it says something significant about Nickel in an outing that he went 6-for-12 from the field and poured in 19 points to lead Vanderbilt to its third SEC win.

For as good as Vanderbilt’s guards were, Nickel’s performance may have represented the biggest difference between a good LSU team and an elite Vanderbilt team. The 6-foot-7 wing is a dynamic shotmaker that changes the game and the way Vanderbilt has to be guarded as a result of the gravity his elite shotmaking ability presents. LSU doesn’t have many players like that on its roster.

Every elite team needs a player like Nickel. That’s a reality that was stark on Saturday.