Takeaways From Vanderbilt Basketball's 98-94 Loss To Florida

NASHVILLE—Vanderbilt basketball has now lost two in a row, but it isn't panicking.

Here's some takeaways to decipher what happened as Florida took down the Commodores 98-94 at Memorial Gymnasium.

Don’t worry all that much.

Reality set in on Saturday, but it wasn’t as much a big-picture reality as it was a reality that things in this league are difficult. It doesn’t mean that this group still can’t end the regular season with six losses or less, find its way to a double bye in the SEC Tournament and find a top-four seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Florida outrebounding Vanderbilt 40-to-26, scoring 22 second-chance points to Vanderbilt’s eight, putting Vanderbilt’s bigs in foul trouble and beating it from the inside out appear to be things that this group will just have to deal with. Even in spite of those things, Vanderbilt beat the Florida scout–as Todd Golden says–could’ve found a way to win on Saturday with an average performance from Florida’s guards and a few more made 3s.

That says something about it, even if it doesn’t want to admit it right now.

“To an extent,” Nickel said in regard to the idea that there’s positives to take from Saturday. “Our standard is to be the best team in the country, be better than every team in the country is with whatever points you want to point to. We weren't tonight, so we got we get it right.”

Guardplay was a difference

Say what you will about Vanderbilt, but its backcourt duo of Duke Miles and Tyler Tanner continues to prove that they’re among the best in the SEC.

The pair went for a combined 35 points on 12-for-29 shooting on Saturday, but they didn’t make enough of a difference for Vanderbilt to win on Saturday. It wasn’t as much about what Tanner and Miles didn’t do as it was about what Florida guard Xaivien Lee and Boogie Fland did, though.

Lee went for 20 points on 8-for-13 shooting from the field while Fland went for seven points and three assists. That guardplay has been absent for Florida often along the way, but it was present on Saturday.

If Florida has that type of guard play in addition to what it does in the frontcourt, it isn’t losing very often.

Rebounding troubles

Yes, Florida is one of the best teams in the nation at getting on the glass and keeping itself in the game that way.

But, if Vanderbilt is going to contend for a Final Four and an SEC title, these numbers can’t happen. Florida outrebounded Vanderbilt 40-to-26 in total and grabbed 13 offensive rebounds while Vanderbilt gathered just six. Florida scored 22 second-chance points while Vanderbilt scored eight.

That won’t be good enough.

Vanderbilt’s free throw shooting and kept it in the game

Vanderbilt couldn’t get Florida off the glass and had a difficult time stacking kills, but it won the margins offensively. That’s how you stay in a shootout with a team like Florida.

The final free throw mark for Vanderbilt was 18-for-20–it made its first 18–and it turned it over just four times while recording 13 assists. It’s not often you lose games with numbers like that.

Vanderbilt did, though. At least it knows its offense isn’t broken.

Vanderbilt’s complementary pieces were much better

Vanderbilt losing at Texas had plenty to do with foul trouble and rebounding, but its primary storyline was it getting next to nothing from anyone other than Tanner, Miles, Tyler Nickel and Devin McGlockton.

That had to change if Vanderbilt was going to have a chance, and it did.

Vanderbilt big man Jalen Washington went for 14 points, AK Okereke went for 15 and Tyler Harris went for nine. That’s how this has to go if this team is going to win games like this. Unless you’ve got a transcendent player like Labaron Philon, stuff like this has to happen.

Florida’s managers had a tough day

https://x.com/joey_dwy/status/2012577999929881074?s=20

Long Florida run

Vanderbilt is one of the most efficient teams in the country in terms of its ability to avoid giving up big runs and to generate kill shots of its own. Saturday, it gave up an uncharacteristic 13-0 Florida run that turned into a 17-4 run.

The run ended in Vanderbilt going down by double digits for the first time in Memorial Gymnasium this season.

Florida also had a seven-point possession that changed the game after Vanderbilt came back from the initial run.

Hard to win that way.