Vanderbilt opened up its second game of the year against Southern Miss much like it did its first against Memphis: sleep-walking and lethargic out of the locker room. The Commodores failed to wake up in the second half, dropping the home loss 60-48 to Southern Miss on Friday night.
“Tonight was a disappointing loss for us,” Jerry Stackhouse said after the game. “When we started the game we gave up a couple of backdoors, we didn’t come out with that sense of urgency. Kind of dug ourselves into a little bit of a hole. Most of our struggles were on the offensive end. We gotta perform better.”
Stackhouse employed a new starting lineup in game two, swapping out Ezra Manjon, Tyrin Lawrence and Jordan Wright for Paul Lewis, Trey Thomas and Colin Smith. Myles Stute and Liam Robbins started down low for the Commodores, but the switch didn’t provide the spark Stackhouse seemingly hoped it would.
Former Vanderbilt commit Austin Crowley opened the scoring for Southern Miss throwing down a dunk to give the Golden Eagles a lead they would not relinquish for the rest of the first half. Crowley was a thorn in the Commodores’ side all evening, finishing with 13 points and 7 rebounds.
Freshman Colin Smith kept the Commodores afloat in the game’s opening minutes, scoring 7 points (3-of-4 from the field) before the under-16 media timeout. Smith was active on the boards as well, adding five rebounds in the opening frame.
Stackhouse subbed in veterans Ezra Manjon, Tyrin Lawrence, Jordan Wright, Emmanuel Ansong and Quentin Millora-Brown after the first media timeout, but Southern Miss continued to find success. After back-to-back Commodore buckets cut the Southern Miss lead to 12-11, the Golden Eagles went on a 6-0 run to push the lead back to seven.
“We gotta have better performances from our older guys and we didn’t have that tonight,” Stackhouse added after the game about his veterans.
Southern Miss continued to hold Vanderbilt at arm’s length and would have extended the lead further if not for Vanderbilt freshman Malik Dia. Dia picked up 5 points, 2 rebounds and added 2 blocks for Vanderbilt in the first 20 minutes. Despite the play of youngsters Smith and Dia, Vanderbilt never led in the first half, shooting 2-14 (14.3%) from three-point range and allowing Southern Miss to score 20 points in the paint. The Golden Eagles took a 29-25 advantage into the break.
Vanderbilt continued their sluggish play out of the locker room, allowing a dunk and a three-pointer in less than a minute, extending their deficit to 34-25.
The Commodores responded with an 11-0 run over the next four minutes to take a 35-34 lead, highlighted by nine points from Jordan Wright. Even as Wright (12 points) started to heat up, the Golden Eagles continued to stifle the Commodores going on a 14-6 run to push their lead to 48-41 with just over 8 minutes to play.
The Commodores responded with a 4-o run of their own to get back within three points, but Southern Miss counterpunched right back pushing the lead to make it 51-45. A Quentin Mill0ra-Brown and-one cut the Commodore deficit to three with a little over three minutes remaining in the game.
Crowley hit a corner three to make it 54-48 with 1:39 left to push the Golden Eagle lead to six which would prove to be the difference. Vanderbilt missed eight straight shots before the Golden Eagles picked up five points at the free-throw line to put the finishing touches on the win.
Vanderbilt finished the miserable shooting night 3-25 (12.0%) from three-point land and 21-of-64 (32.8%) from the field overall. They also compiled 15 turnovers.
“I think we settled too much,” Stackhouse said. “Once we didn’t make shots, they converged on us a little bit more. We rely on our three-point shooting to win games, and when that’s not happening, we gotta try and punch it inside. When we punched it inside, we didn’t play with the force that I thought we needed to.”
The Commodores will travel to Philadelphia to face off against the Temple Owls on Tuesday, Nov. 15 at 6 p.m. CST.
