WCC Basketball Fans

Vanderbilt 89, St. Mary’s 70

They started the week with a jump in to the top-25 rankings, checking in at #22. And with a 17-2 record coming into a non-conference game with Vanderbilt at Memorial Gym in Nashville, the Gaels were out looking for a huge win… and revenge for a loss that the Commodores handed them last season. Alas, it just wasn’t meant to be, as Vanderbilt improved to 3-1 in games against Top-25 teams this season. The Commodores (14-4), backed by a sold-out home crowd, downed St. Mary’s (17-3) 89-70.

John Jenkins and Jeffery Taylor each had 19 points, leading the Commodores to an easy home win. Vandy coach Kevin Stallings was fretting about the lack of minutes played by key big-men Festus Ezeli and Steve Tchiengang due to foul trouble, but it proved to not be a problem. They closed out the first half on a 21-5 run to end up ahead 43-28, and that was more than enough. Brad Tinsley had 18 and Lance Goulbourne had 15 points and 10 rebounds. With the mid-season non-conference game out of the way, the Commodores will jump right back into conference play with a game at Mississippi State on Thursday.

The Gaels were unable to get over the first-half hump and saw an eleven game winning streak snapped. And in the process, they lost for the first time since falling in back-to-back games against BYU and San Diego State (who were both Top-25 teams at the time). Matthew Dellavedova had 19 points to lead the Gaels; Rob Jones added 15 and Stephen Holt had 11 in the losing effort. Head coach Randy Bennett has a tough job at hand, trying to get the team to bounce back strong with two road games next week, against two teams chasing them in the West Coast Conference – Gonzaga and Portland, both of whom fell on the road tonight.

The game went back-and-forth early, to the tune of the Gaels being up 19-13 with seven minutes gone and up 23-22 with 7:29 left. But a technical on Jones for hanging on the rim seemed to fire up the Commodores and led to the 21-5 run before halftime, keyed by Jenkins. The second half did see the Gaels cut the lead to single digits a couple of times, but they were never able to get closer than five. And the last time that happened was midway through the half; the Commodores just added to the lead after that, getting it up to twenty-one at one point.

The Commodores were aided by some red-hot shooting. They went 52 percent from the field and 50 percent from downtown (11-22). Meanwhile, the Gaels were just 42 percent from the field and 26 percent from long-range (6-23), and shot half as many free throws. The Commodores also almost doubled up the Gaels on the glass (37 to 19), which proved to be enough to overcome the fact that Vanderbilt had 10 more turnovers in the game.

Sujal Shah
DFN Sports Staff Writer