Basketball happiness at Vanderbilt is a missed free throw, a one-point upset of Tennessee, hundreds of fans storming the floor and plenty of money to pay the fine.
The 76-75 victory over the Volunteers was a rare and dramatic happening. New coach Mark Byington and 11 transfers shared the honor. A miss by Chaz Lanier with 2.8 seconds remaining was decisive. What would have been the tying point hit the back of the rim and bounced away.
That Tennessee made it close was a remarkable feat. At their worst, the Volunteers trailed by 16 and were losing at both ends of the court. The deficit was only 14 when they got their game in gear.
Vandy led by 10 with 3:48 remaining but the gritty visitors struck fear in the hearts of the home team. It went scoreless the rest of the way. Simple math: Tennessee finished with a 9-0 run.
Igor Milicic twice drove to the goal. Lanier cashed in a Jordan Gainey steal. Zakai Zeigler hit two clutch free throws. Lanier went hard for the rim but Chris Manon blocked the shot from behind.
Tennessee fouled and hoped for a missed free throw. Freshman Tyler Tanner cooperated and, incredibly, fouled Lanier on the rebound. That gave the Vols the shots at overtime. Chaz hit one but couldn’t pull off the storybook ending.
“Proud of our guys for fighting back,” said Rick Barnes. “Had a chance, obviously. But give Vanderbilt credit. I thought they played hard. They played with a real sense of purpose and got a lot in the lane on us.
“Give them credit for that because they had to carve out and fight for that space and they got it. Too many second-chance points that we gave up. Again, you got to give them credit for that.
“Tough game, hard fought. I thought Mark (Coach Byington) had his guys ready to play.”
The trip to Nashville was homecoming for Lanier. He snapped out of his three-game slump and led the Vols with 17 points – alas, and five turnovers. Ziggy, Milicic and Felix Okpara had 16 points each.
Zeigler had 10 assists. Okpara made his seven shots, mostly stuffs.
Jason Edwards (from North Texas State) led Vandy with 18. Jaylen Carey scored 14 and led in rebounding with 10. He came with Coach Byington from James Madison. Virginia Tech transfer Tyler Nickel scored 13. Michigan State transfer A.J. Hoggard had 11.
Vanderbilt won on the backboards. It was 18-8 in second-chance points. Vanderbilt had more production in the paint (34-28). Vanderbilt was more determined on defense. Guard play was generally outstanding.
Tennessee had early foul troubles. Ziggy’s absence was serious. He was whistled for his second foul, against a three-point shooter for no good reason, with 7:10 to go in the half. Barnes put him on the bench. The Vols couldn’t run their offense. Vandy capitalized.
Jahmai Mashack also fouled a long-shooter and turned a three-point shot into four just before intermission. The coach didn’t like that, either.
Barnes: “I thought Zakai’s 3-point foul was ridiculous, that he would put himself in that situation. I mean, he fouled. He can’t do that. You’re talking about two seniors, and I love them to death, but we can’t foul 3-point shooters.
“And we’ve done it too much this year.”
Barnes will lead the search for why Tennessee did not defend well. The full house was loud. Was that it?
He said he couldn’t say but, on the sideline, “we keep asking ‘Why are we doing this?’
“We haven’t had a lot of miscommunication problems this year, but we had some today … I don’t know why we were doing some of the things that we were doing.”
Barnes gave the Commodores some more credit.
“They had a high level of emotion going, which is what you would expect, being at home and playing Tennessee … and they made some shots … they cleaned it up on the backside … I didn’t think we had the same thrust on the offensive boards … they executed … obviously we did a better job at the end of the game.”
Tennessee is 16-2 and 3-2 in Southeastern Conference competition. Vanderbilt is 15-3 and also 3-2.
We’ll soon see if the Vols are championship contenders or pretenders. The next four foes are Mississippi State, Auburn, Kentucky and Florida.
Marvin West welcomes comments or questions from readers. His address is marvinwest75@gmail.com
