Searching for a bounce-back performance, No. 15 Vanderbilt will look for its first victory at Auburn in a decade when the Southeastern Conference opponents meet on Tuesday.
Vanderbilt (19-4, 6-4 SEC) had its three-game winning streak snapped on Saturday by lowly Oklahoma, which had lost its last nine games. The Commodores never led in the surprising home loss and trailed by 15 with 2:20 left before rallying in a 92-91 setback.
Vanderbilt still is off to its best 23-game start since 2007-08 (also 19-4 before reaching 24-4), but head coach Mark Byington knows his team can’t afford a slide in conference play.
“In this high level of sports, you get what you deserve, and we did not play well,” Byington said. “We obviously didn’t play well, and we weren’t ready to play. … We’ve got to go back and figure it out and learn from it and we’ve got to fix some things. We can’t ever do this again.”
The Commodores, who haven’t won at Auburn since Feb. 13, 2016, are led by breakout sophomore Tyler Tanner. After averaging 5.7 points per game in a reserve role as a freshman, Tanner ranks fifth in the SEC with 18.6 points per game.
Tanner has shouldered the load of Vanderbilt’s injured backcourt, as second-leading scorer Duke Miles (16.6 ppg) has missed the last three games with a knee injury and Frankie Collins (7.8 points, 4.7 assists per contest) hasn’t played since Dec. 17 as he also deals with an injured knee.
“I’m just proud of his resiliency,” Byington said of Tanner, who poured in a career-high 37 points against Oklahoma, 15 in the final two minutes. “He was fighting and playing as hard as he could, and he almost got us back into it.”
Byington noted that Miles and Collins don’t have timetables for returns, but they could be back before the end of the regular season.
Auburn (14-9, 5-5), meanwhile, is out to avoid its first set of consecutive home losses since February 2021. A year removed from their second Final Four appearance in program history, the Tigers are 11th in the SEC standings with a month remaining in the regular season.
First-year head coach Steven Pearl’s team held a 10-point first-half lead against rival Alabama on Saturday, before allowing 59 points after halftime in a 96-92 home loss. Auburn won’t have much time to lick its wounds with another Quad 1 opportunity around the corner.
“You’ve got to have a short memory because you’ve got such a quick turnaround on Tuesday against another really good offensive team,” Pearl said. “Vanderbilt runs a ton of offensive sets, so it’s going to be really hard to break that down to show the guys. I’ve got to do a good job of really identifying areas that we got exposed.”
Vanderbilt ranks 12th in the nation with 88.9 points per game, while Auburn allows 78.4 ppg — third most in the SEC.
Hoping to steer the Tigers away from the NCAA Tournament bubble has been Keyshawn Hall, who ranks second in the conference at 21 points per game. Playing on his fourth team in four years, Hall is averaging 23.8 points across the last five outings.
–Field Level Media
