Florida 61, Vanderbilt 42: A bad showing in all aspects

VUCommodores: Vanderbilt Falls at Florida

Tennessean: Scotty Pippen Jr. struggles, Vanderbilt basketball collapses vs Florida in second half of loss

247 Sports: Offensive struggles continue as Vanderbilt suffers blowout loss at Florida

Florida Gators: Jitoboh, Defense Key Rout of Vandy

Alligator Army: Florida 61, Vanderbilt 42: Gators clamp down on Commodores for dominant win

Washington Post: Duruji leads Florida against Vanderbilt after 22-point showing

The Independent Florida Alligator: Gators overpower Vanderbilt in conference victory

I mean, sometimes these things write themselves.

Vanderbilt had its second-worst shooting performance of the season to date in a game where they weren’t doing much else right, either. The Commodores’ 12 turnovers in 58 possessions certainly wasn’t the worst performance of the season, or even of SEC play, but it’s not great, either. And Vanderbilt couldn’t keep Florida off the offensive glass, giving up a season-worst 40% offensive rebound rate. Hell, Vanderbilt only went 12-of-23 from the free throw line.

The only reason this wasn’t even worse than a 19-point loss was the fact that Florida wasn’t shooting particularly well themselves. The Gators shot 9-of-36 from three-point range for the game, and when Vanderbilt managed to get a few shots to fall in the first half, the Commodores pulled to within three at halftime. The second half, though, was dreadful — perhaps the single worst half of basketball that Vanderbilt has played all season. And now, Vanderbilt has posted two of its three worst offensive performances of the season in back-to-back outings, with only the November game against VCU ranking worse than the performance at Florida. So uh, we did better than a game where we scored 37 points?

• Congratulations, Mr. Wright, you’re at the top of the Delta pledge class.
• Actually, what’s weird about Saturday’s game is that aside from the obvious one, nobody for Vanderbilt really stood out for playing poorly. We’d probably accept those performances from Jamaine Mann and Quentin Millora-Brown on another night, we’d definitely accept Drew Weikert’s performance (if we start by accepting the premise that he needs to be on the floor for 18 minutes, anyway.) Trey Thomas, Myles Stute, and Shane Dezonie weren’t good, but mostly weren’t hurting us, either.
• And then, let’s state the obvious: Vanderbilt is not winning when Scotty Pippen Jr. (a) plays only 21 minutes and (b) posts a negative Game Score.
• As far as the bench goes, Terren Frank was a DNP, and Gabe Dorsey and Tyrin Lawrence combined to play fewer minutes than Drew Weikert. I’m not really sure what’s going on here — I haven’t heard anything about Frank being hurt, but he’d only played 15 minutes total over the previous four games. Lawrence has seen his minutes dwindle after starting early in the season, and they haven’t rebounded since Rodney Chatman went back on the shelf. Dorsey just hasn’t made much of an impact at all this season.
• Just a reminder, Vanderbilt has four players signed in the 2022 class and only three scholarships available with Chatman, Liam Robbins, and Weikert being the three seniors.

What’s Next

Vanderbilt returns to action on Wednesday night when they head to Columbia, South Carolina, to take on the Game Penises at 6:00 PM CT. That game will be televised on ESPNU, which seems to be where ESPN sticks the SEC games that they don’t even want to carry on the SEC Network.