The taller they are, the harder they fall.
The No. 10 Vanderbilt Commodores and their impressive 16–0 starting record reached an abrupt end Wednesday night in Austin. Texas men’s basketball handed the Commodores their first loss of the season 80-64 taking down one of the last remaining undefeated teams in the country.
“If we look (at) ourselves in the mirror, that was the best effort we’ve had against a really good offensive team,” head coach Sean Miller said.
After starting off Southeastern Conference play 0–2, Texas has switched its fortunes around, winning back-to-back conference games following Miller’s postgame comments about his team’s effort.
The victory marked the Longhorns’ first time in almost two seasons taking down a top-15 ranked opponent in back-to-back games.
As one of the bright spots throughout the hot-and-cold conference slate, graduate guard Tramon Mark had his best performance of the season, marking his season high in points with 21.
The majority of scoring came in the second half when he took over the game on both sides of the court, scoring 16 points.
“We practiced so hard, so why not translate it to the game?” Mark said. “We do our things. We get in and out, and we just gotta translate it to the game, just like we did tonight.”
In the middle of the second half, Mark hit back-to-back threes to grow the Longhorns’ lead to 61-53. Following his second, the veteran guard was feeling the emotion at the Moody Center, pumping his arms in the air to get the already rowdy crowd even louder.
“(I’m) glad I could get the crowd involved with a couple crazy shots,” Mark said. “It was just a good moment.”
While Mark had one of his best overall games this season, ending the night with four rebounds, three assists and two clutch blocks to his point total, he wasn’t the only one on the court having all the fun.
Along with Mark, three other Longhorns — senior guard Jordan Pope, junior forward Dailyn Swain and sophomore center Matas Vokietaitis — scored double-digit points in the dominant effort over Vanderbilt. Swain, although not playing the dominant offensive sorcerer role tonight, was able to show off other aspects of his game.
Swain and senior guard Chendall Weaver both came down with nine rebounds apiece, quickly reacting to any missed field goal that came their way. But what separated Swain from the rest of the Longhorns was his ability to feed his teammates the ball. He finished the night with seven assists.
“It feels great, responding to a challenge that Coach gave us,” Swain said. “But just like after the Alabama game, it’s a great win. We feel good about it, but we’re trying to stack wins and get three in a row.”
Texas will face the Texas A&M Aggies for the first of two games this season on Saturday at 5 p.m. at the Moody Center.
