Vanderbilt

01/22/2012The Commodores will struggle with capable frontcourts. They struggle late in close games. They struggle on the defensive end. They are, in other words, the sameVanderbilt Commodores we’ve come to know and love in each of the past three seasons. Their recent improvements created the notion that this team had turned some vague corner, that it was finally ready to assume the top-10, Final Four-worthy preseason expectations foisted upon them.

Instead, on Saturday, we saw the team that led us to doubt that status in the first place. Vandy yielded a 12-point second-half lead, allowed Mississippi State to score 1.14 points per possession and got vastly outrebounded on both ends of the floor. In the end, even with very good chances to win the game — particularly the final shot in regulation, which ended up being an uncontested four-foot shot for Festus Ezeli (which he missed) — Vanderbilt just couldn’t make the key defensive plays.