Jerry Stackhouse calls on Vanderbilt to play with perfect focus

Vanderbilt managed to hang with Kentucky for most of the first half, but the Commodores lost focus and ended up falling 69-53 as a result. Coach Jerry Stackhouse pleaded with his team in a postgame press conference to play with perfect focus from here on out.

That, in his mind, was the biggest factor in the loss to the Wildcats.

“I didn’t think we had to play the perfect game to beat this team and I said that, but I thought we had to have the perfect focus, and I don’t think we had that focus where it needed to be for us to win this game tonight,” Stackhouse said.

If focus had a lot to do with the result on Tuesday night, you can probably pinpoint the slippage to the final three minutes of the first half.

Kentucky led 29-27 with 2:40 to play in the first half. By the time halftime arrived the Wildcats had extended the lead to 36-27.

“I don’t think that we will perform like this again,” Stackhouse said. “I think we’ve just got to focus, got to have a little bit more focus to attention to detail. We talk about that all the time.”

Vanderbilt needs focus, not hero ball

One thing Stackhouse hit on following the loss to Kentucky was that the Wildcats took advantage of the Commodores trying to do too much individually.

“Hats off to Kentucky. They really came in and played a great game. Their guys made shots from all over the floor and we weren’t able to contain them at all. It was our own undoing,” Stackhouse said. “We came out and everybody tried to do it on their own. It’s as disappointed as I’ve ever been in a postgame since I’ve been here. I just thought we had selfish play to begin the game and it bled over to our defense.”

“Everybody was just trying to do it on their own. I don’t know if it was the magnitude of the game or the hype around the game but we just weren’t ourselves, weren’t able to play the style of basketball that we’ve shown in the time that we’ve been here.”

The good news?

Vanderbilt will get another shot to do it the right way, though that shot will come at Rupp Arena, a notoriously difficult place to play.

“We’ll see them again at their place and hopefully we’ll perform a lot better than we did tonight,” Stackhouse said.