Jerry Stackhouse says Vanderbilt is ‘not on the level’ of Tennessee in rivalry series

Vanderbilt faced as much as a 41-point deficit in Knoxville on Saturday against their in-state rival in Tennessee. It was a performance that was proof enough to Jerry Stackhouse that there’s a very obvious and clear gap between the two programs at the moment.

Stackhouse spoke about the rivalry between the Commodores and Volunteers following the 88-53 loss on Rocky Top this weekend. He said the two teams are concentrated on two clearly separate goals as Vanderbilt is looking to improve while Tennessee is chasing contention. That’s also why, even after the defeat in blowout fashion, Stackhouse didn’t want there to be too much irritation about the margin both on the scoreboard and in general.

“For us? It’s just, like, our vision is trying to get better,” said Stackhouse. “We’re not on the level of Tennessee right now.”

“It’s great that we had a game at home, in our building where we could compete against them,” Stackhouse said. “Right now? I think they’re clicking as well as anybody in the country. We can’t take a lot of frustration from that.”

Vanderbilt led by as much as nine in the first half when these two teams met less than a month ago in Nashville. However, over the second half of that game and the two halves this weekend, Tennessee outscored them 53 points.

Much of that came this weekend in Thompson-Boling. The Volunteers held a 31-point lead at the half and pushed it to 40-plus in the second half. Tennessee shot better than 45% from the field and three, including 14 makes from deep, while also forcing 19 turnovers.

With the 35-point win, Tennessee swept the season series and has now won 13 of 14 since 2018. Vandy’s lone win in that time took a buzzer-beater to secure too as Tyrin Lawrence hit a game-winning three to upset the Volunteers inside Memorial Gymnasium just over a year ago.

Stackhouse isn’t discouraged that his team fell to 7-18 and 2-10 in the SEC. What did discourage him, though, was their inability to use their game plan to give themselves a better chance.

“It’s frustration that we didn’t play well and some of the things in the game plan that we wanted to do that we didn’t do. That was frustrating,” said Stackhouse. “We’ll look back at that and just try to figure out how we can be better at that going forward.”

If the loss wasn’t enough of a letdown based on the final score, it also was another defeat after they had won more as of late than they had since the start of the season. Now, as they return to the Music City, all they can do is go back to the drawing board to prepare for their final six in conference play.

“As far as game-to-game? We like to think that we won two out of our last (four). Up until tonight? We’ve been doing some things really well, kind of trending in a good direction. But tonight was definitely a setback,” said Stackhouse. “That’s why you go back to practice and you try to get better for the next game.”