Jerry Stackhouse says Vanderbilt's defense was 'huge' against Auburn

Vanderbilt‘s latest win was highlighted by a game-winning layup made by Ezra Manjon with eight-tenths of a second remaining, which helped elevate the Commodores to a 67-65 win over Auburn. Manjon’s late game heroics may have stole the show, but Vanderbilt’s defense was also a critical part of their win over the Tigers. Following the win, Commodores head coach Jerry Stackhouse spoke about the importance of defense in their victory.

“It was huge, I mean again, we’re not gonna make shots every night,” Stackhouse said. “I thought we had some good looks and they did some things to us, we were doing it to ourselves a little bit, we weren’t screening. We weren’t able to pull any triggers and I thought we screened a little bit better, but that’s something that we gotta improve on over these next games we have coming up.”

Vandy shot just 35.7% from the field on the night but were able to lean on their defense throughout the game to keep them in it. Saturday’s matchup featured 15 lead changes and 12 ties, but Vandy’s defense was consistent, as they crashed the glass strong with 41 rebounds and had strong individual performances from players like Jordan Wright and Myles Stute.

“I thought Jordan and Myles didn’t have their best offensive game, but they did a great job of defending (Jaylin) Williams in the second half. I mean he was a matchup problem for us when he was jumping in and jumping up and making shots over us,” Stackhouse said. “But I thought I thought we did a much better job of being physical with him.”

Williams ended the night with 17 points, but 12 of them were in the first half, as the Tigers were much more effective in defending him in the second half. Auburn’s leading scorer Johni Broome did Johni Broome things, ending the night with 20 points. But, his 20 piece was not enough to lead the Tigers to a much needed victory.

“Same thing with Broome, he was attacking Liam (Robbins) a little bit, but when it came down the stretch he had the big block on him. Trey (Thomas) had a couple big steals, a lot of contributions down the line. That’s what it’s going to take for us to win and continue to get to where we want to be,” Stackhouse said.

Robbins ended the game with 24 points and 12 rebounds, his third double-double in the last five games for Vandy. They’ve become one of the SEC’s hottest teams in the conference during the final stretch of the season, achieving their first five-game conference winning streak since 2015. They have four games remaining in the regular season, and hopefully Stackhouse and his team can stack together some more strong defensive performances to close out their remaining conference schedule.