BATON ROUGE La. — Jordan Wright scored 13 points in the return to his hometown, but LSU proved to be too much in a 83-68 win Tuesday at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The Tigers led by as many as 24 and never trailed in the contest. Vanderbilt fell to 7-14 overall and 3-12 in SEC play.
Maxwell Evans finished with a team-high 20 for the Commodores who travel to Cincinnati (9-9) at 6 p.m. CT Thursday.
Vanderbilt missed its first six shots of the evening Tuesday and fell behind 9-0 in the first four minutes. Braelee Albert’s 3 at the 15:21 mark was Vandy’s first bucket of the game.
Darius Days, however, banged two straight triples to put the Tigers up 17-3. A Trendon Watford layup a few moments late made it a 19-5 game.
The Commodores continued to struggle shooting by starting just 4 of 16 from the floor. Meanwhile, Watford’s jumper at the 6:10 mark gave LSU a 29-14 lead – it’s largest of the first half at that point.
Three minutes later Josh LeBlanc’s dunk made it a 36-19 game and then Jalen Cook buried a triple for an even 20-point Tigers’ lead. Javonte Smart connected on a 3 right before halftime to send the Tigers into the break up 46-24.
The Commodores simply could not crack the code in the second half and were never able to get the deficit within single digits.
Thomas led LSU (15-8, 10-6 SEC) with 20 points and eight rebounds.
• Vanderbilt sophomore point guard Scotty Pippen Jr. did not play Tuesday.
• Evans, Isaiah Rice, Clevon Brown, Albert and Wright started Tuesday’s game for Vanderbilt. That marked the 15th different starting lineup for the Commodores in 2020-21.
• Vanderbilt has now made at least four 3s in 36 consecutive games.
• Vandy is now 0-13 when trailing at the break this season. It is also now 0-9 on weekday games.
• The Commodores are now 63-57 in the all-time series against LSU.
