ANAHEIM, Calif. – The Vanderbilt men’s basketball team opened the Wooden Legacy with a 75-65 loss to Saint Mary’s on Wednesday night at the Anaheim Convention Center Arena.
Vanderbilt (2-3) will face Fresno State on Thursday at 7 p.m. PT (9 p.m. CT) on ESPNU.
In the loss, Jordan Wright posted 22 points to lead the offense with Tyrin Lawrence and Liam Robbins adding 13 apiece.
Vandy trailed Saint Mary’s by a 35-27 margin at the half. A 9-0 run to open the half gave the Commodores a 36-35 lead with 17:23 to play in the second half.
Saint Mary’s, which is receiving votes in the AP Top 25 and Coaches Poll, was able to retake the lead and never looked back.
Quotes from Vanderbilt head coach Jerry Stackhouse
“Hats off to Saint Mary’s, I thought they played a great game. Our game plan was to take the 3-pointer out of the game – they’ve been shooting it really well – and we thought we did. We made them play in the mid-range and they [Saint Mary’s] stepped up and made shots and conversely in the first half we weren’t able to make shots ourselves. We took a lot of mid-range twos outside of the paint and that’s not really our game. We wanted to get it around the rim, get paint points and hopefully open up some threes for us. But it’s tough to come on the road and win against a good team when you shoot 28 percent in the first half. We figured it out a little bit better in the second half, and then I thought we contained them a little bit better defensively as well. We had some opportunities there when we got back in the game, we just came up a little bit short.”
