NASHVILLE— Prepare for an article written by yours truly, the Devil’s Advocate. It’s hard to walk away from a 27 point win disappointed. But it also seems difficult to feel good about Vanderbilt’s performance against Prairie View, a mistake-filled game regardless of the score. Especially since Vandy is coming off one of their most impressive wins in recent memory on Tuesday, a dismantling of a Memphis team that’s supposed to be competitive.

What made Friday night’s game hard to watch was the magnitude of little errors from the Commodores. At one point in the first half, Vanderbilt had 6 turnovers compared to one for Prairie View. And it’s not just my opinion, head coach Mark Byington agrees.

“That was not our best,” Byington commented after the game. “We didn’t keep the standard that we want to play by, … and we weren’t locked in. We’re not going to do this again.”

My high school coach always said that to play on Varsity, a guy has to be the best player on the court in JV. Friday night felt like a junior varsity game in many ways. Playing a much lesser opponent, the expectation was that Vanderbilt came out and played both technically and physically sound. They dominated in the second aspect, which is shown by their rebounding numbers, 44 to 19. The technical side is another story.

I can’t remember the last time we’ve seen Vanderbilt have a shot clock violation, regardless of the opponent. Or at one point be on track to hit 20 turnovers in the game. Or to have a star like Ace Glass have a missed three-pointer, missed layup, and the ball go out on him all in one possession. These are the little moments that are going to bite Vanderbilt in the butt come March.

“It came down to our decision making,” Byington remarked about the turnover struggles. “We were trying to throw the ball into places where players were guarded, when there was an open guy right next to them. As good as we saw the floor in the [Memphis] game, was as poor as we saw tonight.”

Back to the Memphis game. The level of play against a quality opponent tonight fueled the apparent disappointment Byington is feeling.

Granted, Vanderbilt showed its ability to play bully ball. The rebound numbers are the perfect representation of that narrative. Anyone could see the Commodores were noticeably bigger and stronger in their matchups across the floor (aside from Tyler Tanner per usual, although that never seems to matter). 

In certain games last season, including their loss to Florida in Memorial Gym, Vanderbilt being the bully wasn’t the case. The team struggled to get offensive boards consistently, and looked like the fight was being brought to them. If a positive is going to be taken from Friday night, it’s that having players like Berke Buyuktuncel, Sebastian Williams-Adams, and Bangot Dak insure they’ll at least match up well physically.

But let’s look at the big picture. I’ve made my opinions clear on the technical aspects of the game. Heck, they were outscored in the second half. As a game progresses, and specifically if a team is winning big, bench players get opportunities to showcase their skills, and honestly the bench was disappointing Friday night.

“I don’t think our bench production was good,” Byington told the media. “Guys can earn opportunities to play more, and guys can earn opportunities to play less.”

The Devil’s Advocate is walking away from this game feeling pretty validated. Frankly it sucks to feel dejection and disappointment from players and coaches alike after a large victory. But that’s going to help this team be successful later down the road. In Byington’s eyes, this game can serve as a catalyst for growth.

“This is an opportunity for some guys to step up and say ‘man, this isn’t the standard of Vanderbilt basketball’, and have some leadership.”

When a promising squad plays a lesser team this early in the season, it’s important to not overreact to the themes of the game. Obviously we – I consider Mark Byington and I as a “we” now – have a tendency to acknowledge the negatives of a game. 

So maybe we’re being too hard on the team that thoroughly dominated the basketball game. But let’s not underreact either. When the blue bloods of March come knocking, the mistakes we saw tonight will become more significant.