Trey Thomas praises Vanderbilt fans in Auburn win

Vanderbilt is playing its best basketball in years at the moment. Though the Commodores are strongly outside the bubble, Jerry Stackhouse has his boys playing some inspired hoops down the stretch. Following this weekend’s win over Auburn, Vandy is now winners of five straight and are playing like a top-30 team since the start of the month. This uptick has led to some great home crowds as well, according to junior guard Trey Thomas.

The fans definitely gave the team a boost against the Tigers. Vanderbilt typically wins with its offense and actually ranks as a top-30 offense analytically on the season. But on Saturday, they were a little flat shooting the basketball and needed their defense to come through, which it did, partially thanks to an encouraging and raucous crowd.

“They were huge,” said Thomas after the game. He knows how important having that home court advantage is. “That’s something that we’ve been harping on for the whole season, just getting students out to the games. You know that other team’s going to bring some fans, so I feel like we match their energy. So yeah it was huge.”

Let’s face it, with Vanderbilt being located in downtown Nashville and having been the SEC doormat for a long time, opposing fans often used the game in Memorial Gymnasium as a chance to make the road trip for a fun time on Broadway. Well, the karaoke bars and cowboy hats haven’t gone anywhere, but now, visiting fans have to get used to a much more competitive matchup than normal against the ‘Dores.

Per Thomas, the crowd needs to keep up these home environments to help motivate the team in these big games.

Jerry Stackhouse says defense was key vs. Auburn

As mentioned, the 67-65 victory over Auburn was in large part due to the Vandy defense, rather than its potent offense. In his own postgame press conference, Stackhouse emphasized what a terrific performance his guys gave on that end of the floor.

“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.”

Always the offensive-mined coach, Stackhouse a bit frustrated with the lack of execution in scoring the ball — yet proud of how the team strung together just enough stops to win despite a cold day from the floor.