WATCH: Vandy stuns no. 6 Tennessee with three-point buzzer beater
Down go the Vols. The Vanderbilt Commodores snapped an 11-game skid against in-state rival Tennessee Wednesday night at the buzzer thanks to a Tyrin Lawrence game-winning 3-pointer.
After the game, Lawrence revealed that the ball wasn’t even supposed to be in his hands on the play. His teammate found him wide open in the corner and drained it. Fans filled the court within seconds.
“We drew it up for Ezra [Manjon] to make a play. He got downhill and fortunately he found me and I was able to knock it down,” Lawrence said postgame. “Coach Stack, he believes we can beat anyone and we believe it also. We haven’t beaten [Tennessee] since I got here, and we got it done tonight.”
The win was also the first over Tennessee under head coach Jerry Stackhouse. The losing streak against the Vols dated back to 2017, who hired Stackhouse two seasons late.
Lawrence finished with 19 points on 8-12 shooting to go with four rebounds en route to Vandy’s second-straight win. They’ll look to add to that total Saturday on the road against Florida. Tip-off is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET live on the SEC Network.
Quentin Millora-Brown reacts to playing alongside Liam Robbins inside
So far in the 2022-23 season, Vanderbilt had not played two bigs on the floor at the same time much at all. Then, against Ole Miss in early February, head coach Jerry Stackhouseput 6-foot-10 Quentin Millora-Brown on the floor with 7-foot Liam Robbins.
And the Commodores got the win, 74-71, over the Rebels. Speaking about the pairing after the game, Millora-Brown was high on what he and Robbins bring to the floor together as a pair of tall, long anchors.
“We’re getting better at it, playing together,” Millora-Brown said. “I think that it’s a really good look for us because it gives us a lot of size that other teams, they haven’t felt Liam’s height and my height at the same time, against us.”
Robbins is one of Vanderbilt’s highest-usage players, leading the Commodores in both scoring and rebounds per game. He’s the starting center and a feature piece of the offense. Millora-Brown has mostly come off the bench to spell him for minutes, while providing a slightly different flavor of big.
So far, it’s been a rarity to put them on the floor at the same time. In the last five games, the duo playing together hasn’t been in any of the most frequent lineups played for Vanderbilt. That might change going forward as a struggling Commodores squad searches for success on the court.
And when the two are on the floor together, it creates entirely new ways for Vanderbilt to attack offensively. It’s something Millora-Brown also explained when discussing playing the two big lineup.
“And I think it opens up so high-low actions and it makes it really hard for them to double,” Millora-Brown said. “Because if they double, we’re going to have kick outs or we’re going to have some opening that they have to give up.”