A four-game losing streak, especially when you're used to winning, can seem endless.
"It seems like an absolute eternity," said Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings.
Vanderbilt, stuck in that rut since Jan. 14, climbed out with a gutty 82-75 win on the road against Auburn on Saturday.
Junior Jermaine Beal hit 7 of 8 shots from beyond the arc for a career-high 21 points and the Commodores made enough big plays down the stretch to hold off Auburn and improve to 2-5 in Southeastern Conference play.
What made this victory even more important was how it rewarded Stallings' great faith in his young players to finally right the ship. He isn't the soupy type where to him a loss can be a moral victory and all that jazz. He tells it like it is. So when Stallings, the same coach that has led Vanderbilt to two straight NCAA Tournament berths and beaten two straight No. 1 teams, was doing nothing but praise his young team's toughness and togetherness in the midst of a four-game slide in a very weak SEC, it was noteworthy.
At practice Thursday, he was so high on his players and their commitment to success, one listening would have guessed the Commodores were leading the SEC East rather than barely out of its cellar.
"As a coach, I continue to be extremely impressed with how hard they work in practice, how good their attitudes are, how they all continue to be good teammates to each other," he said, his voice hoarse from the 86-76 loss to South Carolina a night earlier. "You see absolutely no signs of anybody backing up, anybody's attitude lessening, anybody's desire going down. These guys have really been A-plus in those regards."
Those positive mindsets manifested themselves in a win Saturday that Vanderbilt desperately needed, not just for the postseason, but for their confidence as well. That it came against Auburn, not exactly a powerhouse team, was not what was important.
The Commodores led the entire first half, at one point up 26-13, before, as home teams feeding off crowd energy tend to do, the Tigers closed the gap and actually took a 48-45 lead at the 16:20 mark of the second half. Here we go again, right?
But instead of folding in half as they did three days earlier in Columbia, the Commodores immediately responded. A 3-pointer by Beal tied the game right back up and shut up the increasingly loud crowd. The Tigers took another lead, 61-60, but freshman guard Brad Tinsley drove to the hoop, drew a foul and calmly hit two free throws to take back the advantage.
With Vanderbilt up 70-64, Auburn scored six straight to tie it up, but Beal was there again to knife the Tigers with two straight 3-pointers.
But the most telling moment of the game involved Tinsley. After Beal put Vanderbilt up six with 1:35 to play, Tinsley grabbed a rebound off an Auburn miss but dribbled straight into three Tiger defenders to turn the ball over and the Tigers scored an easy basket, the kind of mistake you can't make on the road.
Auburn closed to within two and just needed one more stop to have a chance to tie or win the game. But, just one minute after committing the costly turnover, Tinsley nailed a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 36 seconds remaining and the shot clock expiring to put Vanderbilt up by five and send Auburn's faithful to the exits. Vanderbilt shakily closed it out from there from the free throw line (a lousy 16-31 showing from the line overshadowed a sensational 61 percent shooting performance from the field).
It was the sign of a grown-up team. Two gritty but failed efforts on the road sandwiched around two dispiriting losses at home seemed to have Vanderbilt on the ropes. But despite Auburn rallying multiple times, the Commodores didn't waver or show signs of nervousness. They earned this one. As radio announcer Joe Fisher put, a young team did some growing up on the Plains.
Stallings knew it was a matter of time before this talented, albeit raw group finally got its act together. With what he had seen as a great ability in his players to keep their heads up during a rough patch, he had seen it coming.
"I'm proud of our guys staying positive and staying with us and staying with the plan," Stallings said. "We got the job done."
