Vanderbilt Evicted from 'Club Undefeated' After Texas Rumble

It is a sad week for perfectionists.

On Wednesday, the No. 10 Vanderbilt Commodores were politely asked to leave the VIP section known as "The Undefeateds." Their bouncer? The unranked Texas Longhorns, who handed them an 80-64 loss that wasn't nearly as close as the score suggests.

Vanderbilt is now 16-1. They have joined the plebeians. They have a blemish.

This leaves us with only three teams in Division I men's basketball who haven't tasted defeat: No. 1 Arizona (expected), No. 8 Nebraska (corn-fed perfection), and unranked Miami of Ohio (the wildcard of the group).

Earlier this week, we lost Michigan (thanks, Wisconsin) and Iowa State (thanks, Kansas). And now, Vanderbilt has fallen. It’s like an Agatha Christie novel where the characters keep disappearing, except instead of a mysterious murder, the cause of death is "bad shooting."

The Crime Scene: The Glass

If you are wondering how Vandy lost this game, look no further than the rebounding stats. It was a massacre.

Texas outrebounded Vanderbilt 42-24.

Texas missed 25 shots. They got the offensive rebound on 11 of them. Basically, almost every time Texas missed, they just grabbed the ball and said, "Whoops, let me try that again." Vanderbilt was apparently allergic to basketball.

Combine that with the Commodores shooting a chilly 36.7% from the field, and you have a recipe for a blowout. The game was close early on, but Texas went on a 9-0 run right before halftime—essentially stealing Vanderbilt's lunch money—and then boat-raced them in the second half.

The Texas Two-Step (Over Vandy's Hopes)

Texas center Matas Vokietaitis decided he was going to be the main character tonight. He dropped 22 points on 7-of-9 shooting. He was efficient, he was large, and Vanderbilt had no answer for him.

Meanwhile, Dailyn Swain decided to do a little bit of everything, putting up 14 points, 9 rebounds, and 7 assists. He was one rebound and three assists away from a triple-double, which is just greedy.

The Texas Confusion Tour

This is a weird Texas team. They started SEC play 0-2. They got beaten up by Duke, UConn, and Arizona State earlier in the year. Everyone wrote them off.

But suddenly, they’ve beaten No. 18 Alabama and No. 10 Vanderbilt in back-to-back games. Texas is the student who fails the pop quizzes but aces the midterm just to confuse the teacher.

They have now recovered from their slow start and are looking dangerous, which is great timing because they have a massive rivalry game against Texas A&M on Saturday.

As for Vanderbilt? Welcome to the one-loss club. The meetings are on Tuesdays. There are donuts, but Texas probably ate them all.