Vandy advances after rout
NASHVILLE — The Vanderbilt Commodores have enough experience that a poor shooting half is no reason to panic.
Being the Southeastern Conference’s best 3-point shooters helps, too.
Joe Toye scored 17 of his career-high 18 points after halftime, and Vanderbilt shook off a sluggish start to beat Texas A&M 66-41 Thursday night in the second round of the SEC tournament.
With the win, the seventh-seeded Commodores (18-14) snapped a four-game skid in SEC tournament games with their first victory since beating Kentucky in the 2013 quarterfinals. The Commodores shot 8-of-14 outside the arc in the second half to beat the Aggies for a third time this season.
They were led by Toye, who hit a career-high five 3s on eight attempts.
“Joe was extraordinary to start that second half,” Vanderbilt coach Bryce Drew said. “I think when he started to make some 3s, it just gave our team a lot of confidence and a lot more guys started to make shots.”
Said Toye: “Some of them were called for me, some I just found in the offense. My teammates just kept passing it to me. So I’m just happy my shots were going in today.”
Riley LaChance added 14 points and Nolan Cressler 11 for Vanderbilt, which will get a chance at another three-game sweep when it faces secondseeded, 17th-ranked Florida in the quarterfinals tonight.
Tenth-seeded Texas A&M (16-15) was held to a season low in points. Tyler Davis led the Aggies with 18, and Admon Gilder added 11.
Coach Billy Kennedy said his Aggies were “outclassed” by Vanderbilt on the perimeter, with the Commodores making almost as many 3s (11) as his Aggies made field goals (17).
“When you can’t score and you’re not deep with your depth defensively, it’s hard to grind out a win,” Kennedy said.
The Commodores came in needing to polish up their NCAA tournament résumé before Selection Sunday. They did just that by earning their second straight win and sixth in seven games. Now they get another chance at a Top 25 win.
› Alabama 75, Mississippi State 55: How Alabama scores matters as much as how many, and coach Avery Johnson likes the progress he’s seeing in both areas — but defense also factored into opportunities that resulted in a thorough victory in the second round.
Dazon Ingram scored 17 points and Corbin Collins added 14 to help the fifthseeded Crimson Tide (1813) roll into a quarterfinal matchup against fourthseeded South Carolina (22-9) today.
Donte Hall and Avery Johnson Jr. each added 10 points for Alabama, which shot 25-of-53 (47 percent) from the field and committed just nine turnovers.
“Pretty good performance for us on both ends of the floor,” said coach Johnson, whose team swept all three games from the Bulldogs this season. “We’ve been a pretty consistent defensive team all year. Fortunately, tonight we had little bit of a combined effort both on the defensive and the offensive ends.
“We got off to a good start. We thought we set a great type of pace we wanted the play this game, and fortunately some shots went down for us.”
Tyson Carter led with 13 points for the 12th-seeded Bulldogs (1616), who played less than 24 hours after routing LSU in the first round.
Alabama’s Ingram made all seven of his fieldgoal attempts, including a 3-pointer, while Collins came off the bench to shoot 4-of-6 from long range. Alabama finished 8-of-16 from behind the arc for its best outing since going 9-of-15 in a Jan. 25 win at Georgia.
› Ole Miss 86, Missouri 74: DeAndre Burnett scored a gamehigh 23 points as sixthseeded Ole Miss (20-12) advanced to a quarterfinal meeting with third-seeded Arkansas (23-8).
Terence Davis added 19 points and Sebastian Saiz had 14 with 16 rebounds for the Rebels, who led 46-36 at halftime.
Jordan Barnett, Terrence Phillips and Kevin Puryear each scored 15 for Missouri (8-24), which was trying to hang around Bridgestone Arena for a third day despite being the lowest seed in the 14-team tournament.