NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Playing with just nine players, the Saint Francis men's basketball team couldn't keep up with the size and depth of Vanderbilt in an 84-55 loss on Wednesday afternoon at Memorial Gym in the Music City.
The Red Flash were led by senior Grant Surprenant (Palatine, IL /Palatine) (Palatine, Ill. / Palatine) with 11 points off the bench, while senior Cale Nelson (Newville, PA /Big Spring) (Newville, Pa. / Big Spring) added 10 points. Surprenant made 4-of-7 from the field, and Nelson added three rebounds, five assists and a steal.
Saint Francis dropped its third straight game to fall to 4-8 overall, but will look to improve to 2-1 in the Northeast Conference when it travels to Robert Morris for a 7 p.m. game on Saturday night. The game against the Colonials will signal the beginning of the NEC stretch run.
Vanderbilt improved to 10-3 with four players in double digit scoring. Jermaine Beal made 7-of-10 field goals for a game-high 17 points, Brad Tinsley tallied 15 points, Jeffery Taylor had 13 points and Lance Goulbourne added 10 points.
The Red Flash played without injured starter Devin Sweetney (Washington, DC /Riverdale Baptist) (Washington, D.C. / Riverdale Baptist), who has missed the last three games, and junior Randy Spaid (Portage, PA /Portage) (Portage, Pa. / Portage).
“Our limited depth as it went along really played against us,” said Saint Francis head coach Don Friday. “There were some good things that we did today. I thought that a couple times we got the ball inside and we played inside-outside basketball. That opened up shots for our guys on the perimeter, and that's something that we can take from this game to build in the right direction. Coming out being off a good number of days since we played St. Bonaventure, we were a little rusty in this first half. In the second half, I thought there were some times where we could have done some things a little better with our execution. But this is a good Vanderbilt team, and they play in the best conference in the country.”
Junior Mislav Jukic (Zagreb, Crotia/Life Center Acadamy) (Zagreb, Croatia / Life Center Academy) tallied nine points, five rebounds and two assists, junior Kurt Hoffman (Johnstown, PA /Greater Johnstown ) (Johnstown, Pa. / Johnstown) added seven points, two rebounds and a steal, and sophomore Sorena Orandi (Vastra Frolunda, Sweden/Solebury Prep) (Vastra Frolunda, Sweden / Solebury Prep) added six points and an assist of the bench.
Saint Francis shot 37.7 percent (20-of-53), and had a positive assist-to-turnover ratio of 15-to-13. However, the Commodores used their size advantage to pull down a 37-21 rebounding advantage. Vanderbilt made 30-of-54 field goal attempts (55.6 percent) in never trailing.
The Commodores scored the game's first four points, but the Red Flash got a pair of buckets from senior Kyle Jackson (Bolingbrook, IL /Plainfield Central ) (Bolingbrook, Ill. / Plainfield Central) to tie the game up at 4-4.
However, Vanderbilt responded with an 11-0 run to take a 15-4 lead, and then never looked back. SFU pulled to within six points on two different occasions in the first half, but the Commodores took a 44-30 lead at the break.
