Another wild night

Good morning! It was yet again a fabulous night of college hoops. Let’s get you caught up on everything to know.

1. Tyler Tanner keeps Vandy undefeated

Vanderbilt sophomore point guard Tyler Tanner knows how to use quotes as fuel. He did just that as part of a 96-90 home win over No. 13 Alabama on Wednesday.

“We heard what Nate Oats was saying before, that we didn’t have a lot of good games before this,” Tanner said on ESPN postgame. “We kind of took that personally. We knew how good of a team we were, and we just wanted to show everybody tonight.”

Tanner delivered that proof on Wednesday. He’s playing like one of the sport’s best point guards as his career-high 29 points, seven assists and four steals boosted the No. 11 Commodores (15-0, 2-0 in SEC).

Also helpful? Alabama (11-4, 1-1) was held to its worst FG shooting (37.14%) and 3-point shooting (22.5%) of the season.

The bottom line is the Commodores can compete with anyone in SEC, and it shouldn’t come a shock if they win the regular season crown and make a run deep into March.

Of note: Alabama was without starting big man Aiden Sherrell, while point guard and leading scorer Labaron Philon did not play after the 16:06 mark in the second half because of cramps.

But Vanderbilt is banged up too, missing their sixth man and defensive whiz Frankie Collins. Yet the Dores are one win from matching the best start in school history and cemented themselves as the team to beat in the SEC.

The doubters may not surface again.

2. UConn’s improbable comeback spoils a party in Friartown

When No. 4 UConn trailed Providence by 11 points with 3:12 to play last night, the Huskies had just a 2.9% chance to pull of a road victory. That wasn’t a problem for the Huskies.

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