Texas defeated No. 10 Vanderbilt, 80-64 on Wednesday night, the second straight night an undefeated team suffered its first loss.
The Longhorns were the first team this season to take advantage of Vandy’s lack of size — the Commodores are the SEC’s smallest team — force-feeding the ball into 7-footer Matas Vokietaitis, who scored 22 points on 7 of 9 shooting.
Texas, which lost its first two SEC games, is suddenly the hottest team in the league. The Longhorns have won back-to-back games against Alabama and Vanderbilt, which were thought to be the league’s two best teams.
T Mark from the corner 🤘#HookEm | @RealBuckets11 pic.twitter.com/Ri0SX7P5Jx
— Texas Men’s Basketball (@TexasMBB) January 15, 2026
One difference has been the play of sixth-year guard Tramon Mark, who shot 21.9 percent from beyond the 3-point line in non-conference play but is 11 of 23 in SEC games, including 4 of 7 3-pointers made against the Commodores on his way to 21 points.
Vanderbilt has been one of the most efficient offenses in the country and an elite shooting team, inside and outside, and while it was a solid 3-point shooting game (9 of 25), Vandy struggled inside the arc against UT’s length, making just 13 of 35 two-pointers.
Vandy’s leading scorers, Duke Miles (21 points), Tyler Tanner (17 points) and Tyler Nickel (10 points), produced as usual, but the rest of the team combined to score 16 points on 30 percent shooting.
Vandy (16-1, 3-1 SEC) is now in a five-way tie for first place in the SEC with Florida, Arkansas, Texas A&M and Missouri. Next up is Florida, the other hottest team in the league, which has three straight double-digit wins after dropping its SEC opener at Missouri.
The SEC is not nearly as strong as it was a year ago, but the league race could be wild and unpredictable, and maybe Texas could end up a surprise contender. The Longhorns have only three ranked teams left on the schedule and do not play another one until February 21 at Georgia.
The lone undefeated teams are now Arizona, Nebraska and Miami (Ohio).