How a meeting between Jerry Stackhouse and Tyrin Lawrence lifted Vanderbilt over Ole Miss

Vanderbilt basketball had a disastrous loss to Alabama on Tuesday as guard Tyrin Lawrence was benched due to his attitude in practice after a loss to Texas A&M.

Saturday against Ole Miss, Lawrence not only returned to the lineup, but he had one of his best games of the season. Lawrence got a double-double, scoring 18 points on 7-for-10 shooting with 10 rebounds and three assists in a 74-71 win over the Rebels at Memorial Gymnasium.

After Vanderbilt (11-12, 4-6 SEC) lost to the Aggies and Lawrence went 0-for-2 from the field, Stackhouse indicated he wasn't pleased when players were laughing during the next practice. Lawrence was held out of the loss to the Crimson Tide, the Commodores' worst since 2003.

After the benching, coach Jerry Stackhouse said he had a one-on-one meeting with Lawrence.

"We had a conversation and it was just about, 'Man, I demand more from you,' " Stackhouse said. "It's just your talent and your ability is, you know, take nothing away from the guys on our roster, but it's just different, so we need you to do more, I need you to be more accountable. I think he has the potential to be able to play at the next level.

" ... He was like, he just thought that the other guys were going well ... and then he just felt that he was in the corner sometimes and didn't get to kind of like, 'Man, you can come tap me up on my hip and tell him you want to play, I'm gonna run something for you.' So we got to have that type of communication and it was good."

Stackhouse said he hoped to have more individual meetings with the players in addition to large-group film sessions as a way of facilitating better communication. Overall, Stackhouse said he was satisfied with the response the players had in practice after he called them out twice for their attitude.

In addition to Lawrence, Liam Robbins had 19 points, 12 rebounds and seven blocks, and Quentin Millora-Brown had 10 points and five rebounds against Ole Miss (9-14, 1-9). Despite calling out his veterans following earlier games, Stackhouse said he planned to largely roll with his veteran group going forward. That includes guards Ezra Manjon and Trey Thomas, along with forward Myles Stute, Robbins, Millora-Brown, Lawrence and wing Jordan Wright, who missed the game with a concussion.

"I think I got to do that more, just with our group, this is a Generation Z group," Stackhouse said. " ... I'm going to have a few more meetings. It's a one-on-one meetings with the rest of these guys just try to understand what's going on with them as well. They're not machines and mechanical, and we got to find a way to the push the right buttons with them and hopefully I can continue to do that."

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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How Jerry Stackhouse-Tyrin Lawrence meeting got Vanderbilt on track