Are Vanderbilt basketball's March Madness hopes over already after loss to Presbyterian in opener?

It stung when Vanderbilt basketball was left out of the NCAA Tournament last season. The Commodores, who finished tied for fourth in the SEC with an 11-7 record and made the semifinals of the SEC Tournament, were shunned in favor of several teams that finished below them in the conference standings.

The culprits were twofold: a trio of bad losses (two of them early in the season) and a low NET rating, which was influenced both by the bad losses and a poor efficiency margin. Things like a three-point win over Wofford and a 57-point loss to Alabama hurt the metrics.

Coach Jerry Stackhouse said he learned from all those things. But a season-opening 68-62 loss to Presbyterian at home called that into question. Vanderbilt now faces an uphill battle to make the NCAA Tournament after just one game.

Stackhouse, in his fifth season, has yet to make March Madness. After two straight NIT trips, the pressure is mounting to take the next step. Now, that quest is off to the worst possible start.

How bad of a loss is Presbyterian?

It's a bad loss any way you slice it. Presbyterian went 5-27 last season and entered the season ranked 315th in KenPom.

Preseason KenPom rankings don't always end up being gospel in this current era of college basketball roster churn. The Commodores have such an example in their own history. Last season, Vanderbilt lost to Southern Miss in the second game of the season. Ranked 324th in KenPom to start the season, the Golden Eagles ended at 98th and played in the NIT − though that game still counted as a Quadrant 3 loss for Vanderbilt.

It's unlikely that the Blue Hose will match one of the biggest single-year turnarounds in college basketball's recent history. That would make it a Quadrant 4 loss on the resume, and it will hurt the team's NET as well. (NET rankings are not released until December.)

It is possible to make the NCAA Tournament with a Q4 loss. Nine teams in 2023 made the NCAA Tournament as an at-large with one or more Q4 losses. Texas A&M made the tournament with two Q4 losses (Wofford and Murray State), and Iowa made the tournament with a home loss to a team ranked outside the top 300 in KenPom (Eastern Illinois).

Texas A&M made up for its Q4 losses with its performance in conference play, notching wins over Alabama and Tennessee, along with five other Q1 opponents. Iowa had three Q1 road victories and strong metrics in the NET.

Vanderbilt will have plenty of opportunities in SEC play to notch Q1 wins, but especially if the SEC ends up without an elite team this season, the Commodores will want to get at least one marquee non-conference win. There are three opportunities: neutral-site games against NC State and Texas Tech, and a road game against Memphis.

There is also, of course, the autobid route. Vanderbilt under Stackhouse has consistently played its best at the end of the season. That could make winning the SEC Tournament a possibility regardless of how conference play goes. While uncommon, even a last-place team winning the SEC Tournament has happened with Georgia in 2008.

Will Tyrin Lawrence, other injuries make a difference?

The NCAA Tournament committee has the leeway to take injuries into consideration when selecting teams, though the extent to which they do so can vary.

With that in mind, it's worth noting that the Commodores were down three players when they lost to Presbyterian, most notably Tyrin Lawrence. With Lawrence, Lee Dort and Ven-Allen Lubin out, Vanderbilt was down its expected leading scorer as well as its expected top two rim protectors.

If one of them returns soon and plays to an All-SEC level, the impact of the loss may be lessened in the committee's eyes, since the roster that lost to Presbyterian wouldn't be the same one as at the end of the season.

Dort (foot) was recently cleared to return to practice but must return to game shape. Lawrence (foot sprain) and Lubin (groin strain) are out indefinitely. Because they have soft-tissue injuries, the timetable can vary anywhere from a few weeks to a month or more.

Why Jerry Stackhouse's new scheduling strategy backfired

After missing out on the NCAA Tournament in 2023, Stackhouse vowed to stop scheduling games against sneaky tough mid-majors like VCU and SMU. Vanderbilt believed that playing a difficult non-conference schedule was not helpful to tournament chances because the Commodores did not get rewarded for scheduling those games if they lost them.

Instead, Vanderbilt opted to schedule primarily buy games at home with a handful of neutral site or road games against high-major foes. This strategy can work − it got Mississippi State into the tournament last season based largely on a neutral-site win over Marquette − but it requires actually winning the buy games.

The biggest problem with the way Vanderbilt scheduled is that it has a history of taking bad losses early in the season. Whether it was Southern Miss and Grambling in 2022 or Temple in 2021 (plus a home loss to South Carolina early in the conference slate that same season), the Commodores have not found a way to consistently win their early season games.

LESSONS NOT LEARNED Vanderbilt basketball, Jerry Stackhouse didn't learn after losing season opener to Presbyterian

While Stackhouse couldn't have predicted the injuries to Lawrence and Lubin while putting together a schedule, the early season struggles aren't a new trend. Stackhouse played three of his freshmen for significant minutes Tuesday and none of his starters for more than 30. That was avoidable, regardless of the injuries.

Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on Twitter @aria_gerson.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Are Vanderbilt basketball's March Madness hopes over already?