Nearly 26 minutes into Saturday’s game, nothing was separating Auburn from No. 18 Vanderbilt.

The Tigers had kept SEC leading scorer John Jenkins and rest of the Commodores offense relatively in check and were scoring enough points to stay competitive, as an Earnest Ross 3-pointer knotted the game at 42 with 14:21 to go.

But Vanderbilt found another gear, one that Auburn could only dream of matching, and heated up for a 77-60 win in front of 7,442 fans at Auburn Arena.

The Commodores (20-6, 8-4 SEC) went on a 23-4 run from the time Ross’ 3-pointer found the bottom of the net to the 6:38 mark, getting 7 points each from Jenkins and Jeffery Taylor and 6 from Brad Tinsley.

When Jenkins’ 3-pointer touched down to make Vanderbilt’s lead 65-46, the Commodores had made 8 of their past 13 shots and the Tigers (9-17, 2-10) had missed 10 of their past 12.

With three of their 19 turnovers for the game sprinkled in.

“Our offense turned the ball over, just made horrible decisions with the basketball,” Tigers coach Tony Barbee said. “You’ve got a team that didn’t press us one possession, but we have 19 turnovers because we just made the worst decisions with the basketball I have ever seen in the second half. We’ve got guys wide open on backdoors, wide open on post-ups, guys get the ball taken right out of their hands, just disappointing.

“Just disappointing.”

Similar to their 90-59 loss to Ole Miss on Wednesday, offensive stagnation led to defensive troubles for the Tigers.

Jenkins, who had only 6 at the half for the Commodores, finished with 22 for the game, Taylor – who had only 5 at the half – finished with 20 and 10 rebounds, and Tinsley scored 16.

Vanderbilt shot 60.0 percent from the field in the second half, following up the Rebels’ 70.0-percent second-half performance on Wednesday.

“We kind of broke down defensively, kind of stopped playing,” Tigers guard Earnest Ross said. “We let go of the rope and just couldn’t get a stop defensively. We couldn’t make plays on offense either, and that put us in a hole. When you can’t score the ball and when your defense stops, it’s kind of hard to win the game.”

The Tigers went into the half down 28-26 to the Commodores and started the second half with a bang on an alley oop to Kenny Gabriel 14 seconds into the half.

Auburn was able to keep pace with Vanderbilt for the next 5 minutes, before the Commodores revved up and the Tigers broke down.

Barbee drew a technical foul during the Commodores’ monster run, his second in as many games.

“They went on their run, and you knew they were, because of the type of offensive team they can be,” Barbee said. “They’re very explosive, they can score in a lot of ways. They’re a veteran team and they play that way. They don’t panic. They just stay in what they do, and they make plays and they make shots. And we just weren’t very productive offensively.”

Ross recorded his fifth double-double of the year, leading the Tigers with 19 points and 10 rebounds, and Gabriel added 13.

The Tigers have lost the past two games by a combined 48 points, their most lopsided two-game stretch this season.

“We’ve got to keep playing scrappy, even when we go through stretches where we can’t score the ball, we can’t let that affect our defense,” Ross said. “We’ve still got to continue to play defense and we’re not scoring, stop the other team from scoring.”

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