FAYETTEVILLE -- Arkansas beating Vanderbilt at Vanderbilt seemed as incongruous as Michael Sanchez scoring 20 points.
Well, both happened. At Vanderbilt's uniquely configured benches behind the baselines Memorial Gym in Nashville, Tenn. the Razorbacks beat the No. 19 ranked Commodores, 89-78 last Saturday night.
And Michael Sanchez helped beat them for Arkansas' first true road victory in five tries. Far surpassing his career high 12 points achieved two years and many foot injuries ago, the fourth-year junior reserve forward from Springdale Har-Ber scored 20 to go with shooting guard Rotnei Clarke's 36 for 56 of Arkansas' 89 points.
With Sanchez on a tear and the Razorbacks collectively on board on the boards to outrebound Vanderbilt, Arkansas won its biggest game despite its biggest scoring big men shackled by foul trouble.
"Michael Sanchez was awesome," Arkansas coach John Pelphrey said. "He needed to be awesome and he was."
Arkansas senior center and SEC leading shot-blocker Delvon Johnson played just nine minutes in Nashville, and forward Preseason All-SEC forward Marshawn Powell played just 16 minutes because of the fouls plaguing them from the get-go.
Fouls happen against Vanderbilt 6-11 center Festus Ezeli, Pelphrey said.
"Festus Ezeli is so good," Pelphrey said. "He slams into you and draw fouls. He fouls out everybody's front court every single game. Everybody gets frustrated because it's a lot of contact and referees aren't always going to call it. You knew tonight we weren't going to get some of those calls. But not guy in the whole 40 minutes got frustrated. That one little thing might have led to a big thing."
If anybody was frustrated, it was Ezeli.
Sanchez's 6-8, 236 bull in a china shop drives to the bucket seemed to confound the Vandy center. Sanchez was 8 for 12 from the field and got to the free throw line six times and sunk four.
"That was a problem for Vanderbilt and Ezeli when Michael started driving that basketball," Pelphrey said. "He (Ezeli) is just not comfortable at that position guarding somebody off the bounce and that's one of Mike's greatest strengths - driving the basketball."
Sanchez also set a lot of picks that helped free Clarke for his 36 points, 36 more than Rotnei scored the previous Saturday when the Hogs were embarrassed 75-43 at Florida.
"A week ago we didn't shoot well across the board from the first guy on the team to the last guy on the team," Pelphrey said postgame in Nashville. "It's a funny game. it's still a game. It's not an exact science. If it was probably on paper not too many people would give us much hope of coming in here and winning tonight . But I told the guys before the game, I have a belief and faith in what we are doing and I have a belief in this basketball team."
Nobody's faith on this team has been tested like Sanchez's.
Pursued in recruiting practically from Day One by former Arkansas coach Stan Heath, Sanchez had to weather injuries in high school plus Heath's March 2007 firing after becoming a November early-signee for Heath in 2006.
Sanchez stayed committed to Arkansas when Pelphrey was hired, redshirted his first season, and was a starter as a redshirt freshman in 2008-2009.
Then came the foot injuries and inflammations. Painful plantar's faciitis cost him all but bit parts for two games in 2009-2010.
Sanchez looked healed in preseason until stress fractures were revealed just before the season-opener. He missed the first 11 games and had played no longer than 14 minutes in his eight games back until logging 33 Saturday at Vanderbilt.
During Saturday's radio postgame, broadcaster Chuck Barrett had a good-natured chuckle in his voice when he asked if the coach could see this Sanchez shocker coming.
"Well," Pelphrey replied before receiving the game's official stats, "I saw Sanchez's performance coming. I don't know what the numbers were, but I saw Mike making plays like he did tonight all through our preseason practice. That was why I hurt so bad for him when he got hurt. Because he was doing tremendous things."
However it wasn't just Clarke, whom Pelphrey called "amazing" or just Sanchez defeating Vanderbilt.
"This was a big-time team effort," Pelphrey said. "The defense and the rebounding game was there. That's something that hopefully we can build off of."
Erased on the boards most of his season, Arkansas now has consecutively beaten Auburn and Vandy on the boards and the scoreboard.
Georgia is next visiting Wednesday night at Walton Arena.