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Memorial Minutes: Gilded age

The hype for Vanderbilt Men’s Basketball skyrocketed after back-to-back home wins, but a loss on the road to No. 4 Alabama revealed some problems brewing under the surface.
MJ Collins Jr. dunks on a defender, as photographed on Jan. 19, 2024. (Hustler Multimedia/Connor Campbell)
MJ Collins Jr. dunks on a defender, as photographed on Jan. 19, 2024. (Hustler Multimedia/Connor Campbell)
Connor Campbell

Vanderbilt Men’s Basketball has it all: buzzer-beating putbacks, game-saving chase-down blocks, alley-oops and posterizing dunks. Head coach Mark Byington’s troop has breathed new life into a formerly sputtering program, and they have done so in style.

The Commodores (15-4, 3-3 SEC) overcame a rough start to their conference slate with an impressive homestand. An ugly 66-63 win over South Carolina got the ball rolling for the team, bringing them back to .500 in SEC play at 2-2. A poor shooting night by Vanderbilt was eclipsed by South Carolina’s sloppy play, as the Commodores scored 22 points off 25 turnovers by the Gamecocks while only shooting 19% from deep.

The Gamecocks trailed nearly the entire game but evened the score deep into the second half. Devin McGlockton won the game for Vanderbilt by making a putback layup through contact with 0.6 seconds left on the clock. South Carolina failed to answer, and the Commodores celebrated their first SEC win on home turf of the season.

The nailbiter win over the Gamecocks was just the opening act for the greatest show in college basketball last weekend. Byington and Co. welcomed No. 6 Tennessee to West End for the second installment of their two-game homestand.

When the final buzzer rang, Vanderbilt’s student section poured onto the court to celebrate a 76-75 win — their second “field storm” in just four months.

The game produced a flashy highlight reel, but there may be a shaky foundation lurking behind the Commodores’ shiny exterior. Vanderbilt’s 103-87 loss to Alabama exposed many possible shortcomings.

Struck gold

It seems that Vanderbilt Athletics struck gold with Byington’s hiring and the squad he assembled. The former James Madison coach pulled together nine transfer players to form a regular rotation that doesn’t include a single returning player from last season — with neither JQ Roberts nor Jordan Williams seeing game action since Dec. 30.

A win over archrival Tennessee has brought a level of excitement to West End that hasn’t been felt in years. Perhaps more encouraging, though, is that the Commodores are in a position to qualify for the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2016-17 season. Of course, the ‘Dores took down No. 6 Tennessee at home under former head coach Jerry Stackhouse in 2022-23, and those Commodores were on the brink of an NCAA Tournament berth, but they were 10-9 through 19 games that season, compared to 15-4 this year.

Vanderbilt’s investment in Byington has paid dividends, as his success in just his first year will almost certainly bring in heaps of donations to Anchor Impact — Vanderbilt’s NIL Collective.

Byington coaches his team to victory, but he also brings actual enthusiasm for the team on campus. From face-to-face campaigning throughout campus to playing a genuinely exciting brand of basketball, Byington has students invested in the team — which has surely impressed athletic director Candice Storey Lee. As a result of Byington’s work, the student section showed up like never before for the Tennessee game.

The players themselves also deserve all the credit in the world for their performances in the past three games. Jason Edwards nailed back-to-back 3-pointers to swing the momentum back in Vanderbilt’s favor at the start of the second half against Tennessee. Tyler Nickel scored 19 points on 55.6% shooting from 3-point range against Alabama. Tyler Tanner, also known as the anti-Ziegler, played great half-court defense against one of the best point guards in the nation, 22-year-old Zakai Ziegler.

All of this is to say that Vanderbilt Athletics hit the jackpot as far as patchwork rosters go. To hammer that point home, here’s a video of Cornell transfer Chris Manon’s block heard ‘round the world.

Mismatch

One of the biggest concerns coming into this season was that Vanderbilt’s roster was too small. Byington added four forwards in the portal, but the tallest of the four, Kijani Wright, was ruled out for medical reasons before the season started. Wright, a former McDonald’s All-American, was slated to start at center for the Commodores and add a much-needed presence in the paint.

Byington dismissed the claims that his team was too small in a preseason press conference.

“[We’re] a little undersized at that position, but we’re not an undersized team,” Byington said. “We’re going to have size at different positions, but at the center position, we’re a little undersized.”

This statement emphasizes Byington’s philosophy that every player should be able to handle and make good decisions with the ball — which is why every player is listed as a point guard on the roster. In Byington’s mind, it’s not so important whether a player is big, so long as they play smart — like a point guard.

While this philosophy has proven to be more productive than any other approach by a Vanderbilt coach in years, it leaves the Commodores with a serious problem on defense: mismatches. 

Vanderbilt might have size at some of its other positions, each player essentially has to “play up” a position. The big man, whether it be Jaylen Carey or McGlockton — who stand at 6’8 and 6’7, respectively — will have to guard a center pushing 7 feet. This causes a cascade where each Vanderbilt player has to guard a player taller than them.

This mismatch was apparent in all of the last three games. Six of the eight players on South Carolina who saw game time were above 6’6, with the tallest being 6’10. This seems to be a much more accurate representation of a team that has size at different positions than the Commodores. Ultimately, the Gamecocks lacked a finishing touch at the rim to make the most of the size advantage.

The mismatch was especially apparent down the stretch against Tennessee when the Volunteers crawled back into contention behind 6’11 Felix Okpara and 6’10 Igor Milicic. Okpara caught four lobs en route to a career-best 16 points on perfect 7-of-7 shooting. Milicic also posted 16 points, his highest tally in conference play, and dominated Vanderbilt in the paint to close its 14-point lead with six minutes to go in the game.

Alabama made the most of its size advantage, scoring triple digits en route to a 103-87 win. The Crimson Tide totaled nine blocks to the Commodores’ three and controlled the game from start to finish. 

It seems that the Commodores struggle when opposing teams’ big men are playing to the best of their abilities — because there is no solid answer on the roster. This will be a problem down the line for the Commodores.

Road sick

Struggling on the road has been a common theme for all revenue sports at Vanderbilt for the past few years.

Last season, Vanderbilt Men’s Basketball finished with a 1-13 road record. While Byington has brought a new groove to West End, struggles on the road indicate it may only be reserved for Memorial Gymnasium for now.

Three of the team’s four losses are away from home, with one being a brutal Quad 2 loss to Drake at the Charleston Classic. The ‘Dores are 1-2 on the road in SEC play, with their sole win coming at LSU, ranked No. 69 in the NET. Vanderbilt had a solid chance to prove itself on the road against Missouri — which is No. 26 in the NET — but lost 75-66.

Still, Vanderbilt is No. 38 in the NET, which bodes well for future NCAA Tournament prospects, but the hype will go swirling down the drain if Byington and Co. cannot get it going on the road. The team has six road tests before the end of the regular season, including a rematch with Tennessee in Knoxville, which the members of Volunteer Nation certainly have circled on their calendars.

The remaining road schedule is as follows (in order): Oklahoma, No. 5 Florida, No. 6 Tennessee, No. 9 Kentucky, No. 13 Texas A&M and Georgia. That gauntlet is enough to make any team feel squeamish, but it is especially threatening for a program that is historically poor on the road. 

Maybe Vanderbilt’s players just love being on campus so much that it makes them physically ill when they have to play on the road. Chalk that up to the great facilities and new renovations, thanks to Vandy United.

But in all seriousness, if Vanderbilt’s struggles in away games continue, Byington may have to reevaluate his process, including potentially running a tougher nonconference slate. Unlike college football, a poor outing in nonconference games will not condemn a team.

A good example is Texas, which is currently No. 33 in the NET despite having a worse record (13-6, 2-4) than Vanderbilt. The Longhorns played notable nonconference games against Ohio State and UConn and lost both, yet they are still ranked above Vanderbilt in the NET. While Texas does have a worse conference record than Vanderbilt by one game, its respectable ranking is proof that playing tough games to prepare for SEC play is not the end of the world.

If a team is bad, it might as well find that out before SEC play and learn what to work on. Either way, tougher nonconference matchups are a good solution if Byington wants to better prepare his players for difficult road trips in future seasons.

The Commodores will play another game in their comfort zone on West End against No. 9 Kentucky on Jan. 25 at 1:30 p.m. CST.

About the Contributors
Vincent Xu
Vincent Xu, Deputy Sports Editor
Vincent Xu (‘27) is planning on majoring in human & organizational development and economics in Peabody College. Outside of The Hustler, Vincent enjoys playing sports, watching sports, talking sports and a couple of other things that are sadly unrelated to sports. He can be reached at [email protected].
Connor Campbell
Connor Campbell, Senior Staffer
Connor Campbell ('25) is a human and organizational development and cinema and media arts major from Staten Island, N.Y. Connor shares a strong love for both sports and film, leading to his interest in The Ringer and, consequently, his casual and quippy style of writing. Outside of The Hustler, Connor does freelance photography, runs the social media accounts for Vanderbilt Club Hockey and Camp Kesem's Vanderbilt Chapter and is the president of Vanderbilt Tap That. You can reach him at [email protected].
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