Don't Take What Vanderbilt Basketball, Mark Byington Are Doing These Days For Granted; Column

NASHVILLE—Vanderbilt basketball coach Mark Byington swears by his Dallas Cowboys fandom and has been outspoken about it over the years, but he respects Pittsburgh Steelers’ head coach Mike Tomlin enough to reference a philosophy of his.

Tomlin has a streak of 18-consecutive non-losing seasons–a rarity within the parity of the modern-day NFL–and has earned long-term job security with his rolodex of ideals that he’s been unwilling to break. It appears as if Byington is taking one to heart as Vanderbilt faces off against non-power conference opponents.

“The standard is the standard,” Byington said on Thursday night. “We were preaching that this entire week. The standard is the standard and how we play the game, how we play possessions shouldn’t change.”

Within the chaos of college basketball the term “guarantee game” has never felt fair when describing the idea that a high major brings a midmajor into their place with the idea that it will be an easy win. It’s generally been a loose term for this Vanderbilt program over the past few seasons. The term does feel applicable for this Byington-led operation, though.

Byington is 11-0 in buy games since taking the Vanderbilt job prior to the 2024-25 season and his teams have never been all that close to a scare in these types of outings. The Commodores have won 10 out of the 11 buy games in Byington’s tenure by at least 10 points. Seven of the games have included this team putting up over 100 points. Including Thursday’s 109-74 win over Texas Southern, eight of the 11 buy games have been decided by 30 points or more.

Attribute Vanderbilt’s buy-game success to its consistent scheduling of opponents that often fall outside of the top 300 teams in KenPom’s rankings, but in an era when each power-five program is bound to slip up this one hasn’t fallen into that.

“We take every game super seriously,” Vanderbilt guard Tyler Tanner said on Thursday. “We’re taught to respect everybody and give our best every day. Coach told us today to have this be our best game and that’s our goal every game.”

Perhaps it’s a small step for this program, but it’s one that’s noteworthy considering the catastrophic losses it suffered on this floor against Grambling State, Southern Miss, Presbyterian, Western Carolina and others throughout the Jerry Stackhouse tenure. Winning games such as those should be a bare minimum requirement for a program resourced as plentifully as Vanderbilt’s, but it hasn’t often been the case.

Nowadays it is, though.

“We don’t take any of our opponents lightly,” Vanderbilt big man Jalen Washington said. “We know they’re gonna give us our best game so they should expect us to give us our best game.”

That alone doesn’t indicate that Vanderbilt will be a Final Four team or that it’s bound for perennial success under Byington, but it’s an indicator that it’s approaching the gimme outings as it should under this regime. There’s rarely been a lack of focus, there’s never been a time in which its level of talent has had to be questioned in outings like Thursday’s and a buy game has never been an indictment on Byington.

In some ways, Vanderbilt’s buy game success appears to be the bare minimum. It’s also a sign of a healthy program that doesn’t have to answer questions as to whether it overlooked an opponent or has questions to answer in terms of its approach.

Instead, Byington walks into the media room each weeknight in November and cracks a joke to lighten the mood in a generally stuffy setting. Thursday he joked with the group of five media members about the trend of coaching staffs facing media members in a pickup game. It’s all good times these days for Vanderbilt basketball in buy games, as it should be.

The Commodores scored over 100 points for the fourth time in their first five games on Thursday night, led by as much as 41 and gave its reserves a few minutes of burn at the end of things. Byington’s coaching mind doesn’t let him fully bask in the moment, but he understands the luxury he has these days.

“What I like about it as a coach is that these guys buy in,” Byington said. “They want to win. I have some guys that have won, I have some guys that haven’t won, but I think we’re all flying in the same direction right now of trying to get this team successful.”