Exclusive: Why Tyler Nickel Considers Vanderbilt Home Despite Multiple College Stops
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NASHVILLE—Emotion is usually radiating off of Tyler Nickel in this old gym, the swagger and hunger impossible to miss. The archives of Nickel’s best moments in this place are full of him celebrating crucial makes from 3-point range and feeding off the crowd on hand.
Nickel took a small step out of the tunnel behind the Vanderbilt bench, waited alongside his family until his time was up at Vanderbilt's senior day ceremony, let himself drop the competitive spirit and looked around to soak everything in. The Vanderbilt wing is often the coolest guy in the room–he lights it up with his distinct laugh and otherworldly confidence–but for a few moments he dropped the act.
It wasn’t apparent on Nickel’s face, but he was holding back tears as he walked out to midcourt to get a commemorative basketball from Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington and shook hands with Vanderbilt athletic director Candice Storey Lee before posing for a picture and moving along.
“Knowing that this is the last time I’ll be able to play in here, it’s crazy because the last two years have been probably the most fun years of my life,” Nickel told Vandy on SI. “Just knowing that this chapter of my life is coming closer to a close—It’s just wild, man.”
The era Nickel refers to includes his emergence in the revitalization of Vanderbilt basketball. Byington had something meaningful to sell Nickel on, but he had no proof of concept. Nickel believed, though, as he became the first non-James Madison player to commit to Vanderbilt under Byington’s watch.
Nickel’s move took conviction, a commitment to the vision and a self-generated level of belief that he could be a part of a culture change around these parts. As Nickel walked out and received the loudest ovation of any Vanderbilt senior, he saw the fruits of his work.
Senior day was a controversy before Nickel got here. The gym was half full. It was more about how the coach would be received than what any of the seniors had done. Nickel’s transfer class made this about the main thing again. It was the first to bring successful basketball back to this place.
Nickel and fellow senior Devin McGlockton went 27-6 as Vanderbilt players in this gym. The Vanderbilt wing’s rolodex of signature moments in this place includes a clutch 3 against Missouri that almost made this place erupt a season ago, a 14-point performance in a win over Tennessee last season–which he says was his favorite moment in the Gym–a 30-point game as well as a list of outings in which he got hot from 3-point range this season.
In a shooters’ gym, there aren’t all that many that have come through who are better at catching and ripping than Nickel is. Perhaps with hindsight, he’ll get his proper due in that conversation. Every elite basketball team needs a player like Nickel–a piece with unbreakable confidence who talks constantly and can swing the momentum of a game in an instant–and while Vanderbilt wasn’t always elite in this place with Nickel, it’s had him as a crucial piece. He’s always in the lineup. He always talks. He’s always given a crap.
Nickel’s career trajectory on paper–which includes stops at North Carolina and Virginia Tech–would lend credence to the idea that he’s a heartless mercenary, but those who have been around Nickel know that descriptor doesn’t fit him. The Vanderbilt senior has only been here two seasons, but he talks about it as if he’s grown up in Memorial Gymnasium.
“It’s definitely my college home,” Nickel said. “Everything about it since I've been here, the coaching staff, the school, the community, the fans, everything about being here has just felt right.”
Nickel says he’s become a better person for coming to Nashville and being around the type of people that he’s consistently around. When Nickel talks about Vanderbilt, he talks about Nashville and the different perspectives on life that he’s come across while exploring it. He says there’s a little bit of everything in it.
As Nickel sits on the Vanderbilt bench, he appears to be experiencing a little bit of everything. It’s not as if he’s holding back emotions necessarily, but he’s among the last Vanderbilt players milling around the floor. The idea that Nickel was going to slip out the back door on a night like this appeared to be naive. He says he tried not to let the emotions slip in before he and his teammates had to take care of business–he’d likely be an advocate for a postgame ceremony, it seems–but that walk to midcourt is perhaps the most difficult of Nickel’s Vanderbilt career.
That’s how you know it’s been a good one in this place.
“It’s hard,” Nickel said, “You start looking around and taking everything in. You know, it is what it is.”
_(1)-b3e453dfe426b2dd4b83a12540ebdb37.jpeg "Joey Dwyer")
Joey Dwyer is the lead writer on Vanderbilt Commodores On SI. He found his first love in college sports at nearby Lipscomb University and decided to make a career of telling its best stories. He got his start doing a Notre Dame basketball podcast from his basement as a 14-year-old during COVID and has since aimed to make that 14-year-old proud. Dwyer has covered Vanderbilt sports for three years and previously worked for 247 Sports and Rivals. He contributes to Seth Davis' Hoops HQ, Basket Under Review and Mainstreet Nashville.
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