In a Transactional Era, Vanderbilt Basketball Winning Tennessee Rivalry Still Matters To Its Players

NASHVILLE—Look around Vanderbilt’s locker room and place a label on each of the players sitting in it.

There’s Devin McGlockton, a transfer from Boston College. Jalen Washington made his name as the North Carolina big man. Tyler Nickel is on his third college stop. Looking at that group of three with those labels in mind indicates the transactional nature of this sport and that rivalries like the one Vanderbilt won on Saturday don’t matter anymore.

That lacks the proper context needed here, though. It lacks a look at the emotion of this Vanderbilt team as they ran into the tunnel at Bridgestone Arena screaming “let’s go” in the seconds following its 86-82 win that gave it the season series over this Tennessee team. It lacks a conversation with this group.

That would indicate something different than the labels put on that group of three.

“There’s nothing better than beating Tennessee,” McGlockton told Vandy on SI. “Being able to do it twice is even better. I’m glad we got a shot at them. I didn’t want to just come out even with them. So I’m glad we got this second win.”

Mar 13, 2026; Nashville, TN, USA; Vanderbilt Commodores forward Ak Okereke (10) and forward Devin McGlockton (99) fight for the loose ball with Tennessee Volunteers forward J.P. Estrella (13) during the second half at Bridgestone Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Roberts-Imagn Images | Steve Roberts-Imagn Images

McGlockton doesn’t show it as a generally understated, low maintenance person. He says that this feels “amazing,” though. Prior to this season, McGlockton had a 1-1 record against Tennessee and was a part of a program that had often had troubles within this series.

Tennessee hasn’t exactly been dominant in the Mark Byington era, but it had a 2-1 series lead prior to Vanderbilt’s win in Knoxville a week ago. As a program, it had won eight of the last 10 and four of the last five matchups.

Now it’s different, though. Its players care about that, too.

“It feels good,” Nickel told Vandy on SI. “That was round three, round one we didn’t end up getting the win, but, it is what it is. We expected to do that now it's just on to the next one.”

Vanderbilt basketball — Vanderbilt forward Tyler Nickel (5) celebrates a three point basket Tennessee during the first half of a SEC tournament quarterfinal game at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn., Friday, March 13, 2026. | ANDREW NELLES / THE TENNESSEAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Vanderbilt clearly intended to soak this one in for as long as it could on Friday, though. It’s moving onto Florida soon, but this one still matters to it. This is the type of win that Washington, McGlockton and Nickel envisioned when they took a chance on this program before it became an annual fixture in the NCAA Tournament.

This program hadn’t won against Tennessee in the SEC Tournament since 1951, but here it is celebrating a win over the Volunteers. Here it is rewriting its program history once again.

t was pretty clear early on that this was going to be a game played to Tennessee’s liking, and Vanderbilt was going to have to fall in line and embrace it.

The scoring droughts and long stretches with a few field goals in a row missed kept this thing tight, and low scoring nearly the entire way. It was a margins game, unlike the up-tempo ones that Vanderbilt generally wants to play.

Tennessee also outrebounded Vanderbilt 46-to-34 on Saturday and flexed its muscles by grabbing 23 offensive rebounds for 24 second-chance points.

None of that mattered, though. All that mattered was that Vanderbilt basketball being better than Tennessee on Friday and embracing the fact that it was.

“For sure,” Washington told Vandy on SI in regard to the idea that this is the type of win he envisioned when he committed to Vanderbilt. “That feels really good.  We know we’ve got more to accomplish, though.”