Inside The Best Win of Mark Byington's Vanderbilt Basketball Tenure
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NASHVILLE—Within the quiet back tunnel ran Vanderbilt guard Duke Miles across the carpet floor as if he was in a race to join Vanderbilt’s locker room celebration, turned to the media contingent on hand and let out a declaration that summed up why Vanderbilt basketball has gotten to the point it has.
Miles and this Vanderbilt team had just pulled off a 91-74 win over No. 4 Florida and had played perhaps their best game of the season, but all he could think to mention was what’s next.
“We're gonna get a ring tomorrow," Miles said.
Vanderbilt will take the floor in the SEC Championship Game on Sunday and isn’t celebrating this one with any sort of parade. When the media was allowed in the Vanderbilt locker room, it didn’t have any remnants of a celebration ceremony. Vanderbilt’s players were just there acting as if this was business as usual. It wasn’t, though.
Vanderbilt had just knocked off the No. 4 team in the country–which Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington called the hottest team in the country on Friday–and it had made a statement while doing so.
The statement on Saturday; Vanderbilt can compete with anyone in the country. It just proved that it can beat anyone in the country, too.
This was the type of win that changes the calculus of a season. It was the type that will produce images that will be displayed around the Huber Center for a long time. When something like this happens, everyone within a fanbase remembers exactly where they were for it and how it felt. When a team performs like this in a game like this, it transcends its timeline.
“This will be something that they cherish and remember,” Byington told Vandy on SI from the coaches' room at Bridgestone Arena. “We're past the point in the program where we're going for moral victories or just to compete. We're trying to win, and now we're trying to win championships. So it's the next step up.”
This Vanderbilt team isn’t basking in this, but it will one day. This wasn’t Vanderbilt just beating Florida. This was it proving that Todd Golden’s team–which had won 11 games in a row prior to Saturday’s game–isn’t invincible. This was Vanderbilt punking the No. 4 team in the country on a neutral floor. Vanderbilt was better than Florida in just about every way, and in most ways it wasn’t even close.
When a team like that wins, it makes you reflect on the best wins of Mark Byington’s two-year Vanderbilt tenure. Those wins over Kentucky, Missouri and other highly-touted SEC opponents at Memorial Gymnasium a year ago sure were special. So was the one in Knoxville a week ago–as well as the other two over Tennessee. This was the highest-ranked opponent that Vanderbilt has knocked off under Byington and was perhaps its best overall performance, though.
“As far as quality of wins, it’s probably the best one,” Vanderbilt wing Tyler Nickel told Vandy on SI. “It was probably one of our best games all year as a team.”
Nickel says that the quality of win is the best that this Vanderbilt team has had, but it’s not the most emotionally scintillating win that this program has produced under Byington—who says there wasn’t much celebrating on Saturday. Nickel says that Florida was just in the way of where Vanderbilt wanted to go–the SEC Championship game and a net-cutting ceremony on Sunday afternoon.
If Saturday indicates anything about this Vanderbilt team, though, it’s that Vanderbilt has a chance to do much more than just what it did on Saturday afternoon. Byington jokes that he doesn’t often reflect in a way that would allow him to give an educated take on how this performance stacks up against this team’s best this season, but he will say that his team played at a “high level.”
That appears to be stating the obvious in some ways. This was the day in which Vanderbilt’s ceiling was vitalized. It was the day in which everything seemingly went right for it whenever it needed something to go right. Chandler Bing broke the rim and made a circus shot under it. Nickel made a deep two that served as a heat check of sorts. Vanderbilt guard Tyler Tanner broke the program season steals record.
Florida beat Vanderbilt on the glass, but it didn’t matter. Vanderbilt still took just two less shots than Florida because of the way in which it dominated the Gators in the turnover battle and didn’t turn it over itself.
Even if Vanderbilt had lost in the margins, it had too many players put on capes and demonstrate epic heroism for it to lose a game like this. Vanderbilt big man Jalen Washington went for 17 points and seemingly couldn’t miss. Tanner went for 20 points on 10 shots and was perhaps the brightest star on the floor. How could anyone forget Duke Miles–oh, Duke Miles–going for 17 points and getting to the free throw line 10 times?
This was Vanderbilt’s day, and nobody–not even the defending national champions–was going to take it from Byington’s team. In a bubble, this was the best win of Byington’s tenure. Outside of said bubble, though, it was even better. Nickel says this group was proven right about themselves and what they believe they’re capable of.
“That just shows how good we can be,” Vanderbilt big man Jayden Leverett told Vandy on SI. “We are a national contending team, and we can play with anyone.”
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_(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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