“Kentucky doesn't think any of you are good enough to play there,” How Vanderbilt Carried a Chip in Kentucky Win
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NASHVILLE—Mark Byington isn’t necessarily the ra-ra type, but he knew exactly what buttons to press with his team prior to Tuesday’s matchup against Kentucky. The narrative that Byington wanted to push with his group wasn’t all that hard to craft, but he appeared to know that if he said what he had in mind it would lead to something.
“Kentucky doesn't think any of you are good enough to play there,” Byington told the team.
In theory, Byington was right. No Vanderbilt player received an offer out of high school from Kentucky. The only ones that were of that ilk were Vanderbilt wing Tyler Nickel and big man Jalen Washington–both of which went to North Carolina out of high school.
This Vanderbilt group could be termed with the identifier misfits. Vanderbilt point guard Tyler Tanner was a three-star recruit with only one additional power-five offer. Mike James didn’t play basketball for over a year after enduring a few historic losing seasons at Louisville. Duke Miles is on his fourth school. Vanderbilt forward AK Okereke started his career as a true–non-preferred walk on. Every player on this Vanderbilt team could have something like that surrounding their name.
The team that it matched up against on Tuesday night at Memorial Gymnasium, not so much.
Mark Pope’s Kentucky team is college basketball’s most expensive roster, has a player that is reported to be making three million dollars, a group of former five-star recruits and a pipeline of USA Basketball products. On paper, this Kentucky team should’ve pushed Vanderbilt around.
“Seeing ourselves as underdogs and people doubting us, it gives us kind of more of a fire and a fuel,” Tanner told Vandy on SI. “We just want to win so bad. When we want to win that bad and we stay together, we're a really hard team to stop.”
Tuesday, Vanderbilt was far more difficult to stop than the group of household college basketball names that it faced. The Commodores went up by as much as 28 points on their way to an 80-55 win over Kentucky, led by as much as 28, held the Wildcats to 25.0% shooting from 3-point range and 32.2% shooting from the field.
How’d it do it? By playing the same way that Pope’s team did a season ago when it was rolling–playing fast, sharing it, knowing defensive coverages, running good actions and demonstrating clear role allocation. In a simpler way, this was about Vanderbilt having an identity and Kentucky deviating from its identity.
This Vanderbilt team knows that it has to fight for respect in a way that this Kentucky team doesn’t have to because of the program’s history and its individual accolades. It took that to heart.
“The brand, Kentucky, they had Calipari for a while, the best recruits and even if we weren't the underdogs, technically, we knew a lot of people who were thinking that we're frauds, honestly,” Vanderbilt forward AK Okereke told Vandy on SI. “We knew that we really had to make a statement. That started with the first half, first four minutes, really, and I thought we did a good job.”
Vanderbilt blitzed Kentucky early and was up 29-12 on the Wildcats before Pope’s team could blink. When Kentucky looked to punch back, Vanderbilt extended its lead with an 8-0 run despite having two three-star freshmen on the floor.
From top to bottom, this Vanderbilt team outplayed Kentucky significantly on Tuesday night. Perhaps this group doesn’t have the sheer amount of talent that Pope’s group does, but it appeared to have something else going for it. Even Vanderbilt’s most highly-touted recruits feel as if they have something to prove.
“I think that's what keeps us all together,” Washington told Vandy on SI. “I've always kind of considered myself an underdog, just kind of all my life I've been, you know, kind of counted out. But I think a lot of us have that in common. That's what brings us all together, and that's what has us with this great chemistry and we're going out there, we're willing to fight for one another.”
Washington says that despite his recruiting ranking, he feels as if he’s an underdog of sorts because of the way he was counted out as a result of an ACL injury he suffered in high school. Nickel’s path has been non-linear and included a stop at North Carolina in which he rarely saw the floor.
Perhaps Vanderbilt’s decidedly underdog-oriented tone on Tuesday came as a result of Field of 68 analyst and former North Carolina big man Justin Jackson saying that "Kentucky's physicality can make a big impact on this game... I honestly think they can go in there and whoop up on Vandy.” Nickel called the comments–which he says he was sent–“crazy, dumb” and said that they “fueled the fire” for this Vanderbilt team prior to its matchup with Kentucky. Perhaps Nickel took offense to the comments–which he clearly did, as he tweeted “LOL FOH” in response to them–but they put Vanderbilt right back where it feels as if it belongs, with something to prove.
“I think to an extent, we all got a chip,” Nickel told Vandy on SI. “But I think to be at this level, to be successful, you have to have a chip one way or another. So, kind of given a lot of our experiences, there's definitely a chip on our shoulder.”
_(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, Southeastern 16 and Mainstreet Nashville.
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