Revenge and a Championship Were Natural for Vanderbilt Basketball on Friday; Column

Vanderbilt’s group of veterans was composed enough to walk through the postgame handshake line with straight faces as if they’d just handled business in a buy game rather than a MTE championship, yet when the line ended it was time for the party to ensue.

Tyler Nickel and George Kimble danced. Duke Miles engaged with the on-site dancer in costume.Jaylon Dean-Vines cracked a smile as to indicate the significance of the final moments in which he scored his first point since Vanderbilt’s opener against Lipscomb. The rest of its roster plopped their hats on while waiting to hoist the Battle 4 Atlantis trophy.

There was joy, but there wasn’t exactly a parade. There wasn’t much indication that the vengeance this group channelled after losing to this same group in the NCAA Tournament last season mattered to it, either. Perhaps that was the most uplifting piece of this group’s final act in this event. Vanderbilt was good enough to knock off Saint Mary’s in a 96-71 trouncing, yet it didn’t appear to overexert itself in the process. This is a group with a championship next to its name, but it showed enough throughout the course of feast week to indicate that this wasn’t all it’s capable of.

“It’s November, we’ve got a long way to go,” Miles said. “We’re trying to get to the end goal and March to be out there playing for a national championship, so that’s the main goal.”

Duke Miles was named the Battle 4 Atlantis MVP. | Vanderbilt basketball

Perhaps this Saint Mary’s team–which has since lost its orchestrating point guard–isn’t a direct reflection of the 2024-25 team that Randy Bennett trotted out, but it was enough of a measuring stick to really test what this Vanderbilt team was made of and its ability to do what Miles says it wants to. It’s No. 9 in defensive efficiency and entered Friday afternoon with an 8-0 record after a win over Virginia Tech, after all.

The blueprint that Bennett’s team possesses isn’t all that dissimilar from the one that exposed Vanderbilt’s lack of a true interior presence, its reliance on a single scorer and its trouble with teams that didn’t allow it to get out in transition with the consistency that it wanted to. What Bennett’s team did that day contributed to Byington believing that he needed to rework his roster strategy heading into year two of his tenure as head coach.

The fruits of Byington’s labor were evident in the ease of the performance his team put on throughout Friday’s Battle 4 Atlantis title game. It didn’t have to grind for every basket like it did a season ago, it had enough to handle Saint Mary’s all-encompassing frontcourt and its depth was enough to endure the punches that Bennett’s team threw over the course of the afternoon.

“The one thing we talked about with Saint Mary’s, they play faster this year than they did last year when we played them,” Byington said, “But at the same time we thought we could dictate pace and when they slowed it down, we had to execute in the half court. The reason why we’re scoring is because we’re sharing the ball and making good decisions.”

Instead of a blow-for-blow revenge game, Friday included more of the look of an ease-filled indicator of how far Byington’s group can take this thing when it’s all said and done. This group is now ranked No. 4 in KenPom’s offensive efficiency metric and has seemingly fully embraced the offensive identity that it set out for this offseason. Its defense is also ranked No. 25 in KenPom.

Byington’s team led by as much as 25, led for 39:30, shot 52.2% from the field, 42.1% from 3-point range, recorded 18 assists to its seven turnovers, it overcame frontcourt foul trouble in a way it couldn’t have a season ago and had the look of a team that could’ve easily repeated a performance like that.

Vanderbilt basketball is 8-0 and should expect a bump in the AP Top 25 this Monday. | Battle 4 Atlantis

“We did what we were supposed to do in the Bahamas,” Byington said. “The only thing offered today was to win this game and win this championship and we took advantage of that.”

The idea that Vanderbilt’s performance on Friday was one that came in its third game in three days was seemingly entirely foreign as it ran up and down the floor and outpaced Saint Mary’s all afternoon in terms of its production and tempo.

That appeared to be business as usual for this Vanderbilt team.

“We knew what we wanted to do when we came here,” Vanderbilt big man Jalen Washington–who went for a career-high 19 points on Friday–said. “We wanted to get better as a team and I felt like we did. We’re gonna enjoy the win, but we’re gonna look back at this and look forward to keep growing and getting better.”