Takeaways From Vanderbilt Basketball's 71-68 Win Over Ole Miss

NASHVILLE—Vanderbilt found a way on Saturday. That's about all that matters in the end.

The Commodores squeaked it out in a 71-68 win over Ole Miss and won their third in a row to move to 6-3 in SEC play. Here's a few takeaways from that outing.

Maybe it wasn’t impressive, but that said something about Vanderbilt

Nothing all that much about that was pretty for Mark Byington’s team, but it leaves Memorial Gymnasium with a 6-3 SEC record and its third-consecutive win. That’s really what matters from Saturday.

This is one of those that Byington likely knew his group would have to grind out with longer possessions and toughness, and it did. Byington’s team shot just 25.0% from 3-point range, 71.4% from the free throw line, had to play its two back-end rotational freshmen a combined 29 minutes and was outscored 49-to-19 in bench points, yet there it was trotting around the sidelines at Memorial Gymnasium after its third-consecutive victory.

Winning games like that is how you contend for a league title and pick up a high seed in the NCAA Tournament. Vanderbilt took a step towards doing that on Saturday afternoon.

Vanderbilt needed more from Tyler Tanner–and it got it

Tanner needed to be elite and a workhorse on Saturday if this group was going to get it done. The good news for Vanderbilt; he was.

The Vanderbilt guard went for 24 points, three rebounds and three assists on Saturday while rarely coming out of the game. Tanner told Vandy on SI after Vanderbilt’s win over Kentucky that he embraced the responsibility that came with the absence of Vanderbilt’s two veteran guards. He backed up his words Saturday.

Vanderbilt needed Tanner to be special on Saturday and while he has been better, he was special enough for Vanderbilt to claw its way to a win over Ole Miss.

There’s a good bit of room between Vanderbilt and the middle of the SEC pack

Vanderbilt’s three-game stretch in which it lost to Florida, Texas and Arkansas indicated that it may not be an SEC title contender at this stage. But the three-game stretch that has followed has indicated that this group is much closer to that group of teams than it is the LSU’s and the South Carolina’s of the world.

This three-game stretch hasn’t taught anyone all that much about this group other than that is much better defensively than it showed on its losing streak and that it’s what most thought it was after the first few weeks of league play.

Vanderbilt winning like this isn’t all that impressive–particularly when considering that Vanderbilt was favored and at home–but it doing this consistently is a demonstration that what it has should be good enough to secure it a double bye in the SEC Tournament and a top five seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Vanderbilt needed that boost from Mike James

Although James didn’t quite have a breakthrough outing, he gave Vanderbilt 25 minutes and knocked down three shots from 3-point range that appeared to give it some momentum. That mattered on Saturday.

The go-to guy role that James may have envisioned when he first arrived at Vanderbilt likely won’t ever be in the cards here, but Byington declared from day one that he would need everyone to put together the season that this group wants to have.

With injuries to Duke Miles and Frankie Collins, Byington’s theory has been proven to be correct. Vanderbilt needed what James gave it, even if it wasn’t what he initially envisioned giving it.

More uncharacteristic minute reliance

Without Miles or Collins, Vanderbilt turned to freshman wing Chandler Bing for 22 minutes, freshman big man Jayden Leverett for seven minutes, Tyler Harris for eight minutes and Tanner for seemingly all of its offense.

Vanderbilt is having to stretch things thin these days, but Byington built this roster with the idea that he would need to accumulate depth. Now, that depth is paying off.