Takeaways From Vanderbilt Basketball's 96-90 Win Over Alabama

NASHVILLE—Vanderbilt basketball just had its most magical night of the 2025-26 season thus far.

Mark Byington’s team knocked off No. 13 Alabama 96-90 on Wednesday night and picked up its best win of the season–which will fall in quad 1A when it’s all said and done. Here’s a few takeaways from that outing.

A statement win

Alabama head coach Nate Oats perpetuated the common narrative that Vanderbilt hadn’t played anyone throughout the week, which set the stage nicely for Vanderbilt to pick up a needle-moving win over No. 13 Alabama on Wednesday night.

Guess what it did? That.

For the first time this season, Vanderbilt met a team ranked in its vicinity and found a way to win. Can’t stay it hasn’t beaten anyone anymore. It’s now got the crown jewel of its resume.

How about that for proving something?

Wednesday was a measuring stick in another way

Byington walked into the podium in Tuscaloosa and crafted a narrative regarding his team’s loss to Alabama better than some script writers could have.

Rather than brushing the night off as one that could be easily boiled down to Vanderbilt’s lack of ability to execute down the stretch or the inevitable challenges that come with SEC road games, Byington took a big-picture approach. He essentially admitted that Alabama was a further-along version of his program at that stage and that his program wasn’t developed enough to win that night.

Knowing Byington and the brain he possesses–which is constantly looking for improvement, nearly to a fault–was knowing that his team was going to be different the next time it faced off against Alabama. Maybe it wouldn’t be better, but it wouldn’t be the same.

Between that matchup and Vanderbilt’s Wednesday-night tilt with No. 13 Alabama, Vanderbilt devoted its offseason to getting bigger, more athletic and finding more shooting.

That was enough for it to leave Memorial Gymnasium happy on Wednesday night. Turns out it’s made up some ground.

How about Duke Miles?

Miles was on the injury report all week, but when he got out there it didn’t appear as if he had lost any sort of step because of his leg injury.

On a night in which some of college basketball’s best guards took the floor at Memorial Gymnasium, Miles was perhaps the best one. That doesn’t appear to be all that atypical these days.

Miles went for 19 points on 5-for-12 shooting on Wednesday while racking up four steals and four rebounds. It was a heroic performance of sorts for a heroic player around these parts.

Give Vanderbilt plenty of credit defensively

Who would’ve thought Vanderbilt could hold Alabama to a performance like it had on Wednesday. It won’t have that type of performance very often.

The Crimson tide shot just 37.1% from the field, 22.5% from 3-point range and turned it over 13 times. That’s not a middle of the pack offense that Vanderbilt did that to. That’s a top-three offense in the country that may have the best backcourt in America. Vanderbilt never made it look like that, though.

Instead, Alabama never seemed to get much going consistently and often had to settle for deep 3s. That’s a testament to what Vanderbilt did on the defensive end.

For as good as this group is, don’t forget about its defense.

Tyler Tanner was exceptional

That was a performance by Tanner that should be remembered for a long time.

The Vanderbilt guard went for 29 points on 8-for-15 shooting, seven assists and three rebounds. Telling any unknowing observer that Tanner is an underclassman would’ve been hard to swing. The Vanderbilt sophomore was in complete control of the game, made seemingly every right play down the stretch and looked the part of an all-league guard.

When Tanner took a bet on a new and unproven Vanderbilt staff, this is likely what he had in mind. This is likely what he dreamed of.

Still not sure about Vanderbilt’s frontcourt

For as great as Wednesday was for Vanderbilt, it wasn’t exactly a glowing endorsement of Vanderbilt’s frontcourt.

Alabama outrebounded Vanderbilt 49-to-38, held Devin McGlockton to 10 points, Jalen Washington to nine and had Vanderbilt’s bigs in foul trouble for most of the final stretch of the second half. That was with Alabama’s bigs in foul trouble and without its most physical big man Aiden Sherrell in the lineup.

Vanderbilt won on the back of its guards, which it will most nights, but will need its frontcourt to be more available at the very least down the stretch of the season.

Memorial Gymnasium is back

You could tell Wednesday was different within the first five minutes that the gates were open.

Vanderbilt’s student section was filling, its regular seats also appeared as if they wouldn’t be empty for long. When tipoff came, the old gym was packed to the brim and had a level of sound that indicated every fan in attendance was hanging onto every play.

Perhaps the biggest indicator of Vanderbilt’s improved fan involvement was its students making a sheet of paper instructing the crowd as to how to root on each individual sheet of paper. If that wasn’t the biggest crowd-related story of the night, it was Vanderbilt winning against the No. 13 team in the nation and not storming the court.