Takeaways From Vanderbilt Basketball's Senior Day Win Over Georgia

Vanderbilt basketball took down Georgia on Wednesday night on the back of its senior class. Here's how it happened.

Feb 25, 2026; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Vanderbilt Commodores forward Tyler Nickel (5) drives to the basket past Georgia Bulldogs forward Kanon Catchings (6) during the second half at Memorial Gymnasium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Roberts-Imagn Images | Steve Roberts-Imagn Images

NASHVILLE—That’s the way to end it for this senior class. 

Vanderbilt basketball took down Georgia 88-80 in Wednesday’s senior-night affair. That’s meaningful for a multitude of reasons. It wasn’t at its best, but it got the job done. 

Here’s a few takeaways from the performance. 

That was good enough, but how can it make you feel comfortable?

This wasn’t comfortable for most of the night. How could the perception surrounding it be? 

Vanderbilt was up 20 at one point, but played with its food and let Georgia back into this thing. This was a game that it could’ve cruised to a win in–and not only because of the early score–but it left it up to chance. For a lot of Wednesday, this group couldn’t throw the knockout punch. 

Vanderbilt allowed Georgia to get confident rather than pushing it away entirely. That’s not a good indicator.

This is about what Vanderbilt avoided 

You could kiss the top four seed in the NCAA Tournament, double bye in the SEC Tournament and the program wins record goodbye if this had gone haywire. 

Georgia nearly represented a quad one opportunity, but this shouldn’t have been a game that Vanderbilt lost. Vanderbilt is better than Georgia at Georgia’s own game. It’s got to capitalize on an opportunity like that, particularly at home. 

Vanderbilt should’ve won that game, and it did. That keeps everything on the table. 

Vanderbilt should be rolling from here

The schedule is going to be difficult the rest of the way, but Vanderbilt should be equipped for it these days. 

This isn’t perfect–it’s almost assuredly not going to get Frankie Collins and Mason Nicholson back–but it’s as close as this group has been since the start of the new year. Everyone has a defined, fitting role. Miles is healthy and not fighting through significant pain. Tanner appears to be over his sickness and back to his normal self. 

Here’s Vanderbilt’s roster that it’s going to be working with the rest of the way. Here’s the group that’s going to determine if this is just a good Vanderbilt team or if it can be the greatest team in program history. The program wins record is still within reach. So is a top four seed and the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament. It’s on this group to go and take it. 

No more paused evaluation because of external factors. Time to figure out how good this group really is. Time to figure out what they can realistically accomplish. 

A transformative senior class was honored on Wednesday

A number of the seven seniors honored on Wednesday are only one or two year players in this program, but they all had some sort of impact in regard to making this a high seed in the NCAA Tournament just two years after it was forced to move on from Jerry Stackhouse after a 9-23 season. 

The time flew for this group in Memorial Gymnasium, but Tyler Nickel and Devin McGlockton deserve credit for changing the course of this thing. Duke Miles, Jalen Washington and AK Okereke deserve credit for elevating it. 

This isn’t a group of heartless mercenaries that was being honored on Wednesday. This was a group that helped to make this place into one that has some pride again. They’re part of the reason that the Gym was more than half full on Wednesday. 

They deserved their flowers.