That Was A Year Two Win For Vanderbilt Basketball Against A Year One Program; Column
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NASHVILLE—On the floor at Memorial Gymnasium was a group with a first-year head coach with metrics that reflected his philosophy and a Rolodex of simple, but effective actions.
Sound familiar?
No, this wasn’t Mark Byington’s first Vanderbilt team. It meets all the aforementioned criteria, but the group described from Saturday’s game at Memorial Gymnasium was Bucky McMillan’s first Texas A&M team.
Perhaps McMillan’s group isn’t a real contender for the SEC regular season title as a result of its four-game losing streak, but it’s showing all the signs of having an identity that McMillan can build on once he has another offseason.
In a way, that’s how Byington’s team was a season ago. It leaned into the up-tempo scheme that he promoted. It had a roster full of players that he deemed point guards. That group clearly wasn’t an SEC title or Final Four contender, but what it demonstrated was that it clearly wasn’t going to be Byington’s best team at Vanderbilt if he stayed in Nashville for a while. It appears as if the same sentiment is true of McMillan’s team.
Vanderbilt knew it had the right coach this time a year ago, but it also knew that it was handicapped a bit by a limited roster. McMillan’s program is clearly in the same boat. It’s remarkable what he’s done so fast, but he’s still got to build this thing.
That’s why Saturday mattered for both Vanderbilt and Texas A&M. A&M was competitive, but it wasn’t quite capable of winning on the road against one of the league’s best teams. It will be at some point, but it’s not yet.
“I think analytically, with the predictions, this is probably our lowest-percentage chance to pull a road upset, so we knew we'd have to play pretty dang good in here to get it,” McMillan said on his postgame radio hit. “This was a team that was a top-10 team in the country at one point this year. They don't lose much in their own house, we know that.”
The idea that McMillan’s team could’ve come into Memorial Gymnasium and won wasn’t all that difficult to envision—considering the 7.5-point spread that favored Vanderbilt—but it didn’t. Vanderbilt finding a way appeared to make more plausible sense, though.
Vanderbilt paid its dues in these types of games a season ago. Those outings often included a thin margin for error, a need for the best guys on the floor to always be at their best and a significant amount of turnovers from the other team that allowed Vanderbilt to run consistently. The difference between Vanderbilt and McMillan’s team was its path to a win.
The path for Vanderbilt appears to be wide and appears to include a few different directions these days. Storyline No. 1, the obvious one, has to be Vanderbilt winning once again without Duke Miles and Frankie Collins. It’s now 4-1 in games that both of them miss.
Saturday's complementary statement was one that this group hadn’t yet made, though. Vanderbilt star guard Tyler Tanner went for just four points on 2-for-10 shooting, yet it still won. What does that say about it?
“It says he doesn’t have to go out and get 20 for us to win,” Byington said. “Other guys are capable. This team celebrates with each other. No one’s happier in that locker room than Tyler Tanner. And that’s why I like this group. They care about winning and they care about each other.”
Vanderbilt wing Tyler Nickel went for 25 points, AK Okereke went for 23, Devin McGlockton continued his upward trajectory with 17 on 6-for-10 shooting and Vanderbilt won again as a result.
This wasn’t just about that, though. This was about a general maturity that Byington’s program has in year two that McMillan’s will grow into a year from now. Vanderbilt is sharper in the half court. It has more flexibility in terms of the actions that it can run effectively. It generally has a more complete roster. It has more traditional size and more size across the board positionally.
Those are the types of things that Byington likely longed for at times a season ago. Now, it’s here. This group may not be perfect, but it’s a long way from what it was a season ago. That group was this program’s best in a long time. But, this one is better. It’s more mature in terms of the way it’s built and the way it operates.
That’s why it’s been able to surpass its 2024-25 win total already. That’s why it won this game and doesn't appear to be stopping here.
“It just speaks to how deep we are as a team,” Nickel said. “I’ve been saying it for a while, but every team has guys with roles that’s best for them to win. But we have a lot of talented guys on this team, and every night it could be a different guy stepping up. And tonight is one of those nights.”
_(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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