The Country Says Vanderbilt Was Underseeded. It Doesn't Seem to Care, Though.

NASHVILLE—Mark Byington stepped up to the podium in the media room at Vanderbilt’s FirstBank Stadium, cracked a joke about the setting that he was inhabiting and opened his on the record comments with a statement regarding his team’s excitement to play in the NCAA Tournament.

Byington didn’t address the elephant in the room until he was prompted to, and he appeared to be intentional about doing so. The Vanderbilt head coach later said that he didn't feel as if his group was entirely credited for its SEC Tournament run, but as he played it politically correct stood in front of a number of media members.

"One of the things I told the guys earlier, I was like, whatever number they put beside us, ignore it," Byington said. "It does not make a difference. We are playing a good team."

Vanderbilt was projected across the board as a four seed prior to Sunday’s Selection Show and had a number of metrics that promoted its case to be a three seed. Even without the metrics, Vanderbilt’s upper-end resume that included 10 quad one wins, five Q1A wins and 17 wins between the upper two quads.

Perhaps nobody within Vanderbilt’s program was saying it publicly, but Vanderbilt guard Duke Miles’ reaction told the story of how this group felt in regard to its seeding. Instead of Miles’ patented smile being used to demonstrate the joy in the room when Vanderbilt was selected, it was more applicably used to indicate the disbelief that he felt. Miles put his hands on his head and looked towards the TV screen as if he’d seen a ghost.

Vanderbilt had been graded as high as a two seed in CBS Sports’ bracket projection over the weekend and was No. 9 in the WAB as well as KPI metrics–which are the two most important metrics in the committee’s minds.

Vandy on SI contributor Tyler Jorden came to this conclusion on Saturday night while evaluating Vanderbilt’s standing on Saturday; “Vanderbilt is already locked into an NCAA Tournament spot and should be fairly confident in receiving a No. 4 seed. It is hard to imagine the Commodores moving up any higher than that, and it seems that it would take another Arkansas blowout to drop Vanderbilt back down to a No. 5 seed.”

Turns out that wasn’t the case.

NCAA Selection Committee chair Keith Gill told CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander that the committee had a number of conversations about Vanderbilt and its number of good wins down the stretch before coming to the conclusion that a five seed would best suit the Commodores. Gill said that Vanderbilt had a “really good season,” but that other teams had quality wins that allowed them to exceed Vanderbilt’s body of work.

Now, Vanderbilt will get a first round matchup with McNeese–a 28-5 team that is viewed as a serious upset threat as a result of its ability to shorten the game and force turnovers as well as anyone in the country. If it wins that game, it could face Nebraska in the second round as the lower seed.

A number of analysts across the country believe Vanderbilt got the short end of the stick, it likely does too. But, it’s not putting much stock into that as it prepares for its trip to Oklahoma City.

“Before the show even started, we kind of said it doesn't matter what number we get,” Vanderbilt wing Tyler Nickel said. “Everybody in the tournament is good.  So we try to not even think about that. So really, we're just excited to play. I was going to be excited no matter what number we were.”