Tyler Tanner Has Put March Madness Heartbreak Behind Him As He Chases Vanderbilt Basketball History
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NASHVILLE— The visual still occupies some space in Tyler Tanner’s head. It was pitch black, straight out of a nightmare. But, if he looked up, he’d feel the nearly insurmountable weight of the moment. And, for a few seconds, he couldn’t bring himself to bear it.
Tanner knew that what had just happened would follow him forever, no matter how hard he tried to evade it. He knew it didn’t have to define him, but he knew it would always be a part of his story. The whole country just watched as Tanner’s half court heave rimmed out and hit the floor.
The emotions hit Tanner quickly. The only thing that could protect him from the whole country seeing them was keeping his head wrapped in then-Vanderbilt guard Jaylon Dean-Vines’ arms. Until Tanner left the public view, his face was tucked into Dean-Vines jersey and concealed from the public.
It was the worst walk back to the tunnel of Tanner’s basketball life. Within the context of Tanner’s college basketball career, he was in the midst of a tragedy. At least, it was the closest thing to one that he’d ever experienced on a basketball court.
Tanner had accounted for a rolodex of unforgettable moments—big makes in clutch time, highlight-reel finishes around the rim and a general introduction to the country—in the last three days, but the memory of them all paled in comparison to The Tyler Tanner Shot.
It would take something unfathomable for all that Tanner had done on his rise to March Madness to be wiped away by one ill-fated moment, but–all of a sudden–Tanner was left to make sense of how his halfcourt shot hit the backboard and bounced around the rim but didn’t drop. Vanderbilt was eliminated from March Madness, and its exit was marred in cruelty.
Tanner earned a chance to run off the floor with a smirk on his face, basking in the glory that came with one of the best performances of his career and putting off his NBA Draft decision for another week.
But, here he was looking like a mere mortal moments after he could have secured college basketball immortality.
“I was so hurt,” Tanner told Vandy on SI this summer as he looked back on that gutting walk off the floor. “It was obviously in the back of my head that it could’ve been my last college game. That probably made me subconsciously more emotional about it.”
Tanner says he doesn’t remember what happened next, when he arrived in the Vanderbilt locker room at the PayCom Center. His only guess is that Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington was relatively brief in his postgame remarks because of the hurt that came with the loss. The only way to jog his memory in regard to his postgame press conference and locker room availability is to go back and watch it on YouTube.
As for what happened next, Tanner walked out to the bus and met his parents–who were more upset than Tanner was, Tanner’s dad Dwayne says. “It was okay,” Dwayne says with a laugh as he re-opens the wound and recalls the moment.
Tanner’s memory of the night picks back up more than an hour after game time. He was on the bus with his teammates leaving a road game for the final time. Tanner recalls a few beautiful moments in which his teammates opened up on that ride and the subsequent plane trip from Oklahoma City to Nashville. Recalling the trip back appears to ease the pain for Tanner, but even his conversations in the bus couldn’t remove the cloud that sat firmly above his head that night.
“It’s an emotional time,” Tanner said, “Everybody was hurt about it. It stung.”
Spencer Richardson’s wife was overseas while he sat with his three kids on the couch watching as Tanner–who has become a pseudo extended family member to Richardson–put on a show. Every time Tanner scored, Richardson’s kids cheered. The room was lively all night. The player that their dad has trained independently since his elementary school days was showing the country what Richardson has known he’s capable of for over a decade.
By the time Tanner let the final shot of the game go from halfcourt, he was up to 27 points and had worn out everyone in the room’s voices. He was becoming a March Madness star in front of everyone’s eyes and putting on a seemingly unforgettable performance.
Then, the ball rimmed out. Suddenly, nobody could remember anything that had happened at any point in the last few hours.
“It felt like the world just stopped, everything went mute,” Richardson said. “I know they all yelled, but I couldn’t even hear it.”
Richardson stood up with the shot, but sat back down on the couch in disbelief when it hit the floor. He says he didn’t move for 20 minutes. The only moving that Tanner did in the immediate aftermath was falling to the floor and putting his hands on his head as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened.
Nationally, the shot was gaining a reputation as one of the most notorious misses in NCAA Tournament history. In the hallway outside the Vanderbilt locker room, the way this thing ended–with Nebraska heading to the Sweet 16 and Vanderbilt falling just short–was being compared to the most heartbreaking losses in Vanderbilt basketball history. Vanderbilt wing Tyler Nickel says that time stopped in that moment, though. This was all too fresh for any Vanderbilt player to think about the big-picture implications here.
All they could think about was that this was all over. They felt like they could’ve done more. Tanner says he believes Vanderbilt could’ve been an Elite Eight team had the shot fallen. Instead, they never got to see what they could do in a second weekend of dancing. And Tanner never got to reap the benefits of a legendary March Madness moment.
“He was two or three inches from forever being recognized,” Dwayne Tanner said, “Just two or three inches…”
“It’s probably going to haunt me forever.”
Tanner delivered the chilling line from his locker in a one-on-one conversation following the cameras departing and said it with his chest. He was demoralized. He was trying to focus on all the good that had come from a year in which he established himself as one of college basketball’s best guards, but he couldn’t.
A few months later, Tanner is refreshed. He remembers the good from his 2026-27 season. He hasn’t forgotten what happened, but he’s back for one more year at Vanderbilt and he’s got a new perspective on that night.
“I’m not exactly allowing it to haunt me,” Tanner said. “I never really thought it was on me, obviously being a leader I wish I could’ve played a better game, but I feel like I knew it’s not a shot that I’m supposed to make, even if it was close.”
As Tanner looks back on the shot, he doesn’t have any regrets or think about what he could’ve done differently–it’s not like he missed a wide-open layup, he says. Tanner says he’ll always remember it, but believes he played a good game and was proud of how he fought through a lower-body injury that kept him off the floor for a few days following his return to Nashville.
It didn’t stop hurting immediately for him or his family, though, his dad admits. For Tanner to sit on a phone call and talk about the shot with his old wounds seemingly patched up, he had to come to terms through a number of conversations about the shot and the healing power of time.
Dwayne estimates that his son didn’t fully move past until he opted to participate in the NBA predraft process and put all of his energy into it. Richardson describes Tanner as the type that moves on quickly from games and individual plays quickly. He’s always been that way. Two days later, Richardson could sense that the same Tanner he’s always known was back.
“The competitor in him feels like he should have made the shot, but the reality is that it was a prayer,” Richardson said. “Two days later, we were right back to our normal joking and laughing. He was in great spirits.”
Still to this day, though, Tanner has only watched parts of the game back in clips he’s seen in TikTok and Instagram edits. He says he’s never watched the full game back, or the full highlights of it.
“I definitely still wish it went in,” Tanner said, “But, I know everything happens for a reason.”
The black practice jersey bounces off Tanner’s chest as he crosses the half-court line at Vanderbilt’s Huber Center and pushes the pace with a group largely made up of newcomers flanking him. Perhaps that Vanderbilt basketball season ended that March night, but the world didn’t end for Tanner. His Vanderbilt career didn’t, either.
Tanner thought that night could be the last time he ever played a game in a Vanderbilt uniform, but he’s got one more chance at this. And he believes that he’s better off for what he’s been through. He believes he knows how to win in the NCAA Tournament–the key; taking it one possession at a time and stacking small things, particularly on the defensive end. He’s also out to give the national crowd something to remember him by when this is all said and done.
"He'll be extremely motivated," Byington said. "We've seen the intensity in him and the way he's been able to change his body. You won't be able to tell he's motivated because he won't outwardly tell you, but you can see it in his actions."
“His motivation is different,” Dwayne Tanner said. “His deal is that every day he wants to get one percent better. His mindset is around that, not necessarily about correcting anything in the past. It’s about maximizing the opportunities in the future.”
And the opportunity Tanner has ahead of him is the best one that he’s had to date. After a number of NBA executives told Tanner that they thought he would be a first-round pick in the Draft, he’s back for one more year–a year in which he’ll be named a preseason All-American by some outlets.
Tanner headlines a Vanderbilt team that its coaching staff privately appears to believe is its best since Byington’s arrival in 2023. He’s one of just three players that were a part of Vanderbilt’s team that night in Oklahoma City, but he appears to believe winning in the NCAA Tournament is addicting.
He can’t seem to shake his desire to get there again and end his story college basketball story more ceremoniously.
"We’re gonna be locked in,” Tanner said. “There's definitely a chip on our shoulder to make it further and just be more successful in the tournament. So, we will definitely have that circled on our calendar.”
The last time Tanner went dancing, March Madness broke his heart. He believes everything in life has a purpose beyond what it appears to be on the surface, though.
He believes it’s destiny that he’s here, with an opportunity to make sure that the biggest heartbreak of his career isn’t a defining moment of his legacy.
“He gets one more chance at it, which makes missing that shot that much easier,” Dwayne Tanner said. “He gets one more chance to go and do the right things to lead Vanderbilt to an NCAA Tournament berth and hopefully Sweet Sixteen, an Elite Eight and, heck, maybe a Final Four.”
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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, Basket Under Review and Mainstreet Nashville.
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