Vanderbilt Basketball Fell Below its Standard Saturday. But, That's Not Saying Much.
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NASHVILLE—Tyler Tanner and Tyler Nickel walked into the Vanderbilt postgame media room eerily quickly in the moments following the mandatory cooldown period and had nearly impenetrable looks on their faces.
The look wasn’t all that dissimilar to the ones that each Vanderbilt player had on their way off the floor and into the Barrett Victory tunnel. It wasn’t a look of discouragement or longing to wonder ‘what if’ as much as it was an indicator that this Vanderbilt team knew it could’ve cemented itself at the top of the SEC with a win, but didn’t.
Perhaps some of the longing came from this group knowing how close it was to making as big of a statement as it has all season. All that was missing was a stop or two, a bucket as it looked to tie the game with 18 seconds to go on its last-second possession. Instead, it was subjected to the pain that comes with something like this.
“I just don’t think they’re better than us, so it’s real frustrating” Nickel said postgame. “Real disappointing. Especially–it’d be one thing if it was an effort thing and we could point to something we get better at.”
More than it was an indictment on Vanderbilt and how legitimate its 16-2 record is, this was an SEC Title, Sweet 16-type game in which one possession changes things. If Vanderbilt didn’t allow Xaivien Lee to make a late 3, it could’ve brought this thing home. If Florida didn’t have a seven-point possession, things would’ve been different. If Tanner had converted on an and-one layup in the final seconds, this thing at least goes to overtime.
Vanderbilt turned it over just four times, saw its bench come alive and had a late lead. It wasn’t enough, though. In some ways, that’s more about Florida than it was about Vanderbilt.
“It was a high level game and I wanted to win and our guys wanted to win,” Byington said. “You want to keep getting better and sometimes in a game like this we’ll be able to pick up some things on how to be able to make some improvements.”
On the surface, Vanderbilt does have more to improve than it’s letting on at this stage. Those improvements appear to have more to do with this roster than anything it can improve in practice. That isn’t necessarily a damning indictment on what this group has as much as it is a natural list of deficiencies that every college basketball team seems to have in varying ways.
The book on Vanderbilt is clear at this point, however that doesn’t mean it can’t win in spite of that. Its guard play is still good enough to do it. In some ways, its front court and supporting cast is too. A few losses in a row doesn't mean anything is fundamentally wrong here.
"I'll just repeat what I told the guys in the locker room," Byington said. "I can't be the coach who waits for a win to be able to say they're proud of your team. I love the way we competed, we played really hard. We had chances to win."
Florida outrebounding Vanderbilt 40-to-26, scoring 22 second-chance points to Vanderbilt’s eight, putting Vanderbilt’s bigs in foul trouble and beating it from the inside out appear to be things that this group will just have to deal with. Even in spite of those things, Vanderbilt beat the Florida scout–as Todd Golden says–could’ve found a way to win on Saturday with an average performance from Florida’s guards and a few more made 3s.
Reality set in on Saturday, but it wasn’t as much a big-picture reality as it was a reality that things in this league are difficult. It doesn’t mean that this group still can’t end the regular season with six losses or less, find its way to a double bye in the SEC Tournament and find a top-four seed in the NCAA Tournament.
“We’re right there,” Byington said postgame. “The frustrating thing is we’re right there and didn’t get it done.”
Lose this program with the moral victories that come along with the ‘good game, good atmosphere=success’ mantra, though. This group wanted to win this thing because it knows what it’s capable of and all that it could achieve. That’s progress in itself, but Vanderbilt doesn’t appear to be viewing it that way.
It knows that those things become a bit more difficult as a result of what happened on Saturday, but it knows that this doesn’t alter the course of this season.
“To an extent,” Nickel said in regard to the idea that there’s positives to take from Saturday. “Our standard is to be the best team in the country, be better than every team in the country is with whatever points you want to point to. We weren't tonight, so we got we get it right.”
_(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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