Vanderbilt Basketball is Handling Record Precipice With Coach Speak, Like Old Guys; Column

NASHVILLE—Time to prep the record books for an adjustment.

Bring out the Google Docs. Bring out the white out. Bring out whatever is needed to change some longstanding records within this program. This group has earned it.

At the very least, Vanderbilt basketball is on the verge of one record that hasn’t been within reach in a long time.

With one more win, Mark Byington’s Vanderbilt team will pass the program record for consecutive wins to start a season. Saturday, it tied the record by knocking off LSU to give itself a 16th-consecutive win.

Perhaps Vanderbilt’s 13-0 non-conference record could’ve been declared flukey as a result of its 138th-ranked non-league schedule, but this can’t be. This 16-game stretch has had just about everything.

Since it embarked on this journey, Vanderbilt has won races to 100–like it did on Wednesday against Alabama, it’s won on the road—like it did against Wake Forest, SMU and Memphis—Saturday indicated that it can put on its boxing gloves and win when a team opts to try to slow it down like LSU did on Saturday.

“Coach always says, ‘come with a locked jaw,’” Vanderbilt guard Duke Miles told Vandy on SI. “You never know, they might throw the punch first, but we try to throw the punch first.  So, coming in we knew it was going to be some adversity. We knew that it was gonna be physical, we know that they were gonna be athletic. So, we just knew we had to come in and play with a different type of pace and a different type of style.”

Byington has come into Vanderbilt’s locker room with a variety of messages throughout the course of the season. Some have related to taking it one game at a time. Some have related to jaw strength. Some have related to the standard being the standard.

All of them appear to have worked, though.

Byington’s message after Vanderbilt’s 16-0 start doesn’t have much to do with what his team has already accomplished or what it’s demonstrated while doing. That’s how the Vanderbilt head coach’s mind works. He’s never too high, never too low. Maybe he’ll use this start for marketing and recruiting, but that’s it.

“That’s something you’re going to look back on at the end of the season,” Byington said. "We're always saying 'what's next' and not 'what just happened.' We're looking at what's next and we've gotta get our bodies right, our minds right. Wednesday is gonna be really, really tough."

Jan 10, 2026; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Vanderbilt Commodores head coach Mark Byington talks with the referee against the Louisiana State Tigers during the second half at Memorial Gymnasium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Roberts-Imagn Images | Steve Roberts-Imagn Images

This Byingtonism isn’t all that difficult to see the practicality in. The Vanderbilt head coach isn’t saying exactly what everyone would be stirred up by in a press conference setting, but he appears to have the pulse of his team in regard to this particular situation.

In a position in which Vanderbilt could be easily burdened by the idea of having to stay perfect, but it doesn’t appear to be afraid of a loss. When LSU held Byington’s team to a scoreless six and a half minutes on Saturday, it popped back up off the mat and put the game away after a putback by Devin McGlockton and a make from 3-point range by AK Okereke.

McGlockton said after Vanderbilt’s win over New Haven that an undefeated non-conference was Vanderbilt’s goal heading into Byington’s second season at the helm, but Vanderbilt big man Jalen Washington clarified McGlockton’s comment by saying Vanderbilt was never chasing perfection.

Perhaps in some ways, Vanderbilt’s 16-0 start has exceeded its expectation. It set out to make a push for things significantly more meaningful than the best start in program history.

Until it accomplishes that, it’s not flexing its muscles or doing anything to crown itself the best team in program history. Perhaps that’s how it’s gotten here, it celebrates and moves on quickly. It did it in Atlantis. It did it after knocking off No. 13 Alabama on Wednesday. Now it’s doing it again.

“Coach [Byington] always tells us ‘don't get caught up in praise or hate, because both of them are poisoned,’” Vanderbilt guard Tyler Tanner told Vandy on SI. “Either they're praising you so they can want you to fall down or they're hating on you for you to stay down.”

Only a team with the ability to ride the highs and the lows together with an even-keeledness can do what this Vanderbilt team has done to this point. It’s shown up every night and doesn’t appear to be above correcting itself prior to its trip to Texas.

Don’t expect much about this veteran group—or the way it talks—to change once it picks up its first loss.

“It’s an amazing feeling to be 16-0,” Miles said, “But, we just focus on one game at a time.”