Vanderbilt Basketball Receives Low Ranking in SEC Basketball Preseason Poll

The Commodores were picked outside the league's top 10 ahead of Mark Byington's second year as Vanderbilt basketball's head coach.

Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner (3) and Tyler Nickel (5) walk off the court after losing to Texas 79-72 in a NCAA college basketball first round game at the men’s Southeastern Conference Tournament Wednesday, March 12, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. | Mark Zaleski / The Tennessean / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Vanderbilt is ranked 11th in the SEC Preseason Media Poll, the league announced on Monday. 

The Commodores are ranked behind Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Missouri, Ole Miss and Texas. 

Monday’s media poll has Vanderbilt lower than Sunday’s initial KenPom projection—which has the Commodores ranked fourth in the SEC—but it puts Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington’s team in a standing that it wasn’t last season as it entered the season ranked last in the SEC Preseason Poll. 

Byington as well as Vanderbilt’s three scholarship returners will make the trip to Birmingham for Tuesday’s SEC Media Day and will address its ranking with an abundance of media hits. 

Vanderbilt finished last season with its first NCAA Tournament berth since the 2016-17 season after a 20-win season, but it was never ranked within the AP Top 25–which releases Monday. 

As Vanderbilt looks to take a leap in 2025-26–Byington’s second year at the helm–it does so with a roster including just three returning scholarship players in Tyler Tanner, Devin McGlockton and Tyler Nickel. All three of which are expected to have significant roles on a team that possesses an eight-man transfer class headlined by TCU point guard Frankie Collins, North Carolina big man Jalen Washington, Washington wing Tyler Harris, Oklahoma guard Duke Miles and NC State guard Mike James–who hasn’t played since his days at Louisville.

Byington also added Jacksonville State transfer Mason Nicholson, Cornell transfer AK Okereke and Eastern Kentucky transfer George Kimble–who will miss the season due to injury.

“The priority this recruiting season was to gain some more length, size,” Vanderbilt assistant coach Xavier Joyner told Vandy on SI over the summer. “We knew going into last year we were maybe the smallest team in the SEC regarding length, size so we wanted to upgrade that, which we did.”

Now Vanderbilt’s ability will be tested early in the season as it eases into things with six buy games before the dawn of the new year. The Commodores didn’t lose a buy game in 2024-25, which helped it significantly in the computer metrics, and will likely have to do so again in 2025-26 if it wants to head back to the NCAA Tournament.

Vanderbilt will have to get through a grueling SEC schedule first, though. The Commodores overachieved last season relative to preseason expectations, perhaps they can do it again in year two of Byington’s tenure.

They'll have to defy the odds if that's the case, though.