Vanderbilt Basketball Stole That One; Column

OXFORD, MS—Within the back tunnel of The Pavillion in Oxford, the amount of Vanderbilt players and staffers had dwindled down significantly since Mark Byington began his postgame press conference seven minutes earlier.

There appeared to be a race out of Oxford among Vanderbilt’s players and staffers–and while it had to do mostly with their flight, it could’ve had just as much to do with how this team won this game.

Vanderbilt trailed by as much as 12, trailed for 34:17, missed 12 layups, couldn’t finish possessions on the defensive end, lost its three rotational bigs to foul trouble and had a general sense of sluggishness present all night. Yet, there it was celebrating following an 89-86 overtime victory.

The best way to describe it?

“Stole it,” a Vanderbilt staffer said as he left the building.

Tyler Tanner and Vanderbilt left Ole Miss after an overtime win. | Vanderbilt Basketball

That was far from the breakthrough that this Vanderbilt team has been in need of since Duke Miles’ return to the lineup. On a generally sleepy night at The Pavillion, Vanderbilt matched the crowd’s intensity.

The peripheral signs weren’t encouraging, either. If Vanderbilt was going to win tight, it had to hope that its production came in the form of Tyler Nickel and Duke Miles performances that changed the perception of how this can all end for them and this Vanderbilt team.

Instead, Nickel went for nine points on nine shots and seven shots from 3-point range. Miles flashed being himself with a few downhill drives and a stretch of made shots, but his final line wasn’t all that kind. The veteran guard finished Tuesday night with 16 points on 5-for-17 shooting with two assists and two turnovers.

None of it mattered, though.

All that mattered was that when the final buzzer sounded on Tuesday, Tyler Tanner was standing there waving goodbye to the small crowd in Oxford and everyone around was chest bumping. Vanderbilt had found a way to win and while it didn’t look all that pretty at any point, it sure felt good.

“It took everything,” Miles told Vandy on SI from the tunnel in Oxford. “Our bigs got in foul trouble, we missed some chippy ones, couldn't get the ball to bounce our way. But, it didn't matter because good shooting night, bad shooting night, you can tell this is a team that competes and keeps fighting.”

And fight this group did on Tuesday night. It shot just 38.7% from the field, 28.1% from 3-point range and failed to capitalize on a golden opportunity to win it in regulation. Yet, there Byington was joking around in the moments prior to his postgame press conference. There was Vanderbilt leaving Oxford as winners.

Duke Miles and Vanderbilt grinded out a win on Tuesday. | Vanderbilt basketball

Vanderbilt knows it needs to be better than it was on Tuesday if it’s going to beat Tennessee Saturday at Thompson-Boling Arena. It’s got to be better if it’s going to win another game on its schedule the rest of the way. Today isn’t those games, though. Vanderbilt can be excited tonight.

Not because of what it did or the path it took to get here, but because of what it learned about itself. Because of what its learning process resulted in.

“I just thought we showed resiliency to get back into the game,” Byington said. “We were able to fight back. The breaks weren’t going our way, but we stayed the course and we got it done.”

Vanderbilt was down 15-3 before it could blink. It objectively played its worst first half of the season and the number of circus shots and otherwise timely shots that Ole Miss threw in indicated that this wasn’t going to be Vanderbilt’s night.

Byington says that Vanderbilt getting down big early worried him in that it gave Chris Beard’s Ole Miss team a level of confidence that could’ve propelled it to a win. Beard’s group has always appeared to be on the verge of putting some sort of run together and after its Saturday win over Auburn, the indication was that this was finally going to turn for this group.

Vanderbilt demonstrated why it’s a 23-game winner as it leaves Oxford, though. It made the winning plays, Ole Miss did too. But, Vanderbilt made more of them.

“We could talk for an hour or two hours about that game, there was a lot that went into it,” Byington said. “it was a seesaw back and forth and both teams were fighting hard. You could tell they wanted to win. Our guys wanted to win, and it was a shame a team had to lose.”

Perhaps Tuesday didn’t indicate that this Vanderbilt team has a deep run imminently ahead of it, but it doubles down on the idea that it knows how to win and can do so in a multitude of ways over the next month or so.

That means something, so does Tuesday night in a vacuum.

Tanner waving goodbye to the Ole Miss faithful, Vanderbilt assistant Jon Cremins jumping up and down, Jayen Leverett shaking another Vanderbilt player and Tanner embracing Vanderbilt guard George Kimble indicated the magnitude of this one in particular.

“Yesssirrrr,” Vanderbilt wing Tyler Nickel said as he ran into the tunnel as to encapsulate the mood of the night.