Vanderbilt NBA Combine Notebook: How Tyler Tanner Fared in Scrimmage, Tanner's Update, Tyler Nickel's Performance
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There Tyler Tanner stood at the 3-point line working to keep it all together and jolt his mind back into place. The generic grey NBA Draft Combine jersey that was draped over Tanner did its best to hide his swagger and the shot from beyond the arc that he’d just airballed made an effort to break his confidence.
For the first time in awhile, Tanner wasn’t the man.
Instead, that title belonged to Baylor wing Cam Carr, who put up the 30-point performance that a number of evaluators were hoping to see from Tanner. Instead, Tanner was the third-highest scoring guard on his team’s roster and left some to be desired from his performance.
Tanner’s day could be described better as an up-and-down one. He went for 13 points, but did it on 4-for-11 shooting from the field, 3-for-7 shooting from 3-point range and had five fouls. Tanner did have five assists, two steals and only turned it over twice in a game that’s historically chaotic and not overly well played.
The problem for Tanner was sitting to the left of him, between he and Tyler Nickel, when he checked in. Tanner guarded former Tennessee guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie for a long stretch of Wednesday’s scrimmage, and Gillespie thoroughly outplayed him while going for 28 points on 10-for-17 shooting.
If Tanner is going to force a team’s hand in the first round, he’ll have to make a real impact in the second day of scrimmaging.
Tanner re-ups on his mindset
The feel surrounding Tanner at this stage is that he’s clearly wanting to stay in the NBA Draft and isn’t thinking all that much about a return to Vanderbilt, although that doesn’t mean he won’t eventually end up back on the floor at Memorial Gymnasium in November.
If Tanner is leaning towards a return that would make him the most highly compensated player in Vanderbilt basketball history, he’s not tipping his hand.
“Right now, I'm just pushing for the NBA. Me, my agent, my family, we’ll have a conversation closer to the deadline,” Tanner told the media, “But right now, we're really not worried about college. Vanderbilt's a great spot, but my dream is to play in the NBA.”
The quote appears to be alarming on the surface, but it’s what any reasonable advisor would tell Tanner to say at this stage. If he doesn’t make declarations like the ones he’s making, Tanner would be written off by executives if he indicated that he wanted to return to college or felt like he had to.
Vanderbilt is still clearly pushing for Tanner to return, and he appears to be open to it. Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington was in Chicago on Wednesday to watch Tanner, a source told Vandy on SI, and Vanderbilt is still holding a roster spot as well as a large pot of money aside for Tanner.
What actually matters in terms of his words is what happens when Tanner gets behind closed doors with his camp after the combine and individual workouts with NBA teams conclude.
How Tyler Nickel performed in day one of scrimmaging
The combine scrimmage, by nature, isn’t exactly a setting that fits Nickel’s game all that seamlessly. He’s better in structure, where he can be opened up for catch-and-shoot opportunities, but that wasn’t all that present on Wednesday.
Nickel still made some impact on the scrimmage while going for eight points on 3-for-8 shooting from the field and 2-for-7 shooting from 3-point range. He was on the winning team in the scrimmage and had two assists on the day, though.
As of now Nickel isn’t a projected draft pick, but he could be a beneficiary of the large chunk of players projected in the late-first and early second round that will likely return to school as a result of overwhelming NIL-related opportunities.
One of those players could be Tanner.
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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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