Where Does Vanderbilt Basketball's Body of Work Stand Prior to Ole Miss Matchup?

Vanderbilt basketball really needs to get right on Tuesday night against Ole Miss, but that doesn’t diminish the body of work that it’s built to this point.

The Commodores took the floor on Saturday as the No. 25 team in the AP Top with a top 15 offense in KenPom as well as the No. 20 defense before losing to Kentucky. Prior to that outing, Vanderbilt won against Georgia on senior night. It’s still waiting on its best performance, though.

That didn’t look like the same Vanderbilt team that went up by as much as 28 points on their way to an 80-55 win over Kentucky, held the Wildcats to 25.0% shooting from 3-point range and 32.2% shooting from the field. But, perhaps that team is somewhere in there still.

“We have a chance to have a good team,” Byington said after the Commodores’ opener. “When you’re a coach you want hope for the season, you want optimism for the season. Some people lie about it, but I can say the truth and say I’m excited about this group. We’ll get better and better.”

As Vanderbilt has taken a leap 2025-26–Byington’s second year at the helm–it’s does so with a roster including just three returning scholarship players in Tyler Tanner, Devin McGlockton and Nickel. All three of which have taken on significant roles on a team that possesses an eight-man transfer class headlined by Collins, North Carolina big man Jalen Washington, Washington transfer Tyler Harris, Miles and Cornell wing AK Okereke.

“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.”

That class has given the Commodores a chance to be a higher seed in the NCAA Tournament than they’ve ever been. Here’s where their rèsumè stands these days.

Quad wins and losses:

Quad 1A: 2-4

Wins: Auburn, Saint Mary’s

Losses: Florida, Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky

Quad 1: 8-6

Wins: Kentucky, Alabama, UCF, Wake Forest, Saint Mary’s, VCU, Auburn, Auburn

Losses: Texas, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri

Quad 2: 6-1

Wins: LSU, Memphis, South Carolina, SMU, Mississippi State, Texas A&M

Loss: Oklahoma

Quad 3: 2–0

Lipscomb, Western Kentucky

Quad 4: 5-0

Eastern Kentucky, Texas Southern, Arkansas Pine Bluff, Central Arkansas, New Haven

Other valuable metrics:

NET: 18th

Torvik: 12th

KenPom: 15th

Strength of record: 19th

KPI: 16th

Wins above bubble: 19th

BPI: 16th

NCSOS: 138th