Everything Mark Byington Said After Vanderbilt's 104-75 Victory over Arkansas-Pine Bluff

Vanderbilt Men’s Basketball continued its stretch of non-conference victories Saturday when it took down Arkansas-Pine Bluff 104-75.

It was another strong showing for the Commodore offense, with Duke Miles leading the way again with 20 points on 6-13 shooting. Despite the team shooting just 32.4% from behind the arc, head coach Mark Byington’s squad remained in control for most of the night. Here’s everything Byington said after the victory:

Opening Statement

Something I was talking about to our team and anybody that will listen is that [Arkansas-Pine Bluff] is better than their record and better than the ranking, and that's a tough team. I would not be surprised if you see them in the NCAA Tournament and [they] win their league. They have three guys that we were looking at that were going to be matchup problems, and two of them ended up showing to be that. So I knew it was going to bring us challenges and we didn't play our best. But at the same time, I thought we stayed the course and there wasn't a panic. We kept going. And some guys gave us some really good minutes. And Devin McGlockton, it's incredible how hard he plays and what he does. In the first half, when he got two fouls, I thought it kind of set us back a little bit. We lost some momentum. But then him in the second half, having him on the court is just extremely valuable. And we didn't have Frankie today, so different guys got in the rotations, and guys like Chandler Bing played well, and some other guys got extended minutes, and I thought they handled it well. And every game right now is hopefully you win, but you better learn no matter what. And so we're going to learn from this.

On a night where you didn't shoot as well as you have first few games, what does it say that you were still able to score 104 points?

Yeah, in the first half, I think we were 4-for-18 from three-point range. And you look at those shots, and they were good quality shots, and the best thing we did was when we missed it, we got it back. And that's got to be the case when we make it of course, we're not getting it back, but we missed good shots, and we had 17 second chance points in the first half, and that was huge. And that game could have been really tight and tough if we didn't have the effort there. And I told the guys at halftime to stay the course, and we shot the ball better in the second half. We have good shooters. I thought they did a good job of getting us off the line a little bit, but we're going to stay with it.

Coach, your team secured 19 offensive boards today. Is offensive rebounding, something you hammer home in practice?

Yeah, we thought that was a weakness of their team. They had a lot of things that they do well. We thought [rebounding] was a weakness, and it's something we've been working hard on, and, like I said, to get 17 second chance points in the first half, and ended up the game with 28, I mean, that's the reason we scored over 100 points. It wasn't our first attempt, it was getting it back after we missed.

You mentioned Chandler Bing, what did you like from him today, and how much have you seen him grow these first few games?

Yeah, I mean, I think I've said it a couple times, and he's going to find his way to the rotation. He does some things really well.He's tough, he can rebound, he can really guard, and I think he's going to be able to blend in with some other guys on the team. So it wasn't just because Frankie was out, you know, the plan was to kind of get him and more minutes, and I think he'll have a nice role on this team. He does some things we really need right now, and I thought he was ready to go tonight.

Do you have a timeline on Frankie [Collins]’ injury?

We were erring on the side of caution with him today. He probably could have gone, but it's a lower leg injury, and it's one of those we want to make sure to make sure that we’re trying to get it completely healed.

AK [Okereke] got the start tonight after Jalen Washington did on Wednesday, what went into that decision?

Yeah, AK started the first two games, and we don't put that much into it. We want to make the other team guard us. AK rolled his ankle against Central Florida, and he missed some practice time going into the last game against Eastern Kentucky, and he was a game time decision. And so that was the only reason [he didn’t start] last game. And you know, we want to sometimes go with the bigger lineup too. I think we’ll have Mason [Nicholson] back maybe next game, and I think we will be able to go to a bigger lineup. If we do that, we can play Devin [McGlockton] at the four, Jalen Washington, and also get Mason [Nicholson] in there.