When this Vanderbilt men’s basketball team is at its best, it can make this sport a little more beautiful. There’s the fast-paced, free-flowing offense. The ball movement. Shots dropping. Points going up quickly.
All things that were missing from Vanderbilt’s 75-68 victory over Tennessee in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals.
The season’s rubber match between two rivals was a fight. Ugly and slow and physical and grueling and filled with starts and stops and reviews and whistles. It was what this sport can look like when Rick Barnes’ Vols have their way defensively.
About the time Tennessee pulled ahead 45-38 early in the second half, this game had fallen into a familiar pattern for the guys in orange, poised for the Vols to predictably grind out another win over another good opponent on the strength of its stellar defense.
Had that happened, Vanderbilt could have kept its head up and looked toward the Men’s NCAA Tournament.
Far better, though, to grind out a victory over the Vols instead.
Especially since it was largely because of the Commodores’ defense that it happened.
“You think about us playing fast, trying to go, trying to score, put points up from the beginning of the year,” Vanderbilt’s Tyler Nickel said. “But know that our defense is solid. We’re more than solid. It’s elite enough to win a tough, grind-it-out game like that.”
After falling behind, Vanderbilt used a 17-5 run to regain control.
During that stretch, the Vols turned it over four times.
A key block by Jalen Washington led to Chandler Bing’s and-one bucket on the other end, putting the Commodores in front. They wouldn’t trail again.
Soon after, Duke Miles – the day’s offensive hero with 30 critical points –stole the ball from Tennessee’s star Nate Ament. Tyler Tanner’s bucket in transition put the Commodores up 55-50.
“The defense shows up in a lot of ways,” Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington said. “It shows up in tournament games. It shows up in road games. … We really tried to put more emphasis on our defense to hopefully kind of calm it down until our offense came around, and luckily, our offense did come around.”
This has turned into what Byington envisioned entering his second season on West End. His offense was good last season, but he approached this past offseason stressing improvement on the defensive end. He pursued transfers like AK Okereke and big man Jalen Washington, players known for defense.
“We have the personnel to be a good defensive team,” Okereke said. “I think that’s something that they were missing a bit last year, especially with the size. That was something that Coach B really pitched me on.”
Tennessee shot 38% and only 24% from 3-point range (4-of-17). After putting 27 points on Auburn in his return from injury the previous day, Ament was 1-for-13 shooting, thanks mostly to the efforts of Nickel and Bing, a freshman who keeps earning more minutes this season on the defensive end.
“That’s kind of been my thing,” Bing said. “I’ve just been working and trying to make sure if I’m out there, I’m making anybody who I’m guarding’s life hard.”
Too much can be made of results in the SEC Tournament as it pertains to the Men’s NCAA Tournament. Fool’s gold abounds this time of year, but in Vanderbilt’s case, this latest victory over Tennessee was more meaningful that most this season for the Commodores.
It made two in a row against the Vols, and if you can outmuscle and out-defend one of Barnes’ teams on a day where your own shots aren’t falling, you’ve done something.
This was a tournament atmosphere with high stakes and intensity, making it the exact type of difficult grind – against a good opponent – that a high Men’s NCAA Tournament seed needs to know how to survive in March.
Vanderbilt now realizes that “if we play our best basketball, I don’t know if there’s anybody that can beat us,” said Devin McGlockton. He wasn’t just talking about that beautiful offense.
Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at [email protected] and hang out with him on Bluesky @gentryestes.bsky.social
