Mark Byington wasn’t immune to the ice storm that had major impacts throughout the city of Nashville.
The Vanderbilt basketball coach slept in his office two straight nights after his home lost power on Jan. 25. If his house still doesn’t have power, Byington said, he plans to sleep in his office again.
Feeling the personal effects of the storm, it was important for Byington to provide the city with a good time. The 15th-ranked Commodores did just that with their 80-55 win over Kentucky at Memorial Gymnasium on Jan. 27, which improved their record to 18-3 overall and 5-3 in SEC play.
Tyler Tanner and Tyler Nickel led Vanderbilt with 19 points apiece. Otega Oweh scored 20 points to lead Kentucky (14-7, 5-3 in SEC)
“The other thing that I don’t think we can underestimate is the feeling that we can help out with Nashville right now, and Nashville is going through a tough time, and then this weather has affected everybody,” Byington said. “It’s affected me. It’s affected the team and the people. And I’m glad that we can, for the people who came here, I’m glad that we can reward them for coming here and for the people that are home, give them a good feeling.”
Byington said that the team still wanted to play the game at its originally scheduled time rather than move it, though the ultimate decision was not up to the team, but to the school and the SEC office.
Vanderbilt’s game remained at its scheduled time after Kentucky safely traveled to Nashville on Jan. 26. Some other SEC games over the weekend and early in the week had dates or times moved, including the Vanderbilt women’s basketball game against Ole Miss, which was moved back a day to Jan. 30 and will be played in Birmingham, Alabama.
“We talked about this before the season, and we want to be Nashville’s team,” Byington said. “When you live in Nashville, we want to play the right way. We will represent the university the right way, represent the city the right way, and there’s times of need, and we had an opportunity tonight to make a lot of people feel good.
“Maybe the people wearing blue didn’t feel good, but they can get onto Broadway and get drunk. … But I do think we knew that there’s extra value in us to represent things the right way.”
Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on X, formerly Twitter, @aria_gerson.
