Where Vanderbilt Basketball Ranks in the Preseason AP Poll – Sports Illustrated

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The 2026-27 college basketball regular season is just a couple of weeks away from opening night.
For Vanderbilt basketball, the Commodores played their first exhibition game of the offseason in the final weekend of September, beating Virginia in an outdoor game in Charleston, South Carolina. Vanderbilt’s second exhibition game will take place Monday night against UAB in Memorial Gymnasium at 6 p.m. CT.
But before it tips off against the Blazers tonight, there was some big news in the college basketball world late Monday morning. The preseason AP Top 25 poll for the season dropped and Vanderbilt made the rankings. The Commodores will begin the season ranked No. 24 when they tip off the regular season against Bellarmine Nov. 2.
Seven SEC teams made the first AP Poll of the season. Ahead of Vanderbilt is No. 1 Florida, No. 7 Texas, No. 8 Tennessee, No. 12 Arkansas, No. 20 Alabama and No. 23 Kentucky.
Vanderbilt head coach Mark Byington is heading into his third season in his Vanderbilt tenure and the expectations are continuing to rise for the program.
Vanderbilt is coming off a season where it went 27-9 and finished in fourth place in the SEC. It made a run in last season’s SEC Tournament to the SEC Championship Game and earned a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Commodores defeated No. 12 seed McNeese before seeing their season end in the Round of 32 against No. 4 seed Nebraska in heartbreaking fashion.
This season, Vanderbilt has hopes of not just making it past the Round of 32 in March, but making it all the way to Final 4 weekend in the first week of April.
Vanderbilt is returning its star point guard Tyler Tanner for his third season. Tanner went through the NBA Draft process in the offseason before he ultimately chose to come back to Vanderbilt for another season.
In the transfer portal, Byington added former Colorado center Bangot Dak, big man Berke Buyuktuncel, guards Ace Glass and T.O. Barrett and forward Sebastian Williams-Adams. Additionally, the Commodores brought in freshmen Ant Brown Jr., Ethan Mgbako and Gabe Nesmith and Jackson Sheffield.
There are plenty of new faces on the roster and a lot of team chemistry to be developed. But the potential Vanderbilt has this season brings hope that Vanderbilt’s ceiling this season could be high.
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Graham Baakko is a writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI, primarily covering football, basketball and baseball. Graham is a recent graduate from the University of Alabama, where he wrote for The Crimson White, WVUA-FM, WVUA 23 as he covered a variety of Crimson Tide sports. He also covered South Carolina athletics as a sportswriting intern for GamecockCentral.
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