How Tyler Nickel Developed "Unbreakable" Confidence For Vanderbilt Basketball – Sports Illustrated

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NASHVILLE—There’s Tyler Nickel in his natural habitat; constantly trading words with Kentucky guard Colin Chandler, feeding off the crowd at Memorial Gymnasium and changing the dynamic of the game with his gravity on the perimeter. 
If Kentucky couldn’t tell already, they quickly found out that Nickel is the type that those fighting alongside him have a deep affinity for and those who have to chase him around pindowns, flares and Spain actions have a hard time taking a liking to. Mark Pope’s team caught a break on Nickel’s off night a year ago, but those don’t exist in his second run as a Vanderbilt basketball player. 
Nickel has scored in double figures in all of Vanderbilt’s SEC games and has hit the double-digit mark in 17 of Vanderbilt’s 21 games. Nickel leads the nation in College Basketball Analytics’ all-in-one metric, Offensive RAPM, and has significantly improved in every counting stat. The 6-foot-7 wing has leaped from his 10.4 points per game in 2024-25 to a 14.9 mark this season, is making 45.8% of his shots from 3-point range as opposed to his 40.5% rate a year ago and is making shots from inside the arc with significantly higher volume and efficiency than he did a season ago. 
The Vanderbilt wing had what Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington said was “unbreakable” confidence a season ago, but these days his edge feels different than it did as he emerged as a significant piece of Byington’s first team. Everything about Nickel is more consistent, including his trash talk and confidence. No SEC player has been able to shut down Nickel yet, and he doesn’t appear to believe that anyone can. 
“[I’m] just fearless,” Nickel told Vandy on SI. “Like, extremely fearless. It doesn’t matter who’s on the court, what’s going on, I’m never going to fear another man that walks this earth ever in any regard.” 
At this stage of Nickel’s career, he doesn’t have much to fear. He’s seen all the sport’s biggest arenas, he’s dealt with the scrutiny that comes with falling out of the rotation at a blue blood, he’s reached the NCAA Tournament as a go-to guy. Now, this level–which many have compared to running a gauntlet–is the place where Nickel is free to demonstrate the manifestations of his confidence without bounds. 
This isn’t any sort of act that Nickel keeps up in order to psych himself out in a way that allows him to believe he can do what he’s setting out to. This is who Nickel is. This is why he believes that an off-platform shot that is ill-advised for others is a good one for him–and he’s right. 
Need evidence? Nickel hasn’t gone consecutive games without reaching double figures all season. When he hits the mat, he seemingly always pops back up. 
“His confidence is unshakeable,” Vanderbilt forward AK Okereke told Vandy on SI. “You would think that a lot of guys at this level would be that way, but it's really not. 
He's really unique in that way. He’s not going to miss two in a row because he’s Tyler Nickel, but if he does, the next one's going to go up no matter what. That's really the biggest thing for him, he's always going to stay within himself and he knows that every single night he's the best shooter on the court.” 
Most times, Nickel is. 
The Vanderbilt wing leads the SEC in 3-point percentage and is shooting 43.1% from beyond the arc in conference games. Nickel is eighth in the country in true shooting percentage, 13th in offensive rating, 14th in effective field goal percentage and 43rd in 3-point percentage. Perhaps the most impressive part of Nickel’s rise; he’d be lying if he said he didn’t expect this. 
“Where I kind of like grew up,
dude, if you didn't believe in yourself to get to a certain level, it wasn't gonna happen,” Nickel said. “You kind of have to have almost, to other people, a delusional sense of confidence. I trust myself so much just because of my work.”
The stunningly deep voice, sleeve full of tattoos and contagious laugh–which only comes out when Nickel is genuinely amused–differentiate him from the crowd. So does the idea that Nickel’s personality seemingly doesn’t change whether he’s with his close friends or in a formal press conference–perhaps what Nickel says and does do, but he never changes. 
Nickel may be different than others in some ways, but he’s entirely comfortable with that. 
“I'm never going to apologize for being myself or stop being myself just because people assume certain things or feel a type of way about it,” Nickel said. “People are going to feel some type of way about you regardless of what you do. So you might as well just be yourself in the process.” 
Nickel has been as bold as anyone within this program in acting on his words. The Vanderbilt wing called out former North Carolina forward Justin Jackson on Twitter–and in an interview with Vandy on SI, who said that "Kentucky's physicality can make a big impact on this game… I honestly think they can go in there and whoop up on Vandy.” 
The Vanderbilt wing also tweets “belt” after every Vanderbilt win–as to indicate that it just took it to whoever it played–and types out every sentence–on Twitter and in texts–as if he’s speaking it in person. His unfiltered personality was particularly on display in Vanderbilt point guard Frankie Collins’ Twitch streams over the summer–although it wasn’t all that different from the temperament that Vanderbilt fans are used to.
“He’s never wavered,” Vanderbilt big man Jalen Washington–who says Nickel is his “best friend”– told Vandy on SI in regard to Nickel’s willingness to show his personality. “That’s probably what I admire the most.” 
At some point in Nickel’s basketball life, only naivety could explain the idea that he wouldn’t do something meaningful with this by the time it was all said and done. 
By the time Nickel was two years out from his high school graduation, he had a number of power-five offers to choose from as well as translatable positional size and a shotmaking profile that made him a commodity. 
Nickel’s parents were both college basketball players themselves and knew what the next level would require of their son. As a result, they had a message they knew they wanted to pound into his head before he left the house. 
“We started to talk about being one-of-one,” Nickel’s dad, Eric, told Vandy on SI, “Being that guy.”
Nickel’s dad says his son has been a “gym rat” since he was “little,” and that he developed confidence from an early age because of the work that he’d put in. Nickel’s parents have always known what this was going to take in order for him to be successful and encouraged him to avoid letting his foot off the gas. 
The idea that Nickel would be outworked has been foreign to those around him since he was five years old. His parents always told him that if he put in more work than anyone else, his shots would fall in games. The idea that he had to conform to others’ perception of him was as outlandish to his parents as the idea that he would be outworked consistently.
“You don't have to try to fit in places. Be yourself, but be the hardest working guy,” Nickel’s dad says he would tell him. “You’ve got to believe in you more than anybody else.”
Nickel’s belief led him to an offer from North Carolina–where he started his career–a career resurgence at Virginia Tech after he played sparingly as a Tar Heel and his best season to date at Vanderbilt–which has cemented itself as Nickel’s college home after he came and went after one season each at his previous two schools. 
It appears as if the mentality that got Nickel here hasn’t changed all that much since his five-year old days. Perhaps his scenery has, but what’s inside of him hasn’t. 
“He's so consistent,” Vanderbilt guard Tyler Tanner told Vandy on SI.  “I spend so much time around him so that I get to see just how he is in day-to-day stuff. That carries over. Every day when I see him outside of basketball, he treats me the same way. He’s always got the same energy to him. 
And obviously it translates to basketball. He's always going to be himself.” 
When Byington boarded the plane home from Vanderbilt’s March Madness loss to Saint Mary’s, getting Nickel back was near the top of his priority list. Nickel’s profile was appealing because of his 40% 3-point shooting, size profile and edge. 
Byington always thought that there was more out there for Nickel, though. 
“I think he’ll be one of the better players in the SEC,” Byington told Vandy on SI over the summer. “We gotta move him around to find him shots, as many shots as he can get.” 
Those around Vanderbilt’s program knew that in getting Nickel back, they would be getting a shooter that exuded enough gravity that some SEC teams opted to faceguard him or address him with a soft box-and-one at times. 
In an offense with two guards that thrive in ballscreen situations in which they can get downhill and need spacing to do so, Nickel has as much pull as any player on the floor and opens up more driving lanes than just about anyone else. Among the highest priority on any opposing scouting report is denying Nickel an flat-footed open look on the perimeter. 
On the occasion that Vanderbilt runs an action that gets Nickel freed up or its guards take enough attention from him to generate an open drive-and-kick, they believe it’s a near guarantee that he’s going to do what he was brought here to do. So does he. 
“100%,” Tanner said in regard to the idea that Nickel never appears to believe he’s going to miss. “I don't think he's going to miss, either.”
Joey Dwyer is the lead writer on Vanderbilt Commodores On SI. He found his first love in college sports at nearby Lipscomb University and decided to make a career of telling its best stories. He got his start doing a Notre Dame basketball podcast from his basement as a 14-year-old during COVID and has since aimed to make that 14-year-old proud. Dwyer has covered Vanderbilt sports for three years and previously worked for 247 Sports and Rivals. He contributes to Seth Davis' Hoops HQ, Southeastern 16 and Mainstreet Nashville.
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