How About a Culture Win For Vanderbilt Basketball? That's What This Was; Column – Sports Illustrated

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In a moment in which Vanderbilt’s destiny was a near certainty on this mid-second half possession, freshman guard Chandler Bing pitched it to Tyler Tanner with less than three seconds on the shot clock and all the momentum tipping towards Auburn. Declaring Vanderbilt’s possession dead wouldn’t consider its identity, though. 
It wouldn’t consider the magic that Tanner often performs in these sorts of scenarios, either. 
The Vanderbilt point guard did it Saturday as his Herculean effort got Vanderbilt in the game late after a lackluster first 36 minutes or so against Oklahoma. Why couldn’t he do it again here? The answer still doesn’t appear to be clear. 
Tanner caught Bing’s pass, ripped past Auburn guard Kevin Overton and shot down the lane before throwing up a floater that would be considered rushed and low percentage for just about anyone else. This is Tyler Tanner, though. Of course it went in. 
And with the make went Auburn’s momentum. 
Steven Pearl’s team appeared to be pushing this Vanderbilt team all night after the Commodores went up early. But in a game that looked as if it would be Auburn’s once the law of averages and logic prevailed, it was Vanderbilt which left Neville Arena as the victors. With the win, this Vanderbilt team demonstrated that competitive character isn't going to be the thing that holds it back from making a deep run when it matters the most.
“We battled adversity in so many different ways,” Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington said. “I thought that our guys just had their minds made up that they weren’t leaving here without a win and we looked like that on Sunday, Monday and carried it over to today. We just had an intensity about us.” 
Why? Not because the group that Byington has to work with these days is more talented than Pearl’s or because this group finally got Duke Miles and Frankie Collins back from injury. Not because it caught Auburn sleeping or put together a stunning performance from 3-point range, either. 
This was more about Vanderbilt answering the call every time it appeared that Auburn would throw a game-changing punch at it. The aforementioned late-clock acrobatics from Tanner weren’t his best of the night and may not have been his most meaningful. 
Less than three minutes after his initial heroics, Tanner was pitched the ball by Vanderbilt wing Tyler Harris in another seemingly-dire situation in which the shot clock had less than three seconds on it and he caught it a step in front of the volleyball line. Instead of panicking, Tanner stepped into a contested shot from a step-or-two behind the line and threw in a demoralizing late-clock make. 
“It was timely shots,” Byington said of the key to winning this thing. “Whether it was things at the rim, timely free throws, Chandler Bing made both of his, Tyler Tanner iced both of them up. I thought we just kept our composure. You know they’re going to fight back full speed and I just thought we kept our composure.” 
The strike from this Auburn team always appeared to be coming in a way that could allow it to storm back quickly against this Vanderbilt team. At the very least, this Vanderbilt team appeared to be up against time with its lack of depth and the foul trouble that Commodores’ big men Jalen Washington, AK Okereke and Devin McGlockton had gotten themselves into against a team that is as good as anyone at drawing them. Pair that with its Saturday effort that resulted in its worst loss of the season as well as some injury troubles and this appeared to be a night in which Vanderbilt was in for a tough evening. 
Instead it beat the clock and stole one on the road. 
That was a culture win for this Vanderbilt basketball program. Perhaps it’s cliche to say, but that’s the proper way to describe this thing. In a spot that looked nearly insurmountable for this Vanderbilt team, it beat Auburn 84-76 and got it to the finish line. If it had been a 45-minute game rather than a 40-minute one, Vanderbilt surely would’ve lost. That’s not how this works, though. 
This was almost demoralizing for this Vanderbilt basketball team, but instead it got to celebrate with milkshakes. 
Vanderbilt deserved every bit of celebration that it had on Tuesday night because of everything that it had to fight to get here. This was likely the shortest rotation that Byington has ever played as Vanderbilt’s coach. It took every maneuver that Tanner had in him to get this thing to the finish line. It took every minute that Bing gave this group. 
This Vanderbilt team had enough, though. It’s leaving Neville Arena as a winner as a result. 
“It was a total team effort,” Byington said, “Everybody just made things happen to help us win.”
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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