Inside Vanderbilt Basketball's Locker Room After NCAA Tournament Defeat to Nebraska – Sports Illustrated

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OKLAHOMA CITY—Tyler Tanner and Tyler Nickel hadn’t yet re-emerged from the media room yet, but a number of Vanderbilt managers were there ripping signs off the wall and shoving them into duffel bags. The signs had previously served as locker room decor for a run that was set to be magical. Now, they’re left for dead. 
No more room for “Beast Mode,” “Belt” or “Road Game.” All this group can use to label the end of this once-promising run is agony and gut-wrenching heartbreak. It was all there for this Vanderbilt team and staff to move its laminated signs all the way to Houston for the Sweet 16, then the shot rimmed out. 
Vanderbilt guard Tyler Tanner appeared to have fate on his side as everyone within Oklahoma City’s PayCom Center realized simultaneously that his halfcourt heave had a chance to fall, yet the basketball gods clearly had something against him. When the shot hit the rim for the second time after skipping off the glass, Tanner 
It’s the type of moment that nobody in this program will soon forget. It was haunting. Mystifying. What could Tanner have possibly done to deserve something like that? 
Tanner does everything right. He was the perfect superstar this season. He embraced Vanderbilt’s fanbase. He was as generous with his time as anyone. He was outspoken about things that were important to him. He was a professional. When uncomfortable topics arose, Tanner confronted them. 
This topic was as uncomfortable as Tanner has had to address, though. Tanner sat there between Vanderbilt wing Tyler Nickel and veteran guard Duke Miles and faced the music after what he may eventually consider his life’s greatest heartbreak. 
“That one, it’s probably going to haunt me forever,” Tanner told Vandy on SI. “I want to just focus on being grateful for how good of a year it was for this team. We made history in a lot of ways. But, I'm definitely gonna end up thinking about this a good amount, just because that was the last play of this season.” 
Tanner’s season was among the most successful that any Vanderbilt player has had in recent memory. It included a First-Team All-SEC selection, an All-American nomination and a legitimate step into stardom. Now, though, all he can think about is this cruel moment. During the media availability Tanner held at his locker, he took a moment as he was seemingly holding back tears. 
It appears as if a number of others in the Vanderbilt locker room were in the same boat, even if they expressed their frustrations differently. 
“F*** man,” a Vanderbilt player muttered in the locker room well after the game’s conclusion. 
“Oh my God,” another Vanderbilt player said a few minutes later. “F***”
A walk into the Vanderbilt locker room included watching AK Okereke stare off into the distance as he seemingly made an effort to wrap his mind around how something like that could possibly have happened to this group. Vanderbilt big man Jalen Washington sat to Okereke’s left with his head down and eventually received a hug from Vanderbilt strength and conditioning coach Brady Welsh. Vanderbilt big man Devin McGlockton also embraced Welsh for a hug at his locker after speaking with the media. 
Washington and McGlockton are among the players on this Vanderbilt team that saw their college careers wash away as Tanner and the bright orange Wilson basketball hit the ground. Vanderbilt wing Tyler Nickel, standout guard Duke Miles and walk-on Miles Keeffe–who is Vanderbilt’s longest-tenured player are also done. They know it, too. 
“It sucks,” Nickel told Vandy on SI. “Just knowing that it was that close to not being over. Yeah, it hurts. There's a lot of other things that went into it, not to say that it was all on that shot. 
It wasn't. [Tanner] just put up a great look at the end, but man, the end stinks.” 
Perhaps some didn’t allow the reality to sink in, but the moments that this group sat at its lockers in near silence were among the last that it will ever share together. Nickel, Miles, McGlockton, Washington and Keeffe are forced to move on. Tanner has a big decision on his hands. Vanderbilt freshmen Chandler Bing and Jayden Leverett say they’ll be back, but they’ll have a nearly entirely new nucleus surrounding them. 
All that Vanderbilt’s old guys could do as they addressed the media was address how they’d like to be remembered as members of this program. A number of them were early visionaries that gave Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington a chance to win right away as Vanderbilt’s head coach. A number elevated the foundation that Nickel and McGlockton had already built as members of Byington’s first Vanderbilt team. 
This is difficult for Vanderbilt’s players because of what could’ve been. What they did was special, though, as a Vanderbilt staffer told them. Perhaps one day they’ll remember that rather than sitting in the relentless agony that they did on Saturday night. 
“There is a lot of hurt in that locker room right now because they do care. They did not want it to end. They love each other. That's not in every locker room,” Byington said. “I'm really going to miss this group. I'm really, really going to miss this group.”
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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, Basket Under Review and Mainstreet Nashville.
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