Vanderbilt extends contract of men’s basketball coach Mark Byington – Chattanooga Times Free Press

NASHVILLE — Vanderbilt is keeping Mark Byington around after he became the first coach in Commodores men’s basketball history to win 20 or more games each of his first two seasons.
Vanderbilt director Candice Storey Lee announced a contract extension Saturday, a week after the team’s season ended in the second round of the NCAA Division I tournament, the second straight appearance in March Madness for the Commodores.
In a release, Lee said Byington is integral to what Vanderbilt is building for the long haul with basketball an important part of the university.
“Mark understood that relationship from the beginning and won over Commodore Nation with his selfless spirit and an entertaining style of play that honors our commitment to aim higher and be bolder than ever before,” Lee said. “Across athletics, our new era is just getting started, and I look forward to Mark, and our men’s basketball team, helping to lead the way.”
Byington, who turns 50 on April 22, coached Vanderbilt to a 20-13 record in his debut 2024-25 campaign, an 11-win improvement from the previous season under fifth-year head coach Jerry Stackhouse. The Commodores went 27-9 in Byington’s second year, a victory short of the single-season program record, and they matched the best start in program history by winning their first 16 games.
After going 11-7 in Southeastern Conference regular-season games to earn the No. 4 seed for the league tournament, they won two games to reach the title matchup at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena — just a couple miles from Vanderbilt’s campus — before losing to Arkansas.
With such success, home attendance also jumped by nearly 40% at Memorial Gymnasium from the average before Byington was hired in March 2024. He came to Vanderbilt after a four-year run at James Madison, having also spent one season as Georgia Southern’s head coach after leading the College of Charleston for 11 games on an interim basis before that.
Byington’s name has been mentioned in reporting on several high-profile job openings since the fifth-seeded Commodores lost 74-72 to fourth-seeded Nebraska in their NCAA second-round matchup on March 21 in Oklahoma City — a 3-point shot by Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner rimmed out as the final horn sounded — but this would seem to put an end to such speculation, at least for now.
“At Vanderbilt, we are committed to doing what it takes to win at the highest level of Division-I athletics while holding fast to our values as a university,” Daniel Diermeier, the school’s chancellor, said in the release. “I applaud Mark for demonstrating that those values are a blueprint for historic success.”
Byington thanked Diermeier and Lee for their trust in the vision that Vanderbilt can be one of the nation’s elite programs. Vanderbilt opened a new building in January 2025 featuring a full-length practice court, locker room, meeting rooms and offices for its men’s and women’s programs.
Vanderbilt went into the NCAA men’s tourney ranked 16th in the AP Top 25 poll.
“From making me feel welcome in Nashville to stepping up to support this program in meaningful ways at a time in our game when that has never been more important, Commodore Nation has made it clear they believe in what we’re building,” Byington said. “I can’t thank them enough for making Vanderbilt home.”
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