Could Vanderbilt Basketball Have Its Best Defensive Team of Byington Era? – Sports Illustrated

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NASHVILLE — In two seasons of Vanderbilt basketball under head coach Mark Byington, the Commodores have not made their name off mainly being a team that plays constricting defense and owns the rebounding battle.
Vanderbilt has been more so of an offensive program that plays fast and can score with the vast majority of teams in college basketball. A season ago, Vanderbilt would have been fine if it competed on the boards with some of its toughest opponents.
But that is not the case this season. This year, Vanderbilt brings much more size to the court than it did in the 2025-26 season. With big man transfers such as Bangot Dak and Berke Buyuktuncel, the Commodores should be a much bigger threat in the rebounding battle and protecting the rim.
And defending in general, Vanderbilt brought back Chandler Bing and brought in Sebastian Williams-Adams from the transfer portal to help out in the half-court defending.
Byington knows the way his team has won the last two seasons has been with his teams’ offense. But he does not mind if that flips to winning more because of defense this season. As long as it produces a winning team, Byington and his roster are good with it.
The defensive potential Vanderbilt has this season is there. Could it be the best Byington has had in his time in Nashville? He thinks it is a possibility.
“I hope we get there and that’s what we’ve told our guys. We’ve won a certain way since I’ve been here but that doesn’t mean we have to win the exact same way this year. So we might be more of a defensive team this year than offensively, which has been opposite,” Byington said. “And we’re built that way, especially our back row guys. Our backside of it, we got some physicality, some guys that can fix mistakes back there.”
Perhaps one of the more underrated aspects of Vanderbilt’s defense is what point guard Tyler Tanner can do on the defensive end. Everyone knows how he is able to run the offense, but Tanner possesses the ability to take the ball away at a good rate.
Still, though, Tanner is not satisfied with where his defensive game is at right now. Defense has been Tanner’s main focus over the offseason as he enters his third season for Vanderbilt.
As he went through the NBA Draft process over the offseason, scouts and front office people gave Tanner feedback, telling him to continue to improve defensively. That was something Tanner took to heart and has applied since.
“Obviously offense, I work on it every day but when we’re live and stuff, it’s defense. Eliminating ball screens, just being a stronger defender and being less of a weak link for my team,” Tanner said. “You don’t want to stick out. You never want to be that guy on the scouting report that they’re trying to get you to switch on somebody bigger or whatever it is.”
If Tanner is able to show improvement defensively, it would certainly add another element in terms of what issues Vanderbilt can pose to its opponents this season.
Tanner has also seen this year’s team in practice and what Vanderbilt can really bring defensively in the upcoming season. What seems to separate Vanderbilt defensively this season than the first two of Byington’s seasons is a collective willingness to guard and play defense. Tanner said he has observed everyone in practice guarding hard and stringing stops together.
“I think so,” Tanner said when asked if he felt this is the best defense Vanderbilt has had in his career. “We notice it in practice. There will be times where we get a lot of stops in a row. So we have a lot of good defenders. I would probably say it’s the best one we’ve had in my opinion.”
Vanderbilt certainly has the pieces to be a strong defensive team. The only thing left to see is how it comes together throughout the season.
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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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