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NASHVILLE—Deducing which of Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington and Wake Forest coach Steve Forbest won by 23 and which lost by 23 a Thursday ago at Memorial Gymnasium with no context just as easily could’ve led to the conclusion that Forbes’ team won. It wasn’t that Forbes was overly enthusiastic about the way his group played. It was more about how frustrated Byington appeared to be in spite of his team moving to 2-0.
When Byington took the podium postgame, it was almost as if the reporters on hand had to remind Byington of the positive to get him to say it. Byington clearly had a long night of watching tape and coming up with a plan of action ahead of him. Turns out, it’s paid off.
Vanderbilt looked like the team Byington believes it can be on Tuesday as it took down Memphis 105-82 while shooting 15-for-32 from 3-point range and getting five scorers into double figures.
Prior to Vanderbilt taking the floor Tuesday, it was only doing a few things at a high level and was lacking an identity offensively. Byington appeared to believe there was too much isolation and that there weren’t enough instances of his team seeing the actions through offensively. As a result, Vanderbilt worked on itself in practice before it shifted its focus to Memphis prep early in the week.
“It was hard. I'm not gonna lie, but I mean, it got us better,” Vanderbilt guard Ace Glass told Vandy on SI. “I feel like we did a great job at that, swinging it back and forth, trying to get it into both corners, back around. So I feel like we did a great job at that.
We executed our game plan.”
Byington emphasized swinging the ball multiple times, getting into the paint and kicking it before taking a perimeter shot and not taking a 3-point shot without making an effort to put pressure on the rim. As a result, Glass was able to sit at the podium postgame and point out that Vanderbilt went for 20 assists. As a result, Vanderbilt went for 105 points Tuesday on 57.1% shooting from the field and was boosted by scoring from 10 different players.
In a series that Memphis has seemingly always played up in, Vanderbilt prevented it from doing all the things that it’s always done to get under its skin. Vanderbilt threw the first bunch. Vanderbilt was more physical. Vanderbilt dictated the tempo. Vanderbilt ran its offense without getting out of character or having its actions cut off by physical defensive play.
Vanderbilt out-rebounded Memphis 44-to-29, had 18 second-chance points to Memphis’ eight, outscored its frontcourt 41-to-12 with its frontcourt and grabbed 12 offensive rebounds.That’s the type of thing Memphis used to do to Vanderbilt, but Vanderbilt bullied Memphis on Tuesday night.
“It was definitely like an emphasis, playing for each other,” Vanderbilt forward Sebastian Williams-Adams said. “Obviously, getting a talented team like Memphis, you can see if the fruits of your labor will pay off. And I mean, I think they did.”
As for Byington?
"Really proud of the way we played,” Byington–a notoriously tough man to satisfy, particularly at this point in the season–said postgame. “I think you saw a breakthrough. Something we weren't doing the first two games, stylewise, how we're supposed to play on offense and I thought our offense was really sharp tonight, clicking and passing and seeing the guys and and we played as a team on offense, and when we pass like that, we're going to shoot very well.”
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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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