How A Text–And Belief–Led To Vanderbilt Basketball's Win Over Tennessee – Sports Illustrated

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KNOXVILLE, TN—Vanderbilt walk-on Coleson Messer found out mid Saturday morning that Tennessee’s senior night was taking place ahead of Vanderbilt’s matchup with the Volunteers and would shake up Saturday’s pregame schedule, so he went to the team group chat. 
“Let’s ruin their senior night,” Messer told the team via text message. 
The text would’ve been left for dead and would’ve stayed within the confines of Vanderbilt’s team group chat had this gone awry, but it became a significant piece of the lore that defines the new era of this rivalry as a result of what Vanderbilt did Saturday. The Commodores picked up an 86-82 win over Rick Barnes’ Tennessee team and secured its first victory at Thompson-Boling Arena since the 2016-17 season. 
As star Vanderbilt guard Tyler Tanner addressed the media in the moments following his 25-point performance against Tennessee, he brought the message to light. Perhaps it’s simple, but it’s emblematic of the fearlessness and boldness it took for this Vanderbilt team to get the job done in a place that’s traditionally been a house of horrors for this program. 
Vanderbilt always believed that this could be the case, though. When two of its four frontcourt members–AK Okereke and Jalen Washington–entered the media room after its first matchup with Tennessee, they had a declaration to make. Vanderbilt lost that game in the final minute, and those two didn’t appear to believe that it was indicative of who the better team was. 
“The best thing about it is that we’re gonna play them soon,” Okereke said at the time. “That’s all that’s on our mind, really. We’ll focus on the next game first and then we’ll play them again.”
“We’re gonna play them again,” Washington added. “It’s [about] just improving on what we did wrong, or didn’t do well, in this game and it’s just building on what works for us.” 
If Saturday is any indication, Vanderbilt found what works for it. Vanderbilt won this game with a defensive performance that allowed it to hold Tennessee to 82 points on 44.3% shooting from the field and 25.0% shooting from 3-point range. The Volunteers turned it over 11 times, which resulted in 11 Vanderbilt points. Tennessee guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie went for 17 points on 22 shots while turning it over five times. 
This Vanderbilt team–which now can say something that just 22 teams in program history can–was better than Tennessee was bad on Saturday. It had the best player on the floor in Tyler Tanner–who went for 25 points while missing just two shots and sealing it late. It matched Tennessee’s calling card of physicality, too. In most ways, it was just flat out better than Tennessee. 
A result like that in this building is as unfamiliar as anything within this building, but Vanderbilt wing Tyler Nickel declared that “this is what we came here to do” as he walked off the floor as if to indicate that this was business as usual.
In some ways, it was. 
“We all felt that we were a better team even in the first one, when we lost because we played in our words, like a C to C- minus game for us,” Nickel told Vandy on SI. “Coming into this game, we knew that we were gonna show a better version of ourselves. Knowing how powerful a sweep would be for them and for us going forward, we weren’t going to let that happen. We came in here and it was very straightforward, focused on what we needed to happen.” 
What happened on Saturday ended in an exodus of fans wearing orange in their team’s own gym and Vanderbilt flipping this rivalry that had so often been defined by Tennessee running it off the floor in this place. 
This group doesn’t believe that it has to be defined by that history, though. Okereke told Vandy on SI that the history wasn’t in his mind prior to Saturday’s game, although it is meaningful that Vanderbilt won in this place for the first time in a long time. Perhaps that’s why this happened the way it did. 
For once, Vanderbilt basketball was the aggressor in the place in which it’s often not been in games. It was nearly as physical as Tennessee was–as evidenced by the 40-to-31 final rebounding score. In a lot of ways it was just flat out better than the Volunteers were. Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington says he sometimes feels as if his program is chasing Tennessee. 
Not Saturday, though. 
Coach kept harping on ‘we didn't play well at all against them,’” Okereke told Vandy on SI. “He basically said we had a C, maybe even D game. We knew that if we played even close to what our potential is, we were going to win this game.”
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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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