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NASHVILLE—Vanderbilt basketball ran away from Prairie View A&M on Friday night in an 89-62 win, but there was still plenty to be desired from it.
Prairie View A&M won the second half of Friday-night’s game and the two Vanderbilt players that spoke as well as Mark Byington appeared to be relatively frustrated when they took the podium on Friday night.
Here’s the good, bad and the ugly from Vanderbilt basketball’s Friday-night win at Memorial Gymnasium, in which it moved to 4-0 on the season.
Here’s a microcosm of Vanderbilt’s night
Vanderbilt walk-on Chase Byington checked in around the 3:02 mark in the second half.
This thing was never in doubt and really wasn’t a game for most of the night. That’s not a terrible team that Vanderbilt just played, but it made it look like one.
That was domination, just like it should be.
Vanderbilt has still yet to lose a buy game in the Mark Byington era and isn’t showing signs of even being close to doing so. That’s how it should be, even though it wasn’t that way for a long time around these parts.
Vanderbilt completely overwhelmed Prairie View
Watching Vanderbilt for the stretches of Friday night in which it was really dialed in on playing the right way was watching it look like it wasn’t even going to give up a shot attempt to Prairie View.
It had active hands. It had far more size, speed and physicality. For a stretch in the late first half and early second half, Vanderbilt was taking it just about every time and was putting on a dunk contest on the other end.
That’s what Byington built this team on potentially doing, overwhelming teams and winning because of its size and strength; not in spite of it. It wasn’t difficult whatsoever to tell so the better team was and where this was heading.
Vanderbilt’s lead was as much as 45 and it never trailed Friday night.
Byington isn’t thrilled with that
From his first moments in Friday’s press conference to the end of it, Byington wasn’t happy.
He opened by saying it was sloppy. He insinuated that Vanderbilt needs better leadership and that he’s going to adjust the rotation according to what he saw from certain players on Friday night, both for good and bad. He was upset that Vanderbilt was outscored in the second half of Friday’s game.
Expect it to be an interesting few days in Huber Center where Vanderbilt conducts a self examination of sorts and Byington challenges some players to be at their best, either in a leadership setting or in terms of playing with the right intensity.
This team still needs more maturity and needs to figure out what exactly this is all going to look like moving forward.
Vanderbilt’s sophomore class had a big night
Chandler Bing and Jayden Leverett both went for career highs and looked like legitimately helpful players for a team that has aspirations of making the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
Bing guarded full court and was doing the right things all night on a night in which a lot of Vanderbilt’s roster wasn’t. Leverett was physical and asserted his dominance from a size and physicality perspective all night.
Leverett went for eight points on 4-for-4 shooting while Bing went for 15 on 5-for-7 shooting. Those two are x-factors for this group and appeared to be at their best.
Here’s who has earned extended run
Byington indicated that everyone who’s been in the rotation through the first four games won’t, so let’s give this a guess.
Tyler Tanner and Ace Glass will be around 30-minute per game guys. Bing will be next up. Sebastian Williams-Adams–who went for nine points on 4-for-5 shooting on Friday–Berke Buyuktuncel, Bangot Dak, T.O. Barrett and Leverett all appear to have cemented at least some role. Ant Brown and Jackson Sheffield will still play, but their leashes may be shorter than they’ve been because they aren’t necessarily impacting winning every night these days.
For now, Vanderbilt appears to have a solid eight and is open to adding more to it.
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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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