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NASHVILLE—Vanderbilt center Jayden Leverett was unintentionally posing, hand in the air and a shooter’s lean back. Leverett appeared uncertain as the ball flew through the air, but perhaps he shouldn’t have been.
He shot that ball on this Tuesday night in Memorial Gymnasium, otherwise known as Vanderbilt basketball’s night. On this night, it was only on brand that Leverett’s attempt would fall.
Before Leverett had removed his outstretched hand from the air, his shot had ripped through the net in front of the Vanderbilt bench. Leverett celebrated. So did Vanderbilt’s bench. So did Vanderbilt freshman guard Ant Brown as he ran down the floor making a hand gesture. And celebrate they had every right to.
This was Vanderbilt basketball’s night, and it wasn’t going to let Memphis take it.
By the end of it, Vanderbilt had poured it on Memphis enough and made enough of a statement in the progress the final score was relatively insignificant to everyone in the building. They got it. A few numbers didn’t change anything. That was a butt whooping unlike any that Vanderbilt has put on Memphis in recent memory. How about a best guess at the final score?
“A lot to a little bit,” a Memphis fan said as he left the gym.
Jayden Leverett, bang.
This is Vanderbilt’s night. What a performance. pic.twitter.com/p2ODwvtiBg
Vanderbilt will inevitably see better teams than Memphis down the line, but if it can replicate its Tuesday performance when it plays its most important games it will surely finish its season in the second or third weekend of the NCAA Tournament. That’s the type of performance Vanderbilt’s donors believed Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington could get out of the group he assembled when they equipped him with one of the sport’s biggest budgets. It’s the type of showing Byington envisioned when he declared over the summer that he’s not dismissing that this group could have Final Four expectations.
With the way Byington talked all offseason and with the talent he assembled, it was easy to deduce that something like this was always in there. Now, Byington and company have proof of concept. What Vanderbilt did Tuesday was among the best non-conference performances of the Byington tenure. Byington still had reservations about Vanderbilt’s first-half performance, but he couldn’t have had many by the end of the night.
“The second half, that was definitely us,” Vanderbilt forward Sebastian WIlliams-Adams–who went for 11 points on 4-for-7 shooting–told Vandy on SI, “And it definitely showed us what we could be.”
It wasn’t merely that Vanderbilt got it rolling offensively the way Byington urged it to all weekend as he spent hours hammering in the importance of swinging it multiple times and getting into the paint multiple times before taking ill-advised shots from 3-point range, it was that Byington got proof of concept that his adjusted roster strategy paid off. Byington spent the spring investing heavily into Vanderbilt’s frontcourt in an effort to raise its floor and ceiling. If Tuesday was any indication, his investment paid off.
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. For once, Vanderbilt dictated the game in this series. For once, Vanderbilt was the aggressor.
Vanderbilt forced Memphis to turn it over just six times, lost the points in the paint battle 40-38, put Memphis on the foul line 34 times and still won the physicality battle significantly. Its preseason All-American guard Tyler Tanner didn’t have his best and missed five open shots from 3-point range. But, it didn’t matter. Ace Glass demonstrated that he's an ample Robin to Tanner. Williams-Adams demonstrated that he's ready to take a step. Buyuktuncel and Barrett demonstrated that they're assets on the perimeter.
To wrap it all, Vanderbilt won the game 105-82.
"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.”
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.
Perhaps most significantly, its roster largely made up of questionable 3-point shooters couldn’t seem to miss and demonstrated that it may be a good enough shooting team to accomplish all it’s setting out to, after all. Vanderbilt shot 15-for-32 on the day and got 3-point makes from seven different players–including a few who declared this offseason that they needed to improve as shooters to maximize their skillsets.
For that group, Tuesday was a statement that indicated their work has paid off and could raise Vanderbilt’s ceiling significantly. For Vanderbilt as a whole, this was a declaration that this Memphis rivalry is entirely lopsided despite it being a noble pursuit. That was perhaps the least significant takeaway of the night as the contingent of Memphis fans on hand flooded the exits at the under-four media timeout in the second half, though.
The real takeaway is that Vanderbilt has something on its hands here. It always knew that, but it finally showed it Tuesday. If it shows that with any level of consistency, it’s easy to dream about where this can all go. It believes it will.
“We’ve got a lot of getting better to do,” Barrett said. “Don’t get too happy off the win. Of course, celebrate it and enjoy it. But, don’t get too happy, too high off this.”
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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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