Welcome to The New Era of The Mark Byington Era, The Overwhelming Era – Sports Illustrated

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NASHVILLE—Mark Byington knows what Bellarmine coach Doug Davenport is feeling as he leaves Memorial Gymnasium on Monday night and boards the bus ahead of an hours-long trip back to Louisville. He knows the demoralization, the questioning Davenport will inevitably go through before the bus pulls into the arena.
“I’ve been on the other side of these where I’ve gotten beaten pretty bad,” Byington—who had to schedule a few buy games a year when he was Georgia Southern’s coach—said. “The school’s got to make money and everything else. But, with us and with our team, the whole focus was we just got to learn our team and get better.”
Vanderbilt learned a lot early as Bellarmine pushed it and kept the game close, but learned less and less as this thing went. At a point in the middle of the first half, Bellarmine couldn’t do much to challenge it. What Vanderbilt was doing to it felt cruel. 
Byington feels for Davenport and his team, but his job is now to deliver beatings like his program did Monday night. His job is to position his team as well as possible to rise in the NET rankings. His job is to put the program in the best possible light for the NCAA Tournament committee to see. Byington constructed his team for that purpose. 
He says he wasn’t trying to run the score up on Bellarmine, even when he kept his go-to guys in the game deep into the second half so that he didn’t burn anyone out, but his team naturally ran away from Bellarmine. Monday looked like the varsity vs. the junior varsity after the first few minutes of the game. 
Byington’s team could never be mistaken for a midmajor, which it presumably could have been a season ago. Maybe when it had average-sized guards, often played a natural small forward at power forward and lacked real bodies and depth at the five. Not right now, though. Not this year. 
Vanderbilt didn’t lose a buy game in Byington’s first two years, but that was often a result of it being significantly more talented than the teams it played rather than completely overwhelming them. Monday, it was both. 
It was all but a given that this Vanderbilt team–which entered with a 99.7% chance to win, via KenPom–would win big on Monday, but it wasn’t a guarantee that it would completely demoralize Bellarmine. Maybe it should’ve been. 
After Vanderbilt got out of some of the stuff it was trying defensively early and started playing Bellarmine–who it believes is challenging because of its unfamiliar offensive style and tendency to post guards up–straight up, Bellarmine appeared to be laboring to even get a shot up and shot just 37.0% from the field. It wasn’t all that dissimilar on the other end. 
Vanderbilt and Bellarmine were tied 14-14, then Vanderbilt happened. When the shine wore off of Bellarmine’s early energy and Byington’s team decided to kick it in gear, it ran Bellarmine off the floor within a 45-5 run–which was a 41-3 run at one point and a 50-7 run at another time. 
That’s pretty wild, right?
“The last time I was part of something like that was third grade,” Vanderbilt forward Sebastian Williams-Adams said. “We were running a trap and didn’t let them get across halfcourt.” 
“I don’t remember a time,” Vanderbilt guard Tyler Tanner said. 
Bellarmine turned it over 23 times and recorded just eight assists. Vanderbilt outrebounded it 38-20 total and 11-6 on the offensive glass, which was particularly impressive considering it missed seven shots less than Bellarmine did. It held Bellarmine to 47 points on 23.8% shooting from 3-point range. It forced four shot-clock violations. It scored 37 points off turnovers, compared to Bellarmine’s five. It scored 52 points in the paint compared to Bellarmine’s 20. 
Byington clearly sacrificed some things when he opted to allocate his funding more towards the frontcourt and defense and less towards stretching the floor and playing up tempo, but he saw the fruits of his labor on Monday. 
“They were running offense near half court,” Byington said. “That was a team that last year led the country in field-goal percentage, twos mainly, and had a couple good 3-point shooters…I thought our guys did a good job of not only being excited to play, but sticking to the gameplan.” 
What Vanderbilt did Monday didn’t merely happen because this was Bellarmine. This happened because of how Vanderbilt built its roster. This can happen regardless of who it plays. It could happen to Wake Forest when it comes to Memorial Gymnasium on Thursday for Vanderbilt’s first real test. It could happen to an SEC team when it comes in here. This is what the way Byington built this team allows it to do. 
Byington was borderline giddy on Friday when he talked about a practice lineup he put on the floor that involved five players that stand 6-foot-5 or taller. Vanderbilt has four rotational pieces that stand 6-foot-10 or taller. It’s got five other scholarship players that are 6-foot-5 or taller. The only scholarship guys on its roster that are under 6-foot-5 are Tanner, Ace Glass and Ant Brown. 
That’s how something like Monday happens. That’s how Vanderbilt takes a historically solid midmajor program and makes it look like a group of guys that Davenport picked up off the street in the hours prior to Monday’s game. This is about Bellarmine and how far it has to go, too, but man does that say something about Vanderbilt and its ability to overwhelm.
“We definitely have the talent to,” Williams-Adams said in regard to that ability. “Now, it’s more about the want to.”
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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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