What Mark Byington Said After Vanderbilt’s SEC Championship Loss to Arkansas – Sports Illustrated

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Vanderbilt men’s basketball took a 86-75 loss to Arkansas in the SEC Championship Sunday in a game that was filled with entertainment, shotmaking and runs.
Vanderbilt and Arkansas were going shot for shot in a cinematic display of offense in the first half before Arkansas eventually got on a 12-0 in the final three minutes of the game to seal the tournament championship. In the end, Vanderbilt could not overcome the scoring droughts it saw in the second half.
Vanderbilt head coach Mark Byington spoke to the media after the game. Here is everything he said.
Opening Statement
“First thing is congratulations to Arkansas. They made the plays they had to make to be able to win the game. And I thought we played really well. A lot of things did not go our way. I mean, the breaks of this game, where on a normal night, we feel like we're going to be on the right side of the scoreboard.”
“They had guys who were, all season long, (indiscernible) 3-point shooters. They made shots tonight. Give them credit. Brazile, Richmond, and Wagner, they were 9 for 12 in 3-point line, and every one of them is below a 30 percent guy, and I think Richmond is 14 percent. Sometimes it doesn't go your way. Acuff was terrific. Our guys competed. They played hard. We played the right way. It was a great tournament run.”
“We do a great job at this. Our program is about when we get knocked down, we get back up. We're dejected. We wanted this. We put everything into it. We'll get back up and we're excited about the NCAA tournament coming up next week.”
Mark, you've got Tyler, Duke. You've got some great guards. What is Darius Acuff doing right now?
“His shiftiness and speed's elite. His speed and the way he moves is going to be good for the NBA too. It's not just college. With him needing more than one guy that can guard him, team defense, we were compromised today because we wanted multiple bodies at him to try to help out. He's a willing passer. He can make the right play. We tried to make other guys make plays, and they did.”
“So it was just one of those things where he's so talented, he didn't fight the game. He stayed aggressive. But he made plays for his teammates and himself. He's tough to guard. There's not a lot of great game plans, obviously, this year that people have been able to stop him.”
Coach, when you look at the rebounding balance today, one of the biggest narratives about your team this season is they're undersized. But the rebounding battle against Arkansas was fairly even today. Looking at it, how does that make you more confident going forward that one of the things that has been one of your perceived shortcomings for the team kept you in the battle today?
“I think all tournament long, we went against the toughest rebounding teams and held our own. The rebounding really in all of these games weren't a factor to cost us the game. We'd like it to be positive. Maybe we're not quite built that way.”
“At the same time, our guys, I love the way they fight. I love the way they compete. Sometimes, there's undersized guys, but at the same time our toughness can come through. It did today too. We just didn't quite have enough.”
Mark, you mentioned early in the season you wanted to get more fans to Memorial. You said yesterday, let's get Vandy fans in Bridgestone. Today did you look at the atmosphere and see the support and feel like they listened to you?
“I can tell you this. I was hearing the chants of VU and echoing out through Bridgestone. It felt good. It felt like they loved this team and they loved the work we put in.”
“We wanted this game not just for ourselves, not just for Vanderbilt as a whole but for the fan base. We do feel — we're hurt right now. We wanted it for a lot of people and put a lot into this. The crowd that came out was tremendous. We love and appreciate that and, hopefully, they travel with us to wherever we're going in the NCAA Tournament. We don't like to let people down when they give to us like that. It was a great crowd.”
Coach, this is John Calipari's 16th conference championship. How hard is it to coach against somebody with that much experience? What can you learn from it on the sidelines?
“It wasn't myself against Calipari. He's won 900 games. I sent him a text message a couple weeks ago when he got it. A tremendous coach.”
“It wasn't myself against him. If he was coaching the 3-point shooting with those guys, then yeah, he did an unbelievable job. He's a Hall-of-Famer, a great coach. I'll learn from everything.”
“In this type of situation, you have to dare to be great. You've got to dare to put yourself in these moments. Hopefully, this moment comes again for myself and whatever Vanderbilt team we have next.”
Mark, the second half when Brazile and Arkansas start the firing off 3s faster than the first half, you called a couple time-outs during several points. Did you try to adjust or tell your team in that back stretch when it came to that perimeter defense?
“It was a lot of staying the course. If you get spread on Acuff, he's going to the rim. We just didn't have — nobody has somebody to keep him in front. So that's a challenge right there.”
“I'm going to relive this probably for the rest of my life. You're thinking it's four minutes to go, it's a one-possession game. And Brazile makes a 3. And then Tyler Tanner, who was unbelievable, misses a lay-up. AK Okereke misses a wide-open 3. Jalen Washington misses at the rim. Things went against us. We're fighting for a rebound, the ball gets tipped in. Acuff throws up a 3 one time as a prayer and it goes in.”
“That's a lot to overcome. We couldn't overcome it, and it was their day. We did everything we could to try to make it ours and try to turn it around. Those things are hard to overcome.”
“We almost did. That was the thing. We almost overcame all of that.”
Mark, a lot of coaches here, we've talked seeding and we deserve to be this or that. What do you expect here in a couple of hours? What are you wanting to see? What do you think you'll see?
“Normally, I'm into it. I know this because it's a fact somebody told me. We've got ten Quad 1 wins. It's sixth most in the country. Y'all can fact check that. I hope I'm not wrong. This league, the way we're playing right now, we should be a high seed.”
“Regardless, we're not going to bicker. We're not going to complain. As soon as they announce where we're going, we're almost erasing the numbers. We're happy to be there. We'll compete. But this team has had a really good year. So they earned something high, but that's out of our control right now. We had our lost chance here a couple minutes ago.”
“I do hope the brackets weren't set a couple days ago and they were watching us all the way through here because we could have got this game. We got the last two. We're playing good basketball.”
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Graham Baakko is a writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI, primarily covering football, basketball and baseball. Graham is a recent graduate from the University of Alabama, where he wrote for The Crimson White, WVUA-FM, WVUA 23 as he covered a variety of Crimson Tide sports. He also covered South Carolina athletics as a sportswriting intern for GamecockCentral.
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