No. 10 Vanderbilt Looks To Play Spoiler vs No. 7 St. Mary's
No. 10 Vanderbilt Commodores enter their first NCAA Tournament game in seven years against March Madness veterans in No. 7 St. Mary's Gaels on Friday. First year head coach Mark Byington's had his squad playing the underdog all season long in the Southeastern Conference and the Commodores have been largely successful in taking down numerous ranked teams to prepare themselves for this opportunity.
"Yeah, we're excited to be a part of the best sporting event in the world," Byington said. "We've had a great year, a challenging year, and our conference was demanding. We feel like everything along the way has put us in this moment to try to play our best against a really good Saint Mary's team. It was our mission right away to try to be at this spot and try to be at this moment and try to prepare for this. So this is a good group. I'm glad to get the opportunity to be able to play in this event, and I'm hoping we're going to be at our best on Friday.
The 'Dores are well rested after losing in their opening game of the SEC Tournament last week but the Gaels are as well as they lost the West Coast Conference championship game 10 days ago in Las Vegas.
Vanderbilt will be focused on playing efficient offense and embracing gritty defense as St. Mary's will attempt to slow the game down. The Gaels are one of the best defensive teams in the nation while play at one of the slowest offensive paces in the nation.
"It's easier to slow a team down," Byington said. "We're not going to be able to speed them up. The game is not going to be in the 90s. It's just not going to be the case. They're deliberate on offense. They get to what they want to. They take good shots. They rebound if they miss it. So it is longer possessions.
"And on defense, they're so good that you're not going to break them down in five, six, seven seconds like you can some teams. So they're going to make you kind of grind the possession out. So it's a challenge there. They are, I think the numbers are saying, like one of the top five slowest teams in the country. We played a couple teams like that this year, and we've got to learn from it. Sometimes we weren't comfortable with it and embraced it even though we were being successful.
"We've got to understand this game, that it's going to be a grind game. We've got to embrace their style, their pace, the possessions. We're going to try to score when we can early, middle or at the end of the shot clock, but at the same time, whatever is going on, we've got to realize, stay the course."
KenPom Comparison
Offensive efficiency: Vanderbilt - 117.9 (30) | St. Mary's - 115.4 (53)
Defensive efficiency: Vanderbilt - 102.0 (84) | St. Mary's - 92.2 (7)
Tempo: Vanderbilt - 69.5 (64) | St. Mary's - 61.8 (359)
Strength of Schedule: Vanderbilt - +12.80 (37) | St. Mary's - +5.57 (85)
Vanderbilt On SI
My name is Joe Gaither and I graduated from the University of Alabama in 2018. I began my sports media career in radio in 2019, working for three years in Tuscaloosa covering the University of Alabama and other local high school sports. In 2023 I began my career with On SI writing and covering predominantly college athletics with a focus on the University of Alabama, University of Missouri and Vanderbilt.