Vanderbilt Commodores End Nonconference Schedule on High Note With Blowout Win
Coming into the 2024-25 men’s college basketball season, no one knew what to really expect from the Vanderbilt Commodores.
The Jerry Stackhouse era did not go according to plan, so he was relieved of his duties after finishing with a losing record in three out of five campaigns.
Taking over as head coach is Mark Byington, who is coming off a historic 2023-24 season with the James Madison Dukes, which included a victory in the NCAA Tournament.
In Year 1 of the Byington Era, his presence has already been felt as the team is playing its best basketball in years.
On Monday night, their dominance continued in their final nonconference game of the regular season against the New Orleans Privateers.
The Commodores ran their home record to 8-0 on the year with a 100-56 victory, moving their overall record to 12-1. That win means that Byington has won more games in his first campaign with the program than Stackhouse did in three of his seasons in charge.
It is an incredibly impressive feat, especially given how many new faces he was working into the lineup.
One of them is Tyler Nickel, formerly of the Virginia Tech Hokies, who scored a game-high 19 points, going 7-of-14 from the field and 5-of-10 from 3-point range.
He rounded out his stat line with four rebounds, two assists and one steal in 26 minutes of action.
Nickel was one of four Vanderbilt players to score in double-figures.
In the starting lineup alongside him, Devin McGlockton scored 14. Off the bench, the team’s leading scorer, Jason Edwards, had 17 while Tyler Tanney added 16.
All 15 players for the Commodores got into the game, playing at least one minute. Only three of them didn’t get into the scoring column, as it was a total team effort running the Privateers out of Memorial Gymnasium.
Byington is certainly hoping this is a sign of things to come, as one of their major weaknesses to this point was the 3-point line.
Vanderbilt hasn’t been efficient shooting them and has struggled to slow down their opponents, but on Monday, they were excellent in both regards, as New Orleans shot only 23.5% from distance and the Commodores knocked down 41.2%.
As the team prepares for SEC play, they are going to rely heavily on the back of an explosive offense.
Their 86.5 points per game are tied for 16th in the nation and they are currently 66th in points allowed with 66.1.
This was the third time this year that Vanderbilt reached the 100-point mark.
The last time the team touched triple digits before this season was in 2018 against the Savannah State Tigers, a Division II team.
