Vanderbilt Commodores Men's Basketball Team Making Strides in NET Ranking
The Vanderbilt Commodores have been one of the pleasant surprises in the 2024-25 men’s college basketball season to this point.
With their 85-55 win over the Austin Peay Governors on Saturday afternoon, the team is now 11-1 out of the gate. Their only loss is to the Drake Bulldogs at the Charleston Classic on Nov. 24.
Mark Byington could not have asked for a better start from his squad in his first year as head coach. After leading the James Madison Dukes to a 32-4 record in the 2023-24 campaign, which included a victory in the NCAA Tournament, he took the job in Nashville to replace Jerry Stackhouse.
The 11 victories they have is already more than the team won last year under Stackhouse.
In three out of his five seasons at the helm, the Commodores won 11 or fewer games, so the Byington era is off to a great start.
While the level of competition hasn’t been very strong, it is still encouraging to see this group full of transfers and new faces playing at such a high level.
They are handling business and defeating whoever is put in front of them, which has resulted in a steady climb up the NET Rankings, one of the keys that analysts use when evaluating programs throughout the year.
The first edition of these rankings was revealed on Dec. 1 and Vanderbilt landed at No. 62.
In the three weeks since, the team has gone 4-0, including a road win over the Virginia Tech Hokies in the SEC/ACC Challenge and a neutral site victory over the TCU Horned Frogs in the Coast to Coast Challenge which was another strong performance against a power conference school.
That has helped move them to No. 40 in the NET Ranking.
They do not have a Quad 1 victory on their resume currently, so that will be something to monitor as the rankings get adjusted throughout the campaign.
Right now, their average opponent NET Rank is 297 making their strength of schedule not great. But, there will be plenty of opportunities for Quad 1 victories playing in a loaded SEC conference.
For a team that has struggled to win as much as the Commodores have in recent years, stacking victories regardless of the competition is a confidence booster.
They have one more non-conference game against the New Orleans Privateers before starting their daunting SEC schedule with a visit to the LSU Tigers.
Entering conference play with a 12-1 record would put the team squarely in the mix for an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament if they play near .500 basketball in the SEC.
