Vanderbilt Commodores Projected To Be Part of SEC Record-Setting Tournament Teams
The Vanderbilt Commodores have been one of the most pleasant surprises thus far in men’s college basketball this season.
With their victory over the New Orleans Privateers earlier this week, they finished up their non-conference schedule with a 12-1 record. It is an incredible start in Mark Byington’s first campaign as head coach, taking over after a disappointing five years under Jerry Stackhouse.
In three of those, the team finished under .500 and with 11 or fewer victories, to put into perspective just how unexpected this hot start has been.
The Commodores are going to be challenged during SEC play as their schedule is going to be infinitely more difficult.
Out of conference, Vanderbilt’s opponents had an average NET Ranking of 319; there are only 45 teams in the nation who have an opponent’s NET Ranking of the same or worse. According to College Basketball Reference, their strength of schedule is -3.69, which is ranked 291 out of 364.
That will jump considerably given how deep the SEC is this season. Right now, 12 out of their 18 scheduled conference games are against teams currently ranked in the top 25. They will be facing off against the No. 1 ranked Tennessee Volunteers twice and the No. 2 ranked Auburn Tigers once.
There will be ample opportunities for the Commodores to bolster their resume to improve their odds of making the NCAA Tournament.
Right now, most projections have them barely sneaking into the field. Over at ESPN, Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology has Vanderbilt as the last team into the field.
If things hold over the next three months, they will be part of history.
Right now, Lunardi has 13 SEC teams in his projected 68-team field. That would be an all-time record, as the Big East currently holds the title as the conference with the most representatives in a single tournament with 11 in 2011.
The Big Ten is projected to tie that 11-team record in the 2025 NCAA Tournament as well.
That would be an impressive feat for a program that hasn’t made the tournament since 2017 and wasn’t projected to do much in the first season under Byington, who led the James Madison Dukes to a record-setting 2023-24 campaign.
