Vanderbilt's Offseason Already Underway Shortly After NCAA Tournament Game
Vanderbilt’s season ended on a sour note and it’s a taste that quickly grew stronger worse.
Less than an hour after the Commodores fell to Saint Mary’s (Calif.), 59-56, the feel-good season Vanderbilt experienced came to an end. Vanderbilt freshman guard Karris Bilal he will enter the NCAA transfer portal after not seeing any in-game action this season.
Bilal was a three-star recruit from Riverwood High School in Atlanta. He was the o. 269 overall player and No. 43-ranked point guard, according to On3, from the 2024 recruiting cycle. Bilal originally committed to Vanderbilt in September 2022 and kept his commitment to the Commodores after Mark Byington took over the program last year.
But without any playing time, Bilal has decided to continue his basketball career someplace other than Nashville.
In choosing to enter the transfer porta, Bilal won’t be around to build upon the successful 2024-25 season the Commodores experienced.
Yes, Karris Bilal entered the transfer portal just minutes after Vanderbilt’s season ended.
— Recruits News (@recruitsnews) March 22, 2025
But, this is what you need to know about his situation:
- Committed to Vanderbilt under Jerry Stackhouse, but decided to stay with Byington
- Didn’t play or travel for any games
- Only…
Vanderbilt lost its first round NCAA Tournament game, but it was the first tournament appearance for the Commodores in seven years and one of the nation’s biggest turnarounds this season. The Commodores won just nine games a year ago under Jerry Stackhouse (who won 22 and 19 games in the previous two seasons) and won 20 games this season under a new coach.
“We said we're against the odds, odds to being successful, odds coming together, odds having a winning team, odds being in the NCAA,” Byington said. “We were against all those, and we used that as a unifying thing, that we're going to try to overcome the odds and try to be in this situation.”
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Taylor Hodges is a staff writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI covering all-things Vanderbilt. Taylor brings more than a decade’s worth of award-winning sports writing, photography and video experience covering every level of sports — from Little League baseball to professional sports and other sports like hunting and fishing. Taylor is fueled by his lifelong passion for sports that began the same day Kirk Gibson hit his legendary World Series walk-off home run, Arkansas beat Texas in Austin and No. 4 Notre Dame beat No. 1 Miami in the Catholics vs. Convicts game.