During his team’s shootaround before it played at Alabama on Jan. 10, Texas coach Sean Miller stopped the proceedings and calmly told one of his players something to the effect of, “If playing for me is too hard for you, we can figure out a way for you to leave.”
Miller’s offer wasn’t surprising. After an 0-2 start, which included an 85-71 beatdown at Tennessee on Jan. 7, he had publicly called out his players, questioning their — how to put this kindly? — competitive spirit. He even took the drastic measure of benching his starters against the Vols because he was unhappy with their effort, or lack thereof.
“Sometimes when you get a new opportunity in the pressure of today, you can be clouded a little bit about what’s important,” Miller said after the game in Knoxville. “There’s nothing that’s more important than effort and I thought that to some degree that came into play against Mississippi State in our last game (a 101-98 overtime loss). I thought there were times in spite of how good of a team Tennessee has, that guys just really didn’t want to compete.
“We’re not a very good team. We have a long way to go, but we have to be a team that’s connected and plays the game with great effort.”
Miller took some social media heat from fans for calling out his players, but college basketball is operating in a whole new world since the advent of NIL and unlimited transfers. Players are getting paid. No coach wants to see an investment frittered away because a player gets too comfortable cashing checks and doesn’t live up to his end of the bargain.
Miller’s tough coaching paid off in the Longhorns’ next game at Alabama where, after an 0-2 start in SEC play, they came away with a 92-88 victory. That was one of the more surprising results in the league since conference games began on Jan. 3.
The Longhorns (11-6, 2-2 SEC) grabbed an even bigger prize in their next game, knocking Vanderbilt from the ranks of the remaining unbeaten teams in Division I. The game wasn’t close. The Longhorns, led by ever-improving 7-foot, 255-pound sophomore center Matas Vokietaitis’s 22 points and 6-foot-5 graduate Tramon Mark’s 21, won 80-64, marking the first time since 2023 Texas defeated top-15 teams in consecutive games. When the Longhorns took an eight-point lead in the first half, it was the most Vanderbilt trailed all year. Texas led 42-37 at the half, and that was the first time the Commodores were behind after the first 20 minutes.
“The game against Alabama gave us confidence,” Miller said after the Vanderbilt game. “That happens in any sport. You get a road victory. The belief inside the locker room, in each other, in themselves, goes to a good place. And I thought that the win, that confidence, really fed us in preparing for this game. We picked up where we left off.”
The Longhorns’ recent success begs the question: What do those fans who criticized Miller’s tough tactics think about them now?
Vanderbilt’s Tanner rising on NBA Draft boards
The loss to Texas won’t diminish Vanderbilt’s season nor derail its inevitable appearance in the NCAA Tournament. A big reason for the Commodores’ success before that first loss in Austin is guard Tyler Tanner, whose career at Vanderbilt (16-1, 3-1 SEC) might end up shorter than anyone — including himself — could have imagined. Duke Miles might be the heart and soul of the SEC’s top team and other transfers from around the country have provided experience, firepower, defense and rebounding, but among all the Commodores, Tanner, a 6-foot sophomore, is the one most likely to be on an NBA roster next season.
Suffice it to say scouts have taken notice of Tanner, who is listed as a likely first-round pick in several mock NBA drafts. Yet it’s not as though he came out of nowhere. Last season Tanner was the only player in the country and the first since 1996-97 to record more than 50 assists and steals and commit less than 15 turnovers. He led all power conference players with a 4.2 assist-to-turnover ratio.
This season, after a summer of what he described to Hoops HQ of “intense” workouts with fellow Nashville native and NBA star Darius Garland, Tanner has become a force, capable of affecting games with his scoring, passing, defense and his uncanny ability to take care of the basketball. Imagine the role the similarly sized Mark Sears played for Alabama the previous two years and you’ve got a good picture of Tanner. It was no surprise that after racking up a career-high 29 points, 7 assists and 4 steals in a winner over Alabama on Jan. 7, Crimson Tide coach gave Tanner the highest of praise.
“If (Vanderbilt) ends up winning the championship (Tanner) will probably be the (SEC) MVP,” Oats said.
Tanner has come a long way since his high school career at Nashville’s Brentwood Academy, the same school that produced Garland. Though he was a two-time Gatorade Tennessee Player of the Year and the state’s 2024 Mr. Basketball, Tanner appeared headed to Belmont or Murray State. But he was eventually signed by former Vanderbilt coach Jerry Stackhouse in the fall of 2023, and after Stackhouse was fired and replaced by Mark Byington in the spring of 2024, Tanner was re-recruited by Byington.
“It turned out to be the right decision for me,” Tanner says. “Coach Byington believed in me and gave me the confidence I could play at this level.”
Byington was a man of his word. He played Tanner 20.4 minutes a game in 2024-25, and the latter responded with that rare combination of assists, steals and ball security. It was hardly a surprise Tanner was ready to contribute as a freshman — he learned the game from his parents, both of whom played at Rice. Tanner’s father D’Wayne owns the career steals record in the old Southwest Conference (291) and Rice’s single-season record (95).
If there was a blemish on Tanner’s rookie season it was three-point shooting (26.6 percent), a weakness he was determined to correct last summer. “That was a big goal — to improve the consistency of my shot and my confidence in taking it,” Tanner says.
Tanner still hasn’t taken a ton of three-pointers (29 of 74, 39.2 percent), but the work he put in during the summer has paid off. Evidence of that came on Jan. 12, when Tanner was voted SEC Player of the Week. In addition to that stout effort against Alabama — during which he became the first player to notch at least 29 points, seven dimes and four steals in a top-15 matchup since Oklahoma’s Trae Young in 2018 — he scored 20 points, three assists and three steals in a win over LSU.
The LSU box score illustrates how far Tanner has come. He took 18 shots, six more than Tyler Nickel and eight more than Miles.
“I’m learning how to put him in some better situations,” Byington said after the LSU game. “He’s learning on the court, but I think one of the biggest things is, he knows we need him, and he loves that. He loves having it on his shoulders.”
Inside the SEC: Star Transfer Lighting It Up at LSU
Dec 12: Dedan Thomas has the Tigers defying expectation. PLUS: More firepower at Bama and more drama at Kentucky
Around the Rim
• Kentucky was dealt a major setback on Jan. 12 when it announced point guard Jaland Lowe, a transfer from Pitt, would undergo surgery and miss the rest of the season. Lowe had battled a shoulder injury and played in just nine games, averaging 8.0 points, 2.1 rebounds and 2.4 assists. The season before, his averages were 16.8, 4.2 and 5.5 to go with 1.8 steals, so the Wildcats had high hopes for Lowe.
Even playing with a bum shoulder, Lowe made significant contributions in two games — he scored 21 against Missouri and logged 13 points, five boards and two assists, all in the second half, in a win over St. John’s.
The only good news about Lowe’s situation is that, because he played in just nine games, he will be eligible for a medical redshirt.
In the Wildcats’ first game without Lowe, they erased an 18-point second-half deficit to win at LSU, 75-74, when 7-foot, 250-pound freshman Malachi Moreno hit a jump shot at the buzzer. Kentucky had to go the length of the floor with 1.6 seconds to play. But 6-5 sophomore Collin Chandler’s inbounds pass was perfectly thrown to Moreno, who caught the ball just inside the free-throw circle and launched a shot that hit nothing but net.
• Bucky Ball is for real. Several naysayers were doubtful first-year Texas A&M coach Bucky McMillan’s frenetic, pressing defense and liberal use of the three-pointer would fly in a major conference the way it did in the Southern Conference, where in five seasons, McMillan led Samford to 99 victories — 54 in league games — and two postseason appearances.
McMillan, who was hired by Samford from a high school job in Alabama, believes in his system and hasn’t wavered from it. And self-belief goes a long way. The Aggies are 13-4 and are tied for the second-best record in the SEC (3-1). They nearly got to 4-0, leading Tennessee by 11 points in Knoxville on Jan. 13 before eventually losing in an epic double-overtime game. The Aggies are third in the SEC in scoring (93 points per game) and scoring margin (+15), second in three-point percentage (36.9), and, per KenPom, are 19th in the country in turnover percentage (19) and 29th in steals percentage (12.7).
Making the Aggies’ accomplishments even more impressive is the fact McMillan had to build from scratch after former A&M coach Buzz Williams left last spring for Maryland and his players scattered.
McMillan was understandably disappointed after the loss at Tennessee, but also philosophical. “We can’t get so results-oriented,” he said. “We’re headed in the right direction. That’s the biggest thing. You’ve just got to keep trucking along. The only thing you can focus on is keep battling and keep getting better every day, and we’ve certainly done that.”
• It seems some Tennessee fans thought Nate Ament was a superhero or that he could do no wrong because he showed up with a five-star ranking. The freshman has had his ups and downs this season, as any first-year player would. He’s already won three SEC Freshman of the Weeks Awards, but his shooting percentages have been low, and since the calendar flipped to 2026, he’s struggled with confidence at the free-throw line and has a negative assist-to-turnover ratio.
But Ament has continued to work, in practice and on his own. In Tennessee’s last two games, Ament’s extra effort is starting to produce results. The Vols were routed at Florida, but Ament scored 17 points, and was 5 of 6 from the free-throw line, just two games after going 5 of 11 against Arkansas. Next, in a come-from-behind double-overtime epic against Texas A&M, Ament scored 23 points, grabbed 7 rebounds, handed out 2 assists, blocked 2 shots and was 9 of 11 from the free-throw line. Ten of his points came in the two overtime periods.
After the game, Tennessee coach Rick Barnes was asked if Ament had turned a corner and was ready to assert himself.
“He’s never not wanted the ball,” Barnes said. “I don’t know what people say… people have no idea how hard he works, how good of a kid he is. And how he comes right out of high school game-planned for every game. The physicality is something that, as much as we tried to beat on him through the summer with players and doing this and doing that, it’s different when you get in the game. And he’s tried to play through it.”
Barnes began the season using Ament at shooting guard and small forward, but recently Ament has started taking a few possessions at power forward, where he can drive past bigger players and shoot over smaller ones. McMillan can attest to the efficacy of that position change.
“He’s a good player,” McMillan said. “Long. They did a good job of getting him the ball and getting him to shoot over us. He’s a hard guy to stop him from getting his shot off. When it becomes a possession-by-possession game where ones, twos or threes don’t matter, just buckets matter, he’s tough, because he can shoot right over you in the midrange, which not a lot of people do.”
• When Florida won the national championship last season, 6-foot-10, 265-pound junior Rueben Chinyelu was used primarily as a rebounder, defender and setter of some monster highway screens, giving the Gators’ guards wide berth to the basket. This season, Chinyelu has taken on a much larger role. He’s averaging a double-double (11.4 points and 10.7 rebounds) and is shooting 62.9 percent from the field.
Chinyelu leads the SEC and is 10th nationally in rebounding and is trying to become the first Florida player in a half century to average double-figure boards. He’s racked up nine games of 10 or more rebounds, including a 21-board effort against Merrimack. Chinyelu punished Tennessee with a 17-point, 16-rebound performance.
“Incredibly critical,” Florida coach Golden said after that game. “I think he’s growing into one of the best frontcourt players in the land.”
Golden wouldn’t get an argument from Barnes.
“As good a performance as I’ve seen in a long time,” Barnes said. “Totally dominated the game from an inside perspective and did a great job for them.”
Games to Watch
Kentucky at Tennessee on Jan. 17 (ESPN)
Tennessee has had a monster Saturday SEC schedule so far, starting with games at Arkansas and Florida and now this matchup against the Vols’ long-time rivals. Tennessee lost both regular-season games to the Wildcats last season but gained a measure of revenge by knocking them out of the NCAA Tournament in the Sweet Sixteen.
Florida at Vanderbilt on Jan. 17 (ESPN 2)
Florida has a frontcourt advantage in nearly every game it plays, just as Vanderbilt has an edge against most teams because of its deep and talented backcourt. This is the game of the day in the SEC.
Arkansas at Georgia on Jan. 17 (ESPN 2)
The Razorbacks, who got off to a 2-0 start in league games, got derailed a bit with a loss at Auburn. They got back on track with a win over South Carolina, but will have their hands full in Athens. Can Georgia, currently enjoying its stay in the national rankings (No. 21 AP, No. 22 coaches), hold serve at home?
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