NASHVILLE–Mark Byington sat along like everyone else just hoping not to jinx it.
Vanderbilt’s first-year head basketball coach thought about hightailing it over to FirstBank Stadium, where his coaching counterpart Clark Lea’s football team were heading toward a 23-14 lead at the half over No. 1 Alabama on Oct. 5. Byington opted not to do so in fear of ruining what ended up becoming a career-altering afternoon for Lea and a historic upset for the Commodores.
The Commodores’ shocking 40-35 win over the Crimson Tide alerted the country that winning at Vanderbilt is now possible. Byington suspected it to be true, but given the football program’s downtrodden past, it was nice to have some visual evidence that someone at Vanderbilt can have historic athletic success, if only for an afternoon.
Despite seeing his basketball team picked to finish last in the SEC in the conference’s preseason media poll, Byington is trying to convince his players, the public — and himself — that the program is on the verge of a renaissance after seven straight seasons without a trip to the NCAA Tournament. “We’re not trying to say ‘rebuild,’” Byington tells Hoops HQ. “Everything’s going into now.”
That’s bold talk, but Byington is doing everything he can to speak his vision into existence. He recruited hard out of the transfer portal — 13 new players, 11 of whom are transfers, a class that ranks No. 4 in Evan Miyakawa’s transfer rankings — thanks to Vanderbilt’s increasingly competitive NIL resources. It also helps that Vanderbilt is on the verge of opening a brand-new, $300 million basketball practice facility, long after most of its competitors in the SEC had updated their own facilities.
Already, the vibes feel different than they did last season, when the Commodores went 9-23 under Jerry Stackhouse, and fans were showing up at Memorial Gymnasium with paper bags on their heads. “I believe we can win right now,” says 6-foot-1 junior transfer Jason Edwards. “We’re not all talk. We’re serious, we’re gonna compete at a high level.”
“A lot of people are under the assumption that it’s a ‘rebuild’ or whatever it is; it’s not supposed to be a rebuild,” Tyler Nickel, a 6-foot-7 transfer from Virgina Tech, adds. “It’s supposed to be ‘come in and win.’”
For Byington, righting the Commodores’ ship wasn’t just about bringing in new talent — he looked to the past too, inviting former Vandy players back into a program that some believed shunned them over the past decade. “I gotta get them to know that they’re appreciated and it’s time to come home,” he says. “They picked Vanderbilt to play basketball here for a reason, and I know the place is special to them. Now I’ve got to make them a part of this.”
Stylistically, Byington’s teams should be dramatically different from the ones that Stackhouse put on the floor. Byington’s 2023-24 James Madison offense was 70th in KenPom’s tempo metric; Stackhouse’s was 285th. “He’s an outstanding offensive mind,” says super senior A.J. Hoggard (another transfer, from Michigan State). “Coach’s got a lot of tricks up his sleeve on that side of the ball.”
Byington developed his offensive philosophy by studying Mike D’Antoni’s Phoenix Suns teams. These days he studies both NBA and European teams. The result is a modernized read-and-react-oriented offense that gives players autonomy with the intention of playing fast and positionless. “I think it’s a fun way to play,” Byington says. “I can’t tell you how many times we were in the spring recruiting, and a player would watch how we play and say, ‘that’s how I want to play!’”
Season Preview: Alabama Crimson Tide
Following a historic trip to the Final Four, the Alabama Crimson Tide are ready to hit the ground running — again.A Byington practice that features constant moving and cutting, two point guards on the floor at nearly all times, as well as a center bringing the ball up from time to time. “People are gonna freak out when I have 6-foot-10 guys leading the break,” he says.
To drive home the point, just yesterday, the team released its roster for the season, and all 18 players are listed as point guards. “When you play as dynamic and as fast as we play, everybody can get money,” Nickel says. “It’s a lot of freedom. A lot of space…We play a really aggressive brand of basketball so offensively it’s a lot of opportunities for a lot of guys.”
Byington’s offensive scheme draws some parallels to the fast-paced styles of Florida and Alabama, but is relatively unfamiliar to the Power 5. “You’re not gonna see a lot of that at this level,” Hoggard says. “I think a lot of people haven’t adjusted to it yet, it’s new, so it’s definitely an advantage for us right now.”
That offense along with Byington’s “toughness wins” philosophy have been a part of him as long as he’s been around the college game. The 48-year old head coach credits his emphasis on toughness to his college coach Jerry Wainwright, for whom he scored over 1,000 points during his four seasons at UNC Wilmington, as well as his time playing quarterback and safety back in high school. Byington’s football days ended in his sophomore year, when he decided to focus on basketball. “I didn’t like football Saturday through Thursday,” recalls Byington, “but on Friday [nights], I absolutely loved it.”
Byington’s primary mentor in the coaching profession was Bobby Cremins, the former Georgia Tech and College of Charleston coach. Cremins hired Byington as an assistant at Charleston, and when the elder coach took a medical leave of absence at the end of the 2011-12 season, Byington took over for the final 11 games, winning seven of them. “He was the whole package. You could see it then,” Cremins tells Hoops HQ. “Very, very hard worker. Studies the game very hard. Always watching film. Has a great bench demeanor.”
Byington’s first full-time head coaching job came in 2013, when he took over at Georgia Southern. The Eagles had gone 14-19 in the season before his arrival, but over seven years, he built the program into a consistent 20-game winner. He took over at James Madison in 2020, and last year led the school to its all-time winningest season, at 32-4.
Replicating those fast turnarounds at Vanderbilt may prove to Byingtnon’s toughest task yet. He is taking over a team that hasn’t made the field of 68 since the 2016-17 season, and facing a daunting 16-team SEC landscape. Most coaches in Byington’s situation would preach patience, but he speaks like a man who is in a hurry to make his mark.
“We can’t make excuses saying, ‘it’s going to take time,’” he explains. “If I brought in a grad transfer and said ‘let’s build for the future’ that’s unfair to them. What we’ve gotta do is try to be as good as we possibly can be, right now.”
