Everything Vanderbilt Basketball Head Coach Mark Byington Said After Virginia Exhibition

NASHVILLE – Vanderbilt men’s basketball returned to the court Thursday for an exhibition date with Virginia. The Commodores and Cavaliers played two 24-minute halves that ended up in two Vanderbilt victories.

Vanderbilt won the first half, or first game 44-41 and the second half 51-46. Vanderbilt came into the new season with a big transfer class and the transfers were one of the more notable stories of the game, including Oklahoma guard transfer Duke Miles and Tyler Harris, who both scored 20 points on the night.

Vanderbilt head coach Mark Byington gave his thoughts on tonight’s exhibition games postgame. Here is everything Byington said.

Opening Statement

“First thing, we're excited to go 2-0. We wanted to win the segments. We played basically two 24-minute games, and then that was a priority for us to win and to compete. And to finish those segments with Vanderbilt having more points than UVA. Now, the next thing is, you can't overreact on anything that happened today. We got 17 days to get better before our first game. And we did some things well. I thought we played hard, then we obviously made mistakes. And usually we make mistakes when these scrimmage or exhibitions are behind closed doors. You guys got to see them, but you also got a chance to see if this team is talented and we got a chance to be good. I thought just the overall energy, the team, we were ready to play and excited to play. UVA is going to have a good team too. So that was a great test for us, and to be able to get that and this kind of setting was a great night.”

Duke Miles showed a lot of energy tonight. What do you think of his performance and maybe how that element of his game can affect your team? 

“Coaching him now for a couple months, the energy does surprise me. And he plays hard, he is extremely smart, and so it just makes things easier for me. Makes me sleep better at night. I could trust the ball in his hands. You saw him tonight. Kind of play with the ball, without the ball, and I thought he made really good decisions out there for the team. And he knows what we're doing already. He's only been a couple months as well. So that's a credit to the different stops and learning along the way. But he's also extremely intelligent. He picks up things quickly.”

What works about him [Miles] in this offense and can he be more of a go-to guy here?

“Yeah, I mean, Oklahoma had a lottery pick point guard, and the ball was in his hands a bunch. So he kind of was in the corner off the ball a little bit. He hurt us last year in the second half of Oklahoma, and we've known him for a while. You know, his stops and everything else. He was the last person that we got a commitment from in this class. And we thought we had everything in this class that would help us out, but we needed a guy with experience and SEC experience and intelligence and kind of being able to play multiple positions, which he did today. He was the right fit for us. This is just a start for him. He'll get more and more comfortable, even better than this.”

What do you make of Jalen Washington?

“I thought Jalen was a little worn out in the first half. I didn't think he had his wind or maybe a second win, and then I thought he did a much better job in the second half. He's better than what he did today. There's a lot of guys that just got out there and maybe got exhausted. This was a lot of minutes, and the pace of the game. But he's been very impressive in practice, and I thought he was in the second half, and I think he'll keep on going and building it more and more.”

A lot of new guys on your team, how do you feel like they gelled together against some other competition?

“Yeah, it's a learning experience. And they're learning from each other. And look, they made mistakes. I've made mistakes and the exciting thing is, the biggest jump you're going to make from Game one to game two. And so we got some film. We'll watch it. They're eager learners. They want to get better. They want to be good. So the stuff that you're seeing right now, it's good, but it's going to get way better with experience and being able to learn with each other.”

How has Tyler Tanner improved now in his second year?

“You can just see the aggressiveness with him at the ball. I think he plays sometimes not to make mistakes. Obviously I trusted him a lot. Last year he played a ton as a freshman, but this year, we're going to live with some mistakes sometimes and let him be aggressive. And I loved his aggressives tonight. Probably can be a little more aggressive, but you can kind of see somebody in year two, and then what it looks like from year one to two. Year two, he's put on 12 pounds, he's gotten stronger, he's gotten better, he's obviously super smart, but I think it's just a mentality, and I think more things are put on his shoulders now. I mean, I'm asking them to do more, and he's capable of that.”

What did you want to learn out of tonight? And what do you take away from it? 

“The group tonight won't be our starting five. That was the lineup we begin with today, and we wanted to play, like, the two games and two different lineups. And there's some things that we're seeing, and we'll get more evidence of how these lineups work together, and we'll study the five man groups, and then see what they look like. So, tonight was what it is. It's the first game. You can't overreact in a good way or a bad way. We're not winning a national championship because of this, and we're not going to suck because of this. It's a great learning experience. And I know Ryan will say the same thing, like, this is what it's for. You play, and you figure out what you do right and what you don't do right. As coaches, you kind of huddle up and try to cover some weakness, emphasize stress and try to fix it.”

How do you evaluate Tyler Tanner and then Frankie Collins at point guard? How are they similar? How are they different, and how do you think they might end up splitting time this season?

“I think you saw tonight, and I've been saying this, it's not one or the other. And so I've been saying it. It’s proven tonight. Now, Frankie was on a minute restriction tonight, and he missed practices last week, missed a lot of practices and just getting back. So we did not want to overplay him, so we protected him in minutes. But one of the best lineups I think we have right now is Tyler Tanner and Frankie together, or one of those guys and Duke Miles together. So it's a good lineup for us. I want to get bigger and longer and everything else, but those guys have been good together in practice, and they were good tonight.”

How big of a challenge was it playing against their three pretty skilled bigs, and what did you learn from that?

“They're tough to guard. You know, Ryan has a great system. Their spacing is really good. Both teams are going to look and say we missed shots and missed free throws, and that's a part of it. That's the first game, but they're going to be really good. And those freshmen bigs are going to take huge jumps, and they're already good, but they will take huge jumps. And I think those guards are tough. I think Jacari White is a really hard matchup. He's quicker in person than I imagine, so they're going to do well and build and everything else, but this way they space you out and make reads and kind of make cuts, it's difficult to guard them. So that's a good test for us.”

Was there a particular lineup you learned anything about tonight? Maybe that you were anxious to see how they would be against another team?

“Yeah, I mean, the lineup that we had to run the second half had Tyler Harris at the two, and that was a bigger lineup. AK can play anywhere. Akereke, he can play anywhere on the court. And so you saw him at the one, sometimes you saw him at the four. You see him everywhere. And that McGlockton plays so hard I didn't want to wear him out for the whole season tonight. I mean, you can see the effort he plays with. And I had to spell him a little bit. But we went to the big lineup. I think it was on the lineup that the thing was Tyler Tanner and Tyler Harris and Tyler Nickel and AK. Actually, that was AK at the three and then Devin at the four and Jalen Washington. Those are the big strong guys. That's a long line of some big strong guys out there.”

Did you like this better with the crowd and everything?

“I mean the method behind this was I wanted to do this for the fans. And we didn't broadcast it, and that was on purpose. We wanted people to get to Memorial. And I try to do things to entertain the fans the best we could with some things. Shorter halftime and a mic up and try to do some things for our fans. And that'll keep building. Our memorial was great last year, but it got great, I think, in January, February, and then we want to be great. I guess the next one is November 3 and so we wanted this for them, and it's also good for our players to play in front of fans.”

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