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NASHVILLE — A crippling ice storm swept via Tennessee over the weekend, bringing untold hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in damages throughout the state.
Right here within the capital metropolis, the crystallized carnage is straight away apparent to anybody commuting throughout Nashville’s crunched-up roads. The realm lacks the infrastructure to right away cope with a once-in-a-generation ice storm. Snapped tree limbs litter each roadway and nook. Bushes have toppled, and in some circumstances, destroyed houses. It seems to be like it’ll take some components of the area months to get better from the wreckage. The city is coated in frost; the large chill from Winter Storm Fern has put a vice grip on Music Metropolis.
However regardless of Mom Nature’s wrath, they nonetheless opted to play basketball right here on Tuesday night time.
The pure catastrophe had an affect on Vanderbilt‘s males’s basketball program too, however Fern did not have an effect on the workforce’s capability to play one among its greatest video games of the season. Commodores coach Mark Byington has been with out energy at his residence for days. His reward for guiding 18th-ranked Vandy to an 80-55 drubbing of Kentucky on Tuesday? One other night time on the air mattress within the workplace.
The truth is, Byington squeezed in an interview for this story shortly after the sport ended. He was in a rush to get residence, care for his cat and seize a recent set of garments for Wednesday. The motion-sensor lights inside his workplace supplied a more durable problem for Byington in a single day than Kentucky; Byington slept lower than 4 hours Sunday into Monday as a result of he could not cease unintentionally triggering the lights on, solely to should stand up each time and switch them off.
One of many nation’s most underrated coaches helps creator among the best Vanderbilt seasons of the previous 20 years. He is additionally attempting to put like a mummy simply to achieve six hours of sleep.
Why not manually change the settings?
“All people retains saying that, however, I imply, have a look at me: I do not know find out how to [fix] stuff like that,” Byington instructed CBS Sports activities, the pc display behind him displaying energy outages throughout Nashville, his neighborhood included.
Byington does not give himself sufficient credit score. The person is an adaptor. At 49, he is flipped the Vanderbilt scenario instantly after the failed Jerry Stackhouse period. Tuesday night time’s 25-point win was Vandy’s third-largest ever over Kentucky. (The Dores are 51-158 lifetime vs. UK.)
Vandy had a three-game slide earlier this month. Losses to Texas and Arkansas on the street sandwiched a irritating 98-94 residence defeat to Florida. However the Commodores have now gained two straight in opposition to Mississippi State and UK by a mixed 57 factors. They’re 18-3 and rank twelfth at KenPom. It appears this workforce is again to Remaining 4 Contender standing.
The largest cause? The smallest participant. Sophomore level guard Tyler Tanner is listed at 6-feet, however he admitted to me he is an inch shorter than that. Tanner cuts a lithe determine, weighing lower than 170 kilos whereas taking part in with the verve of a roving linebacker. He is additionally one of the improved sophomores within the nation. Tanner had a team-high 19 factors in Tuesday’s win, along with 5 assists, 4 rebounds and 4 steals. In a yr downright loaded with level guards, Tanner remains to be within the operating to be an All-American.
No person noticed this coming.
The speedster ground common dictated Tuesday night time’s festivities virtually from the outset, making certain Kentucky by no means even threatened to have a lead. UK has taken on some dangerous losses this season, however the two worst have come proper right here in Nashville: Tuesday night time’s drubbing and the ghastly 94-59 no-show vs. Gonzaga in December at Bridgestone Enviornment.
“His decision-making is elite, like he can get the place he needs on the ground, however he is in control of the sport,” UK coach Mark Pope mentioned of Tanner.
The sophomore might change into one of many must-watch gamers within the again half of faculty basketball’s season, and he is acquired a simple story to root for.
Native child makes good — and is getting higher. Quick.
Tanner grew up in Brentwood, Tennessee, all of quarter-hour from Memorial Gymnasium. However he wasn’t an enormous Vanderbilt fan. He did not go to all of the video games. He did not go to most of the video games.
“I got here to a few,” he mentioned. “Generally you did not need to come as a result of they might lose.”
Tanner has eliminated that expectation from the equation. His play and Vanderbilt’s success was sufficient to get Memorial Gymnasium near 80% capability on an evening when lots of people could not or would not go away their houses to courageous the drive in gelid situations.
A 3-star prospect, Tanner’s solely high-major supply got here from Vanderbilt. Murray State and Belmont have been his different two finalists. But it surely wasn’t Byington who provided him the scholarship. Stackhouse’s parting reward to the varsity was his perception in Tanner three and half years in the past. When Stackhouse was fired in March 2024, Tanner did not de-commit. He wished to take an opportunity on himself and go for the one high-major that gave him a shot. Byington acquired the job after teaching James Madison to a 32-win season and the second spherical of the NCAA Event.
“Once I took over, you are evaluating the roster, and you are like, all proper, who can compete within the SEC?” Byington mentioned.
He admits he ignored Tanner in his preliminary roster analysis.
“I actually did not put a lot deal with him. If he wished to depart, simply figuring out, ‘Hey, I wished the previous coach,’ I wasn’t going to combat it.”
After which Byington truly had his first actual dialog with Tanner and his household.
“I sat down with him for like 5 minutes, and I am like, ‘I may need simply met the very best younger man I’ve ever met in my life,'” Byington mentioned.
It shortly changed into a “we will not lose him” scenario. As Byington quickly found, Tanner would make the drive to campus and play pickup with Vanderbilt’s gamers beneath Stackhouse. This was when he was nonetheless in highschool, and because the story goes, there have been instances when he was the very best participant on the ground. That intrigued Byington, however he wasn’t an preliminary believer that Tanner could be a real contributor as a freshman.
After which Tanner began outplaying each guard recurrently in apply on a Vanderbilt workforce that might earn a 10-seed and attain the NCAAs for the primary time in eight years. Final yr, Tanner averaged a mere 5.7 factors in 20.5 minutes per sport, however the huge sign to his worth was the truth that he spent extra time on the ground in shut video games with lower than 4 minutes remaining than all the opposite guys on the workforce.
“I trusted him final yr greater than anyone else, and that was him at 18 years previous,” Byington mentioned. “Quick ahead to the place we at the moment are. Each time you place extra on him, he can deal with it. … His decision-making with the ball has simply gone to a means larger degree than it was earlier than. In order that’s his mind.”
Tanner’s as much as 17.5 factors, 5.2 assists and a pair of.4 steals per sport this season. Vanderbilt’s assist-to-turnover ratio is 1.90, greatest within the SEC and top-seven in faculty basketball. In keeping with EvanMiya.com, Tanner is faculty hoops’ solely participant who swipes not less than 4 steals per 100 possessions, dishes not less than 9 assists per 100 possessions and is taking pictures higher than 60% on true taking pictures proportion.
And if you watch him play, there’s by no means warning or inhibition. His smaller measurement is a weapon, his velocity a superpower, his playmaking the gas for Vanderbilt’s top-10 offense.
“I give a lot of the credit score for what I do to simply confidence,” Tanner mentioned. “A lot work was put in, so many reps, that I might be promoting myself quick if I did not imagine in myself.”
He is doing it whereas carrying extra duty this month than ever. Vanderbilt is down two key guards: Duke Miles (16.6 ppg) and Frankie Collins (7.8 ppg), but it is nonetheless constructing a case as the very best workforce within the SEC. Kentucky entered Tuesday night time’s sport on a five-game successful streak, greatest within the SEC.
It by no means had a shot. Vandy led wire-to-wire with Tanner the tone-setter.
“We got here into it eager to have that edge to us,” Tanner instructed CBS Sports activities. “We had that edge in opposition to Mississippi State as nicely, however we simply wished to duplicate that and are available out and make them stop early.”
Tanner appears to thrive on miscalculations in workforce scouts. He is a diminutive dynamo, and his velocity is what kills loads of groups’ hopes at stymying the Commodores.
“As a workforce and only for me personally, we see ourselves as underdogs,” Tanner mentioned. “We nonetheless do not suppose all people takes us critically, and that fuels us to go present the entire nation, like in these huge video games, we are able to play with anyone. I feel we’re among the best groups within the nation.”
When groups that sometimes do not occupy the highest finish of the rankings begin successful at a big scale, the overall sports activities public will be onerous to persuade, initially. We have seen it a bit this yr with 20-1 Nebraska. However the Cornhuskers are for actual and so is Vanderbilt. When you’ve got some extent guard who has upper-echelon expertise, intelligence and unwavering optimism about his teammates, you will have a shot virtually each trip.
“He by no means has a nasty day. I imply, he walks in each single day, blissful and talkative and he lifts all people up,” Byington mentioned. “The most effective factor he does is he helps the temperature of our workforce keep that means. He lifts all people else round him, and he is all the time that means. And so when there’s adversity, he is the identical particular person. He by no means wavers on who he’s.”
Byington added that Tanner is the uncommon participant who makes him a greater particular person. The ability in that and the ability of perception have been key elements on this workforce having its greatest begin in virtually 20 years and pacing towards one among its greatest seasons ever.
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