Mark Byington addresses if Texas A&M win gets Vanderbilt off the NCAA Tournament bubble

Vanderbilt earned a crucial 86-84 upset victory over No. 12 Texas A&M on the road on Wednesday night. It’s now the fourth time the Commodores have defeated a ranked opponent in SEC action.

Heading into the mid-week matchup, Vanderbilt sat along Joe Lunardi‘s projected ‘Last Four Byes’ as a 10 seed in the NCAA Tournament. After the win, Commodores head coach Mark Byington was asked whether or not he believes the upset takes them off the bubble entirely.

“I check the bubble once a week. If not, it’s probably going to drive me crazy. I checked it last week and I don’t know where we are,” Byington said. “I do know this, it’s a Quad 1 win. The SEC is unbelievable. You go through this and the teams in this, it’s so hard to win a game and it takes so much out of you.

“I think we’ve shown we’re one of the best teams, but we’ve got more to do. You like to take the thing out of people’s hands and keep winning.”

It improves Vanderbilt to 4-8 against Quad 1 opponents this season. They’re 15-1 in all other games, with the lone blemish coming against Quad 2 Drake on a neutral court. The Commodores only have one more opportunity to add another Quad 1 victory to their resume during the regular season — Saturday’s game vs. No. 14 Missouri in Nashville.

Having now won back-to-back games against ranked opponents, Vanderbilt will likely continue to move up in NCAA Tournament projections. That’s exactly what they’ve been doing as well. This time last week, they were considered one of the last four teams in the tournament. After beating Ole Miss, they were upgraded into the ‘Last Four Byes’ category.

For the Commodores, it’s the fourth victory over an AP Top 25 opponent during head coach Mark Byington’s first season at the helm of the Vanderbilt program. They have prior wins over Tennessee, Kentucky and Ole Miss.

“You want to play meaningful games at the end of February, play meaningful games in March and we are. … So we’ve had moments where I feel like we’re sometimes better, but you’ve got to win,” Byington continued.

“That’s why I’m not complaining about this win, how we did it. We’ve had some times before where I think we should’ve won, we didn’t. We’ll take it any way possible.”

Looking ahead, after they finish taking on a tough Missouri team in Nashville on March 1, Vanderbilt will round out its regular season against Arkansas at home, and then on the road at Georgia.