Mark Byington addresses Kijani Wright's future with Vanderbilt

Kijani Wright did not make any appearances this season at Vanderbilt in dealing with a health issue. Recovering from that is all that matters as far as he goes for Mark Byington.

Byington spoke on Wright’s status within the Commodores’ program after the team’s season-ending loss to Saint Mary’s in the NCAA Tournament. He said that he’s still rehabbing with that being the most important thing as of now for Wright.

“Um, he’s, he’s on his way back of getting healthy and that’s, that’s our number one thing,” Byington said postgame.

Wright transferred to Vanderbilt last offseason after two seasons at USC. He, a Los Angeles native, joined the Trojans as part of a Top-10 class after being a four-star prospect at Sierra Canyon who was just outside of the Top-50 overall in On3’s 2022 Industry Rankings. While in LA, Wright made 57 appearances, all as a reserve, and averaged 2.9 points (54% FG) and 2.2 rebounds.

After being one of ten additions in the portal for Vandy ahead of their first season under Byington, though, Wright was ruled out indefinitely with the health issue that was unrelated to basketball. Byington said at the time that the Commodores would be hoping for his return but that it could be until the next season depending on how it went medically.

“More so with Kijani, we’re just going to miss, right now for temporary, his spirit, his energy, and his enthusiasm,” said Byington on October 8th. “We’ll support him and, and, you know, I think that we’ll get him back, you know, at some point, you know. It could be this year. If we have to wait until next year, we’ll wait until next year. But he’ll be back with us.

“Kijani has a medical condition and, um, it was a serious medical condition. So we’re at the point now where, um, he’s healthy but, but there’s, you know, second opinions, third opinions. There’ll be more follow-up. Then they’ll get the issue resolved and that’s the point when we’ll know more so about his return to the team and his availability to the team. But it’s going to be, it’s going to be a while. It’s going to be a couple months at least.”

Wright was one of the bigger pickups for Vanderbilt coming into this past year. His status will now be worth watching for the Commodores in hopes that he’ll be back on the court for their next one in Nashville.