Vanderbilt upsets No. 12 Texas A&M, shocks Aggies in College Station

Tyler Nickel made seven 3-pointers, totaling 21 points as unranked Vanderbilt defeated No. 12 Texas A&M in College Station 86-84 on Wednesday night.

The Commodores played a clean game, turning the ball over just eight times while staying aggressive on the defensive end, forcing 12 themselves. Vanderbilt held off the best efforts of Texas A&M’s Wade Taylor and Pharrel Payne, who combined for 44 points during the night.

Joining Nickel, Vanderbilt’s MJ Collins Jr. came off the bench with 14 points while Jason Edwards, the team’s leading scorer, logged 11 points amid the upset on the road.

It’s the third consecutive loss for the Aggies, who had fallen to sixth-place in the conference standings heading into Wednesday night’s matchup.

Things won’t get any easier for Texas A&M over the next couple of games moving forward. They’ll have to shift their focus immediately for a road trip to No. 3 Florida on Saturday night. They’ll take on No. 1 Auburn at home 72 hours later. Both opponents are projected as a 1-seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.

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.

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. Heading into last weekend, they were considered one of the last four teams in the tournament. After beating Ole Miss, they were moved into the ‘Last Four Byes’ category.

“Every team’s good and the wins are really special and great and you’ve got to try to find as many of them and try to stop the bleeding, you can’t have consecutive losses for very long,” Vanderbilt head coach Mark Byington said after the Ole Miss win.

“The mentality that I want for our guys and we’ve talked about this just put everything into the next game and don’t worry about anything else and that way we’re not worried about the past behind us or having unneeded anxiety about the future because we’ve got to win as many of them as we can and then let the selection committee do its thing.”

After playing a hot 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.