Kentucky will face 18 point guards at Vanderbilt

After the John Calipari era, Kentucky fans are well-accustomed to the concept of positionless basketball; tomorrow at Vanderbilt, the Cats will face a team that takes it to another level.

Mark Byington replaced Jerry Stackhouse as Vanderbilt’s head coach this past offseason. Byington led James Madison to a 32-4 record and the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2024. One of his first acts as the Commodores’ head coach? Declaring all 18 members of his roster point guards, from 6’1″ 175 lbs. junior Jason Edwards to 6’9″ 235 lbs. junior Kijani Wright. If you don’t believe me, just check out Vandy’s official roster:

Why? According to Vandy’s game notes, Byington wants every player on his team to be interchangeable in the offense. Everyone can bring the ball up the floor, everyone can initiate the offense, everyone can shoot, etc. Basically, he wants every player to think like a point guard.

“To me, there’s only two positions; you’re either player or you’re not a player,” Byington said. “If you ask somebody ‘What is a point guard?’ they’ll say ‘It’s a playmaker, it’s a decision maker, it’s somebody that brings the ball down the court.’ Well, we have a lot of guys that do that.”

“My best teams have always had two point guards on the floor where they can interchange with each other, they can also share responsibilities,” he further explained to Joey Dwyer of VandySports.com this summer. “The way our style fits there’s not gonna be one predominant ball-handler and everyone else runs away.”

The gimmick drew attention at the time — which was part of the point — but so far, Byington’s results speak for themselves. Vandy brought a 12-1 record to conference play, the program’s best start since 2007-08. They’re 3-3 in the SEC, losing to Mississippi State — their only loss at Memorial Gym so far — at Missouri, and at Alabama. Last Saturday, the Commodores upset No. 6 Tennessee, Byington’s first signature win. They’ll try to pull off some more Memorial Magic tomorrow vs. No. 9 Kentucky, the first time since the 2011-12 season Vandy has sold out back-to-back home games.

Like Kentucky, Vanderbilt went through a total roster rebuild this offseason. Eleven players came to Nashville from the transfer portal, including Michigan State guard AJ Hoggard; the aforementioned Edwards, who was North Texas’ leading scorer; Texas A&M’s Jordan Williams; and former North Carolina and Virginia Tech guard Tyler Nickel. As someone who also had to construct a roster from scratch, color Mark Pope impressed.

“Certainly Vandy has done an unbelievable job. What an unbelievable job that staff has done on constructing this team and putting together pieces that fit and having guys fully buy-in,” Pope said Thursday. “They’re playing incredibly hard and have some real joy and moxie and toughness in their game. As a full reconstruct, that’s really impressive along those lines.”

Vanderbilt is one of the last four byes in Joe Lunardi’s latest Bracketology. A win over Kentucky would be another star on their NCAA Tournament resume. Hopefully, Lamont Butler is giving his teammates some advice on how to slow down all those point guards.