What Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington said after 76-75 win over No. 6 Tennessee

NASHVILLE — What first-year Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington said after his team’s 76-75 upset win over No. 6 Tennessee Saturday at Memorial Gymnasium:

Vanderbilt having offensive success against Tennessee’s defense

“I mean, it’s a challenge. I mean, it was keeping me up the last couple nights. I’m figuring out how to score. And the problem that comes with them is they’re scoring droughts. It’s not just scoring, but I mean, they can shut out a team for 5, 6, 7 minutes sometimes. And those are the ones that’s hard to overcome. And we kind of had to find a way sometimes in possession, sometimes in the game to end the drought, end those things. And their scheme is unbelievable, really good. They cover for each other. Zeigler, Mashack are elite defensive players. So we knew it was a challenge. I think our guys did a good job of playing the right way and the ball found the open guy, the ball was moving, we executed and got good shots there, and that was better than what we’ve done in some previous games.”

The end of the game being nerve wracking

“Yeah, I mean, it was tough. I mean, it was some frustrating things that happened in the last two minutes and there’s some things that are out of your control and if something goes against you and there’s still time on the clock, you got to figure out a way. And the guys had a good job of being resilient and went to the next play. And we’ll learn from those situations too. You learn from the wins, learn from the losses and there was a possession or two there we wish he had back, had done better. But then there was, like a block, like Chris Manon at the end and some other things at the end. And even saving the ball at the end, if the ball goes out of bounds, I think (if) Jason never saved it, they got a chance, another chance. And just saving it and throwing it back, you know, just little plays and guys kept fighting and it kind of shows who they are and they were brought here for a reason. And I heard about those attributes before they got here. And they demonstrated that tonight.”

How this game, atmosphere stacks up to some of his favorite games

“I’m an even keel guy, so you’re not getting much out of me. I’m on to the next. I’m on to Alabama. I walked off the court, didn’t want to get run over, and then I was thinking about things we got to do next. You celebrate things like this as a staff in the spring and the offseason. But right now we know it’s a challenge coming next. I told the guys, I’ll give them the day to enjoy this, and then tomorrow we’ll have a tough practice.”

This being able to galvanize the Vanderbilt fanbase

“Yeah, I mean that was my feeling when I walked off the court. And I was happy for our players. I was happy for the fans and former players, alumni and when you’re trying to build something you want people to buy in, you want them to support and sometimes they’re apprehensive until they see results. And they showed up and they had a great environment, great crowd. They helped us win. And I could tell you guys, when we lost against Mississippi State I was really upset, distraught because we had a great crowd against Mississippi State and I was sitting here thinking, I was like, all right, we got to get them to come back and we got to get them to believe in us. And, today, seeing this and I know they can walk around with pride on the V on their shirts and things like that. That makes me feel good that they can do that right now.”

Vanderbilt avoiding complacency with the tough upcoming schedule

“It is so daunting when you look at everything and Alabama’s a Final Four team, I don’t think it’s impossible to overlook them. A tough environment, road environment. So what we’ll do is what we do. Same things. We chop wood, carry water. Come back tomorrow, let’s figure out what we did right. Figure out what we did wrong, prepare the best we can for Alabama.”

The importance of Tyler Nichol’s 3-pointers

“Yeah, I mean it stretched out the defense and actually a lot of those layups we got in the second half were due to the threat of him. And so he did make threes, he made big shots, but the threat of him actually opened up other guys too. And I was trying to find different ways to get him shots or at least make him a threat so they’d have to worry about it. And AJ made some nice passes to him. I know a couple other guys and he’s such a hard worker. I mean he almost overworks. I want to tell him, ‘Hey, go watch a movie sometimes.’ He’s in gym nonstop. And I worry about him going too much, going too hard because he was a little shooting slump, but he’s put into work. He deserved a night like this.”

The Vanderbilt roster buying in to his plan

“We do a quote every day and the quote two days ago was, ‘no sacrifice, no victory.’ And it’s a team game. And there’s times where you know you want to do something, but it’s not your time. You got to help support your teammates. And we always talk about our culture of being happy for your teammates, your time’s coming and that karma will work out for you. And they’ve seen it this year. So it’s not just me coach talk and everything else. They’ve seen your teammates do things, they’re happy for them and then their time comes as well.”

How he was able to get selfless players in the portal

“Yeah, I mean it’s a dizzy couple of weeks there. I mean it’s nonstop. Guys are in the office and it’s a lot when you — it’s easier and I hope this is my future when you’re trying to replace three guys in the spring, we were in a situation where whether we wanted to or they wanted to, we just had to replace the entire roster. So you’re trying to find this. That was our main thing. We try to find character, we try to find competitive guys and they had to make winning number one. And right now in the NIL days and things like that where some guys want stats, they feel like stats are more money and that wasn’t going to fit with our mission and our team. So the buy in on that and us trying to figure out who fits that, it’s not easy with that many. But the guys that have completely bought in to what we’re trying to do.”

Vanderbilt not scoring in the final 3:48 and still winning

“I got to go chop up those last minutes. And I know Jason Edwards had a wide open three and it was right in front of me. I thought it was in and then AJ Hogard had one and I think it was a couple times where there might’ve been some guys was some violent hits on our guys on inside. Maybe it was a call, maybe it wasn’t. Would’ve helped alleviate some of that scoring drought. But it is, look at it, if it’s a, a good player like Jason Edwards missed an open shot, we’ll take that every time. If we did some things wrong, we got to get back and fix it.”

Jaylen Carey coming with him from James Madison, him playing well

“So obviously I know Jaylen extremely well and the first thing is that he’s 19-years old, he looks like he’s a grown man and everything else. He’s 19-years old. And so that’s exciting. He’s going get better and better along the way. He’s competitive from a competitive family, mom and dad and brother and everybody else. What he wants things so bad. And then it’s not everybody’s time right away, but you put the work in, you’ll get results like this. And so I think since SEC play’s come, I think he knows the athletes, the size and everything and I think he’s just in a different zone right now. At LSU, he was really good and he’s had some other really good times and look, we’re lacking bigs. We’re not very deep there. And so even when he’s not playing great, we still need him and give him credit, somebody mentioned the turnovers to start, he overcame that and that’s not something he was doing earlier in the season. He might make a mistake, and then get down on himself. He actually came over and gave me a five. He goes, ‘coach, it won’t happen again.’ And I could tell he was over it and he was ready to move on and figure it out. So extremely focused, talented, great personality. There’s a reason I brought him here. I think he’s gonna be really good.”

What it’s like for a coach in a court storming

“I got great security that got me out and I didn’t, I didn’t have a chance to look at it, so I’ll have to see it on the TV. I missed it.”

Vanderbilt winning the rebounding battle, points in paint battle

“I mean we told the guys coming in, one of the main things is like, look, we out rebound and we win the game. And they’re so good. I think they were sixth in the country coming in on rebounding. So that was a priority, that was a focus. The physicality, they’re really good at it. And then we had to match it. So we can’t let that be overwhelming for them to get that advantage.”

Vanderbilt taking advantage in the stretch with Zakai Zeigler on the bench with foul trouble

“I mean, he’s tremendous. He made the threes in the first half, but what I really thought was disrupting us was his assist. I think he might have had six assists in the first half. There is so much value in having a veteran guard like that who knows everything, who’s been through everything. Not having him on the court, I’ll choose that every time because he’s a really good player.”

The importance Chris Manon’s defense

“I mean he kept getting fouls now. I didn’t want to take him off. He brings energy and he had the responsibility of guard Chaz Lanier to start with and other guys jumped in and he embraces it. He’s competitive. He’s buying into his role that we need him like that and there’s different ways to win the game. And that block was a big one.”

Jason Edwards’ big offensive performance

“He was in a good zone. I talked to him before the game and  I didn’t want him to press and I wanted him just to let the game come to him but still be aggressive. And that’s kind of contradicting each other. But we had to find them early, find shots, find stuff for him and I thought, yeah, I’m not scared of him shooting the ball. I know sometimes it looks wild. He’s dynamic. We’re going to need that sometimes. So I got confidence in him, puts in a bunch of work and when you have guys who are not scared of the moment, you let them have the moment and he’s not scared of the moment.”

Telling his Vanderbilt team before the game that there would be a lot of Tennessee fans

“Yeah, I mean you had some advice from different people and what I didn’t want is, I didn’t want Tennessee to make a shot and then they hear noise and our guys getting disappointed. And so the number one thing we said, we worry about us and we take care of us. And I was like, we’re going to have support in there. But we had almost anticipate, it’s like a neutral environment where it’s going be crowds cheering on both sides. And it was a great environment. It was fun for, I’m sure they would say the same thing, fun environment. I like to get to every single time we play them with there’s less and less orange in there. Wins help and we got to build it that way. But today our crowd lifted us up and supported us.”