Before Vanderbilt basketball coach Mark Byington got into coaching, he sold insurance.
For how long? About an hour and a half.
“I took a two-week class and got my insurance license, and my first day on the job, I quit before lunch,” Byington said at SEC Media Days on Oct. 14 in Birmingham, Alabama. “I don’t have a long-term history of selling insurance.”
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Byington told the story as it relates to coaching in the NIL era. The Commodores went 20-13 (8-10 SEC) and lost to St. Mary’s in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Byington’s first season.
They experienced heavy roster turnover during the offseason with 13 departures, including leading scorer Jason Edwards. They also added eight transfers, five from Power 4 teams, and three freshmen to join returners Devin McGlockton, Tyler Nickel and Tyler Tanner.
“I am still a teacher,” Byington said. “I did think I wanted to be a college professor, and I’m a huge believer in education. And one of the big things that we are talking to our players about now, we’re in an NIL world, everybody’s ‘money now.’
“We feel like at Vanderbilt, you have a chance to play in the NBA. The SEC has the most NBA players, and we got 15, 20,000 (fans) at our games. But at the same time, there’s so much much you can do with Vanderbilt, generational-changing education and connections. So we feel like the best of both worlds.”
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Here’s what else Byington said at SEC Media Days:
Mark Byington is a believer in Memorial Magic now
Vanderbilt was picked to finish last in the SEC in 2024-25 but earned a March Madness bid in one of the deepest conferences in college basketball history.
Byington feels last season’s Commodores gave fans hope with their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2017. They pulled off back-to-back upset wins over top-10 opponents Tennessee and Kentucky at Memorial Gymnasium, both of which came in front of sell-out crowds.
“I wasn’t a complete believer in Memorial Magic a year ago,” Byington said. “After going through it past year, Memorial Magic is real, and our home court advantage is special.”
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Why Mark Byington thinks Vanderbilt basketball will be ‘bigger’ in 2025-26
Byington thought the Commodores often “wore down” in the second half of games last season because they didn’t have enough size. Their average height of 6 feet, 4.5 inches was the shortest in the SEC. Forward Jaylen Carey was their largest rotation player at 6-foot-8, 245 pounds.
Vanderbilt landed North Carolina transfer Jalen Washington (6-10, 240) and Jacksonville State transfer Mason Nicholson (6-9, 307) during the offseason as well as Cornell transfer AK Okereke (6-7, 244) to complement its up-tempo offense.
“I thought some things got to us,” Byington said. “We changed our roster. You look at our size, you look at our length, we’ll play bigger. Not just at the center position, we’ll also play bigger at the guard spots and the forward positions. We gotta make sure that we’re not trying to be like everybody else, but there’s something we couldn’t overcome last year.”
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What Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington said about Tyler Tanner
Tanner, a sophomore point guard, averaged 5.7 points, 2.2 rebounds. 1.9 assists and 1.7 steals in 20.4 minutes per game last season. He also led Power 4 players in assist-to-turnover ratio (4.2).
Byington pointed out that Tanner led the Commodores in minutes in games that were within 10 points with four minutes or less to play.
MORE: Vanderbilt basketball 2025-26 SEC schedule set, including Tennessee, Kentucky game dates
“That shows I trust him last year, and that’s added on to this year,” Byington said. “He has gotten better. He’s stronger, he’s put on weight, his intelligence is better, he’s super fast. Unbelievable person who wants to learn. So I naturally think it’s a year to jump for him.”
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Jacob Shames can be reached by email at jshames@gannett.com and on X/Twitter @Jacob_Shames.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington believes in Memorial Magic now
