I love my fellow fans of Commodore Nation. We are few, but we are proud and strong. And yet sometimes, there are segments of the fanbase that mystify me. I can’t help but notice how many of them wondering if their basketball teams turned into pumpkins after the clock struck midnight on 2024.

What happened to those two dominant teams that rolled through their preconference schedules? The men finished 12-1. The women breezed through with a 13-1 record. Sure, the competition wasn’t the best for either team, but they both looked awesome! Now that the conference season is underway and the two teams are no longer churning out wins with ease, some fans losing their minds and I can only ask myself… really?

As silly as it sounds, maybe Coach Byington did TOO well to start the season. After the Stackhouse regime, just beating the teams you’re supposed to beat was such a welcome change. Maybe the good start set the fanbase up for unrealistic expectations, which were only magnified after each team won their opening conference game. The women’s team annihilated Georgia at home. The men’s team picked up a tough road win at LSU.

Then, reality set in. Each program lost their next two games. Each has a 1-2 conference record, already surpassing their preconference loss total. The sky is falling! I’ve even seen knee-jerk reactions wondering if Byington was the right hire, or if Ralph can get it done here.

To those fans I would hearken back to the famous quote from then-Packer quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who had this famous message to Green Bay fans after a 1-2 start about a decade ago:

R-E-L-A-X.

While no one will confuse Rodgers for one of the great orators of our time, his message is still applicable here.

I’m not sure what some fans were expecting. If you recall, before the season Vanderbilt men’s basketball was picked 16th in the conference. And if you’ve forgotten how many teams are in the ever-expanding SEC, it’s currently 16. Dead last.

I know in this era of NIL and portal recruiting programs are capable of remarkable turnarounds in one season. Just look at the Vandy football team. But Byington is coming to a new program and had to essentially build a brand-new team from scratch in the offseason. If you had visions of a quick turnaround – such as finishing high in the SEC or even making the NCAA tournament after a 9-23 season, then your expectations were both unrealistic and unfair to Byington. It would also mean you haven’t been watching the competition.

By that I mean the SEC is good. Like, really good – to a level we’ve never seen. “It just means more” was always thought to apply to SEC football, but this isn’t your father’s SEC basketball. The league is currently 185-23 for an 89% winning percentage (by far the best in SEC history) against other conferences. The SEC/ACC “Challenge” – and I use that term loosely – ended in an embarrassing 14-2 edge for the SEC. The top half of SEC often looks closer to the NBA Atlantic division than a Power 4 conference.

All this to say, it’s going to be a tough season. As the old cliché says, it still comes down to “Jimmy’s and Joe’s” over “X’s and O’s” and to put it bluntly most SEC teams simply have better players. It will take more than one offseason for Byington to close that gap. He deserves kudos managing to assemble a team that’s good. But it isn’t great, and unfortunately in the SEC that makes it below-average. That’s just the reality right now.

Anyone who has watched Vandy play this season could clearly see this team has warts. There isn’t much size or rim protection. The team shoots a lot of three-pointers, but not consistently at a high percentage. The SEC is unforgiving in exposing weaknesses. This team will have some bumps and bruises, and that’s okay. It’s one thing to see SEC basketball on tv and try to scout for each team. It’s another to see the caliber of play night in and night out. Byington is getting a crash course. He will learn, and he will adapt.

Credit to the 8000 and change that showed up to watch the Commodores get manhandled for most of the game against Mississippi State. They will continue to need support from the fans as the program continues to build back the culture and “Memorial Magic” that has been extinct for far too long. There will be opportunities to see teams that could possibly go to the Final Four team coming to Memorial in the coming weeks. Each of these games provides the potential for a huge upset.

Fans need to do their part to help this team pull off a huge win to expedite the rebuild. Despite what the preseason prognostications told you, this is not the worst team in the conference. They will play hard, and they will be competitive most nights. I’m not sure what more fans could have asked for in Byington’s first year. My guess is this team will knock off a team or two they’re not supposed to. I know the NIT is not exciting, but I do think it’s a realistic goal for this team and any postseason experience for this team would be a huge building block moving forward.

I’m a little more sympathetic to the grumblings about women’s basketball. After all, this was an NCAA tournament team last season, so expectations were a bit higher than the men’s team. Losing at home to a good Kentucky team and on the road to Ole Miss wouldn’t qualify as huge upsets, but the fact that neither game was really competitive certainly raises eyebrows.

Still, the women’s team deserves your support as well. They were still picked 10th in the conference heading into the season – which isn’t overly impressive but should still be good enough for another tournament berth. While SEC men’s basketball has a newfound dominance, SEC women’s basketball has been at the top for years. Starting with the great Pat Summitt and currently with Dawn Staley, the league has always been a gauntlet. Winning the conference tournament is arguably more difficult than winning the NCAA tournament.

If you have spent any time on social media, you are likely familiar with the Spider-Man pointing meme, and it would be a perfect representation of Vandy’s two basketball programs that are mirror images in a lot of ways. Like the men’s team, the women’s team lacks size, struggles to rebound, and hasn’t shot well from three-point range. I would expect Coach Ralph, like Byington, to adapt and make the necessary changes.

The next game for the women’s team comes against undefeated LSU, who has their own iconic coach with multiple national championships – Kim Mulkey. My magic 8 ball says signs aren’t looking great for a Commodore win. There is a chance it might even get ugly, and the pitchforks will come out again.

Again, I would say relax. Unlike Byington, we have a sample size of Ralph’s coaching at Vanderbilt and her teams typically improve as the season goes on. I remain confident she has an NCAA tournament team. Possibly one that can play into the second weekend. Like the men, they play hard, they are fun to watch.

Let’s all collectively step off the ledge, possibly recalibrate expectations, and try to consider the possibility that Byington and Ralph didn’t suddenly forget how to coach in 2025. The men are playing with house money, and anything they accomplish this year should be seen as gravy. The women still have the chance to make a postseason run. Maybe we should wait to see how they both finish the season before we clean house….?