Charleston, SC--Vanderbilt dismantled Seton Hall 76-60 on Friday night in the Charleston Classic to move to 6-0 on the season.

Here's some analysis of Vanderbilt's performance in that win.

Vanderbilt dictated Friday night

Seton Hall wanted to muck up Friday night's game and slow it down, but Vanderbilt didn't cave to its pressure.

Instead, Mark Byington's team played the way it has all season and stuck to its blueprint.

Vanderbilt got out in transition, it found open shooters, it forced 16 turnovers and it found a way to consistently score it against the nation's No. 11 defense.

Trouble could've been brewing on Friday night if Seton Hall had made this one into a low-paced slugfest but Vanderbilt dictated the style and dictated the result simultaneously.

Seton Hall's scoring problem is noteworthy, but so was Vanderbilt's defense

It's worth noting that heading into Friday Shaheen Holloway's team had scored over 60 points in a game just once, which was Thursday's overtime win over VCU. Holloway's team also came into Friday shooting just 39.2% from the field on the season, which ranked 336th in the country.

That being said, Vanderbilt had one of its best defensive efforts of its young season and forced Seton Hall to shoot just 36.5% from the field as well as 33.3% from 3-point range while turning it over 16 times.

Byington's team won't lead the SEC in any defensive metric, but it's proven to be far from a push over on that end.

At the very least, Vanderbilt has a willingness to defend and is disruptive.

When Tyler Nickel is making shots like he did on Friday, watch out

Nickel has all the elements of being a dynamic scorer for Vanderbilt, but it hasn't all come together yet.

On Friday night it did.

Nickel was making shots in Vanderbilt's win over Seton Hall that he hadn't throughout the first five games of 2024-25, bigger than all; he fueled Vanderbilt.

For Vanderbilt to beat a slow-paced, physical team like Seton Hall it had to make shots from beyond the arc. Perhaps even ones that it doesn't normally make.

In a decent portion of Friday's game, it didn't. But Nickel did. The Virginia Tech transfer made four of Vanderbilt's five first-half 3s and picked up his teammates, who shot a combined 1-for-7 before the break.

Nickel played his best game in a Vanderbilt uniform on Friday and as a result it felt as if Seton Hall was never really in the game.

Nickel's emergence on Friday was a microcosm of what Vanderbilt is gonna have to have it look like

Vanderbilt likely won't have an All-SEC player when it's all said and done. It likely doesn't need one to have an encouraging season, though.

Its first two games in Charleston provide evidence of that.

On Thursday it was AJ Hoggard who was the alpha and propelled Vanderbilt to a 73-71 win over Nevada with help from MJ Collins and Jason Edwards. It felt as if it was ok for Hoggard to take a step back and watch on Friday, though.

Nickel, who had just four points on Thursday, was the alpha on Friday. He was the guy Vanderbilt ran sets for, the most confident player on the floor and Vanderbilt's leader in just about every aspect.

He also went for a career-high 24 points.

The best part of that for Vanderbilt; it doesn't need him to do that every night. Balance being brought up is often a cop out to avoid admitting a team doesn't have a go-to guy, but it feels as if Vanderbilt truly has it.

Friday was an example of that.