Vanderbilt did something on Wednesday night that it hadn’t yet under Mark Byington.

Byington’s team went on the road and won, something that Vanderbilt did just once last season. More significant; the Commodores did it against a power-five team and expected to do it.

Wednesday wasn’t a fluke, it was the better team coming out and taking care of business.

That’s not a remarkable feat against a team that was ranked 233rd in the NET rankings coming into the night and had four in a row–including a buy game to Jacksonville–coming into the game, but it means something.

It means that Byington’s team has passed a test and checked a box that it had yet to. The Commodores went into a true road environment–with a little extra edge involved as a result of MJ Collins and Tyler Nickel’s return–and won decisively.

“That was a team win with guys in different segments playing welI," Byington said. "I Just thought we had enough.”

Vanderbilt got to experience the adversity that comes with playing in a road environment like Cassell Coliseum. It saw the scoring droughts come, it saw its weaknesses amplified and it saw itself in its purest form without comfortability.

In that form Vanderbilt did what good teams do, it found a way to win.

"You always learn a lot about your team on the road," Byington said. "You just want to see how you're gonna handle it. There's different faces on the road. You're not gonna get lifted up by your own crowd.

Vanderbilt moved to 8-1 on the season behind a defensive outing that held Virginia Tech to 38.3% shooting from the field as well as 27.6% shooting from 3-point range. It also saw its guards rise to the occasion and combine for 57 points with standout performances from Jason Edwards as well as Collins.

"Everybody had their moments," Byington said. "We stepped up."

That doesn’t mean Vanderbilt didn’t do some things that bad teams do on the way to that result, though.

Vanderbilt was outrebounded 37-27 on Wednesday and gave up 14 rebounds on the offensive glass while letting a team that will likely finish at the bottom of its league hang around.

"The attention to detail is probably the biggest thing we need to work on there," Byington said when referring to rebounding. "That's not all on our bigs. I was actually angry with the guards. The guards weren't coming down and rebounding...we told them in the huddle 'we need five to come to the fight."

On Wednesday night that wasn’t the story, though.

Instead, it’s a story of Vanderbilt finding a way to win in spite of those things and doing what it needed to in order to handle business on the road.

The Commodores certainly did that on Wednesday night.