Charleston, S.C.--Mark Byington declared it after Vanderbilt's Saturday win over Jackson State.

The first-year Vanderbilt coach said that he and his team would face an tournament team in its first game in the Charleston Classic.

If Byington's theory is correct, then Vanderbilt knocked off a team on Thursday night that will be playing deep into March.

It wasn't only a team that Byington believes will make a run, it's also a team that Vanderbilt didn't seem to match up well with.

On Thursday that didn't matter, though.

Vanderbilt did what good teams do on Thursday and found a way to win. The volume at which Byington's team has done that seems somewhat foregin to a program that took until Dec. 30 of last season to hit the five win mark.

On Thursday, Vanderbilt did that and continued its undefeated bid.

"We didn't come here to lose," Vanderbilt guard MJ Collins said. "We're trying to change the culture at Vanderbilt."

Collins and his teammates took a step in that direction on Thursday.

Nevada was bigger and shot better, but Vanderbilt was the aggressor all night. It was physical, it made the timely shot, it created its own energy and it did something that it may not have been able to a week or two ago.

It got enough late stops to win.

Those stops didn't only come late, either. Vanderbilt turned in perhaps its best defensive showing yet on Thursday en route to forcing 16 turnovers and scoring 17 points off of them.

"Yeah, definitely," Vanderbilt guard AJ Hoggard said when asked if this was Vanderbilt's best defensive performance of the year. "It was a bigger challenge. It was a good team, a team that's gonna be playing in March."

An effort like Vanderbilt had on the defensive end on Thursday was a statement. A statement that it can defend and that it has the toughness and physicality required to win a game like this.

It also has the playmakers.

When it looked like Nevada had a chance to take this one, Vanderbilt had someone step up and quiet the opposing run.

First it was MJ Collins, who got Vanderbilt going with 11 first-half points. Then it was Jason Edwards, who picked up Collins' slack with his own 11 in the half.

Ultimately it was Hoggard's 18 points and seven assists that did the trick down the stretch, though.

"He was a calming influence," Byington said of Hoggard. "We can put things on his shoulders."

Byington put it on Hoggard and his other veterans' shoulders on Thursday for the entirety of the night.

That paid off.

"That's a team that I wouldn't be surprised if you see them in the Sweet Sixteen making a run," Byington said of Nevada. "Early season game in November, nobody's cutting nets and things like that, but it's a good team, a good win."