During last week's media availability, Mark Byington said that his team had taken major jumps defensively since its two scrimmages in October.

On Monday night, we got a firsthand look at what the progress looked like and where the Commodores currently stand in that regard.

It was a tail of two halves for the Commodores defensively. We saw a first half where it looked like a team that was still getting used to each other and its defensive philosophy, while in the second half it looked like a team that continues to improve and can make life difficult for opposing offenses when executing.

Mark Byington had his own analysis of the team's performance defensively after the game.

"Not so good in segments. I felt like we let them dictate things to us on offense." Byington said. "They made some tough shots and give them credit on that, but something we definitely got to fix is we let them be comfortable. In the second half we went on a run, we took that away, and we got to make sure we do a better job of coaching that and then be in that way throughout the whole game."

Vanderbilt was able to disrupt that comfort in the second half. After only forcing Maryland Eastern Shore into four turnovers in the first half, the Commodores nearly tripled that number in the second half by forcing 11. So what changed?

"Second half, I thought we influenced them better. There was a lot of guys guarding. Tyler Tanner and MJ [Collins Jr], and I thought even Grant Huffman did a great job on defense. I thought those guys did a great job of kind of setting the tone, and then it carried on throughout the second half."

This change was evident in the performance of Maryland Eastern Shore guard KC Shaw, who after a 16-point first half was held to just 7 points in the second half, allowing him to shoot just 2/6 from the field during that time.

According to Vanderbilt guard Jason Edwards, the Commodores took Shaw's first half performance as a challenge.

"We took it more personal." Edwards said. "We understand that he made a lot of difficult shots in the first half, and we didn't want to just blame on the percentages. We didn't want to say, 'Oh okay he made a lot of tough shots, he won't make them in the second half.' We're going to force him to miss. So that's something we took a lot of pride in."

The Commodores look reinvigorated in the final 20 minutes. It looked like a team that though they still are far from perfect, have the potential to become a capable defensive unit.

"I feel like that's what makes us special." Edwards said. "We're a very offensive powered team, but at the same time we have players who take pride in the defensive end as well."