NASHVILLE – Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner and Mark Byrington earned Tennessee Sports Writers Association Men’s Basketball Player and Coach of the Year accolades, respectively, as announced Tuesday by the organization.
Tanner became just the second player in Vanderbilt history to score over 700 points in a season, racking up 702 to join Scotty Pippen, Jr., in the exclusive club. He earned Honorable Mention All-America honors from the Association Press and the National Association of Basketball Coaches, averaging 19.5 points, 5.1 assists and 2.4 steals per game in his sophomore season.
Tanner was the only player in the country to average better than 19.0 points, 5.0 assists and 2.0 steals and only the eighth player in the major conferences to hit those averages in the past 30 seasons. He garnered First Team All-SEC accolades by both the league coaches and AP. He averaged 21.5 points, 5.5 assists and 2.3 steals per game over the 18-game SEC slate, just the third high-major player to reach those marks in the past 30 seasons, joining Jay Williams (Duke) and Jason Terry (Arizona).
Tanner also garnered SEC All-Defensive Team recognition while setting the Vanderbilt school record for both assists and steals in a single season. His 184 assists surpassed Atiba Prater’s 180 in 1999-00 while his 86 steals eclipsed James Strong’s 77 swipes in 1998-99. Tanner is the only high-major player to score 700 points with at least 180 assists and 85 steals in the past 30 seasons. He’s the first player in college basketball to hit the marks since Steph Curry and David Holston in 2008-09.
Byington led Vanderbilt to a 27-9 record, notching the second-most wins in program history and becoming the first Commodore head coach to win at least 20 games in each of his first two seasons with the program. He guided Vanderbilt into the NCAA Tournament for a second straight season and the program’s first tournament win since 2012.
Byington also guided the Commodores to their first SEC Tournament championship game appearance since 2012. The club spent 14 weeks ranked in the AP Poll and climbed as high as No. 10 for the first time in an in-season poll since 1992-93. Under his tutelage, the 2025-26 Commodores became the first team in program history to eclipse 3,000 points in a season and the team also finished with the second-most assists and fourth-most steals in program history.