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Men's Basketball

Seasons to Remember

In supercharging Memorial Magic, Vanderbilt men’s and women’s basketball ushered in the future during memorable 2024–25 season

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — On Jan. 24, 2025, Vanderbilt dedicated the Huber Center, a state-of-the-art practice facility and operations center for men’s and women’s basketball made possible by Vandy United.

From practice spaces to locker rooms, lounges, training facilities and offices, the multistory marvel includes every amenity imaginable—maybe even time travel. In a few steps, without ever needing to venture outside, student-athletes, coaches and staff move from the proud history of Memorial Gymnasium into the bold future that awaits.

Five days before the Huber Center ceremony, Mikayla Blakes’ last-second putback propelled the women’s basketball team past 15th-ranked Tennessee. A day after the ceremony, the men’s basketball team defeated ninth-ranked Kentucky.

In 2024–25, buttressed by surging attendance and national attention and acclaim, two teams honored what came before by building what’s next.

It was the season the Magic returned to Memorial. And the season the future arrived.

Changing the Narrative

Vanderbilt football shocked the sports world, if not Commodore Nation, when it upset top-ranked Alabama on Oct. 5. But a little more than a week later, with the FirstBank Stadium goalposts barely dry after a dip in the Cumberland River, the SEC proved it hadn’t learned its lesson: Media members picked Vanderbilt men’s basketball to finish last in the league.

Maybe you could forgive folks on the outside for being skeptical about a roster full of transfers and freshmen under a first-year head coach. Mark Byington knew better. Even as he and his staff were busy evaluating the transfer portal in the days after taking the job, Byington knew fans didn’t want to hear about another rebuilding project. He identified student-athletes who fit Vanderbilt—and fit together.

Women’s basketball head coach Shea Ralph could commiserate. A year earlier, pollsters picked her supposedly rebuilding team to finish last in the SEC. Instead, Ralph and the Commodores soared into the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a decade. For Ralph, the challenge this past fall was turning a foothold into a base camp for sustained success.

Winning Is a Habit

Ralph’s team made a statement with a season-opening 102-50 win against Lipscomb, the first time one of her Vanderbilt teams reached triple digits. It was also the fourth time in as many seasons under Ralph that the Commodores opened with a win—a program record.

And the Commodores weren’t done. They won their first seven games for the second season in a row, the first time that had happened at Vanderbilt in more than 30 years, and 14 of their first 15 games in back-to-back seasons for the first time ever.

Vanderbilt men’s and women’s teams were a combined 25-2 as the calendar turned to 2025. Defying expectations, Byington’s team also reached triple digits in an opening win and kept rolling from there. After defeating Virginia Tech in December’s SEC/ACC Challenge (giving Byington and Ralph’s teams a sweep in that event), the men’s team beat TCU in Fort Worth, Texas, in the USLBM Coast-to-Coast Challenge.

Added to a 2-1 record in the Charleston Classic, Vanderbilt’s success in signature games revealed a team learning to defy expectations by playing up to the occasion—just in time to take on arguably the most competitive conference in college basketball history.

Turning Heads Nationwide

As early as preseason, the women’s team received votes in the AP Top 25. By Thanksgiving, they were in the mix in the USA Today/WBCA Coaches Poll, as well. And after beating No. 19 Alabama on the road on Jan. 26 to improve to 17-4, the Commodores entered both national polls at No. 23. It was the first time since the 2013–14 campaign that the women’s team was ranked in the AP poll (a year earlier, they ended a similar drought in the coaches poll).

But Ralph’s team was making people sit up and pay attention long before it entered the rankings. If Vanderbilt University’s mission is to bring together the best and brightest to make each other better, the Commodores checked boxes on both sides of that equation.

Khamil Pierre didn’t even wait for winter break to win multiple SEC Player of the Week Awards;, her second came after she scored a program-record 42 points (along with 18 rebounds and eight steals) in a win against Evansville.

She wouldn’t hold that record for long, but she was in good company—neither would the players who held the national freshman or SEC scoring records. Blakes claimed all of those records en route to one of the most remarkable debut seasons in recent memory, if not ever. She set the single-game SEC and NCAA true freshman scoring records with 53 points against Florida on Jan. 30, then turned around and broke her own SEC record and set the NCAA freshman record by scoring 55 points against Auburn on Feb. 16.

The SEC and USBWA Tamika Catchings National Freshman of the Year, Blakes ranked sixth in points per game in Division I. She earned All-America, including second-team by the USBWA and third-team by the AP, and All-SEC honors.

Iron Sharpens Iron

As Blakes was embarking on her record-shattering scoring spree, the men’s team was shouldering its way into the national spotlight. After beating Kentucky in front of a full house in Memorial Gymnasium the day after the Huber Center dedication, Byington’s Commodores entered the AP Top 25 for the first time since 2015.

The SEC in 2024–25 offered no shortage of opportunities to impress. The conference would ultimately send a record 14 teams to the NCAA Tournament, including nearly half of the eventual Sweet 16 and two of the Final Four.

In that SEC crucible, Vanderbilt’s win against Kentucky was its second in the span of seven days against a top-10 opponent, following an unforgettable home victory over Tennessee on Jan. 18. No Vandy men’s team had beaten multiple top-10 opponents at home since the early 1990s. A month later, the Commodores sent No. 14 Missouri packing in an overtime thriller, their fourth win against a top-15 opponent—a feat not seen since the 1980s.

Byington and the Commodores turned the Memorial court into a fortress and the packed stands into the biggest party in town. Men’s basketball inspired a 25 percent increase in average overall attendance, highlighted by their first back-to-back sellouts since 2011–12. A 254 percent increase in student attendance helped fuel the surge for men’s basketball home games.

Just Getting Started

It was only fitting that a double dose of March Madness was the culmination of a season that was nothing short of deliriously fun for Commodore Nation.

Picked to finish No. 16 in the conference, the men’s team instead won 20 games and earned a No. 10 seed in the NCAA Tournament, the program’s first bid since 2017.

Building on last season’s appearance, the women’s team returned to the NCAA Tournament for the second year in a row and climbed to a No. 7 seed, its best since 2012.

Though both teams experienced first-round heartbreak, the women against Oregon and the men against Saint Mary’s (Calif.), it was the first time in more than a decade that they reached the biggest show in college basketball in the same season.

Together, Byington and Ralph’s teams added a needed chapter in the proud history of Vanderbilt basketball. All that’s left as the offseason begins is to take a few more steps and get to work on that even brighter future.

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