SEC Basketball: 2024 offseason grades for each team

Vanderbilt Commodores - Grade: B-

After having back-to-back seasons with a winning record, Vanderbilt completely fell off the map last season. The Commodores won only nine games finishing 13th in the conference, leading to a coaching change. Mark Byington spent the past four years leading James Madison, where he won 32 games this past season and earned his first trip to the NCAA Tournament. 

With only 4.5 points per game returning from last year's team, a complete roster revamp was necessary. Byington quickly got work and brought in a ton of experience this offseason. Of the ten players signed from the transfer portal all but two players have played at least 50 college basketball games in their career. And six of the ten played in one of the major conferences last year. 

Vanderbilt added plenty of offense this offseason, AJ Hoggard, Chris Manon, Devin McGlockton, Jason Edwards, and Grant Huffman all averaged more than ten points per game last season. Edwards led this transfer class in scoring with 19.1 points per game last year at North Texas and had five games with at least 30 points. Hoggard and Huffman are solid facilitators, both averaged more than five assists per game and should set up the offense well.

The defense might need some work, but the Commodores added a couple of capable defenders on that end of the court. Most notably Chris Manon, who led the Ivy League in steals per game the past two seasons, averaging 2.2 per game.

This roster certainly isn’t the best in the conference, but what Byington did well was to find competent pieces to bring together for his first season. He addressed every part of the game and found players that could play well together. It might still be a rough first season, but it appears that Byington is only getting started.