Vanderbilt player reveals group text chat message that helped fuel their win over Tennessee Vols
The Commodores controlled the Vols across 40 minutes in the teams’ regular season finale.
Tennessee fans came to Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center on Saturday afternoon hoping to send off the team’s four seniors as well as watch the Vols complete their regular season with a sweep of rival Vanderbilt, which would give the Vols the four seed and a double bye in the SEC Tournament next week.
Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner and his teammates had other plans.
Tanner went off with a game-high 25 points on 7-9 shooting to lift the Commodores to an 86-82 win over a Tennessee team that did not have Nate Ament and ensure the Vols will be playing on Thursday next week in Nashville. With a Kentucky loss to Florida on Saturday — and the Gators are up big in Lexington as of the time of this article — it would instead be Vanderbilt claiming the last double bye.
However, according to Tanner after the game, a message from one of his teammates in the players’ group chat on Saturday morning helped get the Commodores motivated coming into the game.
Vanderbilt’s Tyler Tanner said teammate texted ‘let’s ruin their Senior Night’ before beating Tennessee
“Yeah, we were motivated,” Tanner said during his postgame press conference. “Coleson Messer, one of our guys, said ‘let’s ruin their Senior Night.’ He texted us that in the group chat this morning. I feel like we were all on the same page coming into the game. It was a must win. We knew it would be a fight, and we were very motivated. I think when all of our guys are on the same page and motivated, we’re really hard to stop.”
Tanner certainly backed up his talk with his game on the floor after leading the Commodores in scoring against the Vols for the second time this season. He had 16 points in Tennessee’s 69-65 win in Nashville last month.
Tennessee seniors Amaree Abram, Felix Okpara, Ja’Kobi Gillespie, and Grant Hurst were honored before the game, but unfortunately for fans in attendance, the Vols couldn’t make their last game on their home court be a memorable one.
We’ll see if the Vols can get a chance at a rubber match with their in-state rival next week in the SEC Tournament, but for now, the Commodores certainly got the last laugh on Tennessee’s Senior Day, just as they hoped.
