As Mark Byington’s second season approaches, the Vanderbilt basketball coach has reloaded through the transfer portal just as he did a year ago.
While Byington started from scratch last year, this season he has a small core to work with. Although just three scholarship players return, all three are important: Tyler Nickel, Devin McGlockton and Tyler Tanner. Around them, Byington added eight transfers.
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Here’s what each of those transfers brings to the table:
Frankie Collins
Collins is an experienced guard who will be on his sixth year of college basketball. He’s also on his fourth school after stops at Michigan, Arizona State and TCU.
Collins should approximate AJ Hoggard’s role as a slashing point guard who runs the offense as a facilitator. He’s also a very good defender who’s had high steal rates throughout his career, something that makes him a good fit in Byington’s defensive scheme. The biggest issues is that not only is Collins a non-shooter (30.4% from three in his career), he also has a very poor free-throw percentage (58.2% in his career) which leads to questions about whether he’ll be able to stay on the court at the end of games.
Duke Miles
Miles is another well-traveled sixth-year player. The combo guard played at Troy, High Point and Oklahoma previously, and he committed to Virginia and Texas A&M this offseason before settling on Vanderbilt.
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Miles was a high-volume scorer at his mid-major stops, but the Sooners used him as more of a role player. There, he was an efficient scorer but with a lower usage rate. He shot 51% from the field and 43% from three in 2024-25 while also averaging 2.9 assists and 1.5 steals. He’s also rated out as a strong defender throughout his career.
Miles gives Vanderbilt something it didn’t have last season: A secondary ball-handler who can also score.
George Kimble
Kimble is an unconventional transfer because he won’t play in 2025-26 due to a knee injury suffered at Eastern Kentucky. Instead, he’ll rehab with the Commodores, who will hope to get a leg-up on keeping the guard around for the 2026-27 season.
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When healthy, Kimble was an exceptional scorer, averaging 18 points per game in 2024-25. He shot 34.8% from three and 85.1% on free throws, though he was less efficient from inside the arc. He also averaged 2.6 steals per game in 2024-25.
AK Okereke
Okereke compares to Chris Manon, and not just because both transferred from Cornell.
Like Manon, Okereke can do a lot of different things on the court at on the wing. At 6-foot-7, he’s an efficient scorer (59.5% field goal percentage in 2024-25, best in the Ivy League) who also grabbed 4.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game. He’s a good defender, too, who can both get steals and protect the rim.
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Okereke projects as a sparkplug player likely to make consistent winning plays on the offensive and defensive ends.
Mike James
James has been in college for four seasons — three at Louisville and one at NC State — but he didn’t play in two of those seasons because of injury. When healthy, James has shown an effective jump shot, shooting 34.8% from three with some midrange ability on the wing, but even at 6-6 he’s struggled to score at the rim.
If healthy, James projects as a key bench scoring option. But the injuries are a concern, as Vanderbilt saw with Alex Hemenway last season.
Tyler Harris
Harris is another transfer on his third school after spending a year each at Washington and Portland. Harris’ specialty is 3-point shooting. He shot a whopping 49.5% from three in 2024-25, albeit on just three attempts per game.
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There are a few concerns with Harris’ game. He’s just a career 68.5% free-throw shooter, which raises questions about whether his shooting is sustainable. And he had just 0.7 assists per game. Because of those things, as well as the presence of another big shooting wing in Tyler Nickel, Harris projects as a bench shooter rather than a starter like he was at Washington and Portland.
Jalen Washington
After a season in which Devin McGlockton frequently had to play the ‘5’, Vanderbilt went in search of more size in the portal. Washington, from North Carolina, is 6-foot-10 and found a role in the Tar Heels’ rotation in 2024-25 after not playing much his first two years.
Washington has a career 66.2% field-goal percentage and was a strong defensive rebounder and rim protector, something the Commodores lacked last season. He can also make the occasional three, shooting 32.5% from downtown in his career, albeit in a very small sample.
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Mason Nicholson
Nicholson comes to Vanderbilt after a productive career at Jacksonville State. In three seasons, Nicholson shot 64% from the field and averaged 5.9 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game at center.
He won’t be a threat on the perimeter — he’s never even attempted a three in his career, and he’s a 51.5% free-throw shooter. He also likely won’t be a high-volume offensive option. But his rebounding and rim-protection ability should shore up a problem area for the Commodores’ defense.
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Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on X @aria_gerson.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Vanderbilt basketball transfer portal analysis 2025-26
