Vanderbilt's Mark Byington on Tyler Tanner's return: 'I was a little bit nervous'

LEBANON – It was a good week for Vanderbilt men's basketball coach Mark Byington.

>On May 27, Byington got a call from star point guard Tyler Tanner, last season's leading scorer and one of the college basketball's top talents, to inform him that Tanner had decided to withdraw from the NBA Draft and return to the Commodores for his junior season.

>Four days later, Byington was at the Nashville Superspeedway to attend NASCAR's Cracker Barrel 400.

>"I was a little bit nervous," Byington said of Tanner's NBA decision. "You don't want to lose that good of a player, but you want him to live his dream. He's going to be in the NBA soon."

>The May 31 race was Byington's first time attending NASCAR's Nashville stop, but the Vanderbilt coach said he's "definitely a NASCAR fan" and has been for a long time.

>"I grew up 45 minutes away from Martinsville," Byington said, "and I also had a chance to go to Bristol. It's my first time at the (Nashville) speedway here. Looking forward to it. … It's great to live in a city like Nashville and be a part of something like this."

>This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Mark Byington 'a little bit nervous' about Tyler Tanner's NBA decision