With 8:12 left in the first half, things were going South for our basketball team as we were  down 27-11 to Auburn and looking to be run out of the Auburn Arena. So Kevin made a decision which may have been the best decision by a coach in SEC play this season. Kevin subbed walk-ons Carter Josephs, a sophomore point guard from San Antonio who had logged some pretty good minutes already this season, and sophomore walk-on small forward Nathan Watkins from Nashville’s Ensworth School to take Kyle and Rod’s spots. In an amazing turn of events, Carter contributed nine assists and no turnovers and Nathan posted seven points on a three, a nice 12 footer and a pair of free throws which brought us back and cut the lead to 32-25 at halftime. Dai-Jon took over in the second half hitting five threes and leading our guys to an awesome win at Auburn, 67-59. Our team is now 15-11 overall and 7-7 on the season. It was beautiful. When Rod and Kyle came back in midway through the second half, they turned it up, our defense was good, and we hit the boards very well. Damian Jones did some good things and so did James Siakam. Luke Kornet came off the bench and hit a pair of threes and was four-for-four from the field. James finished with nine rebounds, four on the offensive glass. They outrebounded us 41-35, but in the second half we got them on the boards, 23-18. We just came to life when Carter and Nathan came in. What’s terrific about this is it now looks like we have a legitimate nine player bench now with Carter and Nathan looking like real assets coming in to go along with Luke and Shelby Moats. Really believe in Carter now. He passes well, plays solid defense and just makes us better. Nathan proved the same on Saturday. Such hustlers. We are now in a tie for fourth with six other teams in the SEC. We have Florida at home tomorrow night at 7 PM ET/6 CT on ESPN in what is now a blockbuster, then we’re @ Tennessee on Saturday (Noon ET/ 11 AM CT on ESPN2), we’ve got LSU at home @ 7 PM ET/6 CT on Thursday, March 6th, on ESPN or the Deuce, and we finish on the road @Ole Miss on Saturday, March 8th, @ 1:30 PM ET/ 12:30 CT on the SEC Network (Channel 21 in B’ham). Don’t want to look ahead and project; just want to beat Florida. But it would be nice to get a first round bye in the tournament in Atlanta 12th-16th. That would help our chances of making a run and making a big statement to the NCAA committee. I’m  a believer in our basketball team. Love these guys. Pure heart and a lot of skill. Dai-Jon was a shooting machine on Saturday finishing with 21 points. Rod was banged up going into the game with a thigh injury and that was the reason he was a little slow getting it going. Kyle just needs a break every now and then.  Carter looks like he can not only give Kyle a break, but also give us some high quality minutes. I’d like to see Carter shoot the ball just to see how he can do it. He’s a good athlete and very quick and doesn’t make mistakes. He not only won’t get you beaten. he’ll also help you win games. He did that Saturday. Nathan looks like a shooter and Damian and Luke are players. All four are underclassmen and Dai-Jon is a junior and a sensational athlete, highly skilled player and tremendous defender. We’ve got three shooters coming in and Kedren may be back next year if he can keep it clean and work hard the rest of this season and in the summer. Could be an NCAA team  next year. But I’m focused on this year. Florida is huge and Memorial will be rocking. They’re a high quality team obviously, number one in the country, and that’s legit. They play incredible defense, are tough inside and can shoot it pretty well. They have the tools to win it all. Billy Donovan is an outstanding coach and they are loaded talent-wise. But I’ll put our guys and Kevin toe-to-toe with’em and see what happens. Will be riveting in Memorial tomorrow night. Pumped about it.

I was emailing a friend of mine on Saturday and telling him who my top five coaches in college basketball are right now. Here is my list in order: 1. Rick Pitino 2. Coach K. 3. Billy Donovan 4. Tom Izzo 5. Cal. I’d put Roy Williams sixth and Jim Boeheim seventh. You might think that Pitino pick over Coach K is kind of strange, but for the complete resume with all he does, and even though Coach K has four national titles and two Olympic Golds, and Pitino has two national titles, I just think Pitino is the complete package. To me, he does more with his talent than any coach in America. Coach K is incredible and I know there are plenty who’ll disagree with me on Pitino-Coach K order, Billy is outstanding, Izzo always gets it done at Michigan State. You can’t argue with what Cal does , though I feel like he’s a better recruiter than he is an actual strategic coach. But he’s won it all and has taken every program he’s had (UMass and Memphis along with UK ) to the Final Four and had Memphis in the championship game in 2008 only to lose on two free throw misses by Derrick Rose. He also took his Wildcats to the Final Four in 2011 before winning it all in 2012. Cal’s resume is outstanding. Roy gets it done. Carolina is on fire right now after beating Duke Thursday night in Chapel Hill and posting 105 on Wake on Saturday.

Boeheim does a good job, but his ballistic reaction to the charge call on his player, C.J. Fair, Saturday night, with 10 seconds left and his team down 60-58 to Duke, cost him two technical fouls and an ejection, and cost his team the game, as Duke was awarded four free throws (sinking three-of-four), the ball which led to them closing out  the game. Boeheim was his typical sarcastic self in the postgame. He’s not my favorite. It was a close call as Fair was driving to the basket and the Duke defender looked set with his feet firmly planted and his body stable. It looked like the charge call was the right call by official Tony Greene. Boeheim was talking about the new rule where the offensive player gets the call on the block/charge 50-50, but the Duke defender was set. Boeheim acted like an idiot about it, running out of the coaching box (first technical) then just berating Greene (second technical). It was very much out of line, and deserves a look by the ACC  on whether they should suspend Boeheim for a game. Anyway, those are my top guys. Kevin is close to the top 10-12 with guys like John Beilein of Michigan, Sean Miller of Arizona, Bill Self (number seven on the list) of Kansas, and Jay Wright of Nova. Kevin is a tremendous strategist and a good motivator. Sometimes he’s a little too hard on the players, but overall, he’s an excellent coach. What a job he did Saturday. Beth and I were watching and we were saying to each other in  the second half, “When is he going to put Kyle and Rod back in?” But Kevin stuck to his guns, kept Carter and Nathan in, and when Kyle and Rod came in, they played very well. It was just a tremendous victory for a team whose heart is as big as Nashville. These guys are special. We’ve got a shot with the Gators. Should be an epic. With two, four-star guards coming in, and one high three-star, we should be an excellent shooting team next year especially if Kedren comes back and we have Dai-Jon back. Another player in this class, preferably a bigger guy, would help a lot.

My best football coaches in the country are Saban, Derek, Jimbo Fisher, Gus Malzahn, Spurrier and Urban Meyer, though Urb is not my favorite guy. My best baseball coaches in the country are Corbs and everybody else. For his coaching and his recruiting, Corbs is the number one guy. We are very fortunate to have him.

Baseball swept Illinois-Chicago this weekend in some epic pitching performances all weekend and some excellent hitting on Friday and Sunday. We won 12-1 Friday as Tyler Beede went six, gave up one hit, a homer, walked one and K’d 12. T.J. Pecoraro and Ben Bowden finished it off. We pounded out 19 hits and Illinois-Chicago committed six errors. Second baseman Dansby Swanson had three hits and an RBI and stole two bases. Dansby is something special. Corbs was really high on Dansby before the season in our interview and I hadn’t seen him play because he was hurt last year, but Dansby has it all. He can field, hit and really run. He’s quite a baseball player. Left fielder Brian Reynolds, a freshman, had three hits including a solo shot, our first homer of the season. Reynolds is special too. Catcher Chris Harvey had a pair of hits, two doubles, and two RBis. Saturday we won 2-0 behind the stellar pitching of Jared Miller and Carson Fulmer. Jared went seven, gave up four hits, no runs with no walks and six K’s. Carson pitched the final two innings giving up two hits, walking one and striking out five. That’s a dominant combination there. Had no errors on Friday and one on Saturday. Sunday we won 12-1, pounding out 13 hits and committing no errors. First baseman Zander Wiel had three hits and two RBIs with two doubles, left fielder Kyle Smith, another guy like Wiel and some others who are going to give us a lot of run-producing hits and power this year, had three hits and an RBI and scored four times. John Norwood had a hit and two RBis. Shortstop Vinnie Conde had a triple and an RBI. DH Rhett Wiseman had a double that just missed going out of the park in right. Tyler Ferguson pitched well going 5.2 innings, giving up three hits, one run with three walks and seven K’s. Four pitchers combined to close it out as closer Brian Miller came in in the ninth and gave up a hit, but struck out the side. Miller is key going forward like he was last year. He’s amazing.

This week we’ve got Western Kentucky @home @ 4 PM CT tomorrow, Evansville @ home @ 4 PM CT on Wednesday and the Stanford Cardinal come in to The Hawk for a weekend series starting Friday with a 4 PM CT game, Saturday @ 2 PM CT and Sunday @ 1 CT. New rankings haven’t come out yet, but we were anywhere from six to nine last week in the USA Today Coaches, Baseball America, Collegiate Baseball and National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association polls. We could move into the top five. Just need to take care of business starting with Western Kentucky tomorrow.

***Note***We are No.8 in Baseball America’s February 24th poll released just a few minutes ago. Virginia is No.1, Florida State is No.2 and South Carolina is No.3, followed by No.4 Oregon State, No.5 Cal State Fullerton, No. 6 NC State, No.7 LSU, us, No.9 Oregon and No.10 Louisiana Lafayette. Wow, La-Lafayette, they’ve got it going down there. State is No. 18, Alabama is No. 21, A&M is No. 23, Arkansas is No. 24 and Florida is No. 25.

Will have more later in the week.

Our basketball team is special. They may not have the overwhelming resume of a Syracuse, Duke or Florida, but this group has never quits. Saturday is further evidence of a group that has hearts that are bigger than Memorial Gym; these are high character guys. We were 3-of-24 from trifecta (11.5%), 17-of-55 from the field (31%) and 20-of-31 from the free throw line (64.5%), but we still found a way to defeat Texas A&M in overtime, 57-54m, Saturday before 9,059 fans at Memorial. The team moved to 14-10 overall and 6-6 in the conference. A&M dropped to 14-11 and 5-7. It was a somewhat important game in the SEC standings because if we play well the rest of the way we could get a bye in the SEC tournament which is always huge. We wouldn’t have to play on Wednesday and give our guys a much needed extra day to rest their legs.

Rod Odom was 3-0f-18 from the field and 2-0of-11 from three, but hit the shot of the game with a 15 footer from the left side of the basket with five seconds left to tie the game at 49 and send it into overtime. Just before that Dai-Jon and James Siakam pressured the A&M ball handler and tied him up forcing a jump ball and the possession arrow went to us. Rod hit the beautiful jumper to tie it up and send it into an extra period. Some were saying Dai-Jon fouled the A&M guy, but the refs were letting them go on Saturday, and for the most part, in a good way. I just saw a good play by Dai-Jon. Damian had a key and one in overtime (old-fashioned three point play) which was key, and we outlasted them to gain the victory. Kyle was 0-for-5 from three and Dai-Jon was 0-for-8, but Kyle had some key drives and scores late in the game. He had four drives to  the rim and finishes. He is so good at that. Kyle has been excellent this year. Losing Eric McClellan was unfortunate for him, but it was actually a good thing for the  team as Kyle is much more of a team leader and an excellent player. Dai-Jon plays 40 minutes a game, so his legs were spent on Saturday, but man did he hustle on defense. We were down 9 with 5;49 left and outscored them 15-5 in the last 5:49 to send it into OT. James had a good day at the line going 12-of-14. That really helped. James finished with 16 points and 10 boards, Kyle had 12 points and four assists, though I’d like to see that assist total go up to about six or seven a game, and Damian had 10 points and 13 boards. Damian was a beast on the boards. We out-rebounded the Aggies 41-38. We just found a way. So proud of’em. We are now tied with LSU and Tennessee for fifth in the conference. Pretty good stuff. Tough week ahead though with a Wednesday contest @ Missouri at 8 PM ET/7 CT on the SEC Network (Channel 68 in B’ham, not sure about everywhere else) and a Saturday contest against a pretty good Auburn team @ Auburn at 6 PM Et/5 CT on Fox Sports Net. The following week will host the amazing Gators of Florida on Tuesday (2-25) @ 7 PM ET/6 CT on ESPN. Should be an electric atmosphere for that one. Florida defeated Kentucky Saturday Night at Rupp and to me look like the best team in the country. They start four seniors and have one of the if not the best coach in college basketball on their sideline, though Coach K and Pitino fans might disagree. But I’ll take Kevin and our warriors against anybody.  Tough three games coming up, but this team has shown so much heart. They don’t back down from anybody. If we can hang in there physically and not get worn down, I’m still a believer in our postseason chances. Never give up on that particularly with these warriors. Another guy I want to mention is Carter Josephs, our walk-on sophomore guard who has given us some valuable minutes. Carter is another warrior. On Saturday late in overtime, Carter was running down for a loose ball and collided with an A&M player. The A&M player was called for the foul which was the right call, and Carter was bleeding heavily from his eye. He’s getting stitches from that collision.But that was a big play in the game. A&M was a assessed a flagrant one foul which is two free throws and the ball and Luke Kornett, who had a bad ankle and played limited minutes (not serious) drained one of two free throw to put us up by four. When a player gets injured who is supposed to shoot a free throw the opposing coach gets to choose the free throw shooter on the team shooting except when there is blood involved then the home coach gets to pick. Not sure why we picked Luke, but he sank one of two. Anyway we iced it away and pulled out a key SEC victory. It doesn’t get any easier this week, but that’s OK; I like this team a lot. Love what they’re accomplishing with limited manpower. We have some major heart guys on this team. Our legs can get tired and our shooting can suffer, but we find other ways to get it done. We won the math contest on Saturday.

Baseball swept Long Beach State over the weekend. Won 5-0 Friday night, 6-0 Saturday night and 6-2 yesterday afternoon. Pitching was superb. Tyler Beede went five Friday night in the start giving up one hit, one run with one walk and seven K’s. Walker Buehler and Brian Miller finished it off. We only had six hits, but got the job done. Saturday night Jared Miller pitched six, giving up one hit, no runs with zero walks and four K’s. The awesome Carson Fulmer cleaned it up with three innings of shutout ball giving up two hits, with one walk and five K’s. Carson is special, but our starters look so good, who knows if he can crack the weekend rotation. He is a talent though and an amazing competitor. He may be a Saturday or Sunday starter before it’s over. Carson hurt his eye in the Sunday game of the Louisville super regional last year and that hurt us in the deciding third game on Monday when we didn’t have Carson, who was pitching lights out, available for that third game. He looks back to being the Carson who is a potential dominant pitcher after battling the eye injury in the offseason. Love some Carson Fulmer. We had 11 hits Saturday night with freshman left fielder Brian Reynolds and junior right fielder John Norwood each having a pair of hits. Shortstop Vinnie Conde knocked in two runs on the night.

Yesterday, we put on a pitching and hitting clinic. We pounded out 13 hits and were led by Reynolds who had three hits and three RBis. Reynolds looks pretty special. Big Z, third baseman Xavier Turner, also had three hits. Catcher Chris Harvey had two hits. Haven’t hit a home run yet, but that’ll come. Like our power potential with Xavier, Harvey, Zander Wiel and Norwood packs some punch. Tyler Ferguson pitched 5.1 innings giving up just two hits with no earned runs, Tyler committed an error that led to a pair of runs scoring, with no walks and three Ks. Freshman lefty John Kilichowski, T.J. Pecoraro, Adam Ravanelle, who gave us a good outing, and the always reliable and possibly dominant again Miller finishing it off. Next up is Lipscomb @ 5 PM ET/ 4 CT @ the Hawk. Then we have a weekend series against Illinois-Chicago next weekend at home. Game times for the UIC games are 5 PM ET/4 CT on Friday, 3 PM ET/2 CT on Saturday and 2 PM ET/ 1 CT on Sunday. You can watch all four games on the computer on the vucommodores.com website. Like this team a lot just from the opening weekend, but as Corbs says, “One day at a time.” Gotta say though, pretty excited about what the future holds. Got a lot of work to do though starting this week. The goal is Omaha, but to get there we’ve got to get better every day. That’s Corbs’ approach and it’s the right one.

Derek Mason was on Jim Rome a couple of weeks ago and the Paul Finebaum show last week. Derek did an awesome job. Starting to think some about spring ball now with some interesting stuff coming up in spring practice. Job number one will be watching our quarterbacks and see who is our best option though that may not be decided until the middle of August. Patton Robinette and Johnny McCary will be battling for the job with Joshua Grady as our third string. I wish the coaches would move Josh to wide receiver. He is a great athlete and can help us out wide. I know Josh wants to play qb, but he has a better chance to make an impact at wide receiver. He is talented. Patton and Johnny will make for an interesting spring competition and then the three freshmen come in this summer. I do like one of the two upperclassmen to get the job though. Like both of these guys and will give an opinion on who I like as our signal  caller after the spring game. Patton did some good things last year, but has some improving  to do. He’s a winner though. Johnny has a lot of talent, so we’ll see how they progress. We’ve got good players around the quarterback position, excellent line with four starters returning and a lot of depth, pretty good rb situation though I’m hoping freshman Dallas Rivers can give Jerron Seymour, Brian Kimbrow and Ralph Webb some help, tight end is coming along, and we’ve got some pretty good young talent at wide receiver. We’re going to be pretty tough on defense. With Derek and Coach Kotulski running the defense, and the talent we have at all positions, I think we can be pretty special on defense. Excited about the prospects. Spring should be very interesting. We have a big recruiting weekend this Saturday with 2015 prospects at our Junior Day camp. Possibly a commitment or two may come out of it. Will keep you posted.

Brandt will play this week at the WGC Accenture Match Play at the Golf Club at Dove Mountain in Marana, Arizona. Brandt’s first match Wednesday is against David Lynn of England. I’m not sure where Brandt’s game is right now. He’s had some good rounds, but not as consistently good as he’s been in the last two years. He’s had a week off, so hopefully his game will be good this week. Would love to see Brandt get back to being Brandt and driving it perfectly, hitting good approaches, chipping well which he’s been very good at the last two years, and then let that putter go to work. Will keep you posted on B’s progress. Hope his injuries have not been a factor in his inconsistent play, but I think he’s OK and ready to go this week.

The 16th ranked men’s golf team finished third out of 13 teams at the Sun Trust Gator Invitational in Gainesville, Fl. Arkansas won it and Florida finished second. I like what second year coach Scott Limbaugh is doing with our program. This has a chance to be a special program this year and in the future under Limbaugh.