Wow, this basketball team has become completely special. I’ll put our brand of play against anybody’s in the country. We are an electrically fun team to watch. The shooting is out of the roof good right now. Saturday night we went to  “the Tad Pad” and upset the Ole Miss Rebels, a team that is projected to be in the tournament by “Joey Brackets” Lunardi. Ole Miss came into the game with an 11-6 conference mark and needed to beat us to insure a double bye in the SEC tournament. It was also their senior night, so they had a lot to play for. So did we. We wanted to win and secure the highest seeding we could get in the tournament. We took care of business in a big time way with an 86-77 victory over the Rebs to finish the regular season 19-12 overall and 9-9 in the conference. That’s pretty outstanding considering we were 1-7 in the conference heading into February. We finished 8-2 in our last 1o with the only two losses coming in overtime to UT at home and on the road to Florida by 3. Both games were winnable, but that’s OK, because the way we finished, we’ve become the hottest team in the SEC besides the team that plays at Memorial North in Lexington. We wouldn’t have to play them until the finals of the tournament if we can matriculate that far. We play UT in the second round, our first game,  on Thursday @ 7 PM ET/6 PM CT on the SEC Network.

Back to Saturday night’s classic. Riley was shooting like the Riley before he sustained his broken nose in Decemeber. He’s been playing a great overall game, but his shot came really alive in Oxford. Riley was 8-of-13 from the field and 5-of-9 from triple range to finish with 19 points. Riley also dished out eight assists and committed zero turnovers. Just a sensational game from a sensational player. WB4 added 15 on 4-of-5 from the field, 2-of-2 from trifecta and 5-of-6 from the line. Wade also pulled down eight boards. Our guards, particularly WB4 MFD, and Riley some too, are excellent rebounders. James Siakam played an exceptional game with 14 points and nine pulls. MFD added 14 which included 4-of-6 from trifecta. Luke finished the night with 10 and Damian added 8. WB4 had the play of the night when he drove the floor in the closing seconds of the half, made a spin move, and sank a beautiful trifecta that extended the lead to 46-33 at the half when it looked like Ole Miss may be gaining some momentum. Watching the guys go into halftime, they just looked pumped and there was a hop in their steps. Huge play by Wade. We just have some awesome shooters. And that makes the game so much better. There’s good defense in college basketball,  which helps you win a lot of games, but good offense makes the game a lot more interesting. We pass it and we shoot it outstandingly. Riley, MFD and Luke can hit ’em from anywhere. Matthew Fisher Davis likes either side of the key, but he can sink a deep one in the corner. He’s such a versatile shooter. Riley is the same. He can sink it from anywhere. Luke really likes the corner and is hotter than he’s ever been  from three. Wade can get it done from three. He’s been heating up from deep lately. Looks like his three point shooting is on the money. I almost forgot about Shelton Mitchell. Shelton runs the floor extremely well at the point, he executes precise passes that lead to a bucket, and he is so good at driving and finishing at the rim. He did it a couple of times on Saturday. Love the combination of Wade and Shelton at the point.

We ended up shooting 13-of-23 from three (56%) and  54 % from the field (30-of-55). We out-rebounded them 36-32, which was huge. James pulled down six off the offensive glass, many at critical times. He’s so clutch. We held them to 42 percent from the field and 6-of-21 from three (29%). We shot 68% from the line, 13-of-19, not our best, so we need to get better at the line against Tennessee. But everything else was terrific. Love where this team is at. I’m not counting out anything right now. The NCAA tournament is certainly attainable. We’ll have to win the tournament most likely, but that’s possible, with this youthful, hard working, energetic, confident and talented team. Our guys are not intimidated by anyone. I’ll put them up against anyone in the country and that includes the team from the North.

Baseball didn’t have its best weekend this past weekend going 1-2 on the left coast. After a nice 6-0 shutout victory on Friday night over No.4 UCLA, we lost two in a row to a pair of very good teams. Saturday, we lost the USC, 6-5, on a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth, and Sunday we lost to No.6 TCU, 4-2. Not our best. Not exactly sure what’s going on with Hayden Stone. He’s not been pitching lately. Don’t know if it’s performance based or what exactly. Hayden sure was a key part of us winning the national championship last year, and while he had a rocky start at the beginning of this season, he started a mid-week game a couple of weeks ago and pitched well. Sure would like to see Hayden get back in our pitching rotation on the back end as our closer. Philip Pfeifer has been pitching well out of the pen, but Hayden is stellar. So not sure what the issue is there. We play Quinnipiac out of Hamden, Conneticut today and tomorrow weather permitting, and Arkansas comes to the Hawk for a weekend series this weekend to begin the SEC season. Arkansas is 9-3 presently. Quinnipiac is 2-6. Hopefully we can get it together this week and this weekend. Baseball is now 11-3 overall. Rhett Wiseman is leading the team in hitting @ .419. Hitting has been excellent overall. Just lost a couple of tough losses to two very good teams over the weekend. USC is now 14-1 and now No.13 in the country. Time to get it back together. We are now ranked No.5 in the D-1.com College Baseball poll. Florida is No.1, TCU is 2, Virginia is 3 and LSU is 4. So we have our work cut out for us going forward.

Some good news just in: looks like the Bears will be keeping Jay on the roster this season. New offensive coordinator Adam Gase, who worked with Peyton Manning for the last two years, will try to design plays that work for Jay’s strengths. I still believe Jay can be an elite quarterback in the National Football League. Very happy he will be a Bear next year, according to a report by ESPN. I just keep thinking about Tony Romo, who had been much maligned the past several years for making the bad play at critical times. Well Romo, at 34 this past season, came into his own, and had a sensational year, taking the Cowboys to the second round of the playoffs making clutch play after clutch play and putting up some outstanding numbers. Jay will be 32 April 29th, so his best football could be ahead of him. The Bears have a new regime with the steady, solid leadership of John Fox as head coach and the excellent, tough-minded Vic Fangio as defensive coordinator. Fox is an excellent defensive coach, and Fangio, who comes to the Bears from the 49ers, where he had excellent, physical defenses, will bring that tough defensive mindset that the Bears have always had until the last couple of years. I really liked Marc Trestman, but his defenses under Mel Tucker, who is now the secondary coach at Alabama, were just not very good. We never could count on the defense to stop opposing offenses, and particularly, ARodg and Green Bay. Fangio brings a blue collar toughness to the defense. There are still good players on both sides of the ball. Excited to see what Gase can do with Jay. Tucker is a good coach, but just couldn’t seem to get the defense to play up to Bears’ standards. He’ll do well at Alabama most likely, but the Bears needed to make changes even though Trestman is an excellent offensive coach. Trestman takes over as offensive coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens as their previous OC, Gary Kubiak, left to be the head coach of the Broncos. Trestman will do well with the Ravens. They should be an excellent team again this coming year.

Football is back at it in spring drills as the team returned to the indoor facility yesterday for more work. Spring game is set for March 21st. I love the energy that Derek and Coach Ludwig have brought to the defense and offense respectively. Derek is a master motivator and a keen defensive mind, and Coach Ludwig is extremely solid and smart. The players are really playing with a high energy level. Our young coaches, wide receivers coach Cortez Hankton and safeties coach Marc Mattioli, have also brought high energy to the team. Like the talent we have, particularly on defense. Our running backs are going to need to stay healthy and we need a couple of quarterbacks to step up this spring, and the wide receivers need to step up and the oline needs to be more physical, but we have the makings of a productive offense and a stellar defense. This quarterback competition might run into August drills. The spring game may create some separation though. We’ll see how Johnny, Patton, Wade and Stank fare in the Black and Gold game. It could be a pretty good barometer of who will be under center against Western Kentucky on Saturday, September 5th. We play Georgia the next Saturday at home, Sept. 12th, so we’ll be tested right out of the gate. Western Kentucky played in the Bahamas Bowl last year and came back from a ton down and almost won the game at the end, losing 49-48. The Hilltoppers scored a touchdown on a pass and a bunch of laterals to pull within one point as time expired. Their coach, Jeff Brohm, decided to go for two and get the victory. It was kind of a surprising decision. The two point conversion failed. Looked like Western had all the momentum with that touchdown and could have taken the game into overtime and won. That didn’t seem like the right decision, but they had a good year. They finished  8-5 with a huge win over previously unbeaten Marshall, 67-66 in overtime the last game of the season. Marshall finished the season 13-1 and defeated Northern Illinois (Are you kiddin me? Herbstreit three years ago when Northern Illinois was in the hunt for a BCS game) in the Boca Raton Bowl, 52-23. They can play some serious offense, and Brohm is an excellent offensive coach. Georgia, of course, will have the awesome Nick Chubb and the emerging Sony Michel at running back and the talented team they always have. They are breaking in a new quarterback though.

The tennis team won a three matches over the weekend. We upset previously 11th ranked Florida last Friday and we defeated Auburn and Ball State on Sunday. Auburn was ranked 35th in the country by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. We were 14th last week. We could move up as the new rankings are released today. The No.1 doubles team in the country, Austin Gonzales and Ryhs Johnson, keep winning. We play @ Texas A&M Friday and @ LSU Sunday. A&M is No.10 in the country and LSU is No.28, so it’s a big weekend for the guys.

Golf team is in action at the Talis Park Challenge in Naples, Florida Saturday and Sunday. Will have more on that later in the week. Last Wednesday’s Golfstat.com poll had us at No.5 nationally. The next poll comes out tomorrow.

The women’s basketball team lost in the SEC tournament to Kentucky 67-61 after defeating Alabama in the first round, 66-56. The girls were really young this year with no senior on the team and five freshmen and one redshirt freshman on the team, some of whom played a lot of minutes. The future should be pretty bright. Melanie Balcomb has done an excellent job getting us to the tourney most every year. Hopefully, Melanie can get us back in the tourney next year. We finished the season 15-16 overall and 5-11 in the conference.

Brandt finished tied for 17th at the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championships at the Donald’s Doral Course, the Blue Monster. It was quite a tournament and Dustin Johnson, who said afterwards that he knew he was “great,” captured the title. This confidence some of these PGA players have sounds a little unusual, almost awkward. I’ve never heard more self confidence spewed out. Would be nice if somebody says, “It was a good day,” instead of “I was awesome today,” or “I knew I was great” like Johnson said. Brandt does a lot better than that though they all need to tone it down on  the confidence meter. They’re arrogant and sound really stupid.

Brandt shot 74-73-70-72, one over for the tournament. He’ll play this week at the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, Fl. in the Tampa Bay area. Brandt is No.9 in the Fed Ex standings and, more importantly, needs to have a good week this  week at the Valspar and next week in the Arnie as he hones his game up for the Masters.

Jon Curran had an excellent weekend at the Puerto Rico Open, the PGA tour event for players not in the world top 70 who played at Doral. Jon made it to a five way playoff to win the title and lost out to Alex Cejka in the playoff. Still a stellar performance by Jon and he’ll be in the field this week at the Valspar. Jon is presently 70th in the Fed Ex standings. A player needs to be in the top 125 of the standings at the end of the year to earn his card for next season, or get in the top 125 in money earned this season at the end of the year. Jon needs to keep playing well. Wow, it’s competitive out there.

Luke List finished tied for fourth at the Karibana Championship in Columbia this past weekend. With his fourth place finish, Luke moved to No.22 in the Web.com “the 25.” The top 25 players at the end of the season automatically qualify for the PGA tour next season. Luke was on the tour two years ago and I know he wants to get back. He’s 30, so he needs to get this done. Luke is playing this week in the Brasil Champions presented by HSBC. Jon Curran actually won this tournament last year, which was instrumental in him making the tour. Hopeful that Luke can get in the winner’s circle soon, maybe this weekend.

Will have more on our game with UT and everything else going on in a couple of days. Thanks a lot.

Penn Murfee was not going to let his team lose last night against Evansville. Down 8-7 in the bottom of the ninth, Penn got a hold of  a pitch and crushed it over the left center field lights to tie the game at eight and send it into extras. The  No.1 ranked Dores scored the winning run in the bottom of the 12th on a wild pitch to secure the 9-8 victory and move to 10-2 on the season as the guys head out to the West coast this weekend on a roll.

Right fielder Rhett Wiseman reached base all seven times he stepped to the plate and finished with four hits, his second four hit game in the last four games. Penn also had two singles to go three-for-five for the game. Dansby Swanson crushed a three-run shot to center in the third inning, his first long one of the season. Jordan Sheffield earned the victory on the mound for the Dores, pitching five innings, giving up one hit, three runs, all earned, with four walks and seven K’s. Walker Buehler made his initial start for Corbs and the Dores and pitched two innings,of no hit, no run ball issuing two walks and striking out two. Walker threw 31 pitches with 19 for strikes and 12 balls. Sheffield threw 86, with 48 for strikes and 38 balls. Collin Snider, Mark Ruppenthal and Philip Pfeifer also pitched in relief for the Commodores. Snider gave up three hits and three runs in two innings of work, Ruppenthal pitched an inning giving up no runs but issuing three walks, and Pfeifer was pretty effective in two innings giving up two unearned runs with three walks and three K’s. I didn’t watch the game, but it sounds like the home plate umpire Michael Thomas had a tight strike zone. We issued 12 walks and struck out 12.

Wiseman is now hitting .408 on the season with 20 hits in 49 at bats. Penn is hitting .364 with 12 hits in 33 at bats, and Dans is hitting .346 with 18 hits in 52 at bats. The bats are definitely cookin’. We’re now hitting .325 as a team. College baseball has gone to a new ball this year, similar to the minor league ball, with the seam being lower on the ball, or a “flat seam” ball. It has really been a boon for hitting; it sure has with out team. They call it a ‘flat seam” ball as opposed to a “raised seam” ball that college baseball has been using for the last several years. The ball has been measured to travel 20 feet father than the higher seam ball used before. It has sure helped our team and it’s helped hitting in college baseball. Want some pitching and defense too, but it’s a more fun game when there’s hitting. I’m sure our guys like it. There have been some good pitching performance also by our guys, Carson and company. Hopefully, Walker can get another start soon, maybe Sunday against TCU at Chavez Ravine, Dodger Stadium.

We’ll play No.4 UCLA Friday night in LA (at UCLA) with a 9 PM ET/8 PM CT first pitch. Carson most likely will be on the hill. I will have pitching match ups later in the week. I’m pretty sure Kilichowski will get the start Saturday against USC (5 PM ET/4 PM CT @ USC), and it’s to be determined who’ll get the ball on Sunday against No.6 TCU at Dodger Stadium (2:45 PM ET/1:45 PM CT). Freshman Kyle Wright is a possibility as he has pitched a couple of Sunday contests for us already. Or maybe Walker gets a shot to go against high level competition. It’ll be interesting to see what Corbs does there. Should be an electric weekend for our team as we play top national competition in advance of the conference season opening a week from Friday, March 13th,  vs Arkansas at home. Arkansas will be in town next weekend for a weekend set. We also play Quinnipiac for a two game set next Tuesday and Wednesday prior to Arkansas coming to town. Quinnipiac University is in Hamden, Connecticut. No live video scheduled as of yet this weekend, but hopefully I can find some and will let you know.

The No.9 golf team (nationally) fired an 11 under par round yesterday as the team captured second place behind No.2 ranked FSU at the Querencia Cabo Collegiate in Los Cabos, Mexico. The 273 was a tournament low for teams in the field. We finished with a -5 score for the tournament. FSU finished at -13. Senior Hunter Stewart shot a 67, freshman Theo Humphrey shot a 68, and junior Carson Jacobs also shot a 68. The Querencia was one of the most competitive tournaments in college golf thus far. Excellent performance  by the team, particularly yesterday in coming back from fifth place where we were at the start of yesterday’s final round. Our next competition is Sunday, March 15th, at the Talis Park Challenge in Naples, Fl. Will have more on that closer to time.

Bball in action tonight against Mississippi State at 9 PM ET/8 PM CT on the Network (SEC Network). It will be Senior Night so James Siakam, Shelby Moats and maybe Josh Henderson will be honored before the game. I say maybe Josh because there is chance he’s coming back for a sixth year next year with a medical redshirt. I would love for Hendo to come back for another year. He missed most of two years with severe knee injuries. He has hung tough though and he can help us the rest of this season. And I would love to see him back next year. It will be great to applaud James and Shelby. They are the true definition of the college student-athletes. Shelby has a job on Wall Street waiting for him after he graduates. He has been hurt most of the year, but he’s an awesome guy. James has been spectacular this season. He’s been the heart and soul of our team. He’s still pumped to help us make some noise here in March. James Siakam wants to play a lot more basketball for the Vanderbilt Commodores. There is a good chance of ice tonight, so not sure what kind of crowd we’ll get. Hopefully, the students can get to the game and support James, Shelby and Josh and pull our team through in a key game against a team that beat us in Starkville about a month or so ago. Craig Sword is a scorer for them. They’re dangerous. We need to bring our hard hats tonight against a hard-nosed, athletic team.

No commits as of yet in football. Will keep you posted if anybody pops. We have a lot of offers out there and we’re close to landing two or three guys. Spring practice starts back up next Monday when the guys get back from Spring break and there will be a lot to get done prior to the Black and Gold Spring game March 21st, a Saturday at 1 PM CT.

Coach Stallings is the best coach in America. I felt no offense to anything. We are both fiery people and that’s why I chose Vandy.

Wade Baldwin IV’s tweet after the game on Thursday.

Talk about something that looked really bad turning into something really good, Kevin’s comments to Wade weren’t ideal, but the players, and particularly WB4 rallied around their coach on Saturday. The controversy charged the team up. In the first half, we were feeling the effects from a hard fought game on Thursday night against UT, which we won impressively. Coaches, at least Kevin, worry about those Thursday night-Saturday games, because the players are mentally and physically drained; particularly from a game of the magnitude that UT is. The guys’ legs are tired and they’re also battling mental fatigue. But our team sure woke up in the second half of the Alabama game, much like we did against Tennessee at Knoxville. After sinking 13-0f-25 trifectas on Thursday night, 52%, we came back and sank 11-of-19 triples on Saturday at Memorial, a sparkling 58%. Wow. We also drained our free throws, sinking 20-of-25, 81%, including 18-of-21 free ones in the second half, 86%. That wins a lot of basketball game. This team is on a roll. The guys finished 6-2 in February, with an OT loss to UT and a three point loss at Florida, so 8-0 could have been executed. Still, quite a month and perfect timing for a team that, in my mind, if we can keep this up, has a chance to win the SEC tournament in Nashville at Bridgestone Areana, March 11-15. It starts a week from this Wednesday. We need to first take care of business Wednesday night at home against Mississippi State (9 PM ET/8 PM CT on the SEC Network). If we get that done Wednesday, we go to Ole Miss on Saturday for a 9 PM ET/8 PM CT contest on the SEC Network also. Then the tournament. Right now we are 17-12 overall and 7-9 in conference. I don’t want to look any farther ahead than Wednesday night though. We need to take care of that one for sure and then go from there. And the NCAA tournament is not out of the question. Our freshmen are now playing like veterans. They’ve been through the SEC wars and have emerged more mature and much better players. Their talent has always been there. Now they understand what it takes to succeed in this conference. Damian and Luke are playing very well. James is a stud. He gives us so much on the floor besides points with his hustle plays, rebounds, blocks, his defense. Right now, we’re tied for seventh place in the conference with Alabama and Florida. We own the tiebreaker over Alabama. We beat Florida at home and lost at their place. Will have to do some digging to see which team, ours or Florida’s, owns the tiebreaker if we finish with identical conference records. Florida plays A&M at home tomorrow night @ 9 PM ET/8 PM CT on duh U, and goes to Kentucky Saturday for a 2 PM ET/1 PM CT tipoff on CBS. We just need to take care of our business and let the standings take care of themselves. We should be able to get a bye and not play Wednesday night, which would be huge. If we beat State, that is guaranteed. I love the way our team is playing, and Kevin has done a terrific job getting the chemistry right with this young group as we enter March. Now that March is here, it gets real interesting.

WB4 led us in points Saturday with 15, and sank two critical triples right before halftime that really kept us in the game. We were down 35-21 with 1:37 left in the first half when Wade sank his first trifecta, to cut the lead to 35-24. Then Bama’s Retin Obasohan hit a three for the Crimson Tide to put them up 38-24, but Wade came right back down and drained another three with six seconds left in the first half to cut the halftime lead to 38-27. Then we went off from outside the arc in the second half and sank a ton of free throws. We have good inside guys with Damian, Luke and James, but when we’re on from outside the arc, we’re as dangerous as anybody in the country. Duke shoots it really well from three, as does Nova. Virginia can get hot from three and Gonzaga can really shoot it. There are others, but we can hang with all of them. Wade was four-for-five from three, MFD was 3-of-7 and Luke was 3-of-5. Luke said after the game that he’s starting to believe every three he puts up is going in. He said he felt that way in the first two months of the season and he’s got that confidence back. Wade has now become a serious threat from three, and Riley is a marksman when he’s got it going. MFD can shoot the lights out of the gym when he’s on, and he’s on a lot. Riley scored eight points, below his 12 point average, but he was four-for-four from the line and always seems to make a clutch shot driving to the basket at critical times in the game. He just plays within himself and doesn’t force it. Teams are trying to take Riley and Damian out of games with their defenses, but now that Wade, MFD and Luke are hot and James is playing such a terrific floor game, it’ll open up more things for Riley and Damian. James is another guy who just plays within himself. He’s having an excellent senior season.  MFD pulled down six rebounds, Wade and Damian had five yanks and James pulled down four caroms. We were out-rebounded 37-29, but like the Tennessee game, we did better in the second half on the boards. Still need to keep rebounding the ball better. Hopefully, that will start coming around this week. We’ve had good rebounding games this year, so we have it in us. Alabama is an athletic team, so they grab a lot of boards. But we are athletic, too. Our guards really rebound it well, and Jeff Roberson can help us some more there. Jeff is getting back in the swing of things after suffering a concussion a couple of weeks ago. Shelton Mitchell is giving us solid backup play at the point.  I wish Josh Henderson could see some more time. He could help us with physicality. Josh can also score. He’s a good offensive big man at 6’11”, 250. We’ll see how Kevin handles that going forward. The crowd was great, and supportive of Kevin. Kevin showed a lot of contrition Friday and Saturday for what he said to Wade. He’s forgiven. He’s done an excellent job with this young, talented group. They’re playing their best basketball of the year at the right time. Can’t ask for anything more than that. I know what happened Thursday night will not happen again. Excited how this group has come together. March looks electric.

Baseball amazes me. We were down 10-0 in the bottom of the fourth and astonishingly came back and won 16-10 over Illinois State to sweep the three game series with the Redbirds. Zander Wiel hit another grand slam, his second of the season. That’s phenomenal. I looked at the score early in the game and thought, well we took two of three, that’s OK. But talk about a team that exemplifies perseverance. What a group of competitors. Zander had three hits and four Ribeyes. Bryan Reynolds was three-for-six, Rhett Wiseman was three-for-six, and Dansby was three-for-six. Freshman third baseman Will Toffey was two-for six with two RBIs. Nolan Rogers had a two-run single. Nolan also stole two bases. Ro Coleman didn’t have a hit, but stole a base and scored two runs. And my man Penn Murfee, who has taken over second base duties because of an injury to Tyler Campbell, went one-for-two with an RBI. Tyler has a leg injury but is expected back any day, but Penn is going to be hard to take out of the lineup.  Jason Delay is hitting the ball extremely well at catcher. He was 2-for-4 yesterday with two Ribeyes. Freshman pitcher Kyle Wright started the game  and got knocked around pretty good, as did Tyler Ferguson, who relieved Wright, but freshman Ryan Johnson came in and pitched 4.2 innings of shutout ball with three walks and three strikeouts. Ryan didn’t allow a hit. And stud sophomore left hander Ben Bowden came in and pitched the last three innings and allowed only one hit, no runs with two walks and, this number is incredible, 8 strikeouts in three innings. It was an amazing performance by our team. We belted out 19 hits. We committed one error, Will Toffey made one, but the defense was pretty solid overall. We’re now 9-2 on the season and will probably keep our No.1 ranking in the country this week. We won Friday night, 16-1, pounding out 18 hits. Penn was two-for-three with three Ribbies and Will was two-for-two with three RBIs. Carson pitched a beauty going six, allowing two hits, no runs with three walks and 11 K’s. Carson looks like Carson is supposed to. Rhett Wiseman had four hits Friday night  and Bryan Reynolds two hits and three RBIs. We also won 3-2 Saturday night. John Kilichowski pitched 5,1 innings of shutout ball Saturday. John gave up two hits, walked two and struck out  6. Jordan Sheffield and Philip Pfeifer finished the game off.

We’re hitting .326 as a team right now. Dans is hitting .370, Rhett .356, Reynolds .349, Penn .321, Toffey .313, and Zander .306. Jason Delay is hitting .438 with seven hits in 16 at bats. Zander has two homers and 15 RBIs. The platoon of Delay and Karl Ellison at catcher works well. Jsson has a better bat, and Karl may be a little better defensively, but both are very strong players. Carson is 2-0 with a 1.12 ERA with eight walks and 24 strikeouts.

On a personal note, I’m really excited for Penn Murfee. Tyler Campbell is an excellent player and second baseman, but Penn is really making a case to get a lot of playing time, if not start somewhere. Penn’s dad, John, is a very good friend of mine from college, and I know he’s really proud of Penn. John told me in an email Saturday that he wishes Penn’s late grandfather could have seen Penn excelling like he is, because his grandfather, John’s father– John Jr., loved Vanderbilt University and everything about it. Love this for Penn and Murf.

Baseball has a very interesting, exciting week this week. We have Evansville at home tomorrow (Tuesday) @ 4 PM CT on the SEC Network + on the computer, then we go out to the Left Coast to play no.4 UCLA Friday night at 8 PM CT in Los Angeles. Then we play USC Saturday in LA at 4 PM CT. On Sunday, we play No.6 Texas Christian @ 1:45 PM CT in Dodger Stadium. No TV as of yet, but there may be something on ESPN3 or SEC Network+. Sure hope so. Exciting stuff going on with our electric baseball team. We are again No.1 in the D1Baseball.com top 25 rankings.

The golf team is in Los Cabos, Mexico in an excellent tournament, the Querencia Cabo Collegiate. We are presently in eighth place after day one. Hunter Stewart and Matthias Schwab both shot 70 yesterday.Florida State, currently ranked second in the country by Golfstat.com, the premier authority for college golf, leads the tournament. It’s a three-day event and today is day two. We are currently ranked 11th nationally by Golfstat. We’ve got an excellent team. There was a really good article about Matthias in Golfweek magazine two weeks ago about how he was out last year with injury and this season he’s going to really help our chances of making a deep run. there was also a nice piece about Brandt winning at Pebble Beach.

Brandt didn’t play this week at the Honda Classic in Palm Beach, which Padraig Harrington just won,  but is in the field for the WGC Championships-Cadillac Championship at Doral CC in Miami. This is a very elite field with the top 50 players in the world competing. Brandt is in the 30’s in the world rankings. Brandt is honing his game for the Masters. Hope he can get a W in Florida in the next couple of weeks to back up his Pebble Beach victory. Jon Curran made the cut this past weekend at the Honda, but finished +13 for the tournament. Jon getting a lot of tournament competition on the tour though, and he’s playing this week at the Puerto Rico Open, where the tour players–who don’t make the WGC event in Doral– play. Jon is playing every week he can. Proud of him. Luke List is playing in the Cartegena de Indias @ Karibina Championship (mouthful there) in Columbia on the Web.com tour. Would like to see Lucas get in the top 50 on Web tour at the end of the season and join Brandt and Jon on the big tour next season.

Tennis lost yesterday to No.10 Ole Miss, but defeated No.67 Arkansas on Saturday. Our doubles team of Rhys Johnson and Gonzales Austin won both Saturday and Sunday though. They’re still Numero Uno in the country. Impressive. We are currently ranked 16th nationally by the International Tennis Association Collegiate rankings. Will work on getting an interview with Rhys and Gonzales.

Jay still in limbo with the Bears. If the Bears keep Jay on March 12th, he gets $10 million of his salary for 2016. Would love Jay to stay a Bear. They will make a decision soon. Coach John Fox and GM Ryan Pace are doing this at a very deliberate pace with getting inside Jay’s head as important as watching his film according to Fox. Wherever Jay goes, I’ll be a fan of that team. I still believe he can be elite.

Casey Hayward had a nice year for the Packers at nickel back , and Sean Richardson did some good things in Green Bay at safety and on special teams. Zac Stacy fighting for playing  time at running back with the St. Louis Rams for next season and Chris Williams still battling in Buffalo. I thought Chris was playing well at right guard for the Bills, just got injured. I’ll get on some of our other guys in the pros down the line. Will keep you posted on Jay’s status.

Finally, our football team went through a 90 minute scrimmage on Friday, and Derek was pleased once again with the enthusiasm and energy of this group. Our defense is playing very well. They’re going to be stellar under Derek this season. The front line on defense isn’t extremely deep, but we have some excellent players in Adam Butler and Nifae Lealao at d tackle. They’re both outstanding, particularly Adam right now. Nifae is going to be really good. Caleb “Zu” Azubile is playing tackle also, and Caleb can play on the edge in Derek’s 3-4. I love Caleb, Steven Weatherly and a lot of others on the outside, at end and outside linebacker. Linebackers and secondary are loaded. Derek and OC Andy Ludwig are still trying to find two guys to step up at the end of spring at quarterback. Johnny, Patton, Wade and Stank (Shawn Stankavage) are having their moments. Just need some consistency from them. Ralph Webb is tearing it up at running back, and Darrius Sims, a tremendous athlete, is starting to figure out the position and making some good runs. Darrius is a gazelle and is capable of making numerous house calls if he gets past the initial line of defense. He’s also a house call man on kickoff returns. Dallas Rivers gives us that bruiser at 6’1″, 225. Derek and Coach Ludwig want us to play some power football with explosive and solid  plays in the passing game. They want to ground and pound it down the field, make the 10 -15 yard throws and also have explosive plays, plays of 15 or more yards. Coach Ludwig coached the awesome Melvin Gordon this year, who ran for over 2,000 and was in New York as a Heisman finalist. He’s hoping he can see that kind of production out of Ralph, Dallas and Darrius and the two coming in. Ralph will probably be our workhorse. He’s not huge, but he’s tough as a wrought iron fence.  C.J. Duncan is a guy who can make explosive plays at wide receiver as can Trent Sherfield and Ronald Monroe. Latevius Rayford is a solid wide out, who can be move the chains and be a deep threat. Need to keep building depth there. Steven Scheu should have an outstanding year at tight end as should Nathan Marcus. DeAndre Woods was a highly touted receiver three years ago out of high school who can play outside or at tight end. The offensive line should be very good this year. A lot of size and strength. Coach James Dobson has done an excellent job in the weight room with the linemen, and they are capable of playing dominating football this season. Andrew Jelks should be poised for a breakout year at left tackle along with plenty of other guys. We have great size and depth on the o line. We have this week off for spring break and then get back to work a week from today. Spring game is March 21st @ 1 PM CT. Should be some TV on it. Will keep you posted.

Here is a piece by SI.com on Derek and the team. I think you’ll like it. Will be in touch.

http://www.si.com/college-football/2015/02/27/vanderbilt-commodores-derek-mason-spring-practice