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