Wade Baldwin IV had 24 and Damian Jones added 20 and 12 boards as the Dores hung on to defeat Florida Tuesday Night, 60-59, at Memorial to move to 12-8 overall and 4-4 in the SEC.

It was a much needed victory for the team after a tough loss at Kentucky last Saturday afternoon, 76-57. Wade and Dame were terrific against Florida. Wade was 7-of-13 from the field, 1-of-1 from three, and 9-of-14 from the stripe. Don’t love that free throw number; he’s a lot better than that from the stripe. Damian was six-of-14 from the field and 8-of-11 from the line. As a team, we were 21-of-33 from the line for the game, 63%. That needs to improve going forward. Jeff Roberson had six points and six boards and Luke Kornet had four points and nine boards. We shot 41% from the field, 18-of-44, and 33% from trifecta, 3-of-9. We played good defense though until the end of the game, holding Florida to 33% from the field, 23-of-70, and 32% from three, 7-of-22. The Gators were 18-of-25 from the stripe, 60%. They out rebounded us 43-41, but that was pretty much a wash. Our defense was excellent for most of the game, though in the final six minutes of the second half it was pretty shaky. Florida dropped to 5-3 in the SEC and 13-7 overall.

We have a huge game this Saturday @Texas in the SEC-Big 12 Challenge at 11 AM CT/Noon ET on ESPN2. Would be tremendous to get a W in Austin. Shaka Smart has a good team this year in Austin. Texas is 13-7 overall and 5-3 in the Big 12. They have a home victory over No.1 North Carolina, 84-82, back in December. They defeated top 15 team Iowa State at home, 94-91, on Jan.12th, and they also defeated top 20 team West Virginia on the road, Jan. 20th, 56-49. The Longhorns are 10-1 at home, with their only loss coming to UConn on Dec. 29th, 71-66. They are coming off a loss at Kansas last Saturday, 76-67, and a W on Tuesday Night over TCU, 71-54.

This is important. We’ll need the Big Fella and WB4 to play well again, but Jeff and Luke will have to give us more on the offensive end, and Riley and MFD will HAVE to shoot it well. Riley is too good of a shooter to be struggling the way he has. I expect him to get it together on Saturday and going forward. He’s too good of a player not to. He’s still helping us with his hustle, his defense and his passing. MFD hit two trifectas Tuesday Night, but we need to get more of that from him. If he gets an open look, he’s usually automatic from three. We’ll need that Saturday. Our guys off the bench, Camron Justice, Joe Toye, Josh Henderson, Nolan Cressler and Carter Josephs, will have to give us some valuable minutes.

After Texas, we have A&M next Thursday at home, 6 PM CT/7PM ET on ESPN or the Deuce. A&M lost last night at Arkansas. Huge game next Thursday, too. The Kentucky loss wasn’t the way team our team should play. We just had a really off game. Kentucky played extremely well, too. They look like they really have it together now. After beating Arkansas, 80-66, at Arkansas last Thursday, they beat us soundly, and then crushed Missouri last night, 88-54. They are clicking right now, and look like a Final Four team and even a national championship team. But we’ve got the guys to stick with them when they come to Memorial, Feb. 27th, for a 3 PM CT/4 PM ET tipoff on CBS. A lot of basketball for us to play before that though, starting Saturday. It’s gotta be a game at a time for our team right now with every game counting the same and massively important. Texas will be a huge challenge and would also be a huge lift for our team if we come out of Austin with a victory. We can get this done. We just need to play up to our standards.

Football

We got a really good commit on Tuesday from Andrew Mintze, an outside linebacker/defensive end from Philadelphia, PA. Andrew is a 79 two star, but I watched his film and he is a guy who plays with reckless abandon. Andrew is 6’3″, 220, and has a super high motor and is a violent tackler, and I mean that in a totally positive way. He makes sure the ball carrier goes down without any gray area. Andrew had 23 tackles for loss and 14 sacks this past season and was a first team All-State selection for the Class 3A state champs Imhotep High football team. Really like this pickup for Coach Mason and the staff. We haven’t heard from three-star defensive end Kelvin Lucky yet, but he’s still on the radar. We have three good prospects coming in this weekend. Will let you know if any or all of them pull the trigger. ‘

I was reading about one of our offensive line commits, Devin Cochran. The high three star offensive tackle is 6’7″, 315 pounds and buries people. Devin visited last weekend. Devin played at Greater Atlanta Christian, a team that went 12-2 this season and made the semifinals of the Georgia Class AA playoffs. Really good player here. We have three offensive linemen in this class, with two tackles and a center. Braden Kopp, a 6’6″, 285 pound solid three-star tackle, and four-star center Sean Auwae, 6″4″, 285, are our other line commits. Excellent group and we could add another one before signing day.

We did lose defensive tackle Brandon Adams. He decided to de-commit and go to Georgia Tech. Sorry to hear that, but we should add another d lineman before it’s over. There is a defensive linemen from California visiting us this weekend, so hopefully we can get a commit out of him. He’s got great size and power. Three star Josiah Sa’0. His film is really impressive. I almost like him better on the offensive line than the defensive line. He is just a dominator on the offensive side of the ball. Josiah will be in with a couple of other prospects  this weekend.

Signing Day is next Wednesday, Feb. 3rd. Should be an exciting day. Kind of like a holiday really. Sorry to lose Brandon to Tech, but like the pickup of Andrew and the prospects for some more guys this weekend.

Cornerbacks coach Brett Maxie has left the program to go to Tampa Bay and coach the secondary for the Tampa Bay Bucs. Coach Maxie’s heart was in the NFL. I met him one time when I was interviewing Coach Mason and he just seemed like an NFL coach. Coach Mason will most likely hire a cornerbacks coach after signing day. I really believe our cornerbacks can get even better. Torren McGaster, Taurean Ferguson, Donaven Sheffield and Tre Herndon are highly talented along with our depth there, and they can even get better coaching. Coach Mason will of course be heavily involved in coaching the secondary, so that will help along with safeties coach Marc Mattioli.

Luke List finished tied for sixth last weekend at the Career Builders Challenge in California. Excellent showing by Luke, who shot 68,68, 66,66 to finish -20 and get some good priority points with that showing. Jason Dufner won the tournament in a playoff over David Lingmerth.

Luke and Brandt are competing this weekend at Torrey Pines in the Farmers Insurance Open. Brandt is even par through seven and Luke is +2 through 10. Brandt is coming off consecutive top three finishes in Hawaii at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in Maui and the Sony Open in Honolulu. Brandt actually lost in a playoff to Fabian Gomez at the Sony, so he’s playing well. Brandt didn’t play at the Career Builders last week.

There is a five way tie for the lead @ -4 at the Farmers. K.J. Choi, Harris English, Hideki Matsuyama, Bud Cauley and Rob Oppenheim are leading. Pretty jammed up leaderboard. Should be an exciting weekend with a marquee field at Torrey Pines in San Diego.

Will have my conversation with Coach Geoff McDonald of VU Women’s Tennis next Monday. The team are the defending national champions and Geoff firmly believes this team can do some great things this season because of their efforts in the preseason and their passion for the game. It’s tough to repeat. Geoff and I talked about that. But it’s certainly doable with the talent we have on this team and their extraordinary attitudes and competitiveness. Will have more on that and the rest of our conversation on Monday.

Tuesday, I will have my conversation with the man, Corbs, on his 2016 Vanderbilt baseball team. The prospects are exciting. Corbs and I talked about a lot of stuff and will have that up Tuesday at the latest.

In the meantime, we have a huge basketball Saturday and football recruiting in the forefront this weekend. Will keep you up to date on both of those sports and anything else that comes up.

Matthew Fisher-Davis finished 6-of-11 from trifecta for 18 points and pulled down 8 boards, Wade Baldwin IV had a super night on the hardwood  with 25 points, which included 3-of-6 from triple country, and 12-of-13 from the line, and freshman Camron Justice made his presence known going four-of-seven from distance and finishing with 12 points as the Vanderbilt Commodores dropped the hammer on Tennessee in Knoxville, 88-74, to move to 3-3 on the season in the SEC, and 11-7 overall. UT dropped to 2-4 in conference and 9-9 overall.

After a huge victory on the road, the guys move on to Lexington to play the Kentucky Wildcats this Saturday @ 3 PM CT/4 PM ET on ESPN. The Wildcats play at Arkansas tonight at 6 PM CT/7 PM ET on ESPN.

This was a huge boost toward getting another SEC victory in Rupp on Saturday.

Our three-point shooting was phenomenal. It was mainly in the first half in which we were 10-of-22. MFD was draining shots from every spot on the court, Camron was going off, and WB4 was doing it all. We cooled down in the second half from trifecta, going 3-of-11, but the damage had been done. Jeff Roberson had another hard hat-lunch pale night for us with 11 points and 10 boards. Jeff is so reliable every time out. He’s giving us tremendous minutes and he’s an underrated gem on this team. Jeff brings it every night. He’s so valuable to this team’s success night in and night out.

Luke also had a double-double to go along with Jeff, finishing with 10 points and 14 boards. Luke is an enforcer in the paint. Damian only had six points, but he pulled down 7 boards. He fouled out after playing just 19 minutes, but they were 19 exceptional minutes. The Big Fella is going to figure out this fouling stuff. Joe Dean Jr, who was the color commentator for the SEC Network broadcast, said that the NCAA should look at raising the number of fouls to 6 for fouling out. With the tightly officiated games we have right now in college basketball, I agree with Joe; the NCAA should do this. The officials are kind of over-doing their tighter calling of games. I know the league told the officials to call it closer this year, so that basketball would be  more of a skills game than a physical game, which I agree with, but we need to cut the players some slack, let ’em play a little more, and give them more opportunities to stay in the game by raising the foul limit to 6. The game has improved this year with the new 30 second clock and the officials calling it tighter, but as a VU guy, I want to see the Big Fella in there. Hopefully, Dame can get this figured out and stay in the game for 28 to 30 minutes or more, which we’ll need him to  for the rest of the season.

We shot 40% for the game from the field, 22-0f-57, 39% from three, 13-of-33, and 74% from the line, 29-of-39. Like that number from the charity stripe. Kevin said after Saturday’s game we would work on free throws this week and it paid off. I looked at Wade’s numbers going in and he was an 80% free throw shooter going into last night’s game, but he seemed to have been struggling a little bit recently. He certainly rectified that last night. Wade is now shooting 82% from the line. We need WB4 to be good from the line. He goes there a lot, the way he penetrates and takes it to the cylinder. Riley didn’t have his best shooting night as he finished with only two points, but he had five assists and always gives his team a great floor game, even when his shot is not falling, which doesn’t happen much. Have to have Riley out there as much as possible. Just a stellar player for us.

Finally, Wade’s defense on UT’s key scorer Kevin Punter was spectacular. Punter finished with 26 points, but many of them were after the game had been decided. Punter came in averaging 22 points per game, and Wade held him in check most of the night. Punter finished 9-of-20 from the field and 3-of-5 from trifecta, but they were late buckets when the game was secured. Wade, Luke and Jeff are exceptional defenders. Damian a good defender and MFD is an underrated defender and an excellent rebounder. UT shot 10-of-33  in the first half, 30%, and 0-for-5 from three. They were 4-of-15 from three in the second half. We out-rebounded them 50-43. Just an overall terrific effort by the guys.

So, it’s now on to Kentucky. Another huge game for our surging basketball team that has always possessed outstanding talent, and is now starting to put it all together. I know our guys can handle the intensity of Rupp. They are battle-tested the last two years and they’re clutch. No doubt it’s a challenge. But it’s one we can prevail in. Firmly believe that.

RTI

Relentless, Tough, Intelligent

That’s Coach Mason’s mantra for his football program, and we’re adding guys to the mix in 2016 that fit that billing to go along with the guys on our roster. Love the Jackson Winrow and Kalija Lipscomb commits last Sunday. Two excellent wide receivers to go along with solid three-star wide out Donaven Tennyson. A great pickup this weekend would be high three-star defensive end Kelvin Lucky from Elmore Alabama, Edgewood Academy School. Watched film on Kelvin. He’s 6’5″, 230, he can motor, he’s an exceptional athlete, he is very aggressive and physical and he’s an exceptional tackler. Would love to get Kelvin this weekend when he visits with a lot of our commits and some other recruits. Will keep you posted on Kelvin or anybody else who pulls the trigger.

One more thing:

Our four-star offensive lineman commit, Sean Auwae, warms up for the bench by doing a little lifting to the tune of 225 pounds, 28 times. Sean can bench 405, and by the time Coach James Dobson, our strength coach gets ahold of him, Sean will be throwing up 500 in the fall. His high school coach says Sean’s a leader, one of the best guys you’ll meet off the field, and one of the toughest competitors you’ll meet on it. This is a super class Coach Mason and the coaches are putting together. Would love to see Kelvin join the Select 16 this weekend.

Next Week:

Will have a story on our defending national champions women’s tennis team. I talked to our superb coach, Geoff McDonald, and got Geoff’s thoughts on the season. Geoff is a great guy, a terrific coach and very interesting . You’ll enjoy it.

Also, will have my interview with Corbs up next week probably middle of the week as Corbs’ 2016 version of VU baseball approaches. Should be a another stellar year for baseball.

Any recruits who pull the trigger and all basketball news will be on the blog. Stay tuned.

Jeff Roberson posted a double-double with 16 points and 11 boards, and Riley LaChance, fighting through what could be tonsillitis, powered through it to finish 5-of-6 from trifecta, and 3-of-3 from the charity stripe to finish with 18 points and lead VU to the 71-63 home victory over Alabama in another must win game for the team.

We moved to 10-7 overall and 2-3 in the SEC. After dropping our first three games in the conference, we defeated Auburn at home Tuesday Night and Alabama Saturday, to get the ship righted as we head into Knoxville this Wednesday Night for an 8 PM CT/9 PM ET tip on the SEC Network against the Tennessee Vols.

Jeff was terrific as he has been lately, going four of seven from the field, three-of-four from three, and pulling down 9 boards on the defensive glass and two on the offensive boards. Riley played like the Riley we’ve been used to seeing. He’s just such a tough, dedicated kid and played through a sickness to help life the team over a tough Alabama team.

Damian Jones was saddled with foul trouble again as he was called for four, a couple of which, as WB4 would say, were “bogus.” Damian got in for 23 minutes and picked it up in the second half finishing with 13 points, but only pulled down two boards. Need more from Damian on the glass, but we’ll get it from his. He’s just got to stay out of foul trouble. Kevin has talked to the SEC head of officiating about some of these calls and hopefully the officials will not be so overly aggressive in calling fouls on Damian that are questionable at best. We HAVE to have him in games for 28 minutes or so. Luke is giving us good play down low  as is Josh Henderson off the bench. Luke finished with eight points and six boards, and Josh played 13 minutes and got four points and three rebounds. We’ll need him to spell Damian and Luke the rest of this season. Wade Baldwin IV finished with eight points, five boards and five assists, and played extremely well on the defensive end. He played defense like he usually does, which is at a high level. Alabama shot 56% from the field in the first half, but we made adjustments and held them to 40% shooting from the field  in the second half and did a good job guarding the three until Arthur Edwards hit four in the final three minutes of the game. Matthew Fisher-Davis got back in the lineup for 16 minutes and did sink a trifecta. Matt still getting back to 100% from his foot injury. Hopefully, against UT, he’ll be pretty much be a  full go. We were 9-of-16 from triple and that was the difference as we held them to 6-of-19 from three. They out-rebounded us 39 to 29, but they were 7-of-20 from the stripe, 35%, while we were 22-of-36 from the line, 61%. Their number was terrible, but ours wasn’t too swift either, so we need to get a lot better from the line. Would like to see Wade start shooting free throws like he’s capable of. He’s usually an 82% free throw shooter and he’s just not shooting them right now like he usually does. Need him to get back to that 82-85% rate that Wade normally shoots at. Kevin said Saturday that we will be working on free throws today in practice. We really took care of the basketball well only committing seven turnovers to their 12. That’s a great number for us and one you can win a lot of games with. Our defense, our three-point shooting and our taking care of the ball were the three keys to the victory against a solid, tough Alabama team that worried me and I know worried Coach Stallings heading into the game. They had crushed South Carolina Wednesday Night, 73-50, and had top 25 wins over Wichita State and Notre Dame earlier in the season. Avery Johnson has done a really good job with their team, so that was big boost to get that victory. We had to have those wins at home as we now head to Tennessee and Kentucky. Kentucky is this Saturday at 3 PM CT/4 PM ET at Rupp on ESPN.

UT is 9-8 overall and 2-3 in the SEC, but they are 8-1 at home, with their only loss coming to a very good Texas A&M team, 92-88, on January 9th. They lost to Auburn on the road to open the season, 83-77, beat Florida at home, 83-69, lost to A&M at home, lost to Georgia on the road, 81-72, and defeated State on the road, 80-75, this past Saturday. They have four guys who are averaging double digits in scoring led by Kevin Punter, who is averaging a sizzling 22.4 points per game. Punter is a 6’2″, 190 guard. Six-foot-four, 217 pound small forward Armani Moore is averaging 12.4 points per game, and 7.9 rebounds per game. They are averaging 38.8 rebounds per game to their opponents 40.3. They shoot 44% from the field, 35% from the three and 72% from the line. They don’t have great size as their tallest player is a freshman at 6’9”, but they have great athletic ability and quicknessv and they can get after you on defense and shoot it well at home. It will be a major challenge in Thompson-Bowling Arena on Wednesday Night. We’ll have to really defend, shoot well from three, and get Damian and Luke going underneath. We’ll need that hard hat, lunch pale game we’ve been getting from Jeff, and excellent play from Wade and Riley. Hopefully, Matt and Riley will be in good shape physically for the game. We need some solid contributions from our bench. If Nolan Cressler, Josh, Camron Justice, Joe Toye, and Samir Sehic can give us good minutes that would be huge. We need to be a lot better from the stripe as well. I’m sure that will be heavily addressed by Kevin and the coaches these next two days leading up to the game.

Great victory for the team on Saturday, but plenty of work ahead of us. Would be huge to get one at Tennessee.

Football

I wrote on an email blast last night about our two new latest wide receiver commits which was huge news. Solid three-star Kalija Lipscomb, 6’0″, 180, and unranked but outstanding Jackson Winrow, committed to us last night. Coach Cortez Hankton did an awesome job recruiting these two young players, who look to have very bright futures as Commodores. Kalija, from Jesuit High School in New Orleans, caught 65 passes for 1,200 yards and 13 touchdowns this season. Jackson, a 6’2″, 185 pound receiver from Shawnee High School in Oklahoma, had 52 receptions for 1,015 yards and 13 TDs. Both are exceptional pickups by Coach Mason and the staff, and could very well be impact players in the fall to go along with our third wide receiver commitment, Donaven Tennyson, from Richmond, Virginia. Donaven is an 84, three star and stands 5’10, 170. The coaches are high on all three of these guys. They’ll add to our solid receiving corps led by Trent Sherfield, Caleb Scott, tight end DeAndre Woods, hopefully recovered stud C.J. Duncan, Ronald Monroe, and our young guys like Sam Dobbs, who I watched in practice last August and was very impressed with.

The return of DeAndre and C.J. would be huge as they are both big time players in our passing game. The offense should be much stronger in Coach Ludwig’s second year with Kyle Shurmur having a year under his belt after playing a lot in the SEC in 2015. Kyle showed signs of greatness in 2015, and he’s going to be superb in my opinion. The line will be re-energized with a new offensive line coach, Cameron Norcross, whom I’m really pumped about. Cameron will instill some more toughness in our group and we’ve got a pretty good nucleus returning, with Andrew Jelks returning from a knee injury at left tackle, which will be huge. Andrew will be the leader of the line. Will need to get a center in place to replace graduated Spencer Pulley, who had a very good career and has pro prospects, but Barrett Gouger and others will be competing for the job. Spring practice, which starts February 25th, will be very interesting. Early enrollees, four-star cornerback Joejuan Williams, high three star safety Zaire Jones, and high three-star quarterback Deuce Wallace, will be competing in spring ball. I’m almost positive the spring game is Friday, March 25th, at 6 PM CT/7 PM ET, but will work on that to confirm. Should be a very interesting spring. Running back looks solid with Ralph Webb, Dallas Rivers, Josh Crawford, Darrius Sims, if Darrius stays at running back, and Jair George, if he stays at rb as well. We’ll have excellent three-star incoming freshman Jamauri Wakefield coming in August to compete along with the returning backs. Looking for Ralph, Dallas and Josh to really have good years next season.

The defense returns a lot of good players led by first team All-SEC linebacker Zach Cunningham, defensive lineman Adam Butler, cornerback Torren McGaster and safety Oren Burks. Inside linebacker Nigel Bowden will return and Nigel is a stud if he can stay healthy and will be an excellent leader on our defense. Stephen Weatherly will be moving on as he tries to make it in the NFL, but Stephen is also very smart and he’ll pursue business if the NFL doesn’t work out. The future is bright for Stephen whatever he does, but he’s a really good football player, so I can see him making an NFL roster. We’ll have some good guys in place though at defensive end led by Nehemiah Mitchell and Landon Stokes, and I look for Nifae Lealao to have a big season for us at defensive tackle in 2016. Really expect good things from Adam at defensive tackle, really inside or outside at defensive end. We have a lot of outstanding players on defense.

Should be another step in Coach Mason getting this program to an elite level in the SEC. He’s ready to do that now, this season. We’ll have a lot of talent to take it to the next level in 2016.

Brandt

Brandt played excellent golf this weekend at the Sony Open in Honolulu, but came up just a little short in a playoff to Fabian Gomez, who made the clutch shots and putts when he had to. Brandt shot a 66 yesterday, and Gomez shot 62. Gomez sank a 25 footer for birdie on the par five 18th in regulation which forced Brandt to make a birdie himself to get in a playoff. Brandt converted a birdie putt from 5 feet. He was 51-of-51 from five feet and in, but after the round, he said he never felt comfortable with the Bermuda greens, and he didn’t really putt his best from outside five feet. He had a 12 footer for birdie on the first playoff hole, No.18, to win it, but just missed it to the right. Then he drove it in the sand on his second playoff hole, No.18 again, a par 5, and Gomez hit one right down the middle, and hit his second shot on the fringe of the green in two, while Brandt had to lay up.  Brandt hit it from 60 yards to 10 feet above the hole. Gomez two putted for birdie, which forced Brandt to have to convert his birdie putt to take the playoff to a third hole. Brandt didn’t sink the putt and you could tell in the post round interview how disappointed he was. Gomez played some clutch golf though. He deserves a lot of credit Brandt did some awesome ball striking during the tournament, and his chipping, which he has really worked hard on and has become a real strength of his game, was superb. His putter just wasn’t at its best. I like where B is though. See him winning on the California swing, which starts this weekend with the Career Builder tournament in Palm Springs. Brandt is not playing this weekend at the William Jefferson and Hillary Rodham Clinton event, but he’ll be in action next weekend at Torrey Pines playing the Farmers Insurance Open, where he won in a playoff over Kyle Stanley in 2012. Brandt won at Pebble Beach last year and that’ll be coming up February 11-14th, so he has a good shot there, too. He really likes both courses. He’s won at Pebble twice, in 2013, and last year. Brandt has won seven times on the tour. There could be a major win this season, too. Brandt is so close to getting one. I know he loves Augusta National so it could happen there. The U.S. Open is at Oakmont Country Club, a classic in Pennsylvania, near Philly, that has hosted many majors. The Open Championship is at Royal Troon in Scotland, and the PGA Championship is at Baltusrol Golf Club, another classic course in Springfield, New Jersey, just outside the City. I like Brandt’s chances this season to get certainly a win or two in the regular events and to nab a major this year. He’s playing so well right now.

Luke List and Jon Curran will be in the Career Builder tournament this weekend, so that’ll be good to see if Luke and JC can do some damage.

MLB getting closer to  cranking up with pitchers and catchers reporting first in early February. Pedro Alvarez and Mike Minor are still trying to find a team. Pedro and Mike are high quality players, teams are definitely interested, and would be crazy not to take them. David set at the BoSox, gotta get a Bosox hat from Amazon, Sonny set in Oakland, and Curt Casali good to go at Tampa Bay. Will be fun to see how Tony Kemp matriculates because Tony to me is a major league player. He’s such a great athlete and can play centerfield or second base. The Houston Astros are very good, but they need to get Tony on the 25 man roster. Will also be fun to see Carson Fulmer, who is in the Chicago White Sox  organization, Dansby, who is now with the Braves, Adam Ravanelle, who is with the Detroit Tigers, and Rhett Wiseman, who is with the Washington Nationals, move up the ranks for their receptive major league teams. Plenty of other guys for us in big league organizations. Will keep you posted on their developments and keep a sharp eye on Pedro and Mike this week and next as they should be starters on a team in the major leagues. The media give Pedro a hard time about his fielding, but Pedro did a great job at first for the Pirates at the end of the season. Believe in him. Clint Hurdle didn’t give him a chance in Pittsburgh. He didn’t get treated well by them. Pedro’s bat will crank both for power and average this season. Mike has battled shoulder problems and an elbow problem but he’s high quality also.

Will have a women’s tennis preview and a preview of our baseball team coming up this week. The women’s tennis team is trying to win back to back national championships, and our baseball team is trying to win their second national title in three years after winning it two years ago and finishing runner-up last year. Both teams’ prospects look very bright for this 2016 season. Will have basketball write ups on our games with UT and UK, and any football recruits that pull the trigger. High three-star Alabama defensive end Kelvin Lucky is visiting this weekend along with most all of our present commitments, so he could be a guy to watch. We’ll have some other key visitors in to visit this weekend as well.

Coach Mason hired Jeff Genyk as special teams coach and C.J. Ah You as defensive line coach to replace special teams and running backs coach Charles Bankins who was let go by Coach Mason after the season, and Coach Frank Maile, who left the program to take over as defensive coordinator at Utah State. Maile is from that area. They join new offensive line coach Cameron Norcross on the staff.

Luke Kornet looked pretty nervous at the free throw line last night with 44 seconds left against Auburn. He was trying to drain one from the stripe to complete a triple double for the game. Luke, a 74% free throw shooter before last night, had struggled a little bit from the stripe.  Coach Stallings said he employed a new offense in the last two minutes against Auburn, “Nobody shoot but Luke.” Kevin said that mostly jokingly, but he was aware Luke was very close to completing only the second triple-double in Vanderbilt basketball history. Brad Tinsley had done it on November 12, 2010, with 11 points, 10 boards and 10 assists.

Luke had already tallied 11 rebounds and 11 blocks. He was a machine on defense guarding the glass with Damian Jones saddled on the bench with four fouls. Luke missed the first of two, and then put up the second to try and reach 10 points, but it bounced off the rim. However, Nolan Cressler made the most unselfish, team- oriented play, when he tipped it back out to Luke off the miss, and Luke sank a semi lay-up in the middle of the lane, a tough shot, to get to 11 points and finish off an incredible night, as he, Wade Baldwin IV and the rest of the team had a stellar night in a much needed 75-57 SEC victory over Auburn before 10,414 fans at Memorial Coliseum.

Luke’s effort was terrific and in his interview he seemed embarrassed that the team was trying so hard to get him the triple-double. That’s the kind of guy he is. He’s humble, a total team player. He’s an incredible positive force for the team according to Kevin. It was a huge victory for our basketball team. I thought we had played two pretty good games on the road last week at Arkansas and South Carolina, but just came up short, 90-85, in overtime against an Arkansas team under Mike Anderson that is always good and rarely ever loses at Bud Walton Arena. In the last four years, Anderson is 74-9 at Bud Walton. We played them a heckuva game with Luke making a super pass to Damian and Damian slamming the ball home as time expired to send the game into overtime. We came up a little short there, then gave South Carolina, one of two only unbeaten teams in the country along with SMU, everything they wanted, losing 69-65 at Columbia. After dropping our SEC opener to LSU, 90-82, we were 0-3 in the conference and in a must win situation against an Auburn team that has been depleted by injuries this season, particularly in their backcourt. But we still had to get the job done and there was pressure on us to win last night. We played well and are now 9-7 overall and 1-3 in the conference with some key games coming up. They’re all key now.

Luke came through, Wade played superb going for 17 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds. Riley was three-of-four from trifecta and played an excellent game, finishing the night with 13 points and five boards. Jeff Roberson played a heckuva game posting 14 points and eight boards. Damian saw limited action playing only 13 minutes because of foul trouble. He played very well when he was in finishing 4-of-5 from the field and one of two from the stripe for nine points and pulling down four rebounds, but these SEC refs are really giving him a hard time with fouls. I’ve seen about five or six fouls called on Damian that have been jokes; not even close to being fouls. I know it’s frustrating for him. We’ve just got to figure out a way to keep him from getting calls going against him. It’s really bothersome. He’s playing some of his best basketball right now, and it’s like the refs in the SEC are targeting him. It’s really bad. Hopefully, we can get that worked out and get Dame can get in the flow of the game because he’s really playing well right now.

Josh Henderson gave us some good minutes with Damian out. Josh finished with five points and four boards. Josh is a very good option for us. He’s a good offensive scorer and bangs well with the big guys in the conference. He’s going to help us a lot in January and February. Such a class young guy too, as he came back for his sixth year to play on this team. He really helps his basketball team and the team really likes him.

Matt Fisher Davis is out right now with a sore foot, but we might get him back sooner than later. Maybe Saturday against Alabama, maybe next Wednesday on the road against Tennessee. The MRI on his foot was negative, so we should get him back soon. Luke and Camron Justice came back a couple of weeks earlier than expected, so I bet MFD does the same. We need him back as soon as possible, but can’t rush him back too soon, as we need his foot to heal for the rest of the season. Need Matt’s shooting and his skills on the court. He’s a good defender and pretty good rebounder, too.

Our young guys got opportunities to play; Joe Toye, Camron and Samir Sehic. Samir had a really nice tip in off a missed shot, and Camron and Joe are hustling out there and getting it figured out. All three guys have very good potential and can help us this year.

One more guy I want to mention is Nolan Cressler. Nolan is coming off the bench and giving us some really good hustle minutes. His tip back to Luke for Luke’s final basket was a beautiful hustle play. Nolan may not be shooting up to his standards yet, but he will, and he’s a good rebounder. Nolan sank both free throws he shot and pulled down three boards in nine minutes. I kind of equate Nolan’s first year to Derrick Byars’ first year when he came to us from Virginia. Derrick struggled some in his first year, but really got it together at the end of his junior season and had an awesome senior year helping lead the 2006-07 team to the Sweet 16 and almost the Elite Eight and even better. I see the same progressing with Nolan. He’s going to be an excellent player for us. He was an outstanding shooter at Cornell and was one of our top players in practice last year. I see that happening sooner than later for Nolan. His hustle is big for us though even if he’s not making the shots right now. I do expect him to start making shots though. That will also help our team.

We’ll need Nolan and all the guys off the bench including Carter Josephs to get this team playing really good basketball in February and March, and most importantly, right now.

We have Alabama at home on Saturday at 5 PM CT/6 PM ET on the SEC Network. Gotta get the job done again on Saturday. A week from today, Wednesday, Jan.2oth, we play at Tennessee for an 8 PM CT/9 PM ET tip on the SEC Network.

Brandt, Luke List  and Jon Curran are all playing in the Sony Open this week in Honolulu. That’s exciting. Brandt has a real shot to win, and Luke shot -7 in the Monday qualifier to get in the field. All three guys have a  good shot. Brandt played very well at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions last week in Maui as he shot -21 for the three days and finished in a tie for third with Brooks Koepka, an event Jordan Spieth won and Patrick Reed finished second in.

Had an awesome talk with Vanderbilt women’s tennis coach Geoff McDonald. Great guy, terrific coach. Will have a write up on Geoff and the team early next week. His team is cranking up the season as they head to Miami tomorrow for a tourney and get ready to try to defend their national title from last year. Geoff says he and his team don’t talk about that though. He’s just like Corbs. Geoff wants to get better every day. He’s got some terrific players on the team this season as Frances Altick is ranked 15th in the country, Sydney Campbell is 24th and Astra Sharma is 33rd. We have some serious talent which I’ll elaborate on next week.

Will get something going with Corbs as well. Baseball is ranked third in the D-1 Baseball preseason poll. Florida is first and Louisville is second.

Good stuff for the basketball team. They’re all big from now on but we really need to win on Saturday against a talented Alabama team, that is 9-5 on the season and 0-2 in conference. They lost to Ole Miss on the road last Thursday and to UK at home on Saturday. But they did beat Wichita State and Notre Dame on consecutive nights in the Advocare Invitiational in late November.

Derek and company on the road recruiting and hosting some key recruits this weekend and next with key visitors in town. Will have any commitment news as soon as it pops up. Defensive end Kelvin Lucky, a solid three-star from Edgewood Academy in Elmore Alabama in south central Alabama near the state capital of Montgomery, is close to maybe pulling the trigger. Kelvin’s former teammate, Josh Crawford, is a rising sophomore running back on our team. Kelvin is an 87 three-star by 247 sports. Some other good guys in the mix. Will keep you posted. high three star quarterback Deuce Wallace, four-star cornerback Joejuan Williams and high three-star safety Zaire Jones, all highly recruited players by us and other SEC schools, are early enrollees and will be participating in spring practice, which starts towards the end of  February. Good to have those three aboard. They’re going to be major impact players for us in the future. Possibly next year as freshmen.