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.