Scotty Pippen Jr. poured in 21, including 15 of 16 from the free throw line, where he had been experiencing some troubles but showed what kind of free throw shooter he can be along with an exceptional player overall, Maxwell Evans added 20, Saben Lee poured in 19, and freshman Dylan Disu added 14 in our 83-74 victory over South Carolina at Memorial on Saturday. We were 43% from the field, 23-of-54, 6-of-25 from trifecta, 24%, but 31-of-40 from the line, 77.5%. We got after it on defense as well. The Gamecocks, which fell to 18-13 overall and 10-6 in the SEC, shot 43% from the field, but were only 1-of-13 from triple, 7.7%, and they were 19-of-25 from the line, 76%.

Our defense has improved tremendously over the last month under Stack. We’re getting after the offensive players, getting steals. We collected 9 on Saturday and forced 18 SC turnovers. They had 8 steals and turned us over 15 times. But we were closing fast and challenging SC’s three point shooters, really hustling and playing tough, physical defense, and we held our own on the boards. SC pulled down 38 rebounds and we countered with 36 pulls. Ejike Obinna yanked down 12 boards, 9 on defense and 3 on offense. Ejike is another one of our players who keeps getting better and better.

I really like the state of our basketball team right now heading into the SEC Tournament which starts in Nashville tomorrow (Wednesday) night at Bridgestone Arena. We are now 11-20 overall and 3-15 in the SEC and we are the 14th seed in the tourney. And we just keep on getting better and better and just gaining so much confidence heading into this electric tournament.

We will play 11th seeded Arkansas at around 8:30-8:45 PM CT tomorrow. The first game pits the No.13 seed Georgia Bulldogs versus No.12 Ole Miss. That game tips off at 6 PM CT and our game will be 25 minutes after that game so around 8:30-45 PM CT on the SEC Network.

Arkansas is 19-12 overall and finished 7-11 in the SEC. They were an NCAA tournament team up until later in the season, but they’ve fallen off a bit. They defeated us 75-55 at their place on January 15th, but this is a completely different basketball team they’re facing. Saben is leading us in scoring at 18.2 ppg. SPJ is at 11.9, Max Evans is at 8.4 and Dylan Disu is at 7.3. Saturday’s effort was an overall exceptional performance. Arkansas’ leading scorer is Mason Jones at 22 ppg,. Isaiah Joe averages 16.8. Jimmy Whitt Jr. is at 14.1 and Desi Sills is at 10.3. Jones leads them with 5.4 rebounds per game. They’re averaging 75 points per game. They average 31.5 rebounds per game, They get 16 turnovers per game against their opponents. That’s their ticket, fast paced, turn it over on you, so we’ll have to really take care of the ball. We are averaging 72 points per game and 32 rebounds, we turn it over 13 times per game and turn our opponents over 13.9 times per game. They’re shooting 44% from the field and 33 % from 3, while we are at 43% (field) and 34% from 3.

Opponents are averaging 69 points against the Razorbacks and we’re giving up 74 points per game.

So we’ll have to bring our hard hats and lunch pales tomorrow night and dig in to get this victory. But if we play like we have been playing in the last 3 weeks, save for the Ole Miss game on the road, I like our chances. Should be fun. I’ll give the rundown on Thursday hopefully after a tremendous victory. The winner of our game versus Arkansas plays 6th seeded South Carolina. We’ve got confidence against the Gamecocks having just defeated them. I just see us as having a lot of confidence period right now.

Stack and the team have really hung in there and kept believing and it’s paying off. Can’t wait for 8:30-45 PM Wednesday Night. We have a lot of developing players on this team and 3 talented transfers who will all play next season and a talented freshman coming in with maybe more to come, so next season can be even better. But hopeful we can get on a run tomorrow night. Saben and Aaron Nesmith are not done deals for the NBA. Saben is certainly not and Aaron’s an awesome kid and will carefully consider his decision. He is projected as a first round pick right now, but he’s an intelligent young guy and really loves his teammates at VU. The 2 keys for those guys are they love playing for Stack and they love Vanderbilt. With them particularly, 2020-21 could be spectacular. Even if we keep Saben and lose Aaron, we’ll be very competitive with a chance to play deeper into March in the big tourney. But let’s take care of business tomorrow night and keep this train rolling.

Baseball

Our baseball team had a somewhat disappointing weekend in the Southern California Baseball Classic in LA, but salvaged a game Sunday by defeating then No.22 TCU, 4-3. UCLA defeated us Friday Night, 3-2, and USC defeated us Saturday, 2-1. We got some good pitching though Kumar struggled some Friday Night but Sam Hliboki came in and pitched 5 innings of shutout ball in relief of Kumar. The freshman is a total stud. Saturday, Jake Eder and Tyler Brown pitched well, but we could only muster 1 run against USC, a first pitch leadoff home run by Tate Kolwyck. Looks like we’re kind of figuring things out. Austin Martin is banged up and did not play this past weekend, so that’s hurts a lot. Austin is battling a hamstring injury. Mason Hickman is also struggling with an oblique injury and didn’t start Friday and both of their statuses are uncertain. We just need to keep the ship upright until they return. I’m not sure Kumar is 100%, as a matter of fact. He’s had some arm soreness, so that could have been the problem Friday Night. Freshman sensation Jack Leiter pitched Sunday and did a pretty sound job. Tyler Brown pitched well Saturday and Sunday which is an awesome sign.

We’re now 12-5 overall and ranked 6th by D1Baseball.com, the premiere college baseball ranking service and site. They are always the first service out with rankings every week and stay completely on top of college baseball. So I trust their judgement. It’s 2 guys who were at Baseball America, Aaron Fitt and Kendall Rogers. They’ve been doing this for about 4 or 5 year and are very experienced college baseball writers. Florida is still No.1, Louisville 2, Georgia 3, Texas Tech 4, and UCLA 5.

Our next game is at home Wednesday at 5 PM vs Toledo, then we host Kentucky for a weekend set. Game 1 Friday is at 6:30 PM CT, Saturday’s middle game is at 2 PM CT and Sunday’s finale is at 1 PM CT. Kentucky is presently 10-6 overall and Toledo is 3-11. All 4 games will be broadcast by SEC Network+ on the ESPN app on your phone or your Smart TV.

Need a good week and an awesome start to the SEC season. Wow, there are some serious clubs in this conference. We’re a developing team with a lot of young players, but under Corbs, we always keep improving and are always peaking in May. I expect the same to happen this year. We might take a few lumps along the way, but we just need to trust the process.

Men’s Golf Victorious Desert Mountain Intercollegiate

John “Clutch” Augenstein shot 63, 70, 68 for a score of 15 under on the Desert Mountain Outlaw Course in Scottsdale, AZ. to lead his team to a victory at the Desert Mountain Intercollegiate Tournament. John was the low medalist at the tournament on the par 72 course. John’s an absolute stud and the unquestioned leader on our team as a senior. John did make the finals of the U.S, Amateur last summer, so he’s playing tremendous golf right now. We finished 22 under as a team, 24 shots clear of second place Mississippi State, which finished at +2. Northwestern was third at +11. So we ran away with it. Harrison Ott also had a good tourney finishing tied for 7th at -4. Reid Davenport was tied for 11th at +2. There were 12 teams competing in the tournament. Though there weren’t any top 25 teams, I just like the way we performed. Coach Limbaugh seemed very pleased with the performance. Our next competition is the highly competitive Valspar Intercollegiate in Palm City Florida, March 17th-18th, next Tuesday and Wednesday. I will have more on that later this week or early next week. Coach Limbaugh, like Corbs, always has his team peaking come SEC Tournament time and I expect nothing different this season. John and the boys are starting to jell. We are presently ranked No.10 in the country by Golfstat, the premiere site for college golf. Pepperdine out of California is No.1. We’re the highest ranked SEC team.

Women’s Tennis excels over the weekend

Our 17th ranked women’s tennis team (ITA rankings) defeated Alabama 4-3 in a tightly contested match on Sunday where our singles players really came through in the clutch. We had also defeated Auburn 4-1 on Friday. We are now 7-3 overall and 3-1 in the SEC with our lone loss coming to LSU at the Currey Tennis Center surprisingly. Sunday, we dropped the doubles point, but came back with victories from 18th ranked (nationally) Christina Rosca, 28th ranked Georgia Drummy, Marcella Cruz and the match clincher by Dasha Kourkina. Alabama dropped to 12-5. They are a good team so it was an excellent victory for the women.

Next up for us is Friday @ Arkansas at 5 PM CT and Sunday at 1 PM CT @Missouri. Geoff McDonald always has our ladies peaking come SEC Tournament time. North Carolina is No.1 in the country and Georgia is the only SEC team ranked ahead of us at No.7 . We host Georgia on March 29th at the Currey Tennis Center. That’s a Sunday at 1 PM CT.

Will have more later in the week, certainly Thursday after our hopeful victory. Thanks for reading.