Our basketball team played terrifically last night in outlasting a very good BYU team, that should be tourney bound in March, 69-67, in the semifinals of the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu.

With the victory, we move to 8-4 on the season and face 8-4 Stanford in the final tomorrow night (Saturday) at 7:30 on ESPN2. BYU dropped to 10-3.

Junior Scotty Pippen Jr once again excelled for us pouring in 23 points on 8 of 16 from the field, 1-of-3 from trifecta, and 6 of 9 from the line. Scotty usually shoots free throws better than that, so that’ll improve. But SPJ just took over at the end of the game. He had some very good help from his teammates as well. Sophomore Myles Stute has become a prolific 3 point shooter for us and brings a ton of athleticism to the court. Myles had 14 last night and 7 boards. He was 3-of-7 from triple country. He also had a beautiful dunk in the second half and is becoming a better defender every game he plays. Junior Jordan Wright showed his immense ability scoring 13 and pulling down 4 boards. Senior Quentin Millora-Brown played an awesome game for us. Q only scored 4, but he pulled down 10 rebounds, blocked 2 shots, and took several charges. He was terrific. Q is really blossoming into an excellent player. Will be good to get our 7’er back, hopefully in January, Liam Robbins, our transfer from Minnesota, but Q is more than capable. Like Stack said, we’re going with the players we’ve got, and Q is answering the bell. Trey Thomas, our spitfire pure heart guard, scored 8 including 2 of 5 from trifecta. Trey finished maybe the best offensive possession we’ve had all season when we whipped it around the court with 5 passes with stud freshman Shane Dezonie firing a pass to Trey in the right corner, which Trey gathered and buried the trifecta on a nothing but nylon shot. Trey is a very important player for us. He’s shown a pretty good propensity to drive and score and when’s he’s draining the rock, he’s a force for us. Good to have Rodney Chatman back in the lineup. He just joined the team on the floor at the beginning of this tournament and our graduate transfer from Dayton is an excellent floor general. Like what Rodney brings to our team. Terren Frank always does good things and Tryin Lawrence and Gabe Dorsey are good contributors.

Stack is using a lot of players right now, and getting a lot of contributors. He may cut that rotation down as the SEC season moves along. We start SEC play @ Arkansas on Tuesday, January 4th at 7:30 PM CT on the SEC Network. Arkansas is 10-2.

But first things first. We’ve got a tournament to win. Huge game with Stanford tomorrow night at the Diamond Head. Stanford is big, a lot of size. They’ve got several 6’9” guys and a couple of seven footers. Really big. So we have our work cut out for us. We forced 19 turnovers last night against BYU, so that was big. Need to do some of that again, shoot well, hold our own on the boards and really defend. BYU is an excellent shooting team and they sank their share of 3’s , 8 of them, but we held them in check with them only connecting on 8 of 20. It was just a superb effort all around and a really good college basketball game along with an awesome victory for the team.

Will recap Saturday Night’s game on Sunday. We are a 1 point favorite as of now. Will be a war with Stanford. Looking forward to it. Let’s get this done.

Football Recruiting

I thought Clark did a stellar job with this 2022 class. We got 2 quarterbacks, high 3 star A.J. Swann and solid 3 star Drew Dickey. A.J. is rated a 4 star by Rivals. We got several defensive backs, 3 offensive linemen, 3 or 4 long, athletic defensive ends. A couple of wide receivers, 2 excellent running backs, a couple of linebackers and a solid tight end. I’ll have a lot more on this class at the beginning of the year when bowl season is over, before the national championship game, the week of January 3rd, with a lot more in depth about each player. Some really terrific players in this class. Love Clark’s first real recruiting class. And we should add to it. We have 22 signees and 2 commits, safety Jeffrey Ugo and athlete KD Hutchinson, and we could very well get a commit from 4 star linebacker Daniel Martin out of Georgia at an All American Game in early January. Believe it’s the Army All American game. A guy I really like in this class is running back Maurice Edwards out of Gurnee, Illinois. Maurice is 6’0″, 195 pounds and rushed for over 1,400 yards and 15 TDs this past season. He’s going to really help Rocco Griffin and the young, great Patrick Smith next season. But, I’ll have a lot more on each player in January. Our class is 35th by 247 sports and 34th by Rivals, so very solid. The addition of Martin, our 2 commits, and maybe a couple of others will help that ranking. Also, and very interestingly, we got a linebacker transfer from Clemson, former 4 star Kane Patterson. Kane is 6’1”, 234, and can play inside for us. His younger brother, Langston, is an 88, 3 star linebacker signee for us in this 2022 class and is 6’1”, 220. We can use them both inside with the great Anfernee Orji and the solid Ethan Barr, among others. Langston and Kane are from Christ Presbyterian Academy in Nashville, better known as CPA.

So Clark with some outstanding stuff in recruiting. Will have a lot more in January. Clark said in his press conference that the present players are totally invested and ready to do well in 2022. A lot of work ahead of us, but that’s always the case, and the mindset on the team is phenomenal. And we already have a 3 star quarterback committed for 2023. Reese Mooney, an 86, 3 star out of Louisiana. Really charged up about what Clark’s got going. We’re going to be A LOT better next season and we’re building. I like a bowl next season and building it from there.

Have a Very Merry Christmas, Anchor Down, God Bless and Go Commodores!