Not a good way to end the season with a 76-67 loss to A&M on the road. Really had high hopes going in thinking we could beat A&M and gain a two seed in the SEC tourney, and get a double bye, and not have to play until Friday. Not much to talk about from the A&M game. Damian fouled out again. Some calls were questionable on him, without a doubt, but he HAS to stay in the game for us. I’d like to see us use our bench more. Nolan Cressler, Joe Toye, and even Samir Sehic are quality players. We played Cam Justice, who sank a couple of triples, Can is a stud, and Riley did an excellent job off the bench. He sank a couple of trifectas which was awesome to see. Riley shooting well could be a huge pick me up for this team. He is an important player for us. Wade played well. Wade finished with  11 points, eight assists only two turnovers, and Damian got it going a little before fouling out. We did sink 11-of-11 free throws. Wade was 6-of-6 and Damian was 3-of-3, which is awesome to see. 

We’ve just got to regroup this week and get ready for the Auburn-UT winner. Our first game will be Thursday at 2 PM CT/3 PM ET on the SEC Network. Even though we got a fifth seed in the tournament, our seeding is pretty favorable. If we beat the AU-UT winner, which I’m going with Auburn in that one because I like Pearl over Rick Barnes, we would play LSU in the quarters on Friday at 2 PM CT/3 PM ET or 25 minutes after the first game on the SEC Network, and if we beat Ben Simmons and company, we’d play Saturday at noon CT/1 PM ET on ESPN versus most likely A&M. If we beat A&M, we’d be in the finals versus most likely Kentucky @ noon CT/1 PM ET on ESPN. So we’ve got a shot.

“Brackets” has us as a #9 seed right now in the NCAA’s playing #8 USC in the first round with the winner playing Virginia, which will play the 16th seed, so that’s a guaranteed W for UVA. It’s always subject to change. Brackets does an outstanding job of predicting the tournament, but this thing is fluid. The conference tournaments could change things. Brackets has Kansas, North Carolina, Nova and UVA as one seeds, but Michigan State, if they win the Big Ten conference tourney and one of the four fall early in their respective conference tourneys, could move into a one seed. It’s really an exciting time in sports. This tournament is a total spectacle, it’s electric to watch. Will have my bracket on my regular blog next Monday or Tuesday. There will be a lot of meditation and emails with my minister to try to figure the NCAA tourney out. The meditation worked last year as I picked Duke to win it all and they did. My minister is in his first year, so I will use that resource this year. He’s a great man, and loves football and sports in general. He dogs me when I miss a pick, particularly if it’s against his Pittsburgh Steelers, which I did in the playoffs against Cincy, in which the Bengals imploded with the likes of running back Jeremy Hill fumbling late in the game with it seemingly locked up, linebacker Vontaze Burfict, with a personal foul to give the Steelers great field position, and Pacman Jones, with an unsportsmanlike that sealed the Steelers kicking a game winning field goal to win by two, just handing the game to the Steelers on a silver platter. Dr Carl let me have it the next day. But I’ll use him as a resource this year. I’ll use any resource available to get this right. So deep meditation and conferences with Dr Carl by email are definitely on the docket.

We’ve got to get back to the way we were playing against Florida and Kentucky. Those were awesome games. Jeff Roberson has been terrific for us all season. I love Jeff. He’s such a heart, team player, and he’s highly skilled and he and Wade bring very good toughness to the team. Damian and Luke really need to dig in, in the middle, MFD needs to be MFD and shoot the lights out of Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. If Riley can get it going also, that would be huge. We’ll be at home, though not at Memorial, but we’ll have our own rooms and beds to sleep in, which is another bonus. The Big Blue Nation will be out in full force, like they always are, but we really need our fans to show up. If we can win this thing, it would be huge for this basketball team. We won it in 2012, but for some reason, this year seems more important. Getting to the finals would be good, but winning it would give this team a highly positive mental boost going into the big tournament. Can we get it done? Yes, absolutely, if we play to our capacity. We have a ton of talent, and we’ve shown we can beat a Florida team by 14 on the road recently in a very tough environment, and also beat a Kentucky team that is star-studded and is a definite Final Four contender. We’ve got that potential, in my opinion, if we can really dig in on defense and the boards and make our open looks from three and Damian, Luke and Josh can also score in the middle, particularly Damian. We need great shooting from MFD, Riley, Wade and Jeff. Jeff can take it to the glass and score. We need that from him. He’s been outstanding this year for us, I’d call him our most valuable player. Jeff’s an unsung, lunch pale, blue collar player for us, who makes a lot of winning plays. We need that from him at Bridgestone. Wade needs to take care of the ball and be Wade, playing with the toughness he always brings and scoring at the rim, getting us in fast break opportunities and shooting well from distance and mid range. All those things need to happen for us to win this thing and advance to the NCAA’s with a ton of momentum. Will we win this? If those things all happen, we will. It’s crunch time for our basketball team. Everybody needs to step up their game. It’s March.

Baseball

Our baseball team, ranked second in the country by D-1 baseball, took two of three from Stanford at Palo Alto over the weekend. We had some weather issues out there, but got great pitching and timely hitting in a 5-2 victory over the Cardinal to clinch the series yesterday. We moved to 10-1 overall with the victory. Catcher Jason Delay was 2-for-3 with a couple of Ribeyes, including a run producing RBI double. Freshman second baseman Alonzo Jones was 2-for-4. Third baseman Will Toffey had a two-run double as well. We got excellent pitching from starter Kyle Wright, who went five, giving up four hits, two earned, with no walks and four K’s. Ryan Johnson, Collin Snider, who I’m looking at as an important piece on our pitching staffing this season, maybe a weekend starter, Matt Ruppenthal all pitched well in relief and Hayden Stone finished it off for the save. Hayden is back a lot earlier than anticipated, and I watched him in the ninth against the Cardinal yesterday on the Pac-12 Network and he looked very good. He was throwing it 91 with his heat, and his breaking ball was sharp. He looked like Hayden Stone from two years ago. That’s an excellent sign if we can get Hayden back into that closer role, because he is clutch. We played a doubleheader Thursday and lost the first game, 4-1, but won the second, 4-1. Ben Bowden got the victory in the second game, going five, allowing two hits and one run, which was unearned, with one walk and four K’s. Ben is very much in the weekend rotation plans if he keeps this up. Hayden picked up his first save in that game. We lost the first game. Jordan Sheffield gave up nine hits and two earned in five innings, but didn’t walk anybody and struck out six. Just need to hone Jordan up a little more as we get closer to conference play. Jordan is still pitching very well with a 2-1 record and a 1.59 ERA with just four walks and 24 K’s. He brings it high 90’s, which is terrific. He’s got all the tools. He just needs to fine tune it a little bit heading into SEC play. Jordan could very well be our Friday night guy. Right fielder Jeren Kendall is still leading the team in hitting at .442 with three homers and 16 Ribbies. Center fielder Bryan Reynolds is hitting .385 with two homers and 11 RBIs, and Alonzo is hitting .351 with a homer and 14 Ribbies. Will Toffey is only hitting .250 right now, but Will should get it going soon. He’s too good a hitter to not get it going. He plays outstanding third base, too. We’re great at catcher with Delay and Karl Ellison. Both are experienced juniors, who know how to handle our pitchers, and both can hit, particularly Delay. Jason is an awesome hitter. Our fielding is outstanding. We are fielding at a .983 percentage, which is superb. Our opponents are at .945. We have only committed seven errors in 11 games, and 411 chances. Love the way we defend. That’s so crucial along with the pitching and hitting. 

We play Radford tomorrow, the start of a two game set with a team from south central Virginia that was good last year.They’re 2-9 this season, but they finished 45-16 last year, and we ended up beating them in our regional final, on our way to our second consecutive CWS, where we finished runner up, after winning it the year before. It was our third appearance in the College World Series. We also went to Omaha in 2011. After two games with Radford, tomorrow and Wednesday, we’ll host Xavier for a weekend series, then Northern Illinois? Are you kiddin me? comes in to play us next Wednesday, 3-15. Then we start SEC play with State coming into town, Friday-Sunday, March 18th-20th. More on those games later. Should be a heckuva season. We’ve got an outstanding team. Just need  to get some more hitting from Toffey and some of our better hitters, and solidify our pitching. The SEC is loaded. Florida is No.1 in the country, and LSU, A&M and all of the rest of the teams are tough. It’s a war in the SEC, very similar to football. But we’ve got the players to make some serious noise come May and June. 

Women’s tennis

Geoff McDonald’s tennis team downed a good Kentucky team, 5-2, yesterday. Kentucky came in ranked No.17 in the country. No. 25 Sydney Campbell (national ranking), No.16 Frances Altick, Courtney Colton, Georgina Sellyn and Fernanda Contreras, all won in singles. No.23 Astra Sharma lost her match, 3 and 4, but Astra has been hurt and was a little rusty yesterday. Astra will get back to her usual form going forward. We are presently ranked No.8 in the country by the ITA rankings. Ohio State is still Numero Uno. We’re 8-2 overall and 1-0 in the SEC. We play at South Carolina on Thursday and at Florida on Saturday. South Carolina is ranked 12th and Florida is 15th, so we have our work cut out for us. But we have an outstanding team, that loves to work hard and compete. Geoff will have this group primed for the postseason come late April in the SEC’s and the NCAA’s. 

Men’s golf

Our men’s golf team finished 6th out of 15 teams at the Querencia Cabo Collegiate tournament in Mexico. Junior Matthias Schwab shot 68, -3, on the last day. Freshman Patrick Martin shot one over, 72, sophomore Theo Humphrey shot 1 under, 70, and freshman Will Gordon shot one over, 72. We’ve got some good young players, who are gaining valuable experience, and we’ll be factors in May. We’re ranked 15th in the country at the moment by Golfstat.com. Our next competition is at the Schenkel Invitational in Statesboro, GA. on Friday, March 18th. 

On the professional side, Luke and JC are playing in the Valspar Championship this weekend in Tampa. Luke is playing well this season, which is great to see, and Jon’s been solid. JC is presently 50th in the FedEx rankings and Luke is 90. Luke finished T-10 at the Honda last week, so he’s gaining momentum.

Brandt is having a stellar year, having won at Torrey Pines in the Farmers Insurance Open in late January. He’s presently No.3 in the FedEx Cup standings. He had to withdraw over the weekend from the WGC-Cadillac Championship because of a rib injury. Hopefully it’s nothing serious. He has had some problems with his ribs in the past, but the issue had gone away with medication. Brandt did say he was taking a “proactive” approach, so it may have been just a precautionary step, and won’t affect him going forward. Brandt will not play this week at the Valspar, but the Arnie Invitational is the next week at Bay Hill, a huge tournament with all the big names play in it, so hopefully, Brandt will be healthy for that. Brandt is still getting tuned up for Augusta National, April 7th-10th. If healthy, Brandt has a good shot. He usually plays well at the Masters and a victory there is No.1 on his bucket list.

Will have stuff on our pro baseball guys coming up as the MLB season gets closer. David firmly entrenched with the BoSox, most likely for the rest of his career, which is good. DP needs a home after getting moved around so much the last couple of years. Pedro still looking for a team. The Yankees are a possibility. I don’t know why any team wouldn’t want Pedro’s bat, and I watched him closely last year at Pittsburgh and he fielded pretty well at first base. Pedro has always been a good fielder, but had some struggles early at third with the Pirates and hasn’t been able to shake an unfair rap placed on him. He’s a big leaguer, and a good one, if some team would just give him a shot. Mike Minor was signed by the KC Royals, so that’s awesome news. Sonny, of course, will be back with the A’s, and everybody is expecting a huge year from Sonny. He’s going to be a popular commodity when he goes up for free agency, either after this season or next. Will check on that. Ryan Flaherty, I think, is still with the O’s. Gotta check on that, too. And we have a ton of players in the minors. Dansby at Atlanta is huge for him. I see the Braves building like the Astros have and see them as a factor come 2017 when they move into their new stadium. Hopefully, Dans will be their starting shortstop. He’s playing in his home town, so I know he’s elated about that. I’m expecting Carson to matriculate quickly through the minors. ESPN college baseball analyst Kyle Peterson said during the CWS last year, that he wouldn’t be surprised if the White Sox call Carson up very soon. He could be in their rotation this season before the year is over with. Tony Kemp is getting closer and closer to becoming a major leaguer for the Astros. it’s time for Tony to be a starter in the big leagues. He’s such a stud. Love that baseball is in the air now. I don’t know if my wife does. She wants to watch movies and shows sometimes in the summer, so there can be a conflict at times with my baseball teams. But she’s a champ. We both make adjustments.

Football just finished off the first two weeks of spring ball. Wade Freebeck had a really good practice Friday and is challenging Kyle Shurmur for the starting job. Defense playing well. We have some guys out right now with minor injuries, but they should be fine coming back from spring break next week. We’ve got a pretty favorable schedule. We open with South Carolina on Thursday, Sept. 1st, no time announced yet. Either 5 PM or 8:15 PM on ESPN I would assume. Our defense should be terrific. I love our new coaches. If our offense can start clicking starting against South Carolina, we could have a very good season. Our defense will be stellar. Have to stay healthy of course. As healthy as you can in college football.  

Will have more coming up soon.