When I do my Peloton boxing classes at home, the instructors will play some Eminem songs to get you charged up. Eminem, one of the great rappers of all time, released his single Lose Yourself in 2002. In the song, he says, “You only got one shot, do not miss the chance,,,don’t blow this opportunity… it comes once in a lifetime.”
That’s what Tyrin Lawrence faced against Tennessee with the Commodores trailing a top 10 Tennessee team, 65-63, with less than one second remaining on the clock on Tuesday, February 8th. Tyrin was hovering in the right corner waiting for the ball when point guard Ezra Manjon worked the left baseline with time running down, and passed it to Tyrin in that corner. One shot. Less than one second left. Tyrin had his opportunity. And he converted.
That one shot has totally changed the trajectory of our men’s basketball team’s season in 2023. After defeating Ole Miss, 74-71, then hitting the shot, we went on to win @ Florida, @South Carolina, and at home versus Auburn. If we win tonight, we’ll tie the 2007-2008 Shane Foster team for six victories in a row in SEC play. That Shane Foster team won seven SEC games in a row. More importantly, with a victory tonight at LSU, we’ll move to 16-12 overall and 9-6 in the SEC. If Kentucky was to lose, we’d be tied for third in the SEC with Auburn, UT and Kentucky. But it’s a “one shot” deal every time out.
LSU has struggled. Coach Matt McMahon inherited a mess after Will Wade was fired after last season concluded, and a lot of the players on that team transferred. He brought in 6 transfers and they’ve had trouble winning in this conference. One of those transfers, KJ. Williams, from where McMahon coached the last several seasons at Murray State, successfully I might add, is a 6”10, 250 pond center who leads the Tigers in scoring at 16 points per game and rebounding at 7 per.
It’s @ LSU and they’d like nothing more than to knock us off. So we’ve got one shot in Baton Rouge tonight at 6 on the SEC Network.
And Liam Robbins and Ezra Manjon have been so good lately.
During the 5 game winning streak, Robbins has averaged 20 points and 10 boards. Wow. Manjon has 31 assists to 4 turnovers. He had the winning assist to Tyrin against Tennessee and sank the game winning contested lay-up against Auburn with 3 seconds left this past Saturday. Don’t get me started on the officiating at the end of that game. Liam and Ezra have been spectacular. Trey Thomas was all world against Auburn. He played a complete game and had a huge steal to turn the momentum of the game. He converted with a pass to Tyrin who slammed it home. Trey can really shoot the 3 when he’s on, make some awesome, majestic 2’s and gets after it on defense. Our team is playing good defense and I know Stack likes that. Tyrin has been excellent. Jordan Wright has done a lot of good things and Myles Stute can really stroke it from deep and get some critical rebounds. We need all hands on deck the rest of the way. Collin Smith, one of our talented freshmen, has shown signs of really helping us down the stretch. Would love to see Noah Shelby and Malik Dia have a shot to contribute. And when Lee Dort gets back, him too. Our freshmen class is superb. Also, freshman Paul Lewis is doing some good things backing up Ezra and Trey. We may have to stick with our older guys from here on out, that looks like what Stack is doing. But, you never know. We may need our freshmen to help us out. They’ll be critical pieces in the future, which looks very bright with these young guys in the fold.
So we’ve got a complete team right now. Just need to get to work tonight in Baton Rouge. We’ve got one shot tonight on the Bayou. We cannot blow this opportunity. We just need to play Vanderbilt basketball and I like out chances.
Another awesome thing has occurred in our program. Liam has earned first team Academic All District honors, as announced by College Sports Communications. After earning his undergraduate degree from Minnesota, Robbins is working towards his master’s degree in human development studies at VU. He is averaging 15.1 points, 6.9 rebounds and 3 blocks per game this season. Liam is doing it all. He’s a true Vanderbilt man.
Baseball
Baseball lost a tough one to Central Arkansas yesterday, but had a pretty solid weekend in Arlington Texas. We were defeated by Central Ark yesterday, 5-4. We were down 5-1 going into the bottom of the eighth, but second baseman Jonathan Vastine cranked a three run shot to deep right that cut the lead to 5-4. But we couldn’t score from there and dropped to 2-2 on the season after going 2-1 in the College Baseball Showdown at Globe Life Field in Arlington over the weekend. We lost to top 10 TCU, 11-4, last Friday. That was a tough one to swallow. Then we came back Saturday and defeated Top 10 OK. State, 11-9, thought our middle relief was questionable again as we had an 11-2 lead, and almost gave it up. Thanks to Thomas Schultz and Nick Maldonado, we didn’t. More on those two in a minute. On Sunday, we had a super game and won 12-2 over Texas as backup catcher Alan Epinal, a junior and an absolute stud at the plate, cranked a grand slam. Bryce Cunningham came in relief for Devin Futrell, who had a nice start. Bryce was lights out. He pitched 4 innings of shutout ball, allowing no hits, with a walk and 7 K’s. Our sophomore from Headland, Alabama looks like he’ll have a big year. He’s throwing mid 90’s and mixes it in with some good slower stuff. Really like what I’m seeing out of Bryce. Just for your information, Headland is 35 miles east of Enterprise where my wife grew up. It says on google that it’s a 45 minute drive. If my wife is driving, let’s say it’s a little more like 20. My wife’s not going to win the All State Safe Driver’s discount, but I trust her behind the wheel. She’s a good driver. She’s just fast at everything, running, biking, thinking. All except for eating. She takes her time eating. I don’t eat slow. I do that quickly and I need to work on it. As my Football Coach/U.S. History teacher said in high school when we’d ask him a history question, “I’ll get back to you on that.”
Anyway, our team has a shot to be very good. Jonathan V is off to an excellent start at the plate hitting .467 with 2 homers and 7 Ribeyes. He’s playing top notch second base as well. Our senior first baseman, Parker Noland, who you gotta love for sticking with the program for 4 years, is hitting .313. Noland, Maldonado and Shultz are three of our leaders. We’ve got some good representation in our senior and junior classes. Freshman stud RJ Austin is hitting .294. But as a team, we’re hitting .226. So that has to improve. Our starting pitching has been pretty good with Carter Holton, Hunter Owen and Futrell pitching pretty well last weekend. That’s interesting. Three left handed starters on the weekend. Could be a weapon if the guys can execute. Middle relief has been a problem, but Schultz and Maldonado have been assets at the end of games. Schultz has pitched 2 innings, giving up 2 hits, no earned runs with a walk and 4 K’s. He’s the setup man for Maldonado. Nick has been tremendous as our closer. He’s our closer again this season after starting last season, and I like him as our closer. He’s pitched 2 innings, given up 1 hit, 0 runs, with no walks and 3 K’s. He’s looking very sharp.
Patrick Reilly started yesterday, and he pitched 3 innings, giving up 2 runs on 2 hits with a walk and 4 K’s. Patrick brings it 95-97 a lot, so if he can locate and control his pitches, he will be an asset for us. Enrique Bradfield has gotten off to a slow start hating .067. So we need Enrique to step it up.
We’ve got UAB today at 4:30 PM at the Hawk with SEC Network+ broadcasting the game. Need to right the ship today. UAB will be hungry to knock us off just like Central Arkansas was, so we Have to be ready. UCLA comes into town this weekend for a 3 game set. UCLA is No. 17 in the country, so big test there. We are ranked No.10 by D-1 Baseball.com and No.5 by Baseball America.
Corbs was really high on this team before the season, not only for their ability on the diamond, but also their ability in the classroom . The team had a 3.3 grade point average in the fall, and Corbs has said some of his best teams were also prolific in the classroom. So that’s really good news. We have great kids who want to do well. That should translate to great baseball this season. That’s what Corbs and all of us expect out of our baseball teams every year.
****One last cool note involving baseball and soccer. Dansby Swanson’s wife, Mallory, has scored a goal in five straight matches for the U.S, Women’s National Soccer team as it prepares for the Women’s World Cup which will take place in Australia and New Zealand starting July 20th. Mallory is an absolute winner as is her husband, who signed a big contract with the Cubs after having a stellar tail end of his career with the Braves. Dans’s future is bright and so is Mallory’s!
Men’s Golf comes through once again this time in dramatic fashion
Talk about one shot. Our men’s golf team was trailing Georgia Tech by a shot in the final round of the Watersound Invitational at Panama City Beach, FL. with Cole Sherwood having two holes left. No. 11 Georgia Tech, which came from a huge deficit to us by shooting a 21 under round yesterday, had the lead and Sherwood was our last hope. They were at 37 under and we were at 36 under. Our junior proceeded to eagle No.17 from 25 feet and par No.18 from 25 feet to help us earn the victory by one shot at -38, one shot clear of Tech.
I was working on a book I’m writing because I needed to work on it and because I was nervous about our golf team, and just checked intermittently when it was coming down to the wire. I kept checking and we were a shot back at -36 for a long time on the backside. Then, magically, after No.17, we were ahead by a shot. And we closed it out with a superb 25 footer for par by Sherwood. He could very well be the best putter on the team and one of the best putters in the country. Our great sophomore and defending national champion Gordon Sargent shot six under 66 on the Par 72 Shark’s Tooth Golf Course that plays 7,246 yards. Gordon finished -13 for the tournament and tied for 2nd with Christo Lamprecht of Georgia Tech for the individual title, five back of individual winner Frederik Kjettrup of Florida State, who shot 18 under.
Gordon and Cole, who shot -12 and finished tied for 4th, were superb. Our great senior, Matthew Riedel, who keeps getting better and better, shot 9 under for the tournament and finished solo 8th. One of our stud freshmen, Wells Williams, who will need to play well going forward, shot 4 under and tied for 14th. And Jackson Van Paris, a sophomore, shot +2 and finished tied for 34th. Senior Reid Davenport, whom we will need as well going forward, shot 3 under and finished tied for 18th in the individual division. Reid played as an individual not as part of our starting lineup. We started five, and, as is usual for college golf, the top 4 scores are taken to determine a team’s score.
So we’re No.1 in the Golfstat rankings and No.1 in the Gulfweek Rankings and have won 3 tournaments in a row. We also won the East Lake Cup in late October of 2022 defeating Texas and Arizona State in a rematch of the Final Four teams from 2022. Texas defeated us last year in the semifinals of the NCAA Championships and won it all, so that was a bit of revenge, though we really want to make it count later on in the season. Pepperdine was the other Final Four team from 2022 that competed at East Lake in Atlanta. We have recently won the John Hayt Invitational in Ponte Vedra, Florida. We did that in early February. To say Scott Limbaugh is a good coach is like saying Michael Jordan was a good basketball player. Coach Limbaugh is the best in the game as was MJ in his day. We’ve got unfinished business in our men’s golf program. We want to get to the Final Four again and then win it all. But there are a lot of steps to take, There is a lot of work ahead of us. But, I’m very high on this golf team.
Our next tournament is the Cabo Collegiate in Cabo San Lucas, Mejico, March 5th-7th, a Sunday through Tuesday. There’s a really strong field with several top 25 teams playing, so we have our work cut out for us. A lot to get done in before we can lock in for May and June. But what an effort by our team. We’ve got a spectacular team and a spectacular coach.