Brandt shoots 64 today (-7) to move into a tie for sixth at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Brandt carded seven birdies and no bogeys on TPC Scottsdale. He is -8 for the tourney. He finished second here to Phil last year before winning the AT&T Pebble Beach tournament the next week. Bubba Watson and Matt Jones are finished and lead the tournament at -12. Hideki Matsuyama is @ -9 and on No.14. Great course with the awesome stadium hole on 16 which is like being in Soldier Field on a Sunday with the Bears playing the Packers. The crowd on 16 must be 20,000 in stands surrounding the hole. They go wild over good shots. Brandt’s putter was definitely working today. I’m guessing, but I’d say he had 26 putts today. Will get confirmation on that this afternoon. The PGA doesn’t provide that stat any more instead they use strokes gained putting.Yesterday Brandt had a -2.937 strokes gained putting number and today it was 4.787, a huge number. Overall, he’s 36th in the field, but today his number was the best in the tournament. So B will be right there this weekend. Good to see him back and playing well. Will keep you posted over the weekend.
Bball has had a couple of excellent victories on the road @ A&M last Saturday, 66-55, in a game where James Siakam scored 22 and pulled down 10. Kyle had 19 and four assists. Then Wednesday, we went to Georgia in those terrible traveling conditions, got hung up in Greenville, SC, and didn’t have a shootaround the day before, and still came out with the 59-54 victory. Rod finished with 16 points and 12 boards, that was a great night for Rod on the glass. We need that from him to give James, Damian, Luke and Shelby some help underneath. Dai-Jon had 15 and seven boards along with four assists and Kyle had 13 and four assists. We stuck with Georgia, a good rebounding team, on the glass. They only outrebounded us 38-35. We were 14 of 20 from the line at the end of the game. We only shot 65% from the line, but hit some key ones. We’re 11th in the SEC in free throw shooting at 66%, but we’re getting better. Kyle shoots 78%, he’s been our most consistent player this season along with Rod. Both are seniors.
Missouri leads the league at 72%. The league is better this year than it has been the past four-five years with more high quality teams in Florida (a Final Four contender), Kentucky (pretty good, but the freshmen are not there yet), Missouri (really a nice club), LSU (like this team a lot), Tennessee (very physical and pretty skilled, and Arkansas at times, especially at home though Missouri beat them last week at Bud Walton. We’re now 11-8 overall and 3-4 in the SEC. We play MIssissippi State tomorrow @ home tomorrow at 5 PM ET/4 CT on Fox Sports South then the Vawls come into town Wednesday (Feb. 5, signing day) @ 8 PM ET/7 CT on ESPN3. Wish that game had made a network game. Seems like it should especially if us and the Vols win tomorrow. UT plays at Alabama tomorrow at 9 PM ET/8 CT on the Deuce (ESPN2). I hope Alabama wins for Coach Anthony Grant’s sake. He’s such a good guy and is he ever catching some heat down there. They’ve struggled this year and he is hearing it from the fans. They’re a pretty difficult group at times when they’re not winning, so I hope AG can get the W tomorrow. UT is 13-7 overall and 3-2 in the SEC. My Final Four which I posted on the regular blog is Florida, Louisville, Kansas and Zona. That’s the pick as long as there are not injuries. The other teams to look for are the Cuse, Michigan, Cincy (which beat the Ville last night at Ville-they’re good), Wichita State and, as always, Michigan State, if they can get their big men healthy, which they are in the process of doing, at least Adreian Payne, their talented 6’10”, center. The other guy, Branden Dawson, a 6′”6 small forward, will be out a little longer. But if they are healthy come March, they’re very dangerous. So I’ll try to hold firm to those Final Four picks, but if injuries occur, may have to adjust.
Huge recruiting weekend this weekend on campus as Derek and the staff make a final push to round out this class. There will be 15-16 recruits on campus and we have two silent commits that haven’t gone public yet. Will let you know as soon as I have their names. The highest ranked recruit in Vandy history, 5.9 four-star defensive end Nifae Lealao, a 6’5″, 280 defensive end, would be a huge land for Derek and his staff. Nifae is from California and our defensive line coach Vavae Tata has an inroad with Nifae. It is believed that NIfae, a soft California verbal, is on campus this weekend. Would be tremendous. Another guy who we’ve been all over, 5.7 three-star wide out Trevon Lee, is at Duke this weekend, so that’ll come down to the wire. Trevon was on campus last weekend. Will report when anything transpires and anyone pops and the silents come out. Exciting stuff Derek and his staff have going on. Looking for a late recruiting flurry to round out a solid class. We have nine committed prospects right now, including four-star dbs Trent Sherfield and Emmanuel Smith. We lost a couple this week. Four-star db Kyle Gibson changed to Central Florida. Kyle is from that area and the son of his high school football coach is a coach at UCF. We lost an offensive linemen, Jesse Burkett, to Stanford as well. But this weekend looks promising and we should end up with a solid class. Will keep you informed.