Any idea what kind of guys Vandy can get in the portal ? If starters are going at a minimum 1m what kind of NIL fund do you think they will have at their disposal this year ?

Corbin needs to make a few calls to secure some money. Then identify 10 guys or so from Tennessee’s commit list and offer them each $100k more than they’ve negotiated with UTjr.

If we flip a few, great. If we don’t flip any, UTjr will at a minimum have to match our offer or top it. This would drain their war chest by at least $1 million. Every little bit helps.

Vandy's Kumar Rocker gets the start for the Rangers against the Reds today.
Starting for the Reds is Brady Singer from Florida. He led the Gators to their national championship in 2017, just like Rocker did for the Dores in 2019.
Their college careers did not overlap so they never faced off against one another.
Still, it seems like old times in SEC baseball --Gators versus the Dores.
Speaking of which, Vandy goes to Gainesville this weekend.
Hopefully, Rocker can get the week off to a good start with a good performance today and our Vandy Boys can finish the job Friday through Sunday.

As the baseball season continues to unfold, I get the sense that I am seeing something I don't think I can remember ever seeing before with Vandy baseball. This team does not have a single player that would be called a "star". I don't think any player, so far at least, would be considered an outstanding All-SEC type player. A couple pitchers might be, but an outstanding starter goes more than 5 or 6 innings. I feel like Sawyer Hawks is our best player right now, but it is hard to think of a long relief guy as a "star". Anyone feel differently or have any thoughts which might make me feel better?

I've been noticing this all during the tournament, but it really hit home when watching the Bama/Duke game yesterday, and the studio panel discussion after it.

The on-site and studio people want to talk about everything EXCEPT the biggest factor affecting the competition - NIL. It got to be comical when they were talking about the improvement that Duke has made in the last year, how much tougher they are mentally, blah blah blah, how their coach addressed that their supposed lack of mental toughness by instituting meditation, etc..

HELLO - the biggest difference between last year's team and this year's Duke team isn't due to meditation sessions - it's because they have Flagg, Knueppel, Maluach, etc., all freshman, and all receiving significant NIL $'s, no doubt. Duh.

Then after the game they go to the studio, and after continuing to avoid the NIL topic with respect to Duke, they discuss how the state of Alabama has become a center of basketball excellence, how incredible it is that Bama and Auburn are as good as they are, especially when the biggest airport in Alabama is in Birmingham, not particularly convenient to Auburn or Tuscaloosa. Gee - I wonder how those schools attract talent, then? What could it be? How mysterious. I guess it's the magnetic personalities of their coaches, right? That must be it.

Hello - NIL, you idiots. Are you avoiding this topic on purpose? Or are you that stupid?

Not sure if I am stepping on a thread that already exists, with the Tennessee-Houston game going on right now, figured we could use a thread

This is the official game thread

Is it too much to ask that after a game a short article be posted with at least the final score?

Surprisingly, one of my four brackets in the ESPN pool is in the 99.9th percentile. It’s likely to fall today because I picked Michigan State over Auburn in this one (which I picked to win in two of my other three brackets). I picked five games wrong - four in the first round and one in the second. I suspect it’s because there are no Cinderellas this year.

(My others are 95th percentile or better, and all have a chance of sweeping the Elite Eight.)

by Alex Kurbegov (@Anchordown0714)

Man…

First Edwards, now Carey?

Just testing the market or is he definitely gone?

In game 1's this weekend there was only one good starting pitcher performance out of 16 teams -- Arkansas' Root against us.
Other scores were:
11-7
8-6
15-4
8-6
7-5

Georgia won 4-1 but it wasn't their starting pitcher, it was a reliever who threw 5 hitless innings.

It's not that there's not pitching talent but the doctored bats are so prevalent now that pitchers don't really have a fair chance. ERAs of 4 or above are pretty common among even the best ones.

In 9 SEC games yesterday there were 30 HRs, where 1 in every 5 hits was a HR.

Was anybody going to cover it for the site?

This will be the official game thread

Free only to a Vandy fan.
Section K row 1, 1 seat.
First come, first serve.
Must have Vandy Ticket Office account to transfer to you.

... Ark series.
□ 0
□ less than 0

Barton,Guth,Seiber and Ginther were all used in Game 1 after JD left the game. Maldonado and Rigdon pinch hit. Bowker and Fennel are scheduled starters. Huesman,Kranzler,Hawks,Green,O'Rourke,Bryan,Shorey and McElvain all dressed in prior series. By my count that's already 15 pitchers leaving only 1 position player who hasn't played among Davis,Rogers and Mendez. Assuming either Bryan or Shorey was left out it still implies either Rogers or Mendez was scratched in favor of Maldonado and Barton. Put another way, I'm guessing Barton may be replacing Bryan and Maldonado was favored over Mendez or Rogers. If so that's surprising to me.

This is the official game thread.

To see Carey hit the portal.

He’s following and being followed by on instagram the Tipton Edits account. Who produces basically exclusively breaking news edits/announcements for college basketball

Scheduling has created the best opportunity for Corbs to set his starting pitching rotation going forward what with everybody on full rest this weekend.
It'll be hard to alter it after this weekend.

So the question is, does he stick with what he did last weekend or make moves?
Option A -- Fennell/bullpen, Thompson, Bowker [it worked well last weekend]
Option B -- Thompson, Fennell/bullpen, Bowker [works best if you win game 1]
Option C -- Thompson, Bowker, Fennell/bullpen [works best if you lose game 1]
Option D -- Thompson, Bowker, try McElvain again followed by Fennell [only works if you win both game 1 and game 2]

Compounding the decision-making is the threat of wet weather on Saturday and/or Sunday. This could lead to either a game getting canceled or having to play a DH either Saturday or Sunday.

This is crucial because we have, statistically in SEC games only, the 2nd best pitching in the SEC. Meanwhile, our offense is down the list, around 10th in most categories (although we do only have 1 less HR than UTjr.) Pitching is carrying us so far [along with clutch hits.]

With the questionable weather I'd lean toward Thompson on Friday. I think Bowker is best-suited to game 2.
If we win the first two then game 3 is playing with house money and you can do most anything you want. In that case I'd go McElvain with a very, very, very short hook.
If we split the first two then game 3 becomes extra special. I'd have to go with Fennell and hopefully save Hawks to then take over.

Corbs is a man of routine and that suggests to me he throws his best on Friday and that is Thompson. [TTBOMK -- to the best of my knowledge (I'm not sure that's official Text Speak or not) -- he has never NOT done that even in post-season.
To preserve his options after that my announced rotation would be Thompson/TBA/TBA or, even better, TBA/TBA/TBA [not sure if that's allowed but I don't see why not; if Sankey questioned it I could easily argue why it's necessary, not that he would be talking to me but one never knows this day and age.]

So that's my thoughts.
It's crunch time and from what I hear Corbs is very adept at doing crunches as his garage and guest house above are full of weights.

Pretty wild

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