Tomorrow's gonna be a busy day and I wanted to start this for fear I'd forget it.

Stuff going down in Bama. Brandon Miller, their lottery pick, was there at the apartment shooting for which one of their scrubs was arrested (and he brought the gun to give to killer & blocked would-be victim from escaping while his buddy accidentally shoots a girl). Three Bama players involved (including the aforementioned star).

More on the local Father Ryan (Tenn.) product, who has plenty of interest in the Commodores

I don't know if this has been brought up earlier in here and I just missed it, but in early February the Tennessean had this article...



How Vanderbilt lost Memorial Magic was what the article is about. Since then, we are undefeated with two classic Memorial Magic buzzer-beaters. One of them against their favorite team, UTjr.

Thanks Tennessean for ending our jinx!!🤣🤣🤣🤣

Perfect storm of call and travel to not make any games this week. If anyone wants 4 for the following games, let me know:

Tuesday
Wednesday
Friday

I’ll start by saying ole Bruce can take that chin strap beard and head back to the barn. Great win! Also: Go to hell vawls.

Now that’s out of the way I’d like some suggestions on NYC. I share a b-day with my soon to be 13 y/o daughter and my wife has surprised us with a trip to NYC. We (me, wife, 13 and almost 8 daughters) leave Thursday and we have never been. We’re staying in Manhattan just a few blocks off from Times Square. We have six days there.

We will hit the typical spots that are “must visit” but I want to have some places that maybe are hidden gems or places that the typical tourist may not go.

So what do y’all have? Thanks in advance!

We were just told this in the press box.

Not a lot really, and long odds for some of these, but if you just want to root for perfect scenarios for VU here you go:

#1 is Ok St at WV - The B12 just gives team’s opportunities after opportunities. Two teams with high SoS (9 at 4 respectively) and solid NET rankings (37 at 32). Would be a quad one win for OK St and a high quad 2 for WV (losses the same). WV is 5-11 in quad 1 with no Q3 or 4 losses. Ok St is 4-8 Q1 with a Q3 loss. WV is 4-10 in the B12 and OK St is 7-7. On paper OK St has a slightly easier schedule, but it’s the B12 so no gsmes are easy. With the high SoS and knowing they say they don’t look at conference records it’s tough to know which team is closer to out, but I’d say to root for OK St tonight despite it being a Q1 win and then having the worse NET rank. WV with road games left at KS and IA St and home vs KSU, 1-2 finish a likely scenario and will they really give an at large bid to a team with a 5-13 conference record. I just don’t see that happening, though with their such high SoS I’d not completely rule it out. 16-15 heading into conf play too would be tough if they went 16-16 or 17-16 even.

#2: Louisville at Duke - Most have Duke safely in, and I understand that but this is not a typical Duke Resume. SoS is only 51 thanks mainly to the weak ACC, which gives Duke outside of VA no Q1 chances at home And that shows with their 2-6 Q1 record (compared to VUs 4-7 record). Big thing with them no Q3 or Q4 losses and 19-8 record. Best wins are neutral court wins over Xavier and Iowa. Louisville comes in hot (ok but when you have 4 total wins and coming with a 1 game winning streak that’s hot for them) and would give Duke a big fat awful loss (Louisville is 308 in the NET). Odds of this happening is closer to 0% than 1%, but if the major major upset happened, while Duke is probably still safe you just never know, lose 2 of 3 or last 3 down the stretch and things just might start getting interesting for coach Kless Dukies.

#3 Minnesota at Illinois - look, Illinois is probably safe, and the better Illinois is, the better Missouri is (they beat Illinois) which helps SEC which helps VU. Ok that maybe a bit of a stretch, but not as much as you think. Illinois has two mammoth wins in UCLA and Texas both on neutral courts. Outside of that. Nothing much. 3-7 Q1 total with Rutgers hanging on to a Q1 win at 29 NET. Which tells you they have lost to every B10 team that is a projected lock or close to it in the tourney right now but that home win vs Rutgers (also have home win vs MSU who is a bubble team). They are 0fer vs Maryland, Northwestern, Indiana and Iowa. And they’ve not even played Purdue yet. While I think outside of a disaster finish just those two non conferences wins alone puts them in good shape, Minnesota has only 1 win in the B10 and is 248 in the NET. Similar to Duke a loss here would be a Q4 loss and put. some pressure on those final few games.

If you really want to dig even Deeper, AL A&M who VU struggled to beat plays home vs a really bad FL A&M team. VU if you remember struggled vs the 321 NET AL AM team, not sure what this would really do to VU but I’d just prefer not to find out as FLAM is 359 in the NET, that 8 point victory instead of 10 or 11 may hurt VU just a bit more.

Got to share this visit.

My oldest of three is a junior in high school and beginning his college tours.

He wants to go to VU but it will be tough for him to get in unless he aces the ACT since his grades are not the highest. We will tour VU later this month.

In the meantime, he is looking at other colleges within 4 hours including UT (cannot believe I am saying it the in state Vols). I do not want him going there but I am open enough for him to look around.

Meanwhile, we visited the urange campus last Friday. Having lived outside of the state the last 35 years and except for going up to UT games to see the Dores beat the urange several times I never really visited the campus.

So we go on the tour and my wife tells me to stay calm and let my son be open minded and hear what UT has to say.

Well the ugliness comes out first. Within the first 3 minutes the tour guides come running out singing ole Rocky Top. About made me puke.

After that indigestion, I thought of my son first, he did not grow up disliking the Vols like I have since we have lived out of TN his whole life except for the last 1.6 years. Ok, so I say I can put up with this for two hours.

So we start visiting the student Union, library, dorms, the “rock”, the center of campus, etc. and then we stop at their statue that has the torch. Nice little story.

I am beginning to think maybe UT has changed and they have lost their insecure identity of who they really are. The tour guides are ending the statue/torch story and then they turn to the right and talk about Neyland stadium. They share the stories of many good football games and great atmospheres like that is all that matters— ugh! Give me a break.

Then the tour guide goes for the punch line. She says “over at Neyland this is where we play and beat Alabama, Florida and the Girl Scout troop #615 from Nashville - often referred as Vanderbilt.”

I about let her have it right there. They could not change their colors of who they really are. The only redeeming thing I heard was from my son who then turned immediately to me and said “they do not know we are behind enemy lines.” I could not have been more prouder than him since he first saw for the first time their true colors.

We finished the tour and he did not want to buy anything urange.

I will let him make his own decision. He said if he ends up going there he will be one of the few UT students pulling for VU and wearing VU colors at games. Thought that was sweet for him to say. I would not expect him to do that. But, I think he knows why I pull for the Dores.

South Gibson (TN) defensive end Cameron Clark plans to visit Vanderbilt on March 25th. Clark called his Vanderbilt a 'dream' offer, but he has since received offers from Notre Dame, Duke, Ole Miss, Pitt, and others.

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Kings Mountain (NC) defensive end Curtis Simpson also plans to visit Vanderbilt on March 25th. The 6-foot-4 and 200-pound pass rusher had 23 sacks as a junior. He recently added offers from Ole Miss, Duke, West Virginia, and others. Simpson says that Liberty, East Carolina, Vanderbilt, and Duke are the schools recruiting him the most right now.

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Wisconsin - they have a very similar resume to VU, but 1/2 a step ahead. Also Net seems to think about the same for both.

Wisc 76 in Net, VU 87
Wisc 15-11 overall, VU 15-12
Wisc 5-6 Quad 1 , VU 4-7
Wisc 4-4 quad 2, VU 3-3
Wisc 1 Q3 loss, VU same
Wisc 0 Q4 losses, VU 1
Wisc 12 SoS, VU 18 in NET
Wisc 7-9 in conf, VU 8-6
Wisc 71 in KenPom, VU 87
Wisc 46 in KPI, VU 50

Now, comparing their resumes it makes sense Wisc is about 11 spots ahead in net and really everything else. In other words computers are really seeing these two teams the same. Also doesn’t make sense an OHio St is ahead of them both, or so many teams with resumes that don’t look better are so far ahead of either of these teams in the NET.

That said, if nothing changes here just eyeballing without digging deeper (like Robbins injury or if Wisc had any injuries, etc), it sure looks like it will be hard for the committee to pick VU over Wisc. So just a team to kind of watch if VU can keep winning.

@Chris Lee , thoughts (amazing how computers see these teams so similar and outliers compared to most of the others).

Was hanging out at Tennessee State yesterday for the SuperMax 100 Southeast Invitational, a camp that featured many top in-state talents along with some out-of-state guys from Michigan, Mississippi, and Arkansas as well. Here are some notes on a few Vandy targets.

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Masterson is an impressive looking OL prospect, not only with his stature, but his ability to move and bend as well. He participated in drills, but was held out of 1-on-1's due to a minor wrestling injury. Academics will play a big role in Masterson's decision as it seems Vandy, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Duke, and North Carolina are teams he's interested in the most right now. He plans to revisit those schools throughout March and April. Right now, he plans to be back at Vandy on March 21st. His mom works at Vanderbilt, so there is a direct connection there. His father also went to school at North Carolina, so there is a connection to that school as well. I'll have a video interview with Masterson I'll post later this week.

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Becker has already been on Vandy's campus two or three times already. He's planning to return to West End very soon. Vandy is the one P5 school that has offered and appears to be sticking out so far. He said he has a great relationship with Alex Bailey and is looking forward to working out with him soon. Kentucky is another school he recently visited for a Jr. Day. The Wildcats haven't offered, but will continue to evaluate him during the spring. Coastal Carolina is another school Becker said he's hoping to visit this spring as well.

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Carter has already got a plethora of offers for a 2025 prospect, nearing 30 to be exact. He recently went on a trip to West Virginia. He said SMU, Purdue, and Vanderbilt are other schools that are sticking out to him early on as far as relationships. Still a long ways to go, but the Commodores have established good footing early on.

😂😂😂😂

As a "stat geek", this site appeals to me plus as a life long Dore the numbers support the emotional upswing in sentiment we experienced at the conclusion of Saturday's game. While this site is far from being an "expert's" opinion re "bubble watch", the numbers are intriguing, particularly, the jump up in "probability" of getting a bid over the last week . . . + 22%. Of course, look how KY doubled up the Dores in terms of a 1 week jump.

Since we are still on the outside of any "bubble watch" mention for VU, I thought that this site might temporarily ease our current state of mind. Next week's game with the Cats looms very large on the horizon.

Currently they are ranked 88th. Look at this (I could of missed something so don’t take this as gospel):
VU has 4 quad 1 wins at the moment (Aub is hanging on by less than a thread as one)

Teams ranked 89 or worse with 4 or more quad 1 wins : That would be a big fat zero, not many at all with 3 (I believe less than 5 maybe just 1-2 I’d have to review more)

Teams ranked 87 or better with 3 or less: 54!!!!

I don’t know what this means or doesn’t mean for VU’s chances but it can’t be a bad thing.

Going into the game last night, WV was 32 in the NET and OK St 37. They get the 18 point home win and move to 26 while OK St dropped to 42. Wow.

Oh and playing a bad opponent Duke won by 17 over Louisville and dropped 3 spots from 26 to 29. Illinois is 32 not sure if they dropped or not.

Vanderbilt went up a spot to 87. Don’t ask, I have no idea. Auburn still at 30 so despite WV jumping ahead someone must of fell back (Ill maybe).

All this to say #1 thing for VU to do is win, I’d take a 1 point win each game here on out and not have them play. But it wouldn’t hurt to beat LSU by as much as possible. But beggars can’t be choosy as said a 1 point win I’ll take right now versus risking a loss (I’m perfectly ok with that Ken Pom luck factor to keep getting better and better and better).

Vandy is 24th

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It’s easy to look ahead to the UK & Miss State week considering those are easily the biggest matchups left, but getting two wins this week won’t be easy.

LSU has been abysmal in conference. Without having watched them play, why are they so bad? They have some decent players. Especially KJ Williams and Fountain down low. The matchup scares me some.

Florida won’t be easy either. They don’t have Castleton which is their Robbins but anything can happen. Hope the guys can stay locked in because a loss this week would do them in from a bubble perspective

@thepeopleschampion13 made me realize that we basically have two groups of people on the board right now. Those that give Stack credit for the improvement of the team and those that blame him for it (if he had simply not played the freshmen and Ansong, the team would have been playing like this all along).

I have seen a lot of posters either saying or implying that if our current rotation and starters were used the same way all year, we wouldn’t have had any of the troubles we had or lost any of the games we lost. To me, that’s an oversimplification of the fact (in my mind) that our roles are finally clearly defined and the players who are playing are playing at a higher level than they were earlier in the year (in edition to running sets by design and executing damn near flawlessly).

So which camp are you in?

I’m not displaying votes publicly but would love your thoughts as to why you voted the way you voted.

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Luke Wyatt was at the College Baseball Showdown and Chris Lee watched all of Vanderbilt's games there from TV; what were their impressions of the VandyBoys in the first weekend? And how will Vanderbilt attack its two mid-week games from a pitching standpoint? They also rewind the Auburn win in hoops and end with a lengthy discussion of the Commodores and the NCAA tournament, with a mailbag in between.

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I'll probably try to drop this on Friday.

One of my buddies just sent me a Twitter link saying Jeff Pack has passed away. Anybody heard anything?