Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Vanderbilt Hotline: Slow News Day Edition

Apologies to the throngs of readers out there hoping to get a Hotline or a recap of the Tennessee game from Saturday. Quite frankly, I didn't have it in me to relive the trashing. All I will say is, the Commies are fine. No one has beat UT at Thompson-Bolling this season and the fact that Vanderbilt didn't snap that streak is not reason enough to hit the panic button. Sometimes a team just comes out flat. It happens. I also think it is misguided to nominate Stallings as Hoser of the Week because of the way the team played. If it happens again on Wednesday against South Carolina, I will both lead the charge for Stallings' hosery and hit the panic button. Until then, I choose to take deep breathes.



For those of you who haven't yet read Woody's Treatise on Vanderbilt's baseball team...what are you waiting for? This is good stuff and a great primer for the season. After Vanderbilt's performance this past weekend in Houston, Tim Corbin's diamond Commies were voted the #3 team by Collegiate Baseball and #4 by Baseball America, the highest ranking a Vanderbilt baseball team has ever been ranked. Despite their early season success, Coach Tim Corbin is not satisfied. Perhaps the coach isn't, but we are already penciling a trip to Omaha in June.

While SEC Play starts tonight with Kentucky traveling to Knoxville, Vanderbilt has a very important game tomorrow night at home against South Carolina. Everyone in Commodore Nation should be watching tonight's game, and as much as it might pain you, rooting for vomit orange. A Tennessee win, combined with a Commie victory at home would put the Dores in a tie for 2nd with the Wildcats in the East with Tubby and the boys still having to make a trip to Nashvegas in two weeks. Looking ahead to South Carolina, this could be a very tricky game for the Commies. The Gamecocks are only 2-8 in conference, but have played some teams tough (only lost by 3 @UT, 6 @Kentucky, and 3@Alabama). This game would have had a much greater chance to be a disaster had Stallings and the boys not got shellacked by Tennessee. If you will allow me to be an optimist for just a minute, I think the loss to the Vols has the potential to be a good thing. No one likes to lose, but if this team takes their beating in Knoxville as a sign that they need to re-focus their efforts and play every game with fire, then the temporary embarrassment and evictions from the national polls will be worth it. South Carolina has given the Commies fits over the years and would like nothing more than beating the Commies at home and bursting a gaping hole in their tournament bubble.

If this guy doesn't read our blog, we are totally missing our target audience.

The Lady Commies beat the crap out of Auburn 80-45 on Sunday and play Mississippi State this Thursday in Starkville. The Vanderbilt women are currently ranked #12 by the AP. Their final 4 games are against Mississippi State, at home against South Carolina and LSU, and then on the road at The Summit in Knoxville. I wonder if BPB will show us some more skin for that one.

Finally, in an effort to milk as much Vanderbilt as possible out of every story from the world of sports, I thought all 8 of you reading this would be interested to know that John Amaechi, the former NBA player who no one had ever heard of until he came out of the closet last week, spent a year as Vanderbilt before transferring to Penn State. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

1 comment:

Seamus O'Toole said...

Fantastic reference.

Just to clarify the Stallings Hoser nomination, it is not warranted by our loss to UT, but rather by his response to the way we played. I don't care how fired up the other team is or where the game is being played, there's no excuse to lose by that much to your main conference rival.

Any coach worth his salt should have his boys (especially when they're one of the hottest teams in the country) ready to play their archrivals, and (1) not to do that, and (2) not to seem particularly concerned about it are exemplary characteristics of a hosehound.

We should be playing with a sustained sense of urgency for every single game we have left on our schedule. Does that mean we'll win every one? Probably not. Does it mean we'll be putting ourselves in position to make a run in March? In the eyes of a "shameless fan like me" (thanks Jonathan Drew), it does.