Tuesday, July 5, 2011

VSL Hotline: Loaded, Reloading, and Rebuilding Edition

It's a good day when there are stories about Vanderbilt's Football, Baseball, and Men's Basketball teams in July. Leading off is Jeff Lockridge's Tennessean story on the role Kevin Stallings' incoming freshmen will play on the 2011-12 squad. The Commodores are adding Dai-Jon Parker, a 6'3 hybrid guard from Alpharetta, Georgia, Kendren Johnson, a 6'4 point guard from Marshall County, Tennessee, and Shelby Moats, a 6'8 power-forward from Waconia, Minnesota. Stallings will also have 6'6 forward James Siakam, and a 6'11 center Josh Henderson who red-shirted last season. there are areas all 3 need to improve in, but depth never hurt anyone, and the Commodores were particularly limited in the back court last season. With the addition of the 2 freshman guards, the Commodores will not only be deeper, but are poised to address one of their biggest weaknesses last season: perimeter defense.

Moving to football, VSLNation is still ebullient over Friday's announcement that Brian Kimbrow, Caleb Azubike, and Cory Batey were verbally committing to Vanderbilt. While nothing is official until next February on National Signing Day, this gives a staff that has taken the Commodores recruiting to another level even more momentum going forward. Don't believe me, read Dave Miller's piece in National Football Post about the announcement. Even David Climer, a notorious hater of all things Vanderbilt football, writes about the "waves" James Franklin is making in the July 4th Tennessean. This is a line that has to sting for Volunteer fans: "But if you’re a UT fan, it’s never a good situation when the No. 1 prospect in a talent-challenged state like ours goes elsewhere." Couldn't agree move, David.

Completing the trinity of Vanderbilt sports is a piece in today's Nashville City Paper about the reloading process for Tim Corbin and his staff. Jerome Boettcher gives a great "lay of the land" of where Coach Corbin and his staff find themselves just weeks after making it to the College World Series. While the Commodores will return 6 of their 9 starters, they are likely to lose most of their power with Casali and Westlake graduating (and drafted), and Esposito taken in the 3rd round. The real question mark comes for a pitching staff that already lost a player to Tommy John Surgery in May, and will likely lose their entire weekend rotation to the Bigs. Boettcher's City Paper gets "must read" status for every Commodore baseball fan out there.

Finally, the City Paper also has a story about Curt Casali and Mark Lamm promptly signing with the teams that drafted them in last months MLB Draft. Lamm was taken in the 6th round by the Atlanta Braves, while Casali was taken by the Detroit Tigers (the Lions play in the NFL) in Round 10. Both players have already been assigned.

For those who were wondering, U2 was awesome. Bono is a rock star.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Detroit lions?

Douglas James said...

U2 hasn't done anything good since "Mysterious Ways" in like 1992.

Stanimal said...

Disagree on that one. "All That You Can't Leave Behind" is a solid album.

AD said...

Thank you, Anonymous.