Anchor Drop, February 20, 2018: Jeff Roberson named SEC Player of the Week

Good morning. Jeff Roberson was named the SEC Player of the Week after averaging 24 ppg and 9 rpg in Vanderbilt’s wins over Mississippi State and Florida last week. This is the first time in his career that Roberson has been so honored, and the first Vanderbilt player to win the honor since Luke Kornet won it on March 8, 2017.

Vanderbilt returns to action at 8:00 PM CT tonight as they travel down to Baton Rouge to play the LSU Tigers. Bryce Drew was born in Baton Rouge, where his father, Homer, was an LSU assistant coach from 1974-78, a tidbit that I am sure the SEC Network announcers will not bring up.

Also yesterday, Vanderbilt announced a new scholarship honoring Perry Wallace, who would have turned 70 yesterday.

Adam Sparks goes through some of the best recruiting classes in Vanderbilt basketball history. It’s hard to compare classes from the 1970s to those of today, but the fact that the 2011 recruiting class (which consisted of Kedren Johnson, Dai-Jon Parker, and Shelby Moats) gets brought up should tell you a lot about how the 2018 class stacks up. Also: Sparks doesn’t bring up a single recruiting class from 1972 to 2004. Apparently we weren’t recruiting for 32 years.

The baseball team, 2-1 on the young season, hosts Presbyterian at 4:00 PM CT today on the SEC Network+. Women’s lacrosse won 22-12 at Fresno State yesterday.

Off the West End

J.D. Martinez signed with the Red Sox, reportedly for 5 years and $110 million with a player opt-out after two years. All right, seriously, this couldn’t have been done in December? What the hell were they doing?

The Houston Texans cut Brian Cushing. That opens up playing time for Zach Cunningham, which everyone can agree is a good thing.

Indiana blog Crimson Quarry doesn’t think Romeo Langford is coming to Indiana. Their reasoning comes down to: Romeo Langford wants to enjoy his senior season, which is why he did not announce for Vanderbilt in the early signing period, and he’s rumored to be announcing at the McDonald’s All-American Game -- which, if you wanted to announce for somewhere other than Indiana, you’d probably want to get the hell away from Indiana to do that. I swear to God, they copied this verbatim from a Vanderbilt fan site.

But we are in agreement on one thing.

Yep, that’s right.

Finally, the ODAC basketball tournament starts tonight. Parlagi will have updates on everyone’s favorite Division III conference in the game thread tonight.