Anchor Drop, February 26, 2018: Spring Practice Begins

Good morning. The Vanderbilt Commodores football team will hold the first of 15 spring practices today. The Spring Showcase will be held on March 24, with the second hour being aired on the SEC Network.

Vanderbilt’s women’s basketball team beat Arkansas 78-73 on Senior Day behind 24 points from sophomore Kayla Overbeck, finishing the regular season with a 7-23 overall record and a 3-13 SEC record. The Commodores will be the 12-seed in this week’s SEC Tournament and will play Arkansas again on Wednesday.

Baseball won its sixth game in a row on Sunday, a 9-2 decision over UMass-Lowell, to run its record to 7-1 on the young season. Vanderbilt will play two home games this week against Austin Peay and Indiana State to close out a ten-game, season-opening homestand.

The women’s tennis team beat top-ranked North Carolina, 4-3, on Sunday. That was a nice bounceback from a 4-2 loss at Northwestern on Friday. Men’s tennis beat Indiana, 5-2, on Sunday.

Off the West End

Former Commodore Luke List just narrowly missed his first career PGA Tour victory, losing to Justin Thomas in a playoff at the Honda Classic. And yet there are a ton of articles about 42-year-old Tiger Woods finishing nowhere near winning the tournament.

The NCAA is apparently taking a look at LSU head coach Will Wade’s recruiting tactics, and while this article is a lot of words that don’t say much, it’s worth noting that the NCAA is openly admitting to launching an investigation on the basis of “your recruits are too good.” Also: why in the hell is all of this stuff getting leaked to Pat Forde and Pete Thamel, of all people?

The Preds shut out the St. Louis Blues, 4-0 on Sunday.