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Good morning.
Vanderbilt baseball can breathe a bit easier today. The Commodores dispatched Kentucky, 8-1, on Thursday night, pulling their SEC record up to .500 at 14-14 and the overall record is now 29-24. Starter Drake Fellows pitched 7.1 innings, allowing three hits and no walks while striking out six, and Pat DeMarco knocked his eighth homer of the season while four Commodores had multi-hit games.
A week ago, the Commodores’ situation looked sketchy, but then Vanderbilt took two of three at Tennessee last weekend and demolished Middle Tennessee on Tuesday night, and now they’ve added a win over what is still a Top 25 team in Kentucky. That should be enough to ensure a NCAA Tournament bid, though the Commodores are probably going to be a regional 3-seed, and they may want to either take one of the remaining two against the Wildcats or else win their first game in Hoover to feel really secure. Still, the situation looks a lot less precarious than it did a week or two ago. Vanderbilt is now up to 35 in the RPI, and the Commodores’ #5 strength of schedule is their ace in the hole. The second game of the series starts tonight at 6:30 PM CT with coverage on the SEC Network+.
Vanderbilt women’s tennis continued its run of dominance with a 4-0 win over Miami in the Sweet 16, advancing to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Championship on Saturday at 3:00 PM CT against Florida State. The Commodores have now won 14 in a row and haven’t even allowed a point in their last four matches.
Tim Corbin is now off Twitter, and Adam Sparks has the why.
The Vanderbilt women’s basketball team, which went 7-24 last season, will play UConn on November 17. I’m just going to guess whoever was responsible for the football team’s trip to Notre Dame is also responsible for this.
Tweet of the Day
I’m just gonna leave this here...
"Every time he saw me, Mike Slive liked to give me a cigar...and I don't smoke! But I still have them all, and when I get home tonight I think I'm gonna go smoke a cigar"
— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) May 17, 2018
Great anecdote from @vucommodores AD David Williams pic.twitter.com/H9TJx6BRdi
Off the West End
Former UCF coach Scott Frost says that Alabama claims 1 or 2 titles that aren’t legit. The number’s really probably higher than that, but I would point you to the 1941 Alabama team, which claimed a title after getting shut out by Vanderbilt.
The ACC is planning a proposal to expand the NCAA Tournament to 72 teams, because what, 68 isn’t enough?!
David Price notched his 17th career complete game on Thursday night.