Anchor Drop, June 11, 2019: 81 Days to Kickoff

Good morning.

Vanderbilt football’s season opener against Georgia is now 81 days away. Today’s Commodore is #81, wide receiver James Bostic. The 6’3”, 208-pound redshirt sophomore from Fort Lauderdale appeared in six games in 2018, though he’s yet to register a statistic. He’s also the son of former Auburn and NFL running back James Bostic. The younger Bostic will be trying to find his way into the rotation at wide receiver, but with Kalija Lipscomb, C.J. Bolar, Amir Abdur-Rahman, Chris Pierce, and Cam Johnson all in the fold, that’s going to be tough.

ICYMI: JJ Bleday and Austin Martin were named first team All-Americans by Baseball America yesterday.

Men’s basketball has a new Director of Basketball Operations: Shasha Brown, who most recently served as the NBA’s Coordinator for Youth Development.

College World Series times have been announced. Vanderbilt will open against Louisville at 1:00 PM on Sunday.

Off the West End

The College World Series is now set. Joining Vanderbilt in Omaha will be Arkansas, Auburn, Florida State, Louisville, Michigan, Mississippi State, and Texas Tech. Arkansas and Auburn were the last teams to get through the supers, with Auburn beating UNC and Arkansas beating Ole Miss on Monday.

From our sister blogs: Alabama hints at a basketball schedule ... College and Magnolia recaps the win over UNC ... Florida got an offensive lineman ... Dawg Sports is already very, very deep into the offseason content ... Ole Miss has a new OL recruit, too ... Mizzou gets a JUCO basketball player ... and Tennessee got two commits.

And, Good Bull Hunting writers can’t stop getting suspended by the Twitters:

Scoreboard

NBA Playoffs: The Warriors stayed alive, winning Game 5 106-105... but they may have lost Kevin Durant again.

MLB: Rays 6, A’s 2 ... Cardinals 4, Marlins 1 ... Diamondbacks 13, Phillies 8 ... Rangers 4, Red Sox 3 ... Braves 13, Pirates 7 ... Nationals 12, White Sox 1 ... Rockies 6, Cubs 5 ... Angels 5, Dodgers 3.

FIFA World Cup: Argentina 0-0 Japan ... Canada 1-0 Cameroon.

World Cup qualifier: Guam 5-0 Bhutan (Guam advances)

Euro qualifiers: Bulgaria 2-3 Kosovo ... Czech Republic 3-0 Montenegro ... Denmark 5-1 Georgia ... Faroe Islands 0-2 Norway ... Ireland 2-0 Gibraltar ... Latvia 0-5 Slovenia ... Malta 0-4 Romania ... Macedonia 1-4 Austria ... Poland 4-0 Israel ... Serbia 4-1 Lithuania ... Spain 3-0 Sweden ... Ukraine 1-0 Luxembourg.

Today: More World Cup qualifiers in Asia! (YOU WILL CARE ABOUT THIS IF I MAKE YOU.) Brunei-Mongolia at 7:15 AM, East Timor-Malaysia at 7:45 AM, Bangladesh-Laos at 8:00 AM, Pakistan-Cambodia at 11:00 AM.

(Not playing: Sri Lanka and Macau, because Macau refuses to travel to Sri Lanka citing safety concerns.)

In the women’s World Cup: New Zealand-Netherlands at 8:00 AM, Chile-Sweden at 11:00, and USA-Thailand at 2:00 PM.

Also, Euro 2020 qualifiers! And these are actually (sorta) televised! Kazakhstan-San Marino at 9:00 AM CT, Azerbaijan-Slovakia at 11:00 AM CT, and a bunch of matches at 1:45 PM CT: Albania-Moldova, Andorra-France, Belarus-Northern Ireland, Belgium-Scotland, Germany-Estonia, Greece-Armenia, Hungary-Wales, Iceland-Turkey, Italy-Bosnia & Herzegovina, Liechtenstein-Finland, Russia-Cyprus. A lot of these (maybe all of them?) are on ESPN+.

And there’s your usual MLB action, the highlight for Vanderbilt fans being Tyler Beede pitching for the Giants against the Padres tonight (8:45 PM CT.)