Anchor Drop, July 8, 2019: 54 Days to Kickoff

Good morning.

Today, we are 54 days away from Vanderbilt football’s season opener against Georgia. 54 is the number of offensive lineman Tyler Steen. The 6’5”, 305-pound sophomore* from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, played in four games on the defensive line last season and made a solo tackle against Georgia, before moving back to the offensive line in the offseason. Now, he’s listed on the team’s official roster as a sophomore, but under the new NCAA rules (assuming the four games played is accurate) he’s a redshirt freshman this season.

Of course, 54 was also the number of an entirely different T.S. Ted Skuchas, this blog’s official Patron Saint (and if he wasn’t before, he is now), played four seasons for the basketball Commodores in the mid-2000s and scored 360 points in his Commodore career. And if you had Ted Skuchas scoring more points in his Vanderbilt career than Simi Shittu, congratulations! Welcome to the club of people who also knew that Darius Coulibaly has the most career points by a Vanderbilt player named Darius; Coulibaly’s 125 points over 95 career games outranks, by 45 points, Darius Garland’s 80 points in five games.

All right, that was today’s edition of Vanderbilt Basketball Facts You Didn’t Really Want to Know, but I’m telling them to you anyway because the Anchor Drop can’t just be cake and ice cream, sometimes you have to eat your vegetables too. So shut up and eat your broccoli in the form of factoids about Darius Coulibaly and Ted Skuchas.

Off the West End

The U.S. Women’s National Team won the World Cup yesterday, beating the Netherlands 2-0.

The NBA title race is wide open, for once.

Tweet of the Day

Scoreboard

MLB: Blue Jays 6, Orioles 1 ... Red Sox 6, Tigers 3 ... Rays 2, Yankees 1 ... Phillies 8, Mets 3 ... Indians 11, Reds 1 ... Braves 4, Marlins 3 ... Nationals 5, Royals 2 ... Pirates 6, Brewers 5 ... Astros 11, Angels 10 ... White Sox 3, Cubs 1 ... Rangers 4, Twins 1 ... Giants 1, Cardinals 0 ... Diamondbacks 5, Rockies 3 ... Padres 5, Dodgers 3 ... A’s 7, Mariners 4.

PGA Tour: 20-year-old Matthew Wolff won the 3M Open after being on tour for just over a month.

Gold Cup: Mexico 1-0 United States.

Copa America: Brazil 3-1 Peru.