By Franz Beard
A few thoughts to jump start your Thursday morning:
IT SEEMED LIKE OLD TIMES FOR HANNAH ADAMS
It didn’t take long for Hannah Adams to do what she’s been doing for what Texas A&M coach Jo Evans says seems like the last 10 years. With leadoff hitter Kendra Falby standing on first base after legging out a single in the bottom of the first inning, and everybody in the Texas A&M infield keenly aware that Adams was going to bunt, Florida’s All-American second baseman delivered the perfect bunt smack dab in the middle of pitcher Grace Uribe, third baseman Trinity Cannon and catcher Haley Lee.
Lee got the ball on a short bounce but by the time she turned and made her throw to first, there was no chance to get Adams. Falby, meanwhile, made the turn at second base and sped to an unoccupied third base. It was an instinctive play for Falby, who is among the Southeastern Conference leaders in hits and stolen bases, the kind that Tim Walton trusts her to make even though she’s just a freshman.
“If I tell her to come it’s too late; if I tell her to stop it’s too late,” Florida coach Tim Walton said after the 5th-seeded Gators (42-15) took out the Aggies (29-26), 4-1 in the Southeastern Conference Softball Tournament at Katie Seashole Pressley Stadium. “She saw it; felt it. The bunt obviously was a great bunt by Hannah to be able to get it down enough with the timing of the ball, just a little bit in the air. Everybody was in the perfect spot for that kind of a play.”
One pitch later, Adams took off for second base and when the throw went through, Falby raced home, sliding in ahead of the relay for Florida’s first run of the game. After a groundout by Skylar Wallace moved Adams to third, Charla Echols took a pitch on the outside half of the plate and drilled it to left field to score Adams.
One inning later, with Falby on second after an opposite field double into the left field gap, Adams took her first full cuts in a live game since she broke a bone in her hand against Ole Miss back on April 15. Her line drive to right field scored Falby with Florida’s final run of the game.
It was the perfect return for Adams, who got in the batting cage last Sunday morning to start swinging the bat again.
Walton said, “At 8:10 on Mother’s Day, she sends me a text message, ‘Hey I’m going to come to the batting cages.’ That was the first days she’s swung, Mother’s Day.”
Adams finished the game 2-3 at the plate with a run scored, a stolen base and an RBI. In the field, Adams was flawless, making every play look routine.
Being away from the game for nearly a month made Adams embrace every moment on the field Wednesday night. It also made what Tim Walton says is a life lesson to be taught to every player he will ever coach or recruit.
“Never take for granted any opportunities you have to play softball, to play the game, because you never know when those opportunities are going to be taken away from you,” Walton said. “She’s taken full advantage of it and has made everybody in this program a heckuva lot better now that she’s back on the field.”
With the Wednesday night win, the Gators advance to the quarter-final round of the tournament against 4th-seeded Kentucky at 5 p.m. today.
Wednesday’s scores
11 Mississippi State (33-23) 7, 6 LSU (34-21) 4; 9 innings
7 Missouri (34-19) 1, 10 Auburn (39-15) 0
5 FLORIDA (42-15) 4, Texas A&M (29-26) 1
8 Ole Miss (39-16) 9, 9 Georgia (40-16) 5
Thursday’s games
12 noon: 11 Mississippi State (33-23) vs. 3 Tennessee (38-15)
2:30 p.m.: 7 Missouri (34-19) vs. 2 Alabama (41-10)
5 p.m.: 5 FLORIDA (42-15) vs. 4 Kentucky (35-16)
7:30 p.m.: 8 Ole Miss (39-16) vs. 1 Arkansas (41-9)
UF WOMEN’S GOLF: GATORS MISS NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS BY 1 STROKE
The Gators had their chances but couldn’t make up enough ground Wednesday in the Albuquerque Regional of the NCAA Tournament. Florida shot a 3-over par 291 on the last day to finish at 875 for the three days of the regional, one shot behind fourth place TCU and a trip to the championships in two weeks. Only the top four teams advance to the championships in Scottsdale, Arizona in two weeks. Marina Escobar Domingo shot a final round 73 to finish -3 (213) in a three-way tie for third place.
UF TRACK AND FIELD: SEC CHAMPIONSHIPS BEGIN IN OXFORD
Both the Florida men and women’s teams have a legitimate chance to bring home SEC track and field championships this weekend at the SEC meet which begins today in Oxford. The Florida women, who won the NCAA indoor championship, come into the meet ranked third nationally. The Florida men, also ranked third nationally, finished fifth at the indoors.
SEC FOOTBALL/BASKETBALL
Alabama: Responding to allegations from Louisville head coach Scott Satterfield that Alabama tampered with wide receiver Tyler Harrell, Nick Saban said Wednesday, “We don’t tamper with anybody, so I don’t know about anything or anybody that tampered with him.” Asked if he knows of any schools that have tampered with Alabama players who have transferred out, Saban said, “I don’t really know that anybody’s really ever tampered with our players. I just think sometimes when things happen it makes you wonder. So I’m not making any accusations against anybody that’s done anything with our players and I don’t have any knowledge of anybody that’s done anything with any of our players.”
Arkansas: Nick Smith (6-5, 175, Sherwood, AR North Little Rock), one of three 5-star recruits (Jordan Walsh and Anthony Black are the others) for basketball coach Eric Musselman’s 2022 class, got the No. 1 individual ranking for 247Sports.
Auburn: Bryan Harsion offered this take on NIL: “It’s just so new, so there’s really not a good answer – you know, how everybody’s handling it, because I don’t think anybody’s got a great handle on it. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing; it’s just new, so everybody’s kind of working through it. It’s part of our world right now.”
Georgia: Jaxon Etter (6-4, 200), who started 22 games last season for Tom Crean while averaging 5.1 points and 2.9 rebounds, has withdrawn his name from the transfer portal.
Mississippi State: Shakeel Moore (6-1, 180) has withdrawn his name from the transfer portal and will remain at Mississippi State. He averaged 8.7 points, 3.0 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game last year.
South Carolina: The Gamecocks are replacing Liberty on their 2023 football schedule with Jacksonville State … Forward Benjamin Bosmans-Verdonk (6-8, 235), who averaged 1.6 points and 2.1 rebounds last year, is transferring in from Illinois.
Texas A&M: Hassan Diarra, who averaged 6.2 points, 1.8 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game last season, is transferring to UConn.
Vanderbilt: Shooting guard Gabe Dorsey (6-6, 215) is transferring to William and Mary. He averaged 0.7 points and 0.3 rebounds per game last year.
JOSEPH GOODMAN OF AL.COM ON NIL
Here is an excerpt from a column Al.com’s Joseph Goodman wrote about NIL:
“Play nice, pretty please, the NCAA said to boosters in its latest memo on NIL.
“Or else the NCAA will do what, exactly? Form another sub-committee working group to talk about the good ol’ days when players’ careers were controlled by universities and their conferences instead of by the players themselves in this new free market economy? College sports have never been a more accurate reflection of American idealism than right now at this moment in history, and all the NCAA can think about doing is trying to regulate it.
“I’m just going to go ahead and say the silent part out loud. The Black kids who have built college football into a multi-billion dollar industry, and have launched enrollments of mega-universities to record numbers, suddenly went from making no money at all to making way too much from NIL collectives and now the NCAA wants us all to believe that’s going to be the thing that destroys college sports.”
POINTING FINGERS …
Pete Thamel of ESPN is reporting that University of Pittsburgh football coach Mike Narduzzi is convinced that Southern Cal tampered with wide receiver Joseph Addison before he was in the transfer portal. Thamel tweeted that Narduzzi “has called USC coach Lincoln Riley to express his displeasure.”
Addison, who caught 100 passes for 1,593 yards and 17 touchdowns last season, is in the transfer portal now. Alabama is thought to be the leader to obtain his services.
Here are a couple more accusations of tampering involving transfers:
Florida State coach Mike Norvell: “We had conversations, there were a couple guys on our team that have had people from the outside talking. They were not in the portal, but they’re trying to make decisions on certain things for their future. That’s what’s unfortunate. But grateful for the guys we have and the team that we’re going to be able to move forward with. But for college athletics, we want to be together here moving forward.”
Boston College wide receiver Zay Flowers speaking to ESPN regarding big money offers to transfer: “For a kid like me from a household of 14 with one parent, that's life-changing money. I talked to Coach Hafley and we went through what was going on. I talked to my dad. My dad would love me to stay at BC, and I wanted to stay at BC. It was a decision I had to make, and the decision I made was to come back to school."
ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: If you haven’t read a rather insightful piece of writing by Chris Vannini of The Athletic, then take a few minutes out of your schedule and read his piece “How Joe Moglia would fix college sports: The ex-coach/CEO on NCAA, coach contracts and more.”
Joe Moglia, if you aren’t familiar, is the former CEO of TD Ameritrade and the former head coach at Coastal Carolina. He went 56-22 as Coastal’s head coach before turning the program over to Jamey Chadwell, who has gone 22-3 the last two seasons. He understands business, understands football and understands this basic concept: you can’t have a bunch of academics who know little to nothing about business running college football, which is indeed big business.
In the Vannini article, these are the concepts Moglia would use to save college football from itself: (1) Executive committee to run the sport; (2) eliminate the signing period; (3) fix the coaching contract market; and (4) reorganize Division I.
Of the four concepts, the one that intrigues me the most is No. 3. Here’s what Moglia has to say: “(Right now), if you have a great year and somebody wants you, you can leave the next year, and with the portal the way it is, all your best players can come with you,” Moglia said. “The school you’re leaving is decimated. … If you sign a five-year deal, you’re supposed to be there for five years and nobody can poach you. Nobody should even be allowed to talk to him unless there’s six months left or something. If a guy is doing great and you want to extend him, the guy has to make a real decision. If he thinks he can get a bigger job, he might hold off.”
If Moglia’s idea had been in place a few years back, Auburn probably wouldn’t have given Gus Malzahn that 7-year contract at $7 million per that ended up costing $21 million in buyout money. Would Scott Stricklin have given Dan Mullen a $12 million buyout if Moglia’s rule No. 3 had been in place? I think not.
Will it be implemented? Doubtful, because it makes way too much sense, but we can hope can’t we?
A few thoughts to jump start your Thursday morning:
IT SEEMED LIKE OLD TIMES FOR HANNAH ADAMS
It didn’t take long for Hannah Adams to do what she’s been doing for what Texas A&M coach Jo Evans says seems like the last 10 years. With leadoff hitter Kendra Falby standing on first base after legging out a single in the bottom of the first inning, and everybody in the Texas A&M infield keenly aware that Adams was going to bunt, Florida’s All-American second baseman delivered the perfect bunt smack dab in the middle of pitcher Grace Uribe, third baseman Trinity Cannon and catcher Haley Lee.
Lee got the ball on a short bounce but by the time she turned and made her throw to first, there was no chance to get Adams. Falby, meanwhile, made the turn at second base and sped to an unoccupied third base. It was an instinctive play for Falby, who is among the Southeastern Conference leaders in hits and stolen bases, the kind that Tim Walton trusts her to make even though she’s just a freshman.
“If I tell her to come it’s too late; if I tell her to stop it’s too late,” Florida coach Tim Walton said after the 5th-seeded Gators (42-15) took out the Aggies (29-26), 4-1 in the Southeastern Conference Softball Tournament at Katie Seashole Pressley Stadium. “She saw it; felt it. The bunt obviously was a great bunt by Hannah to be able to get it down enough with the timing of the ball, just a little bit in the air. Everybody was in the perfect spot for that kind of a play.”
One pitch later, Adams took off for second base and when the throw went through, Falby raced home, sliding in ahead of the relay for Florida’s first run of the game. After a groundout by Skylar Wallace moved Adams to third, Charla Echols took a pitch on the outside half of the plate and drilled it to left field to score Adams.
One inning later, with Falby on second after an opposite field double into the left field gap, Adams took her first full cuts in a live game since she broke a bone in her hand against Ole Miss back on April 15. Her line drive to right field scored Falby with Florida’s final run of the game.
It was the perfect return for Adams, who got in the batting cage last Sunday morning to start swinging the bat again.
Walton said, “At 8:10 on Mother’s Day, she sends me a text message, ‘Hey I’m going to come to the batting cages.’ That was the first days she’s swung, Mother’s Day.”
Adams finished the game 2-3 at the plate with a run scored, a stolen base and an RBI. In the field, Adams was flawless, making every play look routine.
Being away from the game for nearly a month made Adams embrace every moment on the field Wednesday night. It also made what Tim Walton says is a life lesson to be taught to every player he will ever coach or recruit.
“Never take for granted any opportunities you have to play softball, to play the game, because you never know when those opportunities are going to be taken away from you,” Walton said. “She’s taken full advantage of it and has made everybody in this program a heckuva lot better now that she’s back on the field.”
With the Wednesday night win, the Gators advance to the quarter-final round of the tournament against 4th-seeded Kentucky at 5 p.m. today.
Wednesday’s scores
11 Mississippi State (33-23) 7, 6 LSU (34-21) 4; 9 innings
7 Missouri (34-19) 1, 10 Auburn (39-15) 0
5 FLORIDA (42-15) 4, Texas A&M (29-26) 1
8 Ole Miss (39-16) 9, 9 Georgia (40-16) 5
Thursday’s games
12 noon: 11 Mississippi State (33-23) vs. 3 Tennessee (38-15)
2:30 p.m.: 7 Missouri (34-19) vs. 2 Alabama (41-10)
5 p.m.: 5 FLORIDA (42-15) vs. 4 Kentucky (35-16)
7:30 p.m.: 8 Ole Miss (39-16) vs. 1 Arkansas (41-9)
UF WOMEN’S GOLF: GATORS MISS NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS BY 1 STROKE
The Gators had their chances but couldn’t make up enough ground Wednesday in the Albuquerque Regional of the NCAA Tournament. Florida shot a 3-over par 291 on the last day to finish at 875 for the three days of the regional, one shot behind fourth place TCU and a trip to the championships in two weeks. Only the top four teams advance to the championships in Scottsdale, Arizona in two weeks. Marina Escobar Domingo shot a final round 73 to finish -3 (213) in a three-way tie for third place.
UF TRACK AND FIELD: SEC CHAMPIONSHIPS BEGIN IN OXFORD
Both the Florida men and women’s teams have a legitimate chance to bring home SEC track and field championships this weekend at the SEC meet which begins today in Oxford. The Florida women, who won the NCAA indoor championship, come into the meet ranked third nationally. The Florida men, also ranked third nationally, finished fifth at the indoors.
SEC FOOTBALL/BASKETBALL
Alabama: Responding to allegations from Louisville head coach Scott Satterfield that Alabama tampered with wide receiver Tyler Harrell, Nick Saban said Wednesday, “We don’t tamper with anybody, so I don’t know about anything or anybody that tampered with him.” Asked if he knows of any schools that have tampered with Alabama players who have transferred out, Saban said, “I don’t really know that anybody’s really ever tampered with our players. I just think sometimes when things happen it makes you wonder. So I’m not making any accusations against anybody that’s done anything with our players and I don’t have any knowledge of anybody that’s done anything with any of our players.”
Arkansas: Nick Smith (6-5, 175, Sherwood, AR North Little Rock), one of three 5-star recruits (Jordan Walsh and Anthony Black are the others) for basketball coach Eric Musselman’s 2022 class, got the No. 1 individual ranking for 247Sports.
Auburn: Bryan Harsion offered this take on NIL: “It’s just so new, so there’s really not a good answer – you know, how everybody’s handling it, because I don’t think anybody’s got a great handle on it. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing; it’s just new, so everybody’s kind of working through it. It’s part of our world right now.”
Georgia: Jaxon Etter (6-4, 200), who started 22 games last season for Tom Crean while averaging 5.1 points and 2.9 rebounds, has withdrawn his name from the transfer portal.
Mississippi State: Shakeel Moore (6-1, 180) has withdrawn his name from the transfer portal and will remain at Mississippi State. He averaged 8.7 points, 3.0 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game last year.
South Carolina: The Gamecocks are replacing Liberty on their 2023 football schedule with Jacksonville State … Forward Benjamin Bosmans-Verdonk (6-8, 235), who averaged 1.6 points and 2.1 rebounds last year, is transferring in from Illinois.
Texas A&M: Hassan Diarra, who averaged 6.2 points, 1.8 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game last season, is transferring to UConn.
Vanderbilt: Shooting guard Gabe Dorsey (6-6, 215) is transferring to William and Mary. He averaged 0.7 points and 0.3 rebounds per game last year.
JOSEPH GOODMAN OF AL.COM ON NIL
Here is an excerpt from a column Al.com’s Joseph Goodman wrote about NIL:
“Play nice, pretty please, the NCAA said to boosters in its latest memo on NIL.
“Or else the NCAA will do what, exactly? Form another sub-committee working group to talk about the good ol’ days when players’ careers were controlled by universities and their conferences instead of by the players themselves in this new free market economy? College sports have never been a more accurate reflection of American idealism than right now at this moment in history, and all the NCAA can think about doing is trying to regulate it.
“I’m just going to go ahead and say the silent part out loud. The Black kids who have built college football into a multi-billion dollar industry, and have launched enrollments of mega-universities to record numbers, suddenly went from making no money at all to making way too much from NIL collectives and now the NCAA wants us all to believe that’s going to be the thing that destroys college sports.”
POINTING FINGERS …
Pete Thamel of ESPN is reporting that University of Pittsburgh football coach Mike Narduzzi is convinced that Southern Cal tampered with wide receiver Joseph Addison before he was in the transfer portal. Thamel tweeted that Narduzzi “has called USC coach Lincoln Riley to express his displeasure.”
Addison, who caught 100 passes for 1,593 yards and 17 touchdowns last season, is in the transfer portal now. Alabama is thought to be the leader to obtain his services.
Here are a couple more accusations of tampering involving transfers:
Florida State coach Mike Norvell: “We had conversations, there were a couple guys on our team that have had people from the outside talking. They were not in the portal, but they’re trying to make decisions on certain things for their future. That’s what’s unfortunate. But grateful for the guys we have and the team that we’re going to be able to move forward with. But for college athletics, we want to be together here moving forward.”
Boston College wide receiver Zay Flowers speaking to ESPN regarding big money offers to transfer: “For a kid like me from a household of 14 with one parent, that's life-changing money. I talked to Coach Hafley and we went through what was going on. I talked to my dad. My dad would love me to stay at BC, and I wanted to stay at BC. It was a decision I had to make, and the decision I made was to come back to school."
ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: If you haven’t read a rather insightful piece of writing by Chris Vannini of The Athletic, then take a few minutes out of your schedule and read his piece “How Joe Moglia would fix college sports: The ex-coach/CEO on NCAA, coach contracts and more.”
Joe Moglia, if you aren’t familiar, is the former CEO of TD Ameritrade and the former head coach at Coastal Carolina. He went 56-22 as Coastal’s head coach before turning the program over to Jamey Chadwell, who has gone 22-3 the last two seasons. He understands business, understands football and understands this basic concept: you can’t have a bunch of academics who know little to nothing about business running college football, which is indeed big business.
In the Vannini article, these are the concepts Moglia would use to save college football from itself: (1) Executive committee to run the sport; (2) eliminate the signing period; (3) fix the coaching contract market; and (4) reorganize Division I.
Of the four concepts, the one that intrigues me the most is No. 3. Here’s what Moglia has to say: “(Right now), if you have a great year and somebody wants you, you can leave the next year, and with the portal the way it is, all your best players can come with you,” Moglia said. “The school you’re leaving is decimated. … If you sign a five-year deal, you’re supposed to be there for five years and nobody can poach you. Nobody should even be allowed to talk to him unless there’s six months left or something. If a guy is doing great and you want to extend him, the guy has to make a real decision. If he thinks he can get a bigger job, he might hold off.”
If Moglia’s idea had been in place a few years back, Auburn probably wouldn’t have given Gus Malzahn that 7-year contract at $7 million per that ended up costing $21 million in buyout money. Would Scott Stricklin have given Dan Mullen a $12 million buyout if Moglia’s rule No. 3 had been in place? I think not.
Will it be implemented? Doubtful, because it makes way too much sense, but we can hope can’t we?
