Save the Shield! A Vanderbilt sports blog

Human beings are notoriously sensitive to recent experience, even when a step back suggests that recent experience is atypical. Sports fans provide clear examples of this tendency, and Vanderbilt fans right now are ready to declare that the sky is falling because our team has gone from 16-0 to 17-4 in its last [...]

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I didn’t see any of the game today. I’m glad I had social and freelancing commitments to keep me from watching the carnage.
It’s funny how VandySports was damn near unanimous in its hatred toward Ken Pomeroy three weeks ago for seemingly indicating that we weren’t that great. (”How many Vanderbilt games [...]

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…and I can’t believe I’m pulling for Kitty.  (I work with data from Stats.com, who abbreviates Kentucky as “Kty”, and I always think of them as Kitty, like Wisconsin is Bucky or Michigan State is Sparty.)  I don’t think I’ve ever pulled for them against UTK, not even in [...]

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I’ve barely had enough enthusiasm to follow VU basketball, let alone write about it.  I suppose being sick this week didn’t help.  Also, I was busy with a church small group on Thursday and literally forgot about that mess of a game.   (Dad, a Tennessee fan, says Vanderbilt [...]

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Not gonna commit to writing much here, because when I write, I forget to pay attention to the game.
15:25: OK, I’m out. Â Sad and a little frustrated that we can’t fix our TOs and rebounding problems. Â But win in Knoxville and it’s all good again.
15:20: Man, it’s surreal to see Cats [...]

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This thought just occurred to me: How awful would it be to lose The Other Streak to the worst Kentucky team since at least 1989, and possibly since the days of Rupp?  We’ve simply got to make like Gardner-Webb and San Diego and win in Lexington tomorrow.
The Other Streak is really one of [...]

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Before he decided that he’d be better off running a school that only gets its ass kicked by SEC football opponents once a year, E. Gordon Gee used to talk about the “arms race” in college sports today.  He pretty much had it right: Once one school pays the coach $1 million/year, then [...]

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Left Sportscenter on… they’re talking with Todd McShea about, what else?, college football playoffs.  80% of the public believes an eight-team playoff to be preferable to a “plus one,” but no, they’re wrong, says McShea.  An eight-team playoff would be much worse. But what would be better is “plus two,” [...]

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Sadly, the online version of this article doesn’t appear to have included the 1-to-12 ranking that was in the print version.  Or maybe I just can’t find it.
In any case, they picked us 2nd, one game behind UTK at 12-4 in the conference.  That’s fair, and implies that with a few [...]

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Dan Wetzel: Big Ten-SEC ill will still burns
Funny thing is, I think Delaney is probably 80-90% right. But start insulting us Southerners and we stick together and do absurd things like vote for the idiot scion of a political family to prove we’re not effete and elitist. So I think [...]

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