I’m not a fashionista but I’m pretty sure this guy drives an old Chevy van with no windows and a bed in the back.

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Chose GT over Florida, South Florida, and several others.
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More coming (both in terms of more commitments and content on Santana's decision)

May the best day of our past be the worst day of our future….

Can coaches donate part of their salary to NIL and then use said money to improve their team and get a bigger contract? I realize it’s a big risk and no one will do it but it would be an interesting concept.

As I mentioned yesterday, here are the projected starters for the weekend-

7PM FRI: GT RHP Luke Schmolke (Fr., 4-1, 8.89 ERA) vs. MIA RHP Gage Ziehl (So., 4-4, 5.40 ERA)

7PM SAT: GT RHP Terry Busse (So., 1-2, 3.12 ERA) vs. MIA RHP Alejandro Rosario (Jr., 2-3, 8.21 ERA)

1PM SUN: GT RHP Jackson Finley (R-So., 1-3, 4.91 ERA) vs. MIA RHP Karson Ligon (So., 3-1, 4.25 ERA

Starting lineup for game one-

SS K. Campbell
CF J. DeLeo
DH S. Reid
LF A. Dispigna
1B J. Finley
3B J. Giesler
RF J. Lovett
SS J. Jackson
C T. Minnick

Two players to watch for Miami are-

Yohandy Morales- .350/.419/.587 with 8 HR, 34 RBI
Blake Cyr- .316/.407/.623 with 10 HR, 35 RBI

Their lead-off hitter, CJ Kayfus, is exactly what old-school baseball fans like in a lead-off hitter: patience, patience, patience. Don't be surprised if he gets Schmolke's pitch count up in the very first inning by fouling off pitches and being patient at the plate.

Friday night starter Gage Ziehl will miss a ton of bats, but gives up a lot of hard contact. When he misses his spots, he gets in trouble in a hurry as he tends to leave it over the heart of the plate.

First pitch in about 30 minutes

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I have this weird idea about the ACC's current deal with ESPN. Is it possible that 5 years from now we could look at the the ACC's long deal with ESPN as a blessing? I follow the media companies pretty closely and for the the life of me, I can't see how the current sports rights deals make any sense once the "bundle" dies. The economics of streaming don't work very well. For the legacy media companies like ESPN, the cable bundle was one of the great all-time business models. 1) Every cable subscriber had to buy your product whether they wanted it or not. 2)They could raised prices each year and most of their customers thought it was their cable provider doing it. 3)The cable providers just wanted the broadband business so they basically sold the TV bundle at breakeven or even a loss hiding the true cost of those price increases. Those days are over and it is only a matter of time until this business model is DEAD. This reality is visible in the stocks of Disney and Warner Bros Discovery.

So what does the monetization of sports media rights look like in the streaming era? I just don't think the revenue will be anywhere close to what it is today. Will fans pay the subscription fees needed to justify the deals that the SEC and BIG got recently. Let's try to look at what access to sports packages could cost. MLS is charging Apple TV+ subscribers $79.99 per season. NFL Sunday Ticket w/o YouTube TV reg. price is $449. Based on that I'm thinking a Big Ten football sports package for a year of access might cost around $360 per academic year and I still don't think that will generate enough subscribers to justify the recent fees the BIG got. Plus password sharing is a problem that is going to be very difficult to solve. Streaming and mega sports rights just don't add up.

When it comes to streaming, customers have gotten used to cheap prices and there is just so much content of all types out there. I really believe we are going to start to see a significant decline in media rights. I think the recent deals kind of show the desperation of the legacy media companies. They are just scared to not have these properties even though the economics make little sense. Warner Bros - Discovery has already hinted they will not bid on NBA rights moving forward and you hear many executives questioning the economics of sports media rights.

What are your thoughts? Curious to hear what others think and how this might affect the future of college athletics.

As of yesterday, Damon Stoudamire informed the three remaining assistant coaches they were not going to be retained. I'm still not hearing much of possible replacements, I have a lot of feelers out to sources to try to track down info.

As far as current players on the GT team, they all really liked Stoudamire after getting over the shock of the firing of Josh Pastner. They are listening and waiting to see what happens with everything. There are some guys I expect to leave or not be on the team in the future (not in the rotation at the end of the season), but I'll hold off until I'm sure about saying anything else.

However, Damon has been busy working on the portal. His priorities lineup with what I've thought they need at least one big man and a guard who can drive to the rim and has more length that can play the 2/3 spot.

Stoudamire reached out to former Florida wing/guard Kowacie Reeves Jr. He knows GT and was recruited by Pastner, but went to his dream school at the time Florida. Then Mike White left for UGA so I think that threw a big curveball there. He is 6'7" and would give GT a little more size on the wing. He was a 5-star coming out of HS in Macon. Boston College. UNC, Indiana, Miss State are also involved in his recruitment.

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He really struggled with his shot in his two seasons in Gainesville with a 37.7 FG % and a 37.9% FG in two seasons and he was just 26% from three this past year averaging 8.5 ppg. He is also known for his wild hairstyles.

Reeves is supposed to visit GT soon per Jake Weingarten

Ball State big man Payton Sparks 13.9 ppg, 8.7 rpg, 0.9 bpg has heard from GT, 6'9" 240 center.

Undersized 4 Clarence O. Daniels II from New Hampshire has heard from GT as well, 15.3 ppg, 10.7 rpg at just 6'6" I'm sort of curious if he can get into GT, he started out at a community college before going to New Hampshire.

Forward EJ Jarvis (Yale) has heard from GT as well 11.3 ppg, 5.5 RPG, 1.5 BPG 6'8" PF/C type.

UTSA G/W DJ Richards 10.5 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 33.3% from 3 has heard from GT

Pitt big man John Hugley IV has heard from GT, he missed all but 8 games this season, but was very good in 2021-22 14.8 ppg, 7.9 rpg, 6'9" 250. A bunch of teams are interested in him. He famously was involved in some weird car theft debacle

2023 Arnold Palmer Cup Teams | Christo Lamprecht bio

Norman, Okla. – Georgia Tech junior Christo Lamprecht, ranked No. 1 among international collegiate players under consideration, has been selected to be a member of the International team for the 2023 Arnold Palmer Cup. The 27th annual competition will be hosted by Laurel Valley Golf Club, July 8-10, 2023 in Ligonier, Pa.

The United States and the International teams were announced Tuesday. The top six golfers from the final ranking from both the United States and International men and women are among the individuals selected to compete in the Palmer Cup.

International team ranking qualifiers included Lamprecht, Christiaan Maas (Texas; South Africa), Herman Sekne (Purdue; Norway), Tyran Snyders (Texas Tech; South Africa), Sampson Zheng (California; China), and Karl Vilips (Stanford; Australia) for the men, and Julia Lopez Ramirez (Mississippi State; Spain), Charlotte Heath (Florida State; England), Mirabel Ting (Augusta; Malaysia), Maddison Hinson-Tolchard (Oklahoma State; Australia), Karisa Chul-Ak-Sorn (Iowa State; Thailand), and Carla Bernat (Tulane; Spain) for the women.

International team Committee selections were Santiago de la Fuente (Houston; Mexico), Mateo Fernández de Oliveira (Arkansas; Argentina), Max Kennedy (Louisville; Ireland), Frederik Kjettrup (Florida State; Denmark), Andrea Lignell (Ole Miss; Sweden), Caley McGinty (Ohio State; England), Lauren Walsh (Wake Forest; Ireland), and Lottie Woad (Florida State; England). Ryan Griffin (Maynooth; Ireland) and Lorna McClymont (Stirling; Scotland) were the representatives from The R&A Student Tour Series. Head coaches John Handrigan and Golda Borst selected Mats Ege (East Tennessee State; Norway) and Chiara Tamburlini (Ole Miss; Switzerland), respectively, as their coach’s picks.

Lamprecht, who is one of three members of the men’s team who return from the 2022 International squad, has posted seven top-10 finishes in nine events this year, including a victory at the Inverness Intercollegiate in the fall and three runner-up finishes this spring at the Watersound Invitational, the Linger Longer Invitational and The Goodwin. He tied for ninth place at the Atlantic Coast Conference championship to help the Yellow Jackets win the stroke play portion by 16 shots, and won both of his matches to lift the Jackets to the match play title as well.

The junior from George, South Africa, holds a current ranking of No. 9 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and No. 12 in the Scratch Players World Amateur Ranking. The 6-foot-8 junior tops the Yellow Jackets in stroke average at an even 69.37 over 27 rounds and is currently Tech’s highest-ranked player in the college golf - No. 9 by Golfstat and No. 5 the Golfweek/Sagarin Index.

Lamprecht is the 11th different Georgia Tech golfer to compete in the annual competition, and the first to represent the International team. He represented his home country in the 2022 World Amateur Team Championship and 2021 Spirit International, as well as the 2017 and 2019 Junior Presidents Cup matches.

United States team ranking qualifiers included Rachel Kuehn (Wake Forest), Crystal Wang (Illinois), Zoe Campos (UCLA), Megan Schofill (Auburn), Antonia Malate (San Jose State), and Ashleigh Park (Oregon) for the women and Gordon Sargent (Vanderbilt), Michael Thorbjornsen (Stanford), David Ford (North Carolina), Preston Summerhays (Arizona State), Ben James (Virginia), and Nick Gabrelcik (North Florida) for the men.

United States team Committee selections were Austin Greaser (North Carolina), Tommy Kuhl (Illinois), Ashley Menne (Arizona State), Emilia Migliaccio (Wake Forest), Maxwell Moldovan (Ohio State), Jennie Park (Texas A&M), Amanda Sambach (Virginia), and Caleb Surratt (Tennessee). Olivia Mitchell (Dallas Baptist) and Alex Price (Christopher Newport) were the non-Division I selections. Team USA Head Coach Michael Beard selected Derek Hitchner (Pepperdine) and Derek Radley selected Amari Avery (Southern California) as their coach’s picks.

I keep seeing him atop quarterback ratings and I very rarely hear anyone on the message board give him the same love.

Are we taking him for granted? Are we overlooking him for another quarterback?

What is the disconnect here? Is it the small school? Is it the early commitment?

Greetings I returned last night from an unfruitful trip to Ohio for the Rivals Camp Series event there. It was 30 degrees at times with 19-22 mph wind and it started snowing and sleeting at one point. I actually just left early during the skill part because I was over freezing my ass off. Only one of the several GT targets showed up because of the weather.


Do you guys ever watch other teams' spring games? If so, any standouts/musings coming from that?

KQ- I watched USF because I own that site and help cover them. I might watch Bama's for the same reason, but I have ZERO interest in watching a glorified scrimmage. People don't realize these things are not really football. GT's was actually a little closer to really playing than most I've seen in the last few years. They are awful to watch and you learn almost nothing other than maybe who some really obvious personnel are for other teams. It is interesting if you follow a specific team to see it, but league-wide or opponents, hell no.

Now that it's been a few years, can we hear the entire JaQuari Wiggles story? That was a strange one and I don't ever think I heard the whole thing.

KQ- paging @Russell Johnson

What's a good mailbag question?

KQ- What is the threshold for getting quality players in the NCAA portal for hoops?

- Early on it sounded like GT was the favorite to land John Hugley. Did this boil down strictly to NIL or was the legal/reputation stuff a factor from GT’s side?

KQ- Why do you think GT was the favorite? I think people assumed because he scheduled a visit that ended up not happening GT was a favorite. People get excited about new hires and new coaches but they don't walk on water and you still have to recruit. Hugley knew what he wanted and was going to focus on schools that could offer that. I think going to OU makes a lot of sense since their coach has a great rep with big men development and they have NIL money to pay him a princely sum.

- When you say the big donors want return on investment from their NIL donation what exactly does that mean? Does winning basketball games and finally being competitive again not meet their definition of ROI?

KQ- Winning, a quality product and quality players. Spending money on Jeff Sims playing five games to play six and a half games wasn't a great investment for example. He got the bulk of the football NIL money when Geoff Collins was still around. The big money people want to know there money isn't being wasted. I think there is some confidence that Key will use it well or Bruce in golf. We shall see on other coaches.

- Assuming the Collins contract and Paul Hewitt contract were both 10 on a 1-10 scale of financial albatrosses, where on that scale would you put Key’s and Stoudamire’s contracts/buyouts ( 🙏 we never have to see either play out) based on what contract info is public and what you know?

KQ- They are both extremely GT friendly and below market value. Key's is probably a 2 and Damon's is seriously a 1. They both are betting on themselves. That is the one directive that Cabrera gave J Batt and the one thing he was also very specific about, he wasn't going to tie GT to another financially Titanic-style contract.

- Is it an oversimplification to assume that most of these current GTAA financial issues wouldn’t exist if Bud had accepted the B1G offer? You would have 10 years with fuller pockets to pay off the stadium debt and dead money contracts like Hewitt… Or on the other hand do you think GT would have just swapped one deep pond for an even deeper pond and still be near the bottom of spending and NIL against those teams?

KQ- It is so hard to say, first off how real was it? I think GT's situation there was contingent on others coming like UVA or UNC. So there is that. How would GT have fared? I know CPJ thought it was a terrible idea because the style of play didn't mesh at all. Most of the Big Ten teams were big/physical lines of scrimmage and that really has never been a strength of GT in the modern era even going back to GOL. GT had good linemen on both sides of the ball but they weren't monsters like the farm boys you see up there. I just got back from a camp in Ohio this weekend and you see a big difference in the frames and size of guys at the time. My guess is GT would have more money but the NIL situation would be exactly the same because the school trends to produce people who value their money. There are not a lot of guys who give disproportional amounts of their income. I know basically one guy who is a friend of the site that probably gives way more of his income than most of the other boosters. At a place like UGA there are 100s of him. That is the difference IMO.

I’ve been told by a few people now that CBK and staff are pushing kids to move on, more so than under previous regimes this off-season. (1) do you have insight into if that’s true (2) if so, is it more a matter of the changing times with NIL or just CBK demands more and is less beholden to “once a part of us you won’t be apart from us”?

KQ- It is literally no different than what Geoff Collins did when he got here. It is not different than what Alex Golesh is doing at USF or Damon Stouadamire is doing right now with hoops. Key is handling a little better than Damon because he understands how it works better. In the first year a coach gets hired since Jan. 2019 they can push guys off the 85 cap and they can go into school or go in the portal. It was the NCAA's way of dealing with the massive turnover in coaching changes. As Dave Clawson from Wake Forest famously said to me and CPJ said many times as well, at a place like this (GT or Wake) you have to live with your recruiting mistakes because those kids value the degree so much. Key has a chance to hit the reset button so he is doing it.

Collins processed 11 kids when he took the job. Brent Key is at six as of today, he will finish at around nine per my sources. That is less than Collins. Alex Golesh at USF has processed nine kids so far and counting.

Also given the recent news that CDS has taken a similarly aggressive tack to clear the roster, does GT have a route to provide support to the kids who want to stay and finish their degree? I feel like I have read previously that we do, and sometimes use it, but am fuzzy on the details or how it works..

KQ- They do, Damon may not have known about it or how it works based on the situation that I referenced recently. He is aware now. That as I said was a rule change in 2018. Basically, the player stay on scholarship and can finish school. They are no longer on the team though and are not with the team.

What are the deadlines to enter CBK transfer portal and withdraw your name?

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Film is crazy.

THE FLATS – Sydney Johnson, a 5-9 point guard from Powder Springs, Ga., has signed a grant-in-aid to join Georgia Tech women’s basketball, Nell Fortner announced on Monday. Johnson will have one year of eligibility remaining after playing four seasons at Boston University.

The local native amassed 1,255 career points in four years at Boston University, earning multiple all-Patriot League honors. While with the Terriers, Johnson started 97 of her 105 career games, finished 11th in program history with 1,255 career points, eighth with 330 career assists, ninth with 483 career field goals made and ninth with 12 points per game.

Johnson, who attended The Lovett School for high school, was tabbed the 2022-23 Patriot League Preseason Player of the Year after averaging 15.7 points per game her junior season to finish fifth in the league in scoring. Johnson capped her career at Boston University raking in some accolades, earning 2023 First Team All-Patriot League, All-Patriot League Defensive Team and All-Patriot League Tournament Team honors after helping the Terriers to the Patriot League Championship game. She was second on the team in scoring with 12.8 points per game and shot 40 percent from three-point distance, while leading the Terriers with 107 assists and 55 steals.

Johnson was tabbed All-Patriot League first team in 2022 and second team in 2021. She also picked up Patriot League all-rookie team honors after her freshman season in 2020. Johnson averaged double-figure scoring totals in three of her four seasons as a Terrier, finishing her career with a 12.0 points, 3.1 assists, 1.7 steals per game averages, while shooting 40.5 percent from three-point range.

Prior to Boston University, Johnson was tabbed the 2019 Region AAA North GACA Player of the Year, Class AAA first team all-state and McDonalds All-American nominee as a Georgia recruit. She was selected to the Georgia All-Star Game and helped lead The Lovett School to the regional championship as a senior, finishing as the school’s all-time leading scorer.

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Specialist out warming up.

Gavin Stewart and Aidan Birr kicking
David Shanahan punting
only Henry Freer snapping.

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Released his top schools today with Georgia Tech making the cut.
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fire away

And behold to my pleasant surprise there sits the Ramblin' Wreck!

Former UCF guard is on an OV to GT right now.

@Russ Wood sent me his scouting notes on him from this season.

Quick and shifty lefty guard. Can play on or off the ball.

Likes to push in transition and attack the rim.

Decent shooter, four out of every ten shots are threes and is making 33% of them. He is better with his feet set off drive-and-kicks but can create off the bounce (likes step-backs).

Better going left off the bounce, will crossover (left-to-right) and spin.

Capable finisher but wants floaters and pull-ups in the midrange.

He will use ball screens but watch out for him to reject the screen and go.

How to defend:

Keep chest in front, force him to drive right. High hand closeouts.