Alrighty, the Stanford Rivals March Madness Women's Basketball Bracket Pool is back! Winner gets a shirt. That's the deal. It's on Yahoo! Sports.

Link to the group is here. If for some reason the link doesn't work, details are below for how to manually search for the group. Also, if you were in the group last year, I just sent you an invite. I just invited everyone who joined last year, so if you were in it last year, check your inbox and a link should be sent your way.

Group Name: Stanford Rivals March Madness.

Group ID #: 5411

Password: cardinal

Alrighty, the Stanford Rivals March Madness Men's Basketball Bracket Pool is back! Winner gets a shirt. That's the deal. It's on Yahoo! Sports.

Link to the group is here. If for some reason the link doesn't work, details are below for how to manually search for the group. Also, if you were in the group last year, I just sent you an invite. I just invited everyone who joined last year, so if you were in it last year, check your inbox and a link should be sent your way.

Group Name: Stanford Rivals March Madness.

Group ID #: 75309

Password: cardinal

Per Pete Thamel of ESPN on X, John Calipari is apparently heading to Arkansas to take the head coaching spot opening up the Kentucky job. Due to the early exit of Kentucky in the tournament the last couple of years pressure has been building for a change and Calipari decided to get ahead of it.

I’ve landed at Sunken Diamond 💎⚾️. Arizona 4 Stanford 1: End of 4th inning. Stanford scored in the bottom of the 2nd. Arizona scored three runs in the top of the 3rd and added one in the 4th. Ryan Speshyock pitched 3.0 innings for Stanford. Kassius Thomas now pitching.

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2024 small forward Evan Stinson has flipped his commitment from Washington State to Stanford. I'll add a write up in here when I get it done. But, upon looking at his picture on Instagram, he's the one who I saw visiting this week. It was before one of the spring practices. I can't remember which day it was, but I posted about it in the transfer thread thinking he might be a transfer.

Also, 2024 commit Elijah Crawford follows him on Instagram. So, I think it’s safe to say Crawford is in.

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Read that here.

Read that here.

I’ve landed at Sunken Diamond 💎⚾️. Stanford 7 Wazzu 6: End of 6th inning. Toran O’Harran now on the mound for the Cardinal. Joey Volchko got the start. Owen Cobb has 3 RBIs for the Cardinal including a homer.

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Well, I guess Tennessee really values their WBB after the team didn't advance past the Sweet Sixten for five years straight. Made the tournament in 2021-2024 (no tournament in 2020). Sweet 16 in 2022-2023. 108-52 record at Tenn. Contrast to BM.

Read and watch that here.

Read and watch that here.

Read that here.

Not 100% certain, but by my count, current numbers are
Spring practice:
71 on scholarship + 19 walk-ons = 90
Incoming Freshmen June 2024 = 25... 19 who will on scholie + 6 current early entrants included in above 71
So figuring totals for August camp (if no in-transfers or dropouts/transfers out)
19 walk-ons, 90 on scholarship (71 current spring practice + 19 June entrants) so 5 over 85 limit?
am I missing something?... if not, would need min of 5 to either transfer out or get on medical... unless more depart or out via medical, looks like no current room for any in portal from other schools to xfer in.

Read that here.

Iriafen and Brink both win position awards:

I’ve arrived at Sunken Diamond. Stanford 3 Wazzu 0: Bottom of the 7th. Christian Lim has pitched 7.0 innings for the Cardinal. No hits. Jimmy Nati & Owen Cobb have solo homers for the Cardinal. Nati also has a fly out RBI.

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2 point lead over OU with one event left. Stanford will be on rings (a strong event for them) and OU on horizontal bar (a weak event for them). Stanford looks to be resting some guys. This meet doesn't matter much. NCAA's in 2 weeks.

Read that here.

Read and watch that here.

The Netter interview inspired me to want to look into who ACC teams have playing offensive line in 2024. Everybody currently on a roster (will probably want to adjust this summer for further transfers) who had 200+ snaps in 2023 ranked by PFF grade:

1) Brian Stevens (Virginia) - 77.0
2) Willie Lampkin (North Carolina) - 76.2
3) Darius Washington (Florida State) - 76.1
4) Ozzy Trapilo (Boston College) - 75.0
5) Jalen Rivers (Miami) - 74.1
6) DeVonte Gordon (Wake Forest) - 73.1
7) Blake Miller (Clemson) - 72.9
8) Luke Petitbon (Wake Forest) - 72.8
9) Matt Gulbin (Wake Forest) - 72.4
10) Logan Taylor (Boston College) - 71.6
11) Brian Parker II (Duke) - 70.8
12) Michael Gonzalez (Louisville) - 70.6
13) Drew Kendall (Boston College) - 70.3
14) Maurice Smith (Florida State) - 69.6
15) Joe Fusile (Georgia Tech) - 69.2
16) Monroe Mills (Louisville) - 68.3 at Texas Tech
17) Weston Franklin (Georgia Tech) - 68.2
18) Francis Mauigoa (Miami) - 68.1
19) Keiondre Jones (Florida State) - 67.9
20) Jeremiah Byers (Florida State) - 67.7
21) Jordan Williams (Georgia Tech) - 67.3
22) Marcus Tate (Clemson) - 67.0
23) Richie Leonard IV (Florida State) - 65.9 at Florida
23) Anez Cooper (Miami) - 65.9
23) Anthony Belton (NC State) - 65.9
26) Zach Carpenter (Miami) 65.3 at Indiana
27) Jacarrius Peak (NC State) - 64.9
28) Levi Rogers (Stanford) - 64.3
29) Connor McLaughlin (Stanford) - 63.9
30) TJ Session (Cal) - 63.7
30) Braelin Moore (Virginia Tech) - 63.7
32) Noah Josey (Virginia) - 63.1
33) Drake Metcalf (Virginia) - 63.0 at UCF
34) Justin Pickett (Duke) - 62.9
35) McKale Boley (Virginia) - 62.7
36) Kaden Moore (Virginia Tech) - 62.4
37) Xavier Chaplin (Virginia Tech) - 62.2
38) Zeke Correll (NC State) - 61.9 at Notre Dame
39) Jake Maikkula (Stanford) - 61.0
40) Renato Brown (Louisville) - 60.9
41) Bastian Swinney (Cal) - 60.7
41) Erik Russell (Wake Forest) - 60.7
43) Jack Conley (Boston College) - 60.1
43) Matthew Wykoff (Cal) - 60.1
45) Branson Taylor (Pitt) - 59.8
46) Tristan Leigh (Clemson) - 59.5
47) Parker Clements (Virginia Tech) - 59.3
48) Brody Meadows (Virginia Tech) - 58.7
49) George Sell (Wake Forest) - 58.4
50) Joe Cruz (Syracuse) - 58.3
51) Terrence Moore (Pitt) - 57.8
52) Timothy McKay (NC State) - 57.6
53) Anthony Carter Jr. (NC State) - 56.5
54) Corey Robinson II (Georgia Tech) - 56.4
55) Jakob Bradford (Syracuse) - 56.3
56) Mark Petry (Syracuse) - 55.7
57) Collin Sadler (Clemson) - 55.4
58) J'Onre Reed (Syracuse) - 55.3
59) Sioape Vatikani (Cal) - 54.6
60) Trevor Mayberry (Stanford) - 53.7
61) Austin Collins (Louisville) - 53.6
62) Reuben Unije (Louisville) - 53.3 at Houston
63) Simione Pale (Stanford) - 53.1
64) Bob Schick (Virginia Tech) - 52.8
65) Ethan Mackenny (Georgia Tech) - 52.6
66) Enrique Cruz Jr. (Syracuse) - 52.4
67) Trent Howard (Clemson) - 52.1
68) Harris Sewell (Clemson) - 51.9
69) Fisher Anderson (Stanford) - 51.6
70) Blake Steen (Virginia) - 51.0
71) Jason Collier Jr. (Pitt) - 50.3
71) Ryan Baer (Pitt) - 50.3
73) Luke Baklenko (Stanford) - 49.9
74) Lyndon Cooper (Pitt) - 49.5 at NC State
75) Jakiah Leftwich (North Carolina) - 48.7 [This one is weird to me because he is still listed on Georgia Tech's roster and not listed on North Carolina's so maybe the transfer didn't happen after all?]
76) BJ Williams (Pitt) - 48.0
77) Ty Furnish (Virginia) - 47.8
78) Ugonna Nnanna (Virginia) - 41.7

Group of Five players:

Justin Osborne (SMU) - 80.8
Logan Parr (SMU) - 79.5
Ben Sparks (SMU) - 74.9
Victor Stoffel (Cal) - 72.3 at Temple
Pete Nygra (Louisville) - 71.2 at Northern Illinois
Montavious Cunningham (Virginia Tech) - 71.0 at Georgia State
PJ Williams (SMU) - 66.6
Rasheed Miller (Louisville) - 63.1 at Georgia Southern
Keylan Rutledge (Georgia Tech) - 60.8 at Middle Tennessee

FCS transfers:

Micah Sahakian (Duke) - 89.5 at Cornell
Da'Metrius Weatherspoon (Syracuse) - 77.3 at Howard
Rush Reimer (Cal) - 75.8 at Montana State
Jacob Rizy (Florida State) - 74.6 at Harvard
Keagen Trost (Wake Forest) - 71.9 at Indiana State
Mike Barr (Duke) - 63.8 at Lafayette
Jack Purcell (Duke) - 62.2 at Penn
Jonathan Mendoza (Louisville) - 61.3 at Yale
Eric Schon (Duke) - 58.4 at Holy Cross
Codie Hornsby (Syracuse) - 55.3 at Grambling

----------------------------------------------

I am sure there are errors and/or things that will change but I wanted to get a sense of the OL landscape.

First with the good news: we obviously have a lot of experienced guys returning. ACC teams ranked by number of 200+ snap FBS OL:

Louisville - 7 (plus a mediocre FCS guy and an Ohio State transfer who didn't play much there but was a multi-year starter at Louisiana Monroe)
Stanford - 7
Virginia - 7
Virginia Tech - 7
Clemson - 6
Georgia Tech - 6 (maybe 7 if I'm wrong about where Leftwich is)
Pitt - 6
Cal - 5 (plus a good FCS guy)
Florida State - 5 (plus a good FCS guy)
Syracuse - 5 (plus a good FCS guy)
NC State - 5
Wake Forest - 5
SMU - 4 (also have transfers from Oklahoma and Miami who have played enough/decently enough that they could be factors)
Boston College - 4
Miami - 4
Duke - 2 (plus a dominant FCS guy as well as a few transfers who haven't played much elsewhere, including our own Pogorelc)
North Carolina - 2 (only 1 if I'm wrong about where Leftwich is)

The bad news is that when you account for transfers we may not have a single top 35 ACC OL. Yikes.

The best OL in term of quality seem to be Wake Forest (can't imagine too many teams with four guys who had 70+ grades last year.....wow, did not expect that), Florida State, and Boston College. SMU is a wild card because they are coming up a level of competition but they were studly last year. That seems to be the top four.

Teams ranked based on number of 63+ grades at any level in 2023:

Florida State - 6
SMU - 4
Louisville - 4
Miami - 4
Wake Forest - 4
Boston College - 3
Cal - 3
Duke - 3
Georgia Tech - 3
Virginia - 3
Clemson - 2
NC State - 2
Stanford - 2
Virginia Tech - 2
North Carolina - 1
Syracuse - 1
Pitt - 0

The bottom line is my guess is Stanford's OL is improved from 2023 but below average for the ACC.

What can Stanford fans change within the athletic programs we support with our time, money, and emotional and physical energy? At the top of the list for me is what I believe is a fan's right to ask for as much information as possible—without invading anyone's privacy, revealing "state secrets," or overburdening hard-working people who don't have the capacity to do more. I don't know the daily schedules of the football staff, SID, or Video Director, but I'm confident it's fair for fans to expect more fan appreciation than what we get from Stanford football. In my opinion, the creativity and effort dedicated to improving fan access for the most far-flung alumni base in the FBS have been unacceptable for a long time.

Spring practice began yesterday, and there's no evidence that the complaints I've read on this forum many times have been addressed. I'm calling on Stanford fans—alums and common folk like myself—to organize an advocacy campaign to demand changes. My recommendation is that we identify the targets of this campaign, describe the problem, propose solutions, and determine the most effective tactic for applying pressure. I know one-off attempts have been tried, but I'm proposing a sustained campaign regularly updated on this forum, among other places, that we keep going until something positive happens.

I want this to be a collaborative process. I'd like to begin with a group-think approach to examining our most significant problems with fan access to information and possible solutions. Before drafting the messaging, I'd like to build a consensus about our top issues and proposals. Thank you for your time!

Read that here.

Read that here.

Not sure where to put this but the @Coaching Changes account on X now states that Andy Enfield of USC has emerged as a candidate for the SMU MBB head coaching position according to their sources. I guess Enfield feels he could do better at SMU in the ACC with NIL than he could at USC in the B1G.

Update:
Per the @Coaching Changes account on X!:

"While being stunned to learn that USC has fans, they seem convinced that Andy to SMU is absurd.Something to consider.Andy likes $ way more than he ever liked and Dallas housing is like 1/3 of LA and Texas has no state income tax.Do we think it’s happening? ~70% yes."

Update again:
~70% seems way too high. For starters, seems likely Andy’s camp leaked it which is often an indicator he may be using SMU as leverage. Guys don’t usually leak when they think they can get a job they want.We think Porter leaked his own name, too. Prob same reason.We shall see.


NEVERMIND...

I find these performances even more inspiring than when everything is going right for a player:

Our boy Kyle had 7 HRs in spring training but nevertheless was sent down to Triple-A because the Orioles have so many good outfielders. But instead of having a pity party he’s having a hitting party (nailed it), including 3 HR last night.