Weekend Diamond Reports

Yes everyone, I am alive. I didn't die or get brutally injured. I was just finishing up my finals. Major thanks to Bird for keeping things going. Now on to the important stuff.

Softball:

The GT Softball team finished up a rain shortened series with a 2-game sweep over Maryland in College Park on Saturday. The wins solidify the #1 seed for the ACC Tournament and they will face Virginia starting May 8th in Raleigh.
Note: It's a single elimination tournament so it's literally "Win or Go Home. Go Jackets!

Here is how dominant our softball team has been this year:

Georgia Tech now concludes the regular season having won 13 straight league games and was victorious in all seven ACC series' in 2009 and 10 in a row dating back to last year. Overall, the Yellow Jackets have won 14 of their last 17 games heading into the postseason.

Baseball:

It was a warm-up weekend for the baseball team as the Jackets swept Presbyterian. Sunday was an unleashing of runs as the final score was 23-2. Biggest scare came on Saturday when we needed Jeff Rowland to hit the walk-off home run.

The weekend brought a few changes to the ACC as not everyone played teams like Presbyterian. FSU swept Virginia Tech and took complete control of the Atlantic Divison. The Seminoles have now won 12 in a row and they come to Atlanta this upcoming weekend to end the conference season and to solidify seedings for the tournament. Coastal leader North Carolina has the weekend off.

Current ACC Standings:

ATLANTIC DIVISION
School	Conference	Pct.	Overall	Pct.
Florida State	18-7-0	.720	33-12-0	.733
Clemson	16-11-0	.593	32-16-0	.667
Boston College	12-13-0	.480	29-19-0	.604
NC State	8-16-0	.333	22-26-0	.458
Maryland	7-20-0	.259	23-26-0	.469
Wake Forest	6-18-0	.250	21-24-0	.467
COASTAL DIVISION
School	Conference	Pct.	Overall	Pct.
North Carolina	16-7-0	.696	35-11-0	.761
Georgia Tech	14-7-1	.659	31-11-1	.733
Virginia	13-8-1	.614	35-9-1	.789
Miami	15-12-0	.556	31-16-0	.660
Duke	12-12-0	.500	29-17-0	.630
Virginia Tech	10-16-0	.385	27-20-0	.57

Once again, it's gonna be a huge upcoming weekend.....

Wednesday News Flash: Suck it Mutts!

• You can't beat us this year. Football, baseball, basketball. The sweet smell of victory! Softball is the only "major" sport you can talk about right now.
  

• Rumors are spreading that the AJC/Cox Media is cutting more writers/ columnists from their staff. That includes the likes of Terrence Moore, and the GT beat writers Larry Harstein and Ken Suguira. There is absolutely no love lost between me and Terrence Moore. He can fall off a cliff for all I care. As for Larry and Ken, they were decent enough and brought up discussion points, so good luck to them both.

• The AJC cutting writers is all the more reason to follow Coley Harvey at the Macon Telegraph. He goes above and beyond and is making the extra effort to draw readers and followers into his section of the newspaper. Follow Coley Harvey.

• A bash against Paul Hewitt?? It's not the first time people question him about player development. This is a report on Alade Aminu's performance at the Portsmouth Invitational. Specifically:

  Comparing the way Aminu played at Portsmouth with what we can now see from his film at Georgia Tech reveals a pretty stark contrast—it doesn’t seem like he was utilized very well at all in college from what we can tell. Aminu was an absolute devastating force as a pick and roll finisher for his Norfolk Naval Shipyard team—thanks to his tremendous combination of size, length, terrific hands and excellent mobility. At Georgia Tech he was barely used in this fashion at all—just 4.3% of his offensive possessions came on the pick and roll. They looked incredibly disorganized in the film we took in, with no point guard, no system, and very little ball-movement. It appeared that Aminu often was asked to play very far from the basket, and pretty much all of his shots were opportunities that he was forced to create on his own.

A 'Boro Series Split and Thursday News Musings

The Yellow Jackets righted the ship yesterday. Starter Kevin Jacob and (my favorite) freshman Matt Skole continued to make his presence felt as he drove in 3 runs on the night. Here's the GSU perspective. For the weekend Skole went 3-8 with 4 RBI's. On the season Matt is hitting .400 (2nd highest on the team). What can I say? He's a badass. And he's younger than me . Dammit.

The President has arrived! President George "Bud" Peterson has arrive on campus and met the Ramblin' Reck yesterday. He was quickly informed of the fact that there has been one and only one Ramblin' Reck to which he seemed pleased. He also received his own personal copy of the T-Book.

Basketball

Yes, the season is still going. Terrence Moore writes the stereotypical article saying something along the lines of Hewitt isn't finished yet or whatnot. However, I find this quote that I find quite poignant.

Which brings us to the final reason for that light. Added Hewitt, “I’ve recruited more now this year than I ever have during the season. You’re trying to offset the possibility of this ever happening again.”

Well where the hell have you been Paul?! Bobby Cremins once said that his biggest mistake was NOT preparing for Stephon Marbury leaving early and how he TOLD YOU THAT. Did you not learn from that past?

Football

We'll end this on a good note. Larry Harstein has a Q&A with Morgan Burnett here. Enjoy it.

Monday Newsflashes

It was a slow weekend but there were a few things....

Randomness
Rugby is a lot more fun than basketball. They win. Check out GT Rugby here.

Recruiting
FSUncensored at Tomahawk Nation does it again and takes a look at the top recruits of the ACC. This entry is well worth the read.

Baseball:
Less than 10 days away. Here are the Top-10 Reasons we'll get to Omaha this year courtesy of Kevin Jacob. Friday can't get here soon enough!

Matt Wieters Update. Fans of the Baltimore Orioles love, or will soon love, Matt Wieters. All signs indicate that he will make his MLB debut before the All-Star break but he will probably start in the minor leagues. Here are some links that have popped up over the past few days.

A quick and short Spring Training Interview

Two blogs specifically talk about Matt and the value of his baseball cards for the upcoming year. Bad Wax and Porter's Prospect Report both give you their opinions. At one point I had a J.D. Drew card that was supposedly worth $120. The next month it dropped to 25 cents. JD Drew sucks.

If you play fantasy baseball, you my want to head over to Waiver Sharks, where they discuss Wieters vs. Pablo Sandoval and who you should draft as your catcher.

Finally, Matt discusses his flexible hips. Yeah you know you like it.

Thursday News Musings

Recruiting

We filled our holes and did what we needed to do. We also finished with 14 in-state. The most in 15 years. The highlights of our signing class involve huge 344 pound hoss JC Lanier followed by hyped Indiana quarterback Jordan Luallen. And yes, we kept Stephen Hill!

Coley Harvey speaks of Paul Johnson's "calmness" through the signing day process. Honestly, CPJ has that attitude where he just lets everything slip on by as if he is oblivious. But he knows, and when the time is right, he'll take his vengeance on ya.

Terrence Moore gives Paul Johnson "mad props" for handling Donte Aycock. That kid had every chance to not lose his scholarship here. Sucks for him.

From the article:

“I reiterated that to him, ‘Don’t get on that plane, Dontae,’” said a calmer Johnson, recalling the moment on Wednesday from an Atlantic Station hotel. “His high school coach went and told him, ‘Don’t get on that plane, Dontae,’ and he did. So when he chose to do that, he was telling me he didn’t want to come to Georgia Tech anymore. So we moved on.”

Too bad … for Aycock.

Then again, Aycock was perfect for Johnson’s unique offense. It features the triple option, which means Johnson needs a certain type of player. You also have Johnson’s unique personality, which means he needs a certain type of player, too. It’s the type of player who understands what Aycock didn’t. Which is, you better listen to what Johnson says, because he will be true to his word.

Which means you should to.

No wonder Aycock’s high school coach, Brian Turner, keeps shaking his head. Not over Johnson, but Aycock. “[The Tech coaches] were pretty upfront the whole time,” said Turner, in his seventh season at the same Tampa high school that his father coached long enough to become the winningest football coach in Hillsborough County history. In addition, Chamberlain High has “about 100” coaches recruiting its players each year with many reaching BCS schools and NFL teams.

Basketball

Yes, the season continues onward. We must play again. Time to improve and win an away game.

Tomahawk Nation previews the game.
Larry Harstein of the AJC discusses here.
The ACC/SEC Blog previews here.
And finally here is a random ACC Recruiting Blog discussing Paul Hewitt's recruiting "woes" and our lack of ability to bounce back from NBA defections. It's not too deep.

Friday/ Weekend News

Basketball

...And women's basketball slowly takes priority over the men's team. A big congratulations on their win last night over #2 North Carolina. MaChelle Joseph is building something over there and slowly making some noise.

Saturday, we play Clemson @ Clemson. The Tigers are having their typical basketball season as of late. Win 16-20 in a row, then lose and fall apart. A win on Saturday will do a lot for the team AND the fans both mentally and physically. The weight of not winning a conference game only gets heavier.

Football

Congratulations to Durant Brooks! Tonight, his jersey will be retired at Tattnall Square Academy. Durant is now on the Green Bay Packers and is the 2007 Ray Guy Award Winner.

Tomorrow is the Senior Bowl where we have 1 Yellow Jacket participating. Many of you know that Michael Johnson will not be participating in the bowl game. However, Vance Walker will still be playing.

Baseball

Let the countdown begin for baseball and being favored to win games. Georgia Tech opens up against Lipscomb on February 20th. Lipscomb is familiar opponent as the Bison and Yellow Jackets were both in the Athens, GA Regional of the NCAA Baseball Tournament last June. in Athens, GA. Currently the Jackets are ranked #13 in the NCBWA poll and #20 in the first Baseball America poll. A projected starting lineup and pitching rotation is available here.

Love for Matt Wieters: Keith Law of Scouts Inc./ ESPN.com has the top minor league prospects ranked. and Wieters is number 1. Wieters has played great baseball in the minors and is well on his way to make it to "The Show". Expect to seem him in the big leagues this summer.

Discussion: Who was the greatest Georgia Tech baseball player? Wieters? Texiera? Varitek? Nomar? Danny Payne? Someone else? Comment below.