Compared to previous spring sessions, Thursday featured a true back-and-forth between offense and defense, with some players having their best practices to date. Here are our observations from today

Not a bad addition under the circumstances

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At this point his own arrogance and lack of coaching ability has backed his "career" into a serious dead end.

Had he left after the 2023 season he could have used the excuse of "lack of institutional investment" as the reason and other schools would have gladly bought that, hired him to a long term deal with a raise, and he'd be their problem now. By staying and absolutely imploding the past two seasons, he can no longer use that excuse as it comes off as disingenuous. No program with all of the things he wants would hire him. Any program who would be willing to hire him won't have those things, and thus him complaining about them will be a turn off to them as well. Coming back for a third straight disasterous season will do further damage to himself.

bob at best is going to need to do a major rehabilitation to his value if he wants to continue to making college coaching a career. At worst, he's basically done in the profession. At this point he'll need to go back to a low mid-major, if one would have him, and try to win enough to one day get a shot at a high mid-major or better. The issue is that people will always look at how badly things went when he was coaching at this level and that will always be a knock against him. For me his best chance at redemption would be to swallow his ego, work out a severance package with ASU that GR can live with, appeal to Rick Pitino to work under him and rebuild his reputation with the possibility of taking over St. John's in 5+ seasons.

Players lost to the transfer portal:

We don't know what will happen as there are lots of games left to be played. We do know that he only has one year left on his contract, which means that Rossini will have to make a decision by March. So this isn't to argue whether he will be retained or not, or whether he should be or not. This is us assuming a change will be made and to look at possible candidates.

I would love Will Wade, but I don't think ASU has a realistic shot even if Rossini and Crow were on board with him given that he is a Clemson grad and has always coached in the southeast. Clemson's coach has been there 14 seasons and he just took them to an Elite-8 last year, so he's not going anywhere. I do think there will be a lot of programs coming after Wade starting in April as his show-cause expires. I would think that Miami would be a great fit for him.

Chris Mack is very intriguing to me. Born in Ohio, played at Xavier. Killed it at Xavier when he took over, after being Miller's assistant, when Miller left for u4. He actually did better at Xavier than Miller had. He took over Louisville 2 season after Pitino departed. Struggled there somewhat (Covid being part of his tenure there) and then was dismissed for something to do with an assistant trying to blackmail him and him recording the conversation. Weird for sure. Now at the College of Charleston after their former coach left for Louisville. He's currently at 15-4 and doing well.

Who do you all like?

My former videographer Nick Borgia, posted this and wanted to share for those who didn't see it yet

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“If you think you've arrived because you're ranked, you haven't. We're not where we want to be." Humility serves ASU well. A day after they found themselves back in the top 25 rankings for the first time since 2023, they proceeded to beat CSUF in a mercy rule victory

"This season will haunt me more than any other season I’ve had where I haven’t made the tournament because there were a lot of pieces in place to do it.” Once again, an undermanned ASU team played well in long stretches but ran out of steam in the last game of the 24-25 season

Kenny Dillingham was disappointed with the offensive execution in today's practice but has also been pleased with some position groups that have been standing out over the first four spring sessions. Here are our observations from today's practice

“As a unit, we definitely have some identity issues. We have to figure out who we are as a team." A new week and a new month didn't result in an improvement over last week's spring practices and the players are resolute to change that trend

ASU plays the Utes in Salt Lake this weekend. This will likely be the final time ASU plays at Smith Ballpark because the Utes are scheduled to complete their on campus baseball field by next season.

The new stadium will hold 1,200 fans. Utah currently draws 350 per game. The cost is $35m and will be paid for mostly by donations. For a program with no tradition or fan support that’s a pretty impressive fundraising effort.

Speaking of impressive, Utah has a Friday night starter that has been a workhorse. 6’4” 200 pound sophomore Colter McAnelly.

His last outing against Oklahoma St he gave up just 5 hits in 8 shutout innings to get the win.

Last season he started against ASU. To start the game he faced Campos, Vu, and Tobias who hit back to back to back home runs. He then walked Lance and was pulled before recording a single out.

Which version will we see Friday? Of note, he threw 122 pitches last week so there’s a good chance his arm is tired.

In the lineup make no mistake about it, their guy is their senior SS Core Jackson. The Phoenix South Mountain transfer is hitting .419 with 5 HRs and 8 stolen bases.

He’s 6’2”, eye black, dirty uniform, tatted, gold chains. You’ll likely hate him. Bloomquist keeps talking about needing dudes that have an edge. This guy is the poster child which is why I wonder how ASU let him leave our backyard for Utah. What the hell Peraza!

Before I let Peraza off the hook with just 1 “What the hell”, Goff was an elite 3B coach. That man was more dialed in on sending/holding runners than a fat kid at a KrispyKreme. Conversely, Sammy P has made some head scratching calls…. What the Hell Sammy!

Idk why I pick on Peraza. It’s probably because his bio on the ASU website is 5 pages… 5 PAGES…. of fluff that remind me of a realtor describing a retention pond as “waterfront”. Or maybe it’s because our pitching has been terrible IDK. All I know is I’m unfairly critical of him so there’s least I can do is give the disclaimer.

As for this weekend, Utah’s only home games this season were the 3 against Oklahoma St in a series that Utah won 2-1 and out scored the Cowboys 27-8 in the process.

ASU is only 3-4 on the road this season but they’ve played tough against TCU, UofA, and UCLA.

I have zero idea what will happen.