Yesterday I talked to Tulane's Hawaiian connection--USC shortstop transfer Kaikea Harrison and freshman center fielder Tanner Chun--for an upcoming feature on NOLA.com. Both are going to start at the beginning of the year. Can anyone tell me the last player Tulane has had from Hawaii? These two played against each other in high school in Hawaii, as you'll see in the Harrison interview.

I also talked to Jay Uhlman, and he said no one has a serious injury 10 days before the opener against Omaha.

CHUN

On how comfortable he feels:

""I feel really comfortable just being out here with my teammates and my coaches. They really helped me be comfortable and find my groove."

On why he chose Tulane:

"Just the atmosphere they have here and the coaches. They made me feel like family. They made me feel welcome when I took my visit and all that stuff. They are all real with me, like they'll be coaches at times but they'll also be boys and parents when we need them. They're just the best."

On excited that season is almost here:

"I'm very excited season to get to the season. I can't wait for Feb. 14 to play with my teammates instead of against them because we've been doing that for so long."

On how good team can be:

"We can be really good. We haven't arrived yet, so we have a high ceiling for ourselves. If we just continue to do what we do and stay focused on the process instead of the end result, we'll be great."

On why he has excelled so far:

"Probably just not trying to do too much and just staying in my lane and trying to take it every day, trying to learn from all the players and the coaches and just having a good time."

On what makes him effective as a hitter:

"For me I feel like it's just sticking to my approach. Talking with my coaches before every at-bat, figuring out what a good game plan is and just sticking to it."

On if he thinks he will lead off in lineup:

"I'm not sure. I will leave that up to all the coaches. Wherever they put me, I'm happy with."

On what other schools he considered:

"I was considering some west coast schools, maybe staying home, but ultimately Tulane all the way."

On where he can get better:

"Everything. I feel I can get better in everything I do on the field and off the field."

HARRISON

On how he ended up at Tulane:

"I hit the portal at the end of my season. I decided I wanted to have a starting spot. I was kind of tired of starting only part time. You've got to compete everywhere, but I hit the portal and found my way here with a great coaching staff."

On other schools considered:

"There were a pretty good amount. It was U Dub (Washington), Oregon, small West Coast schools like Long Beach State and Nevada. I'm blessed to be here. I love it here."

On connection to Uhlman:

"It's kind of funny. He recruited one of my older brothers when he was at Oregon, and he recruited my oldest brother, so we kind of had a relationship already. My oldest brother went to Oregon State and my brother right above me went to Texas A&M and NC State, so I knew Jay."

(his older brother, KJ Harrison, was Pac 12 Freshman of the Year in 2015 and a first-team all-Pac 12 pick the following two seasons and was part of the Oregon State team that was the No. 1 overall seed in the CWS in 2017 but lost twice in a row to LSU to miss out on the championship round).

On being comfortable at Tulane:

"It's like riding a bike. I love shortstop. I love everywhere. At SC I learned to play every position and played outfield, too."

On why could not crack starting lineup regularly at USC (he started 4 games as a freshman and 17 last year despite hitting .323.):

"It's just baseball. Coaches have to feed their family, so they did what they did and went with their gut, so that was just really it."

On biggest strength defensively:

"My biggest strength is I have really good hands. Especially since we're on a turf field, I'd be pretty mad if I made a lot of errors, but I don't think I will. Defensively my footwork has gotten a lot better."

On good enough to get at-large bid:

"Absolutely. I've been around my older brother's teams and my dad lived baseball and I've been around a lot of good baseball, and I've never been around a team like this from top to bottom, the pitching staff. I think the best thing is our culture. We've got great culture here. I've never seen it before. I've never been so close to a group of freshmen, especially Tanner, he's one of my boys, but also there's a big stigma at other schools between pitchers and position players and they don't really mesh well. Over here it's awesome. I room with two pitchers. It's awesome."

On USC coming within an inning of winning the Pac-12 tourney a year ago:

"That was a heartbreaker. I was sitting on the bench, so it was even more heartbreaking."

On what team success what mean for him:

"It would mean a lot. Both of my brothers have been to a College World Series (the other brother, Kailea, made it at Texas A&M in 2022, although he did not play in Omaha), so hopefully I can do the same. That would be awesome."

On his best strength as a hitter:

"I think my bat to ball is really good. JB (hitting coach Justin Bridgman) saved my life, man. I felt like I was really good already baseball wise, but he's been helping me out so much. He's the man. He knows all about mechanics and is also a really good players' coach. He's one of the boys. Not everything's cookie cutter. I love that a lot."

On Chun:

"He's the man. I played against him back at home in high school. He's two years younger than me, and he was a sophomore, and he was still competing. I think he will play a big role this year. Coach Jay loves the Hawaii kids."

On good mix on team:

"Absolutely. There's a lot of veterans and a lot of newcomers and each one's going to make a big impact. Some of these freshmen look like veterans. It's awesome. We'll have a lot of freshmen playing. It's good for the morale and all around."

Technically football season is not over yet with the Super Bowl coming up in four days, but I apologize for waiting this long to put up the final standings. At least 10 times I went to bed over the last month thinking I would do it in the morning, and not once did I remember until today, when a Super Bowl assignment for AP delayed me another few hours.

But here, finally, are the results, and for the first time ever, we have a repeat winner. Winwave did it again, running his all-time total to four (2015, 2018, 2023, 2024) in the 13 editions I have posted here. Well done. The six-point margin of victory is the second largest, behind the preposterous 11 dew99 won by in 2014 when there were only 12 weeks, although charlamange8, the only contestant not to have fewer than 4 points in any week he entered, could have made it much tighter if he had made picks in week 11.

FINAL STANDINGS 2024

1) winwave 77

2) charlamange8 (missed 1 week) 71
tacklethemanwiththefootball 71

4) roll wave 70

5) paliii 68
Wavetime 68

7) diverdo 66
chigoboy 66
Guerry 66

10) GretnaGreen (missed 1 week) 64
MNAlum 64
DrBox 64

13) LSU Law Greenie (missed 1 week). 61

14) WaveON (missed 1 week) 58

15) p8kpev 57

The 15 people who stuck with the contest all year made bowl picks, too, and although no one ever had a perfect week, paliii came close this time with seven correct picks, missing only the Tennessee-Ohio State game.

BOWL PREDICTION RESULTS

8

paliii

7

diverdo

6

roll wave
chigoyboy

5

GretnaGreen
charlamange8
winwave
DrBox

4

p8kpev
tacklethemanwiththefootball
Wavetime

3

LSU Law Greenie
MNAlum
Guerry
WaveOn


GAME-BY-GAME-RESULTS

Florida over Tulane 4 of 15
Notre Dame over Indiana 11
Penn State over SMU 9
Texas over Clemson 10
Ohio State over Tennessee 8
Navy over Oklahoma 8
BYU over Colorado 5
LSU over Baylor 12

I went to Saturday's scrimmage and watched the first eight innings, and the revelation was freshman center fielder Tanner Chun. I usually refrain from making bold statements after one viewing, but he looks like he will be a big-time producer this year. Batting leadoff for the blue team, he went 4 of 5 with two runs scored, icluding two doubles. He got his first two hits off Michael Lombardi, who pitched well, his next one off of Kross Howarth, a freshman who struggled, and his last one off of Logan Hurd. More than the four hits, he just looks the part and could be a huge addition to the lineup.

The batting order for the blue team was Chun, freshman second baseman Nate Johnson, freshman third baseman William Good, DH Matthias Haas, catcher Andrew McKenna, shortstop James Agabedis, left fielder Brock Slaton and freshman right fielder Grant Wilson. They had eight guys batting because the first baseman was either Brennan Lambert or another coach who were manning the position without obviously getting at-bats. I did not do interviews, so I'm not sure what the reason for that was.

The green team had Lombardi leading off, following by freshman center fielder Jason Wachs, second baseman Connor Rasmussen, third baseman Gavin Schulz, left fielder Jackson Linn, right fielder Tracy Mitchem and catcher Hugh Pinckney. It was a seven-man lineup without a DH or a hitting first baseman.

Lombardi showed his athleticism in the first inning after giving up a single to Chun and walking Johnson, first fielding a bunt by Good and forcing out Chun at third and then catching a soft liner right before it hit the ground even though Haas's bat was heading his way. Johnson thought the ball had hit the ground, so Lombardi trotted to second base to double him off to end the inning. I liked Lombardi's stuff. He proceeded to retire five in a row in the second and third before Chun singled off him again and he walked and hit the next two batters. He struck out Haas to get out of trouble and had a clean fourth to end his day on the mound after about 50 pitches. He was not done, though, Leading off the bottom of the fourth, he hit a home run over the left field wall.

Overall, I felt the defensive fundamentals were better than in the last several preseason or fall scrimmages I attended over several years (no more than 1 or 2 per year). This was a pretty good defensive team last year that was much more fundamentally sound than it ever was under Jewett. Gavin Schulz tried reach for hard grounder instead of blocking it and it got past him, and Wachs dropped a sinking fly ball in left center field, but I would not given either player an error, and I'm usually a harder judge than the official scorekeeper in real games. I did not get to see presumed starting shortstop Kaikea Harrison, who got the day off but is not hurt.

I was not particularly impressed with the pitchers other than Lombardi, but it is hard to judge on one or two innings. Blaise Wilcenski, who likely will be one of the weekend starters (Saturday or Sunday), gave up seven hits in four innings by m count, including Lombardi's homer (the scoreboard was not operational). Other than Luc Fladda, there are question marks with the rotation in my book.

J.D. Rodriguez, a transfer from Golden West College in Calfornia, pitched two innings and gave up an RBI single to Schulz. Freshman Michale DeVenney showed some promise, getting three fly-ball outs, but it was a short sample size. Julius Ejike-Charles, who I saw hit a mammoth home run off Lombardi in the fall but probably has a better chance of a role at pitcher than as a hitter, pitched a scoreless eighth.

For the green team, Howarth replaced Lombardi and got hit hard, allowing at least four hits and three doubles in the sixth inning and a run in the fifth as well. Chun turned on a pitch to double down the left field line off him, and Johnson turned on a pitch to double down the right field line immediately afterward. Hurd had a clean seventh but ran into trouble in the eighth, giving up four hits.

Rasmussen lined out to right field for a sacrifice fly in the first but went 0 for 3 with a walk after that. Jackson Linn went 0 for 3 with a walk, including a warning track fly ball to straightaway center field.

Chun, Johnson and Wachs are the freshmen who I hear are ready to play immediately, and I saw with my own eyes about Chun. Jay Uhlman is high on this freshman class after the near washout from last year's group.

The new pitchers I hear have made the best impression are Ejike-Charles, Devenney, Rodriguez and John-Paul Sauer, who did not pitch while I was there. They really think the bullpen will be championship material--I am wait and see on that--so the key will be finding starters who can get threw an order twice.

Tulane gutted out an ugly win against Tulsa yesterday thanks to its defense and Rowan Brumbaugh's continued scoring ability when none of his teammates were playing well offensively, giving the Green Wave a 6-3 record halfway through the AAC schedule. I can't say enough about how the Wave won despite getting a season-low four points from Kaleb Banks, its leading scorer, 7 points from Kam Williams, who is struggling offensively now that opponents force him to beat them off the dribble, and eight points from Gregg Glenn, who was in foul trouble all day.

This team is a shooter short from being a championship team in my view, and that lack of outside punch forces it to win the hard way on most days, with defensive activity, the athletic ability to win 50-50 balls and mental toughness. Brumbaugh is 8 for 17 on 3s in his last two games, but his teammates are a miserable 2 of 29. Kam Williams has a pure shot, but he does not have a quick release and needs to be stationary on the catch. They don't have anyone who can run around a pick, catch a bullet pass from Brumbaugh and consistently knock down an open 3.

Still, Tulane is playing hard enough that it can beat everyone left on its schedule. The most important thing is finishing in the top four of the standings and guaranteeing a double bye to the quarterfinals of the AAC tournament, placing it three wins away from the NCAA tournament, and this week will go a long way in determining whether Tulane can be a top 4 seed. First is a rematch on Wednesday with UTSA, which looked awful when the Wave routed it in early January but has improved significantly under a good coach in Austin Claunch, beating Temple comfortably at home, barely losing on the road to UAB and handing North Texas its first home loss of the season in three of its past four games (a 20-point clunker against FAU broke up that stretch, so I'm not trying to elevate the Roadrunners to world-beaters). Tulane, which deflected about 30 passes in the first meeting, needs to be just as active defensively on the road as it was at home. Next is a trip to North Texas, which plays suffocating defense but managed only 13 first-half points against UTSA in an incomprehensible performance on Saturday before nearly stealing the game at the end. The way Tulane's offense is struggling at the moment, that will be a real test, but Tulane's defense should give it a chance.

After that, the schedule lightens up significantly. The next six opponents have losing conference records before Tulane ends the regular season at home against UAB. The Wave is tied with Temple for fourth at the moment but loses the tiebreaker because it dropped their only meeting, but the Owls was incredibly fortunate to win either of their home games this week, rallying to beat a bad Charlotte team in OT and making up a six-point deficit in the final two minutes of regulation before beating ECU in OT. Jamal Mashburn is the best player in the AAC, but that team is shaky overall and could fall off the pace.

UAB plays North Texas at home tonight in the game that should determine which of the two teams has a chance to challenge Memphis at the top. For everyone who discounted Tulane's win at Rice as the product of playing a rotten team, Memphis escaped Houston with a three-point win over the Owls yesterday. The Tigers are the most talented team in the league,sssss but most of their games have been really close and something is missing there. If UAB beats North Texas and Tulane beats UTSA (neither is guaranteed), the Wave would be tied with North Texas entering Saturday's game, which is their only meeting.

Tulane is shaping up as one of the top teams in the league. The Wave is second in field goal percentage during conference games despite slumping badly at the moment--Kaleb Banks figures to come out of his offensive funk soon--and third in field goal percentage defense. Its three losses are to teams with a combined conference record of 21-6, and two of them were on the road.

One other thought: Yesterday's game played out very similarly to the game at UTSA last year after Tulane's court-storming win against Memphis. The Wave made mistakes down the stretch and missed free throws that could have clinched it, leading to a 3-point shot that would have given Tulsa a 1-point lead with seven seconds left like the one UTSA drained at the buzzer to send the Wave into a tailspin it never got out of. This time, though, the shot did not fall, and I don't think the difference was random. Tulane's defense does not allow teams to get into a shooting rhythm this year, so the reserve who took the would-be go-ahead 3 did not shoot it with confidence, and it was off to the right from the start. Tulane also grabbed the rebound, which would have been highly questionable last season or really any previous year under Hunter.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out the key to tomorrow night's game between Tulane and Memphis, which the Wave needs to win to establish itself as a contender for the AAC title rather than a middle-of-the-pack type team. It's turnovers. Memphis gets very careless with the ball on its bad days, and Tulane generally limits its miscues. The Wave has lost the turnover battle only four times this year and is 0-4 in those games. Memphis has won the turnover battle only eight times and is 7-1 in those games.

Tulane turnovers , which are not always costly against the run-of-the-mill AAC team, will lead to points almost every time against Memphis. The Wave has not committed more than 15 in any game, while the Tigers have gone over that total eight times with a high of 20 on two occasions.

Ron Hunter, Gregg Glenn and Asher Woods spoke before practice today.

HUNTER

On what sticks out most about Memphis on video:

"They are a talented team. They are one of those teams I think you'll see in the Sweet 16. They defend. They shoot the 3 really well, something they haven't done in the last few years, but we've got a good defense. We've got to make sure that our defense holds in this game. The key is we just can't turn the ball over. When they get turnovers, it just feeds into what they do, so that's a big key for us. But like I've told the guys, we've earned the right not to be in this game, but we've earned the right to win this game. If we want to fight for a championship, we gotta defend it here at home. They are coming into our place, and we hope to see a raucous atmosphere and give ourselves a chance to not only win this game, but get into the last week of the season and see what happens."

On PJ Haggerty, a Tulsa transfer who is second nationally in scoring:

"He's a good player. He was a good player at Tulsa and a good player at Memphis. He gets to the line and is one of the top 20 players in the country right now the way he's playing. But again, that's our league. We've got good players also. We want our good players to play well."

On difference for Tulane in conference play compared to non-conference:

"Basically when you're whole team is new and they're young, you're not going to come out the gate and win no matter who you are. If that was the case, we wouldn't need coaching. We knew the light switch at some point was going to come on, and we haven't even hit our peak yet. I can't wait to see when we get to our peak, that's when we're really going to be scary, but it just takes time. I have four freshmen in my eight-man rotation. You're not going to win early with that. What happens is instead of taking them out, we just kept playing them and playing them and playing them and all of a sudden that experience has helped us get to where we are right now."

On history meaning nothing (Tulane has won three in a row v. Memphis at home, but almost no one on either team participated even in last year's win):

"It really doesn't. I hope the result is the same. We'll take the same result, but most of their guys are gone and the guys I had are gone. These are two different teams. I think both are headed in the right direction."

On his excitement about the game:

'I'm always excited. My excitement never goes below a 9 and it stays between 9 and 10. When we win it's at a 10, but I'm always excited. I woke up excited. I'm having so much fun with these young guys."

On turnovers being the key:

"That's the difference in the game. When we're really good, we turn it (the other team) over, and when they're really good, the same thing. it's who takes care of the ball the best in this environment. We need this environment to make them play sometimes even faster so they can turn that ball over. I'm really looking forward to that."

On matchup:

"A key player in this game for us is going to be Gregg Glenn. There's no matchup for Gregg Glenn in our entire league, so when Gregg plays well and you can't put the pressure on us because he has it, that's the big difference. That's no pressure on Gregg. Teams know that, we know that and Gregg knows that. If Gregg is good, then we've got a great chance of winning the game."

On Glenn's evolution:

"I love how Gregg is playing. Speaking of playing the best basketball of your life right now, that's what he's doing. When he plays within himself and doesn't get sped up, he's really a good player. He's listened to everything that I've said except for getting a haircut. He still hasn't gotten a haircut yet, but he's listened to everything I've asked him to do and he's done it well. I'm still working on the haircut thing. Trust me."

On crowd he hopes for:

"I don't care if there's one person in here or it's sold out, it just needs to be loud. When we go play at Memphis, trust me, it's loud. When we go play at North Texas, it's loud, so it will be nice to come into our place and that crowd's cheering for us instead of us having to fight that crowd."

I apologize for not getting these up over the weekend, but I caught a pretty bad cold from my son that was accompanied by a nasty headache.

Gavin Schulz, Jackson Linn, Michael Lombardi, Luc Fladda and Connor Rasmussen spoke before Friday's opening practice.

SCHULZ

On surreal scene of watching vehicle clear ice and snow off the turf so they could practice:

"Growing up I've never even held snow in my hand. Me and one of my teammates had a $10 bet that it wouldn't even snow. For it to wind up snowing 10 inches is crazy, so it was surreal."

On whom he bet and which side he was on:

"William Good. A younger guy here. He's one of my roommates. He's from New Orleans, too, and he bet that there would be snow."

On what step up he wants to take in his game:

"There are different roles each year. I'm just excited to be out here with the guys and compete to have another good year, another successful year. I'm very excited about this team. Our coaches have done a great job to bring guys in. They work their tails off for us. We've worked hard in the weight room. We've worked hard at practice. We're just excited to have another good year."

On replacing Colin Tuff, Teo Banks and Brady Marget:

"Losing key guys like that, it's good and bad. Those guys are now playing in professional baseball, living their dream. We'll be fine. We'll be good. We've re-amped, brought in some talent. We're just looking forward."

On what they are building at Tulane:

"We're getting the program to where it needs to be. We have a message that coach gives us, keep raising the standards. Last year we had a good year, but we want to keep taking steps forward and build this program to where it's a consistent, winning program, and that consistent winning helps bring in more talent, helps get better players. We're just super excited."

On pieces being in place for at-large bid if needed:

"Yes, I feel like the pieces are in place. We have a great bullpen. We have great position guys. Definitely we want to win the tournament again, but our eyes on our conference (regular season title). It's been a few years since we've won the conference (last time was 2016 and the time before that was 2005), so we're going for that and we want the tournament, but words are words and we have to show up every day and leave it all out there on the field."

On if back-to-back tourney appearances create more pressure to produce:

"Pressure is more self created. You look around, you don't see pressure. Pressure's all in your head. There can be pressure from fans, but we're not worried about the program. We're worried about what happens in the locker room, worried about winning each day, and when that times comes for winning the conference and winning the tournament, we're here stacking days trying to win."

On excitement for opening day:

"I'm so excited. Last opening day here (for him). I'm just very excited to go out there with some of the guys that have been with me and some new guys to go out there and compete and leave it all out there."

On his feeling about his final year as a local guy on the team:

"It's a dream come true. That dream's not over yet, but it's a dream come true. Getting here, there it was, we hadn't been to a regional. We've gone to back-to-back regionals. We've won the tournament twice, but the message in the locker room is we haven't arrived. We've done what we've done in the past, but we're trying to keep raising that standard and trying to get our cleats dug in to Omaha"

LINN

On getting in position to earn at-large bid:

"Similar to what Gavin said, we've got an older team, a more experienced team, a team that knows how to win. This was my fourth fall ball here, and this team is the most well-rounded, most put-together team that I've been on, which is saying something because we've had some pretty good teams. That's going to give us the best chance to go out and win a ton of games in conference play and hopefully before conference play. That's the goal."

On why this is the most well-rounded team:

"We've had a lot of good guys in the portal, a lot of older guys, people with a lot of in-game success in the past. We've had talented guys come through, but this team has the most tangible numbers put up that are going to say this team's going to go out and have a good year."

On replacing Tuft, Banks and Marget:

"You can never tell exactly how it's going to shake out. By the end of the year we'll probably have a different lineup than what I think it's going to be right now because guys always step up. Some guys will struggle, some guys will succeed and that's just how it goes. We're so deep. We've got so many good talented players that somebody's going to step up and we'll have a good lineup by the end of the year."

On having a lot of pitchers back:

"I'm a hitter, so I focus on hitting, but pitching is key to winning games. We've got a really talented group of guys this year and I've faced all of them at this point, so I know that we've got some good stuff. I'm excited to see what they can do. I think It's going to be impressive."

On not having to worry about health:

"After having two surgeries done and fully recovered through that, I feel really just grateful to be out here. I attribute a lot of success that I've had to just being freed mentally, just able to go out and play hard and play my best without any physical limitations."

On making more progress as a team in the postseason this year:

"Yeah, we beat Nicholls, which we beat during the year. It felt like we were supposed to win that game. We did what we were supposed to do, but now we've got our eyes set for something bigger. Like Gavin said, we feel like there's more to give. There's a lot more on the table and we can go take what's ours this year."

On Omaha as a tangible goal:

"For sure. Going to a regional two years in a row feels like we've got a taste of postseason play. This coaching staff was new my sophomore year, and now it feels like everyone's got there foot in where they know they need to be, including us, the players. We really want it more this year, and we know what we need to do to get it."

On walk-off homer than won AAC tourney never getting old:

"I mean, it's definitely the highlight of my career. It made all of the hard work worth it to some degree, but my career's not over. I've got more to do this year, so eyes are looking forward right now."