The first interviews are supposed to be Friday, and the road should be in good enough shape by then for the city to re-open.

I attended one of the fall ball world series games and never posted about it. Will Clement helped his team clinch the series, coming in with the bases loaded and no outs and getting Jackson Linn to hit a bouncer right to him, leading to a force-out at the plate, and then coaxing a 6-4-3 double-ball ball from Boots Landry, a transfer from Texas A&M who redshirted with the Aggies last year. I don't remember many of the details, although I was surprised to find out Adam Ebling, who was a top-rated recruit along with Jackson Linn, Teo Banks and Brady Marget in 2022 but never panned out, no longer was on the team. He played in 22 games last year, mostly as a pinch runner, getting nine at-bats. Ben Romano, whose leaping catch at the right field wall finished off Nicholls in the Corvallis regional, also was gone.

It looked like Nick Diehl was the frontrunner to be the starting first baseman in place of Marget, but he has transferred since the end of fall ball. I guess that makes Landry the favorite to win the job. The second baseman will be Connor Rasmussen, although he played shortstop the day I was there. The shortstop will be USC transfer Kaikea Harrison, who started 21 games over two years with the Trojans. The third baseman will be Gavin Schulz. There were three catchers in the running to replace Colin Tuft--Andrew McKenna (FAU), Hugh Pinckney (Rutgers) and William Good, a redshirt freshman from Jesuit who was hurt in the fall. I'm not sure where James Agabedis fits in, but he was at second base the day I was there.

In the outfield, I assume Linn will start in left field rather than being the DH. Theo Bryant, a grad transfer from Tennessee Tech, is the likely starter in center field after having a strong summer ball season and following it with a good fall. His numbers at Tennessee Tech were mediocre. Matthias Haas ended last year as the starting right fielder, and Brock Slaton, who had the spot in the first half of the season, is back, too. Freshman Julius Ejike-Charles. another outfielder, hit a mammoth homer to dead center off Michael Lombardi the day I was there, but that may have been an anomaly. Lombardi returns as the DH.

Luc Fladda, who was masterful against Nicholls in the Corvallis regional, is a lock for the weekend rotation. Will Clements, who never pitched as well as his stuff indicated he would, is in the picture. I'm not sure what the planned role is for Lombardi, who started five games last year, and Carter Benbrook, who was used almost exclusively out of the bullpen and got better as the year went along, but both will play prominent roles. They will count heavily on Jacob Moore and Henry Shuffler in the back end of the bullpen. They were mostly good last season, but Shuffler wore down and got hit hard at the end of the year. Blaise Wilcenski, who gave up 20 earned runs in 19 innings over his last seven appearances, is back, too. Ejike-Charles is expected to have a role on the mound, too. I got some intel on some of the other new pitchers but frankly don't remember what I heard. Giancarlo Arencibia, a name recruit from Rummel who has since transferred to Delgado, did not pitch that day.

I am not sure what to make of this team. Losing Tuft and Marget hurt. They knew they were going to lose Banks and Chandler Welch in the draft, but not so much the other two.

I haven't engaged with anyone about Ron Hunter or the basketball team in a long time because most fans have already made their decision about him and nothing I say will change anyone's mind.

There's no defending what happened last year, when an unwanted trip to China over the summer to represent the U.S. in the World University Games ended up hurting more than helping because no one appeared to enjoy the experience other than Sion James and the team was worn out from that venture by the time the season started. Jaylon Forbes and Kevin Cross, the latter of which played well for the season, did not want to be in college anymore, and the entire team vibe was bad, a problem Hunter never came close to solving. It was bad. Really bad.

BUT, and there's always a but when it comes to Hunter in my view, there have been far too many misconceptions and falsehoods about him as a coach during his Tulane tenure. Let's start with the universally accepted idea his matchup zone is a failure that cannot work at this level and should be abandoned. Hmm. Tulane's defense has been off-the-charts good this year. It's amazing how much of a difference it makes when you have athletic defenders who compete every night. Temple won for years with its matchup zone under John Chaney. Tulane's problem was having poor defenders rather than the system.

The other is Hunter's record itself. His teams in 2021-22 and 2022-23 were Tulane's best this century if you consider 1999-2000 as part of the last century. Tulane finished fifth and third in the AAC before Houston and Cincinnati left, advancing to the AAC tourney semis both years. Heck, even last year's embarrassing 5-13 group played better than all of Finney's, Dickerson's, Conroy's and Dunleavy's teams, which never, ever beat anyone good or were even competitive with the top teams in their leagues. This group beat Memphis for its first win against a top-25 opponent since 1999 and was a fluke shot away from beating tourney-bound FAU.

Hunter can coach. He was demonstrably more successful as his previous two stops than his predecessors and successors, and although the bar was set incredibly low, he has been better than his four most recent predecessors at Tulane. Where he has fallen short is talent evaluation--running off Jordan Walker, thinking Oton Jankovic could be a difference-maker and misfiring on several transfers he thought would be better than they were to supplement the core guys who were successful--and recruiting guys who wanted to and were capable of playing defense, until this year.

I don't know what will happen in the rest of the season, but if Tulane wins at Temple Sunday, I would not put winning the conference out of play. This team has to prove it can take its act on the road, but good defense usually travels and the schedule in the weak AAC is watered down even more by the fact Tulane was not considered a contender by the schedule-makers, so it faces Memphis and North Texas only once. South Florida took advantage of its easy schedule a year ago to win the league's regular-season championship going away. If you consider that a pipe dream, a top four seed in the conference tournament definitely is possible, which would guarantee a double bye into the quarterfinals,

Even winning the regular-season title, though, would not put Tulane anywhere close to an NCAA bid after its abysmal non-conference performance against a very soft schedule. The only path there is winning the league tourney. But after two blowout wins of awful Charlotte and bad UTSA, I could tell this team was different even considering the lack of quality of the opponent. This team competes for rebounds, plays excellent defense, has a willing go-to scorer in Kaleb Banks, a real point guard in Rowan Brumbaugh, a talented freshman with a pure shot in Kam Williams and a very versatile post player in Gregg Glenn. They play hard, too. Asher Woods is not the most talented guy in the world, but he does not let guards get by him and plays with confidence on offense even though he has a limited game.

It is hard to win at Tulane in basketball because of Devlin Fieldhouse and the negative reaction it produces with recruits. I'd love to say this Tulane team is built to win big next year regardless of what happens this season, but who the heck knows which players will stay or transfer in the era of buy-a-player? All I can say is this team will be fun to watch the rest of the year, which has only been the case twice since I moved back to New Orleans in January of 2008. Both of those times came under Hunter.

Maybe, just maybe, I will start getting as many replies to my tweets when Tulane is winning as I do when Tulane is losing. At the moment it's not even close.

I talked to Kelly Comarda last week but he wanted me to wait until Tulane officially announced his position before posting. Here is what he said about returning to Tulane less than a year after leaving for Houston, this time for a paid position with the university rather than as the volunteer co-founder of the Fear The Wave collective. Here is the full transcript:

What is your job title and how would you describe your work?

"My official title is director or roster management. I guess my role is to coordinate with coach Sumrall and Cole Heard on all roster decisions, especially with an emphasis on NIL and transfer portal.

What is your role going to be when schools can start managing the NIL stuff directly in July:

"My job is going to be more managing the revenue sharing payments and the revenue sharing pool for what Tulane's going to do."

What is your relationship going to be with the Fear The Wave collective you co-founded?

"I will be coordinating with the collective and working hand in hand kind of like a liason between the football team and the collective."

When did Tulane first contact you about this role?

"When coach Sumrall announced that he was coming back, part of what he needed was somebody to fill a role like this. After he announced he was coming back, he gave me a call and offered me a chance to come in. My first day here was Friday, Dec. 13, so I let coach Fritz know around the 10th or 11th."

How tough a decision was it to leave Houston after being there less than a year?

"It was obviously a tough decision because I appreciated what coach Fritz did for me and the opportunity he gave me, but I'm a Tulane guy, a fifth generation Tulane graduate. I also had a relationship with coach Sumrall and got to know him for a few months in the transition, and family factors and having a job inside of the university was a big deal for me, so while it was tough to leave behind the opportunity that coach Fritz gave me, this was the one that could do it."

How is your role different and similar at Tulane than what you were doing at Houston?

"It's very similar. I was working with the collective in Houston. That's the big difference. Here I'm inside on the actual football staff."

How excited are you about where this program is right now?

"Extremely excited. We're in a position to build a program that can sustain success in a way that only a handful of G5 programs can right now in terms of having the resources and the commitment to compete for a playoff spot every year."

I believe there are 25 players coming in from the transfer portal, and 247 Sports rates it the best group for any 5 program. How much of a sea change has Tulane undergone in trying to be successful compared to about 10 years ago?

"The reason why we're able to do it is because we started the collective early and we built it early and we were able to build off of the success that coach Fritz started and coach Sumrall took over. We've kept the enthusiasm going and I think people value the opportunity to play winning football. It's hard to go out there, even if you're playing a lot, to play on a team that's winning 2 or 3 games a year. Sometimes you'd rather play a smaller role on a team that's winning, or if you're not playing a big enough role at a Power 4, playing on a winning G5 team has a lot of appeal."

What do you like best about Sumrall?

"He brings a lot of energy every day. He invites collaboration and allows his staff top to bottom to give their input. He's a listener, but he's decisive when he makes decisions. When he makes decisions, everybody respects the process and respects what he has to say. He commands the respect of everybody in the building while also giving you an opportunity to voice your opinions and contribute. He's extremely smart."

If you are a fifth-generation Tulane graduate, when did it all start?

"It was my great-great grandmother that graduated from Tulane. I don't know the year, but it had to be possible before the turn of the century or right around the turn of the century."

How much difference does it make doing this for the school you care about the most?

"It makes a big difference. The familiarity with the fan base and the program is huge, but also it's tough to learn new traditions and learn about former players. There's definitely a lead-in to that, where as here I can remember plays and games that 10 people watched on an internet stream."

When you started the Fear the Wave collective, could you have envisioned what this has transformed into nationwide in college sports?

"I don't think anybody knew exactly where it was going, but I had a pretty good idea that this was coming down the pipe about a year ago, actually probably 18 months ago, so that's when I started having conversations with the former administration about making plans in case this did come to fruition that these are some of the changes we're going to have to think about making, and they were receptive to it. I think everybody in the industry just didn't want to make a false step, so once they saw where it was definitely going, they made a decisive step to fall in line and get something in place."

From the top down, how much does it make with the Tulane administration supporting athletics:

"I think the administration, especially David Harris and (chief operating officer and deputy athletic director) Justin Schemmel are very competitive and they want to see us succeed, and they've done a lot of things that people don't see on a day-to-day basis to make sure that we remain competitive and that we put ourselves in the best position to win the conference and make the playoff. They are a lot more competitive than they may seem in a public setting. Behind closed doors they definitely want to win."

Tulane had a long dark period without much success. What does the current success mean to you?

"It means everything to me. I sat through a lot of bad seasons and a lot of bad games and got to know a lot of people just because there weren't too many people in the stands, so knowing that we have a chance to put ourselves on the map as a premier college football program means a lot. It could correct a lot of the mistakes of the past because we're operating right now without probably two to three generations of fans that didn't experience the success, whereas all the kids now that are coming to games and getting excited about Tulane are going to come back with their kids. They don't come back overnight. It's going to take a while, but we're well on our way to doing that."

Hunter talked with reporters today ahead of tomorrow's home game with South Florida at 1 p.m. The goal for every team in the incredibly weak AAC other than Memphis is to get a top-four seed in the league tourney and be three games away from reaching the NCAA tournament by the time the quarterfinals start. North Texas may be proving it is the second-best team, but everything else is wide open.

HUNTER

On Tulane's status right now:

"We're getting better. We're one of the younger teams in the country experience-wise and we're just growing. The only thing we need to do is keep playing games to get that experience, but I love how we're playing. I really do. We're getting better every day. We're starting to figure it out, the game is starting to slow down. Now it's about winning games."

On difference between this year and last year:

"Well, the kids on my team this year weren't even playing college basketball last year, so that's how far we've gone. We're playing four freshmen (actually three) in our top eight or nine, but again, the years are different. The way college basketball is now and really the way college football is, you've got new teams every year, so some teams are going to take a little longer to develop and some can do it fairly quickly. We hope that we're just climbing and we're going to be able to peak at the right time."

On feeling good about progress:

"Even when we were struggling, we weren't down. I thought we were getting better. I've been doing this a long time and I've never coached so many young guys in my 35 years. I'm enjoying it. I don't know if I've been around a team that I enjoy coaching more than this group, and that includes all my NCAA tournament teams. I've really enjoyed this because it's new to me and these young guys, they want to learn. With all the craziness and NIL and all the other things, what's great about this group is they really want to learn. I enjoy being around them."

On offensive drought in second half against UAB:

"We talked about the UAB game. it was 54-54 and we held them four straight times, but we didn't score during that time. If we had scored that time, I think it would have been a different outcome, but that's just part of the growing pains of learning to win on the road. Young teams usually play really well at home, and it's a struggle a little bit on the road. We're starting to figure that out a little bit. We're starting to understand shot selection a little bit better and understand the intensity of playing at home versus the road. Our intensity in this building is incredible because we've got great fans, but we've got to be able to carry this when we go play on the road."

On Kam Williams taking only three shots against UAB:

"That's the thing he's got to figure that out. This is the first time he's played major college basketball, so he's on everybody's scouting report. They took some things away from him, and when they take some things away, you've got to have something else to go to. If he looks at the tape of that game, he will do some things differently in that regard. We're trying to help him through that just like we're trying to help all these young guys through some of those things."

On KJ Greene playing well down the stretch against UAB (three baskets out of the four Tulane made from the 13:30 mark until near the end of the game):

"He's getting better. I laugh because I talked to a high school coach the other day and I was like, man, I had no idea what it was like to coach 18-year olds. I've got teenagers, but they are getting better. We can take Rowan (Brumbaugh) off the ball and he (Greene) is playing with a lot more confidence. All of them have to get stronger as they get older. That's the other part. When you play UAB, they are all 24,25, 26 years old, and when you're 18 it's just different, but they are figuring it out. They really are. I love where we are in regards to the process of growing up. My biggest fear is how are we going to keep all these kids. I know now we have a chance to win every game we play."

On South Florida:

"Offensively they are making shots. They are finding out who they are. They had a tough start to the season losing a wonderful man in their coach (Amir Abdur-Rahim dies in late October). I give them all the kudos just getting through the season to be honest with you. He's got them playing really well right now. He's the interim coach and he's trying to figure this out also, but they are at the point now where they feel really good about where they are."

On scoring in transition:

"We want to score off our defense. We do that fairly well at home. What we haven't been able to do is carry that on the road. When you look at the points we average at home and on the road, it's a big difference. That happens with all young teams."

On Asher Woods:

"Asher's quietly been really good for us of late. If I had to pinpoint one thing that helped us with the turnaround, it's his play defensively. Just having an older guy on the floor. He's the oldest kid in our program and he struggled early in the season just trying to play with the young guys. He's starting to figure it out. He's been great."

On seeing improvement:

"These guys will run through a wall for me, and I love coaching them that way. That's why I'm happy for them. It's been a long time that I looked and said I'm really having fun coaching this group, so I am because everything we've thrown out, these kids have tried. I love coaching these kids."

Tulane has offered Jordan Campbell. Big time recruit.

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