Basketball roster beginning to take shape
Every week that passes, we’re closer to figuring out what the 2015-16 men’s basketball roster will look like. Coach McKay received an NLI from Lovell Cabbil and Caleb Homesley confirmed he’s on board, as well. The Flames have one other offer outstanding for this class to Hansel Atencia. If he passes on that offer, perhaps McKay quickly moves to offering Miles Crawford. The other wildcard is still Tomasz Gielo as we wait his final decision regarding his transfer.
As we all know, there will also be some attrition. With Cabbil’s NLI, the Flames are 2 over the NCAA scholarship limit of 13.
New WR Coach
Coach Gill has reportedly found Juan Taylor’s replacement as Wide Receivers Coach in Ron Brown. According to Football Scoop, Brown will be joining the Liberty staff “pending final clearance.” Brown has been part of Bo Pelini’s staff at Youngstown State as running backs coach since January. He followed Pelini to Youngstown from Nebraska where he has spent 24 seasons as an offensive assistant including coaching the tight ends, running backs, and wide receivers. Gill worked with Brown at Nebraska from 1992-2003. Brown is a very outspoken Christian, and has received some flack for it at Nebraska.
Baseball update
Liberty took the first 2 games of a 3 game series at Longwood last weekend, before dropping the final game, 7-4, on Saturday afternoon. The Flames also lost their lone midweek game against #19 Virginia, 5-2. With less than a month remaining in the regular season and an RPI of 41, the Flame Train has an uphill battle to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Flames need to focus on their seeding for the Big South Tournament with hopes of getting hot in Boiling Springs next month.
Other sports
- The men’s tennis advanced to the semifinals of the Big South tournament before falling to #3 Winthrop. The Flames’ season comes to an end with a 14-10 overall record.
- The women’s tennis advanced to the semifinals of the Big South tournament before falling to #1 Charleston Southern. The Lady Flames’ season comes to an end with a 19-5 overall record.
- The softball team took 2 of 3 from Big South leader Coastal Carolina last weekend, and followed that up with a double header sweep of Hampton and a double header split with Virginia. Liberty, currently in 4th place, has their final Big South series this weekend at Winthrop. The Lady Flames have 27 wins on the season, their most since 2011 when they won 30 games.
- The men’s golf team finished in 5th place at the Big South championship to conclude their season.
- The women’s lacrosse team saw their 5 game win streak and conference unbeaten record come to an end on Tuesday as they fell to Winthrop, 17-6. The Lady Flames conclude their regular season tonight at Longwood with the Big South Tournament starting next week.
FlameFans thread of the week
Jerry Jr announced late last week that Jeb Bush will be Liberty’s 2015 commencement speaker which sparked discussion of this choice in this week’s FlameFans thread of the week, 2015 Commencement Speaker Discussion.
