Baseball Peaking, Basketball Transfer Portal, and Similarities between Gainesville & Uptown
This week on the Green Wave report: for the second straight weekend baseball takes down a top conference team, basketball transfer action, a look ahead at our final segment with Tulane AD David Harris, and the similarities of what we hear from Gainesville and what still echoes in Uptown.
Our video version of The Green Wave Report can be found here, along with dozens and dozens of material and interviews on our YouTube Channel.
Sluggerbirds On a Tear
The Tulane baseball team claimed two out of three against one of the top teams in the American Conference and long-time rival East Carolina over the weekend. A combination of superb pitching, outstanding defense, and aggressive base running by the Wave made up the difference in two of the three games.
The American Conference on Monday announce a pair of Tulane ball players made the honor roll: Green Wave pitcher Trey Cehajic (we'll talk about him later), and right fielder Jason Wachs who posted a .545 batting average with three doubles, four RBI and four runs scored in four games.
On SI Tulane Analysis: Baseball Peaking?
For the second weekend running, the Sluggerbirds showed what they can do when they put it all together. Both Friday and Sunday’s games were spot on, with pitching, defense, and hitting at just the right time.
On Friday, it just felt like this would be the game to decide whether or not starting pitcher Trey Cehajic would continue in that role. The graduate righty has struggled for over a month in the starting role. But against rival East Carolina, Cehajic would come through big time, going 5-and-a-third innings, giving up just four hits, the least he’s allowed since a February 27th victory against Eastern Kentucky. Maybe it has something to do with teams that identify with cardinal directions.
An outstanding start by J.D. Rodriguez on Sunday, along with pinpoint accuracy by the rest of the pitching staff proved crucial to the series-clinching win over ECU. The junior lefty had his second consecutive solid outing, also going 5-and-a-third, giving up a couple of solo home runs, but only allowing two hits the rest of his time on the mound.
From the batter’s box, the Sluggerbirds worked counts well, earning six walks, which would then be followed by those timely hits, which the Green Wave piled up 26 of over three games.
For the most part, Tulane pitching and hitting were right on target. Friday night starter, Cehajic has earned a reprieve from being second-guessed. We’ll find out how long that lasts when the Green Wave travel to Boca Raton to play a three-game set against a Florida Atlantic team that got back on track a bit over the weekend against Memphis winning two of three from the struggling Tigers..
If the Wave can get back Saturday starting pitcher Jack Frankel who has been nursing back discomfort, the Sluggerbirds may just be hitting stride at just the right time.
TU Basketball Loses Quintet to Transfer Portal
The NCAA basketball transfer portal opened last week, and five Greenies have entered it: three men and two women, all of them guards.
No surprise that star guard Rowan Brumbaugh jumped into the portal waters on the first day. Two more guards did it a little later that day: Scotty Middleton and Curtis Williams, Jr. Though both Williams and Middleton contributed to the program this season, it’s Brumbaugh that is the biggest hole to fill.
For the women, two players who won American Conference Freshman of the year in their first seasons at Tulane decided to try out the portal: 2025’s honoree Kendall Sneed, and this year’s trophy winner, Mecailin Marshall.
No announcements yet from Tulane of any players Ron Hunter and Ashley Langford have lassoed to come to Uptown.
AD Harris Interview Wraps Wednesday
These last two weeks, we have been featuring a wide ranging interview with Tulane athletic director David Harris on Mondays and Wednesdays at noon. The final part of that series features Harris talking about his vision for where Tulane stands as a part of the NCAA. His answer was riveting for us. The final portion of the four-part series airs Wednesday at Noon.
Gainesville & Uptown Similarities
If you haven’t kept up with Florida Gators football, that’s understandable, since you’re probably a follower of Tulane. However, when former Green Wave football coach Jon Sumerall took the position in Gainesville, we thought it would be interesting to see how things look in Gatorland. We were amazed at how similar things looked between what Sumrall brought to Uptown and what still remains in Yulman. Just check out these Facebook posts from Florida football.
Look and sound familiar? Still preaching a lot of toughness and lots of love being talked about. It just seems to us that some of the things that made Tulane successful over the last two years is still around in Uptown.
We hope you have enjoyed our regular edition of the Green Wave Report. We release our weekly rundown Mondays at 4:00 p.m.
Tomorrow, spring football continues for Tulane. We will have our usual 4:00 p.m. report the day of practice Tuesday. We hope you'll join us then.
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.