Monday Items

-- Baseball got a couple of much needed wins over the weekend, sweeping Campbell. Recap here. With eight games left in the regular season, State maintains pretty good standing in the RPI, and the strength of schedule is only going to get better with UVA and Clemson coming up. If the Pack splits its six remaining conference games and wins its two remaining OOC games, it will have a 36-19 (15-15) record going into the ACC tournament. That'll be enough to earn an NCAA bid.

Sidenote: Although Ramon Corona isn't hitting for the average or the power he did last season, his walk rate has tripled. He walked 16 times in 320 plate appearances (5%) in 2006; already this season, he's walked 34 times in 219 PAs (15.5%). So even with a 90-point drop in batting average, he's getting on base at about the same rate as he did last year.

-- AJ Davis made a solid first impression with the Lions:

Cornerback A.J. Davis was jumping at the Lions' three-day rookie minicamp that wrapped up Sunday.

"I asked the defensive guys, 'What do you think of him?' " assistant offensive line coach Mike Barry said. "And they said, 'He's like the Energizer Bunny.' And it's the same way he was when he was at N.C. State."

-- Brandon Costner likes the decision to move the three-point line back:

"Moving it back will open up more space on the floor, especially in the lane," said Costner, who will be a junior in 2008-09. "I also think it will help players adjust more to the NBA in getting used to shooting a longer 3-pointer than they did in college."

-- Jake Peavy is awesome--I just wanted to point that out. He's been one of my keeper league stalwarts since he came up.

-- We're still waiting on a TOB/Glasper piece from the N&O and it is supposedly on the way.