This installment of The VolNation Interview takes us to the west coast. Bill Bayno is returning to the college game and attempting to help Loyola Marymount recapture their past glory. Thanks to LMU SID John Shaffer for all of his help. Hope you enjoy.

Bruce Pearl is everywhere. After being at Tennessee for 3 seasons, we all know this about him. We expect it. He is always quick with great stories and clever one-liners that keep us all entertained and begging for more.

Junior College point guard Bobby Maze has verbally committed to play basketball at Tennessee next season. This comes after Ramar Smith and Duke Crews were dismissed from the team just last week.

As I recover from the sensory overload last weekend in Louisville, here are the week’s hoop topics.

The countdown to kickoff continues, and along with that comes a warning to the Volnation. Prepare yourself for an earful of prognostications declaring Georgia and Florida the heirs to the SEC throne for the upcoming football season. Yes we have seen and heard it all before. It seems eerily similar to the hype surrounding both of those programs last year. Meanwhile, in Knoxville, UT is quietly toiling away….installing a new offense and propping the confidence of a defensive front seven which was a very shaky unit last year.

That’s right, today’s blog post is about a former Lady Vol basketball player. Why? I’m not sure any Lady Vol aside from Candace Parker has ever been the recipient of as much message board and blog chatter as Brittany Jackson [a quick search of the Volnation forums returned 92 threads].

We learned today from a thread in the forum that the Athlon Sports 2008 SEC Football Annual showcases Eric Berry on the cover [click image for larger version]. This particular cover is the Tennessee-Vanderbilt version. The magazine will go on sale June 6, 2008 for a listed price of $5.99. You can pre-order them at AthlonSports.com.

Tennessee picked up their fourth football commitment for 2009 over the weekend from Milton High School (GA) running back Toney Williams.

If you that didn’t get to see the Jordan Brand Classic a couple of weeks ago, here are some of the highlights of Tennessee class of 2008 signee Scotty Hopson.

To playoff or not to playoff? That is the question that the folks at the BCS meetings answered for us this week. And their answer: not.