Cody Mosbeck

🇨🇦 & 🇺🇸

[Voices of WW2 @VoicesofWW2]

They called them flying coffins. The men who volunteered to fly them knew exactly why.

The Allied gliders of D-Day were made of fabric stretched over a frame of wood and metal tubing. They had no engine. No armor. No weapons. No parachutes for the men inside. They were towed to France at 130 mph on the end of a 300-foot nylon rope attached to a C-47, and when the rope was cut, there was one chance to land.

One. No go-arounds. No second approach. Whatever was below you was where you were going.

What was below them was Normandy at night.

The Germans had spent weeks preparing. Under orders from Field Marshal Rommel, they had driven wooden stakes into every open field in the region, angled to impale gliders on landing. The French called them Rommelspargel. Rommel's asparagus. Thousands of poles, many with mines or artillery shells wired to the tips, packed into every field large enough to land on.

What the glider pilots had not been properly told was the scale of the Norman hedgerows. The bocage. These were not English garden hedges. They were ancient earthen walls, some dating back centuries, topped with dense root systems and trees, rising 50 feet in places, bordering fields barely 200 yards long. A Horsa glider coming in at 100 mph hitting a hedgerow did not survive it. Neither did most people inside.

Some fields were flooded. Some were mined. Many were both.

517 gliders went into Normandy. 97 percent were abandoned in the field by the end of the operation. Most were destroyed.

General Don Pratt, assistant commander of the 101st Airborne, was in the first glider wave. His pilot managed to find a field near Hiesville and brought the glider down. It slid across the wet grass without slowing and hit a hedgerow at speed. The co-pilot died instantly. The pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Murphy, broke both legs. General Pratt suffered a broken neck. He became the first American general to die in the Battle of Normandy. His glider had landed in one piece.

Sergeant Eric Wilson's glider did not. It hit a building at high speed. Both of Wilson's legs were broken. He was trapped inside the wreckage, unable to move, in enemy-held Normandy, for two and a half days before anyone reached him.

Lieutenant Den Brotheridge had come in earlier than anyone, in the first glider to land in France, the silent coup de main assault on Pegasus Bridge just after midnight. His glider stopped 47 yards from its target. He led his men out at a run, reached the bridge, and was shot. He died within minutes, the first Allied soldier killed by enemy fire on D-Day.

The men who survived the landing did not get to stop. Glider pilots were not assigned to combat units. Once down, they were expected to fight as infantry, dig foxholes, guard prisoners, carry ammunition, do whatever was needed. Most of them had trained to fly, not to fight on the ground behind enemy lines in the dark.

They did it anyway.

Of the 517 gliders that went in, 222 were Horsa gliders. Most were destroyed either on landing or by German fire in the hours that followed. The Waco CG-4As fared slightly better but 97 percent of all gliders from the entire operation were eventually abandoned in Norman fields, broken and empty.

The men who flew them were not pilots in the traditional sense. They were soldiers who had been given just enough training to put an unarmed, engineless box of fabric and wood into a dark foreign field at 100 mph, full of men and equipment, with one attempt and no margin for error.

Many of them got it exactly right.

Many of them did not come home.

Today is June 6th.

Remember them too.

[Cody Mosbeck @cmosbeck6]

@Golfman055 @JonRothstein https://t.co/D51S2keR0I

[Sun Devil MBB @SunDevilHoops]

In this exclusive Sun Devil Extra interview, Randy Bennett shares why ASU is his dream job, how a “crazy” start didn’t shake his vision, and what it will take to compete in the Big 12.

https://t.co/5STBiqLzYc

#ForksUp /// @SunDevilPBP

[Sun Devil MBB @SunDevilHoops]

In this exclusive Sun Devil Extra interview, Randy Bennett shares why ASU is his dream job, how a “crazy” start didn’t shake his vision, and what it will take to compete in the Big 12.

https://t.co/5STBiqLzYc

#ForksUp /// @SunDevilPBP

[Cody Mosbeck @cmosbeck6]

@Kitkat_1216 @Homeicemn

[Doug Haller @DougHaller]

Concerned about Randy Bennett’s age and the heavy lifting required at Arizona State?

I talked w/ Todd Golden, Jock Landale and others about how Bennett will operate in Tempe.

(Spoiler alert: They’re not.) ⤵️

https://t.co/bYZzWznm2U via @NYTimes

[Cody Mosbeck @cmosbeck6]

@GCU_Logan @TravisBranham_ @247Sports @ebosshoops @BJenkins247 @DushawnLondon1 @AdamFinkelstein @ChrisKarpman @jrobcroy_1 Correct

[Arizona State Sun Devils @TheSunDevils]

It's a NEW ERA in Tempe! Purchase your Sun Devil Men's Basketball season tickets today 🔱

🎟️ https://t.co/T3rp9qlADo

[Cody Mosbeck @cmosbeck6]

@joshk70 @cisow77 He expects high quality shots, wear down other teams by forcing them to defend, and at the same time limiting their possessions. On D, no easy baskets, no open 3’s. Efficiency and quality all over the court, no short cuts. He had better shooters this year, pace increased.

[Justin bodily @JB2deuce]

The 5 coaches furthest west in the NCAA tourney either are Randy Bennett, look like Randy Bennett or have coached for Randy Bennett 😂

[BJ Media @BJMedia1]

Just like that Horizon is right back into the game.

Horizon ‘26 C Jackson Weber smashes a ball for 400 feet for a grand slam.

Horizon ‘26 OF Jake Giraud, Horizon ‘27 OF Braden Weber and Horizon ‘26 OF Kanon Faseler all get runs.

Pinnacle 5
Horizon 4

Bottom of 3rd

[Cody Mosbeck @cmosbeck6]

@morrisoncrying 2018 - Saint Mary’s had 40 RPI, 28-4 record, and were ranked #20 in AP poll on selection Sunday…… still got snubbed.

[West Coast Conference Basketball @WCChoops]

"What Randy has done at Saint Mary's is as remarkable and as incredible as any job that's been done in men's college basketball in the last 30 years." 

Listen to @SantaClaraHoops Head Coach Herb Sendek give high praise to @saintmaryshoops Head Coach Randy Bennett.

#WCChoops #WeRiseintheWest

[Rocco Miller @RoccoMiller8]

Santa Clara HC Herb Sendek on Randy Bennett:

"We really need to pause and think about Randy being one of the great coaches of the past 30 years. He built that program from the ground up."

Utterly remarkable. They're annually Top 20 in the country. I'm in awe of that program."

[Cody Mosbeck @cmosbeck6]

@EvanMiya Of the past 25/26 years, I wonder how many times RB & the @saintmaryshoops @smcgaels would be consistently where they are on this chart. Would love to see last years basketball budget spend on every chart. example Duke (21M)

[Delly Mouthguard (SMC Fan) @DellyMouthguard]

Mark Titus @clubtrillion came to Moraga and wrote this about SMC's gym 10 years ago.

After I pulled into the campus of Saint Mary’s College last Saturday night via the only road that leads to the school, I was told by an attendant to “park wherever you can find a space on campus” for the Gaels’ game with Gonzaga. I did. As I got out of my car, I realized that I had no idea where I was going, because the Gaels’ gym — McKeon Pavilion — is so small that it doesn’t stick out on campus like most arenas do. In fact, it doesn’t even show up on Google Maps.

This is stupid, I thought. Saint Mary’s has a legitimate basketball program with multiple alums in the NBA. Why don’t they build a real arena with a real parking lot so I don’t have to walk all over campus trying to find the game? I eventually figured it out, walked into the gym, and took my seat. Two minutes later, I was sweating. Five minutes after that, my back started hurting. This is when I realized that I’d flown across the country and driven a half hour to a tiny town in Northern California just to have the most miserable basketball experience of my life.

But then it happened: Saint Mary’s scored its first basket of the game and the home crowd exploded. In an instant, I went from thinking the Gaels needed an upgrade to hoping they never get a new gym. That’s because — and I don’t care if you don’t believe me — McKeon Pavilion on Saturday night was as insane of a college basketball atmosphere as I have ever experienced. The reason fans who haven’t been to McKeon assume it’s an easy place for visiting teams to win is that it holds only 3,500 people. There are two things to keep in mind here, though.

First, there were way more than 3,500 people at Saturday’s game. I was shoulder to shoulder the entire game and had to do a squatting half-stand to see over the guy in front of me without blocking the TV camera behind me. Hundreds of people lined the aisles and walls of the gym with nowhere to sit. I don’t know much about the fire codes in Moraga, California, but it was hard to believe they would have permitted the scene inside McKeon. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the Saint Mary’s athletic department let students dangle from the rafters above the court. The claustrophobic chaos made it feel like I was watching a pickup game at a legendary park in New York City.

The second thing is that the size of the gym is actually an advantage for the Gaels. It’s a hot, humid, cramped concrete box that does the exact opposite of absorbing noise. No matter how loud you think it gets in McKeon, it gets twice as loud as that. I’ve never been so uncomfortable, and I was a fan. I can’t imagine what it feels like to step into that jungle as a visiting player. Thankfully, Grant Gibbs, who played at Gonzaga for a year before transferring to Creighton [and also played there as a Bluejay], can provide perspective.

@clubtrillion I'm saying man. That place is bonkers. It's like bringing hard drugs to high school party— Grant Gibbs (@DoubleGfor3) February 22, 2015

As a neutral party and Ohio State alum, I’ve never been more serious in my life than when I say that I would rather the Buckeyes play their home games in McKeon Pavilion than at the 19,000-seat Schottenstein Center.

[Cody Mosbeck @cmosbeck6]

@seanmmullen @MJ_GoGaels @saintmaryshoops @MantasJuze2 Shaw has been outstanding all year. If you want to get on the floor at Saint Mary’s play your heart out every night on D. He has done so every game, every night.

[Josh Dubow @JoshDubowAP]

Saint Mary's beats Gonzaga 70-59 in final WCC regular season matchup between the teams.

Gonzaga in WCC last 5 seasons (conference tournament included):
7-7 vs Saint Mary's
71-5 vs everyone else

[Josh Dubow @JoshDubowAP]

Randy Bennett beats Gonzaga for 18th time in last 22 seasons. The rest of the WCC has combined for 22 wins vs Gonzaga in that span

[Cody Mosbeck @cmosbeck6]

@morrisoncrying Not sure if you were following them at the time, but this was one of the games where they decided to go this route for the entire game. Feb 4th 2017. Rahon (current assistant coach) was one of the PG’s at the time and an elite defender. Score was 34-9 at half.