Streaming live on the iHeartRadio Act. This is I on the Ball with Steve
Rivera and Jacobzalez on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. Welcome back on the ball here
on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Jaconzalez here in the studio. Steve is
on the road, kind of in the middle of nowhere, in and out
of us arrange. He said he's out of gas to I worry about Steve
sometimes when he goes on the road. But we've been trying to get Amazing
to look over it, yeah, to talk about some stuff. But we're
gonna try and get him again in a little bit. But for now,
we've got breaking news with ten of lease. This is I on the Ball,
Breaking news on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. All right, welcome to breaking
news on IE on the Ball. So yesterday Desiree read friends while the U
of A's new athletic director was nominated for Sports Business Journal's Athletic Director of the
Year. So I think that's pretty cool he took a new job. I
was kind of not expecting that. Well, it shows that she clearly did
a good job. Yeah, Well, and that Arizona did a good job
in going to get her right that you know, she was obviously been was
doing a great job at Missouri. So now she's Arizona's athletic director and you
hope that, you know, the quality of quality of work and the job
that she's done bodes well for what Arizona's got. Yeah, that's I feel
like that's really exciting for Arizona. That you know, there was, like
you I remember you're talking about maybe a month ago or so, the cloud
that was over Arizona for a while, right, and then it just kept
clearing up a little by little with Tommy Light's contract extension, the new ad
hire. You know, I forget all this Robin stuff and then this is
just like another thing that is good for the athletic department. And I feel
like I had a good time too. Yeah, no, it is.
And I mean Arizona's got a lot of work to do because there's just so
much went south for for a while there and now you're kind of trying to
right the ship again. We we kind of felt that when uh uh,
you know, you're coming out of the Kevin Sumlin era in football, they
brought in uh Jed Fish. I'm already forgetting his name right, but you
know right, you know, pretty early on you felt like things were going
well. Tommy Lloyd got hired at the same time Caitlin Lowe, uh,
Chip Hale, all these and you just felt like there was sunshine back on.
And then this financial thing comes up and it's cloudy again. Yeah,
super cloudy, raining. But now you know you got you got what you
what you think or you hope is a uh uh you know, some some
hope that they're going to get this fix and that Arizona's not going to be
in a mess for a very long time. Yeah, but that definitely bodes
well for Arizona Sports Businessjournal Athletic Director of the Year nomination. That's huge.
Yeah, good for her. MLB starts tonight at I should say this morning,
tomorrow morning at three am, the Dodgers versus the Padres in where was
it again, Korea? Yeah? No, the dog The Major League Baseball
season actually starts. Dodgers, My Dodgers, My Dodgers, your Dodgers.
All right, I have a two game set. Uh, they're the home
team one day, the visiting team the next day, but with uh with
the Padres, and then they come back they play the Freeway series with the
Angels and then the season kicks off for everybody a week from Thursday. Like,
there's a lot of pressure on the Dodgers right now. Did they just
spend a billion It wasn't it like one point billion dollars a couple of guys,
Yeah, on a a couple of guys in one off season. Yeah,
so now, I yeah, I mean it's a I think. Uh,
I'm excited. You know, they're the the uh uh what do you
call it? The odds makers. They've gotten one hundred four and a half
wins. It's a lot of wins, and I don't think anybody else I
think maybe I maybe the Braves are picked to win one hundred and two.
Other than that sense, nobody's picked to win one hundred one hundred games.
Well that's good. So I'm excited. I'm game to make it out there.
Yeah. Uh. I went to U a couple of games, uh
last season in the summer. Yeah, in the summertime. A game in
the summer. Oh, I didn't go last season, went the season before,
but when I saw him up at up in Phoenix for a regular season
game, then also went to that that playoff game. I tried to I
tried. I'm not trying to go see them at Dodger Stadium anywhere else.
Of course. Yeah, I grew up going to Dodgers Stadium. Staples Center
had some good teams growing up, you know, first time I went to
Dodgers Stadium six years old, I think I probably was like five too.
Yeah, I kind of remember going, like with my kindergarten class. For
some reason, I think we did like that, you know, one day,
all right, next up. So that's pretty much all we have for
breaking news, but I wanted I saw this article today from ESPN talking about
the biggest upsets in March Madness history. Now that we're you know, we're
on the March Mania subject. You know, we're talking about the NCAA Tournament,
March Media, March Madness. So there have only been two sixteen over
one upsets in the history last obviously one was last year Farley Dickinson beat Perdue,
right, that was the second one ever. And but Perdue, I
mean, Perdue was always a top seed. But they never I feel like
this happens to them, where they get upset early on, kind of like
you know our wildcats sometimes, well, you know, Arizona's got this reputation
that was devel up years ago. When you know loud Olsen and his teams
lost lost in the first round, you know, three times, three out
of four years in between there they went to a final four. But that
Santa Clair loss was something that Arizona fans will always remember. The East Tennessee
State lost the year before that, again a game that has always remember.
And then they lost after the year after the final four, they got beat
by Miami, Ohio. So you know it's your fans just remember that stuff.
They remember the first round losses almost more than they remember the final four.
Yeah. So the only other sixteen over one upset in history was UMBC.
So that's the University of Maryland Baltimore County was a sixteen C and beat
Virginia in twenty eighteen. And Virginia entered that tournament with the second best odds
to win the national championship with the loaded roster right and couldn't do it.
Couldn't even make it one game, which again you just never know it lost
by twenty Oh my god. It And for fans that feel like this is
unique to Arizona, that you lose in the in the first round, it's
not. It never has been, but people feel that way. I mean,
those were the only two ever. Sixteen over one we know that is
uncommon, very uncommon, but the fifteen over two is a little bit more
common. I don't know how many times it happened, but maybe like eight
times, six times. The top of this list was last year's lost to
Princeton. That was the top of the fifteen over two because only one Princeton
players scored in double figures, with only fifteen points. The you know,
the other rest of the seven of their eight players on their roster scored at
least six points. But Princeton only shop forty percent from the field and sixteen
percent from three while Arizona their offense just wasn't on. It was kind of
a low scoring game for Arizona. They only scored fifty five points compared to
Princeton's fifty nine and in the last five minutes Princeton went on a nine and
oh run. And that was that ball game. That was that. And
I remember leaving. I was in Barcelona at a Arizona sports bar. You
have a sports bar, that's such a thing. The owner went to u
of a wow, and we remember leaving like oh we got this and then
we lost. Yeah. No, I you know, fans hate it.
We hate it. Everybody hates it. You just you just deal with it.
I look, Long, Beach State, Princeton, whoever it is.
You just got to go out there and play your best game every time and
beat them. And if it was only that's yeah, if you just play
well, you'll take care of business. Arizona's got you know, it's got
the talent, probably has the best talent on the floor arguably until the it'll
at the very minimum get to the Elite eight. You know, whether they
play Baylor or whoever, whoever, they've got the better team. They do
the questions do they have the better team that day? All about if ye
to say, if you play better? Who plays the best that day?
Right? Who plays the best that night? Right? The Wagner Howard game
is on. I'm trying to get a score. My my iPad is kind
of screwing up, but they're out of break so hopefully it'll come on with
Wagner is up. I would you know, I wouldn't even known who I
should take in this game, who to bet on? Who to think?
Might never heard of either of these? I've heard of both of them,
just not enough to do anything with with some of my money. So the
Wagner is sixteen and fifteen overall and Howard Bison is eighteen and sixteen. So
there you go pretty even. Yep, well that's why they they're both sixteen.
The winner. This is a sixteen seed that will end up play let's
see, they will play North Carolina and that will be on Thursday, and
then later on today after this game, you got Virginia and Colorado State.
Virginia again just happy to be there, Colorado State just happy to be there.
All these teams were you know, for last four in So that's the
second game later on today, and that is that's not for sixteen seeds.
Seed, that's a ten seed. That makes no sense to me. I
don't understand. Yah, you should have asked that. Yeah, well,
yeah, I guess, and I guess I understand that. You know,
what they were trying to do is not make just the sixteen seeds play their
way into the sixty fourteen bracket, like okay, we got two sixteen seed
seeds here to sixteen there, and then make some other teams that maybe aren't
sixteen seeds but maybe we're barely got in make them play well, why would
they be a ten seed? Though? I couldn't begin to tell you,
Yeah, couldn't begin to tell weird. That would have been another question that
Charles McClelland would have said, we got I need a half an hour to
explain that to you. Yeah, I hope you, I hope if you're
listening, you've got a chance to listen to our interview with Charles McLelland.
If you didn't, he's the head of the or the chair of the NCAA
Tournament Selection Committee. We'll uh uh put it. It'll be on the podcast.
We'll post that tonight. Look for it on on the iHeart website or
the iHeart app. Look for it on Spotify, look for an Apple Podcasts,
although I'll be sure to post it both on our Twitter, Twitter page
and Facebook page so it's easy for you to find and don't forget. Join
our bracket, uh sweet dinner somewhere. If you can beat me, yeah,
well yeah, you gotta beat. You gotta beat analyse, you gout.
You don't have to beat Steve Rye. But you can compare your bracket
to minus Steve's if that means anything to you at all. Look, if
you think we're experts, we're not. Yeah, don't don't think that.
Don't think that at all. You know about as much as we do on
all of this. I mean, did we see Arizona more often than you
did? Maybe because we went to all the home games? Right? You
know as much about Stetson as I do, so, which is pretty much
nothing. Yeah, nothing, I don't I have nothing on those guys.
Yeah. Coming up in a in a few minutes, Ryan Racky's going to
join us. Ryan the former UH radio guy here in Tucson. He's with
Westwood one Sports. He was on the call at the PAC twelfth Tournament,
the last PAC twelfth tournament in history, last week for Westwood one Sports.
And then he'll be UH. He'll be on the call in the in the
Spokane UH first and second rounds for Westwood one. And so we'll talk to
him about you know, some of the you got San Diego State up there,
you got Auburn up there, Grand Canyon College in the in the tournament,
Alabama up there. So he's got some teams that you know, our
of interest to to us here in ear and Tucson. So we'll talk to
him about that, about that bracket should be fun. Yeah, So how
did you feel about being at the last tournament Arizona. I was sad the
day I got there, you know, and we're only you know, we're
seeing the staff, right. I got there on Tuesday afternoon and the staff
they're in there, they're setting up, and there's there's a cloud. You
know, there's some sadness to to the end, sadness to the fact that
some of these people aren't going to have jobs now. The pac ten is
going to continue to exist because it's got Oregon State in Washington State and a
whole bunch of money, so they're still going to do things, but you
know, they're letting go a lot of the staff. You know, Ashley
Adamson said goodbye, you know, she the studio host us as Yogi Ros
did at the end of the football season. You know that it was a
real kind of a heartfelt little video that they did and posted on social media,
and it really gave you a sense of sadness that that this thing is
gone after all these after all these years. So, yeah, Tommy Lloyd
give any comment about it, He said, you know, I can't think
about that. Yeah, I mean, he said he was sad to see
it go, but I'm not thinking about this being the last tournament and us
trying to be the winners of the last tournament. We're just trying to win
a game. Yeah, and that was his approach. It sounds yeah,
no, it's exactly so, but it was good. All right, let's
go take our break. We're to come back. Ryan Rack, you from
most Wood one Sports, will be joining us and we'll pick his brain on
the Spokane UH subregional as well as his thoughts on the last backrof tournaments.
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and oh's, It's Steve Rivera and Jacin Salaz. This is I on the
Ball on Fox Sports fourteenth fifty. Welcome back to on the Ball here on
Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm your host for the day, Jay Gonzalez.
My partner in crime, Steve Rivera, is on the road in the middle
of nowhere, somewhere in UTAs we've been. We've got them on the phone
a couple of times and dropped the call. So instead of Steve, we've
got Ryan Raky with us on the phone. Ryan in sell, it would
sell a reception area at his home getting ready to head out to Spokane for
the first and second rounds coming up this weekend. Ryan, Welcome to the
show. Well, Jay, how were you? We're good, We're good.
Uh, it was great to see you over the weekend in Vegas.
Let's go there for a minute, because you know you're you've been around here
in this part of the country Pac twelve all these years. Kind grew up
in it like we did, you know, and Lease our intern here asked
me, you know, how did I feel at the tournament last year?
How did you feel at the tournament knowing from the time you walked in the
door that this was it for that tournament? Yeah, I mean, sad
is the word that comes to mind through the whole thing. Just sitting there
on Thursday and watching the quarterfinal games and looking around and just knowing that's the
last time we were going to be there for that. It just kind of
hit me and it really was sad. And then, you know, doing
the games on Friday and Saturday, obviously, well the games are going on,
you're very invested in that and focused on the job at hand. But
you know, when it was over, just you know, walking to dinner
and I was a PJ. Carlesmo, who I've worked with the last couple
of years, and you know, he lives in Seattle, he's been around
the PAC twelve forever. We were both just saying how sad it was that
that was the last time we were going to get to see that great league
that has existed for so long and has accomplished so many things and now is
just gone. It's tough to reconcile. Still, I don't know that it's
completely hit me yet. It might take until next March when we're not at
Femobile Arena for the PAC twelve tournament before it fully sets in. But just
really just really sad all the way around to see it go. I think
it was avoidable and unfortunately the wrong people were in charge and made some really
really poor decisions and as a result, this is where we're at. Yeah.
You know, I go to this breakfast club on Tuesday mornings and there's
a guy, you know, he's an older guy who played football. Let
him put this way. He played football at Oklahoma in a leather helmet,
so that'll just tell you. And I went up to him today and I
said, and we were talking about that, and I said, you know
what, this is all your fault. This is all Oklahoma's fault. You
guys did that and you started that. He said, no, no,
no, it was the USC and ucl I said, no, you started
that, and I kind of got up on him a little bit. But
that's kind of how I feel. Like somebody got a ball rolling and it
never stopped rolling until the whole thing was destroyed. And you know, you
can maybe go all the way back to when there was rumors that the Pac
twelve was courting Oklahoma and Texas and when that didn't happen and the news leaked,
and then Oklahoma and Texas kind of used that to their advantage got a
better deal out of the Big Twelve, and then ultimately moved to the SEC.
There's probably a lot of different starting points we can look at, going
all the way back to the early days of the PAC twelve network and just
the terrible decisions that were made about how to market that and not get it
on the air so so few people can see it. There's so many different
things we could point to, but just really, when you think about it,
it's a lot of really really poor decisions made by who are otherwise very
smart people over the course of a long time, and I think led to
this. Yeah, so, as a tournament thought it was still a great
tournament, right unexpected Oregon comes out of nowhere takes down Arizona. Even after
they took down Arizona, I still thought Colorado was gonna was going to beat
them. But you know, and Fally Dante put on a show. I
compared the show he put onto what DeAndre Ayton did back in twenty eighteen,
who just dominated the tournament, and I felt like that, I felt like
I was seeing a replay of that. Yeah, Dante was unstoppable. And
you know, both those teams, Oregon and Colorado, suffered so many injuries
throughout the year that contributed to them being where they were seeing them at full
strength. You realize what those teams could have been had they stayed healthy.
But Dante was unbelievable. I mean, twelve for twelve in the championship game
and now his last two plus games against Colorado, he's hit the twenty six
of twenty six from the floor. That's crazy. I mean the show that
they put on and what he did specifically was fun to watch, and I
think those are always fun. That's when conference tournaments are at their best.
When you have somebody playing who needs the win to get in and knows if
they lose their going home, and they figure out a way to get it
done. That's when conference tournaments, I think hit their peak. And we
saw that with Organ on Saturday night. Yeah. So now you're headed to
Spokan some interesting stuff over there. You've got Auburn over there, You've got
San Diego State coming off their Final four appearance last year. For you know,
Arizona folks, you got Grand Canyon, Alabama, you got you got
some good you got some interesting games over there. Tell us a little bit
about your preview. You know what you expect to see over there in Spokane.
Well, I'm really looking forward to the Grand Canyon Saint Mary's games.
I think it's going to be a really good one. You know. Grand
Canyon played Gonzaga last year in the first round and lost. They get the
WCC championon this year in Saint Mary's. A Saint Mary's team that I really
like but has been beat up, and I think you've already seen where some
people are maybe picking that as a frendy upset because Saint Mary's is not at
their peak because they're really playing six guys right now. And credit to them,
they were able to hold off Gonzaga with only six guys and win the
WCC. Can they do it in the tournament? We'll find out. I
think that's going to be a real fun five to twelve matchup. You talked
about some of the other ones in Alabama and Charleston, both teams that chuck
threes like crazy and want to score a ton of points. They're going to
get up and down the floor, which could be fun. It's always fun
to see the Ivy League kids. I had Princeton last year, obviously not
just beating Arizona, but getting to the sweet sixteen. They get an Auburn
team that is really playing well, right now, they're hot, and then
you know San Diego State and UAB. San Diego State, to their credit,
makes a run to the Mountain West title game, but they've not been
the same. You know, they were middle of the pack Mountain West team
this year made that run to the title game. They're in as a five
seed and now take on a UAB team that has some pretty good numbers.
So I do think we have some pretty good matchups and I think it'll be
fun. Whenever you get to the four thirteens and the five twelves, you
always have that upset potential. So that's what everybody loves about that first weekend
of the tournament. Yeah, so when you're doing you got obviously a lot
of prep to do for this thing. But how much of the rest of
the tournament do you get to pay attention to what's going on? Are you
just zeroed in on what you've got to do. Yeah, I don't get
to see much of the rest. I'm really right now. Since the selection
show ended on Sunday, it's pretty much been grinding on these eight teams,
trying to get ready for eight teams on Friday. You know, I leave
first thing in the morning. So it's it's a lot of work. You
know, when you normally spend a week or so getting ready for just one
game and two teams, and that you got eight to get ready for in
about two and a half days, it's a lot. So we spend most
of the Thursday interviewing coaches and players and the teams we're gonna talk to.
So we'll see snippets here and there, we'll catch some highlights. Yeah,
maybe we'll go to dinner when we're done and get to see a little bit
of a game while we're eating, but not much. You're got to focus
on the teams that you've got and then the next weekend starts all over again,
just getting refocused on the next batchup teams. Okay, I have a
burning question because you know, you know, I listen to you on the
radio and you're so you go, you're gotta get mad when I say flawless.
Right, you mentioned you mentioned every guy that touches the ball, and
I you know, that's it. And I don't know if it's on purpose
or whatever, but when I'm listening to you, I feel like I'm I
feel like there's some Brian Jeffries back in there, and I know he's one,
you know he's one of your mentors. How do you memory all the
names of all the guys so that you can call a game and without even
thinking, know who's got the ball as it goes around, you know,
on offense or whatever. How the hell do you do that? Well,
first of all, thank you. Second of all, far from Paula's third.
Yes, Brian was a big influence on me. To answer your question,
you know, a lot of it is just watching a lot of games.
When I'm doing regular season games, I try to watch at least the
last three games that the team has played and just kind of sit there and
get that repetition of seeing guys who's out there on the court. The combinations
coaches use what guys look like in their uniforms. Sometimes it's a stupid tip
off of you know, well that's the guy in long sleep, so that's
Smith, and you know Jones wears the bright orange sneakers. Just things that
can tip you off during the course of the game. So it's really just
a lot of study. It's what makes the first weekend of the tournament really
hard, because there's just no way you're going to get a chance to sit
down and watch, you know, the last three games of all eight teams
you're about to see. You're lucky if you get to see one of their
games. So it's just you know, going in and really it's it's doing
the best you can, to be honest, just trying to commit as much
as you can the memory, try to watch some of the shoot around and
get an idea of what the main storylines are and go. Teams like Auburn
are tough. I mean they're gonna play twelve guys, so you you do
the best you can. Selfishly, I think we all kind of root for
those teams that play six guys because those are a little bit easier. But
you know, it is what it is and that it's a lot of fun.
So you just do the best you can over the prep time you have.
Well, you know, for those of us who are you know,
in our cars or at work or whatever, and you get to listen to
them on the radio, you paint a really good picture. So I will
say that I love I love listening to you and you know the football you
do and all that. It's just like I'm fascinated by how much work you
have to put into it and how it shows. But it's cool. So
let's talk a little bit about the rest of the rest of the tournament.
You know, so you got some complaining from Yukon that they got the toughest
bracket and they're the number one seed. You got Arizona and Long Beach State
and Tommy Lloyd and Monson are good friends. I look at the brackets and
I feel like Purdue in terms of one through four seeds maybe has the easiest
road. Houston State and number one seed despite getting blown out by thirty points
by Iowa State. There's some people who felt that Iowa State should have gotten
that number one seed. What have been some of your thoughts generally on the
bracket that came out. Well, I do think this year's committee had a
very tough job because of all the big thieves that last weekend. That makes
it really tough. Teams take an automatic bid, somebody's got to come out,
and you know, you hear the complaining from Saint John's and Villanova and
whoever. It's okay. So if you put them in and take another team
out, there's going to be complaining from there as well. There's always going
to be a cut line and there's always going to be people that are left
out. I tend to look at it as, look, you had a
whole season to play your way into this, right you had a conference tournament
you could have won to make sure that you got in. So I kind
of and over all of the who got snubbed and who didn't? I think
right now we're at a place where, you know, the last team that
got in, there's probably eight ten other teams that look very much like that
team, and when they're left out, they don't like it. But if
the other team had gotten left out, they wouldn't like it. Somebody's always
going to be unhappy. I do think Connecticut got a really tough draw as
the number one seed. It does seem like their bracket is pretty loaded now.
They do get to play in Brooklyn and Boston, so they get to
stay pretty close to home. But man, that's gonna be a tough road
for them. With people talking about Iowa State maybe being a one and instead
they end up as the lowest two. Was interesting. Illinois the three,
is probably playing as well as anybody we already mentioned. Auburn, who's the
four seed. They've been hot, just won the SEC tournament, So it
was not an easy road for Yukon, that's for sure. Are they a
prohibit a favorite or is there or is there even one this year? You
know, I think if you're gonna pick a favorite, you have to pick
Yukon. But then obviously you go to the nobody's won back to back titles
since those teams in what six o seven? It just seems like the reigning
champs stumbles somewhere along the way. I think Yukon's the best team. I
think they've been the best team all year. I think they found a way
to get better even as the season has has gone on, and even as
good as they were to start. So I think they are the best team.
Of course, as we know, that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to
win the whole thing. You saw your Zona last week and you saw him
lose to Oregon. They you know, had lost to USC last week,
and in the regular season, there's all this Princeton talk. What you know,
what you what did you see from Arizona? What do you think of
Arizona? Honestly, Jay, it's the same thing I've seen all year.
It's an extremely talented team who seems to kind of play when they want to
play, and when they want to play, they're really really good, and
at other times they just don't seem to be there completely. The inconsistency got
them last year in that first round game against Princeton. I think it got
them against USC on the last weekend of the regular season. I think it
got them against the Oregon I mean, they were up fourteen that game,
with a chance to absolutely put the Ducks away before the half and just couldn't
do it. And then when Oregon made a run in the second half,
it kind of felt like Princeton from last year, where Arizona just had no
answers. Caleb Love obviously is struggling really badly. I would expect that he's
gonna rebound. I don't think he's gonna stay in this funk. But yeah,
it's kind of the same thing I've seen from them all year, where
I think they're a really good team and if they play to their capabilities,
they can beat pretty much anybody. But you just wonder can they do it
with consistency? That's the question. I don't know, can they do it
four or five or six times? Right? Right? Okay, pick a
team not Yukon and not Arizona that you think, you know could win this
thing, or should win this thing, or might win this thing. Well,
I'll say I know that Tennessee had some struggles down to stretch. But
when you got a guy like Dalton connect who can go off at any minute
and gets you thirty or maybe even forty in a game, I think that
makes a team like them dangerous. I know there are two seed We're not
going too far down the line here, but it's a team that I saw
in person towards the end of the regular season a game they didn't play all
that well against Alabama on the road, but it's found a way to win.
I like Rick Barnes. I know there's a thing. You know,
Tennessee hasn't been to the Elite Eight since Bruce Pearl took him there, so
talking about them getting to the Final four and winning it all might be a
little bit of a stretch. But I like teams that have guys like that
that can can carry the load this time of the year. And I think
if you look at their bracket, you know Purdue is a very formidable team.
The questions about Purdue they're outside shooting have been really good all year,
kind of let them down a little bit in the Big Ten tournament. What
will it be like if they get into pressure games in the NCAA tournament.
Can those guards step up around Zach Edy? And then you look at the
rest of the bracket. You know, Creighton has been up and down as
a three. Kansas I think is really struggling right now as a four.
Gonzaga is not the same Gonzaga at five. That region seems like it's fairly
open for a team like Tennessee to get to at least the Elite eight,
and then you know, test themselves against a team like Purdue, right a
team you know this year's you know San Diego State, FAU Miami, somebody
out of nowhere that could come out and do this. I know a lot
of people are saying, you know, McNee State, there are a twelve
seed playing Gonzaga in the first round. Who you know who are some of
those teams? But a great question. If I knew that, I probably
wouldn't be working in the games. I would just be sitting on the pile
of money that I've made over years in doing this. I don't know,
honestly, it's a great question. Jay, I will tell you that I
saw Josh Passner say this on Sunday on ESPN, and I agree with him.
I think once you get to a certain point, let's say to about
I don't know, twelve to fifteen. I don't think there's a great separation
between those teams and the teams that were like the last four in I think
there is a lot of parody. There's a lot of teams that do something
really well but then have massive laws. I mean, I'm gonna see a
team in Alabama in our region. Alabama scores at the highest rate in the
country. There's only five teams in the nation that defend worse than Alabama this
year. So what happens. Does Alabama go out and score one hundred and
win or does Alabama give up one hundred and lose one hundred to ninety six.
I think there's a lot of those teams that you can look at and
say, man, they do this, and they do this, and they
do this, but they also have this and this and this, and I
think that goes all the way up to some of the highly seated teams.
So I don't know, I think this could. I know we've said this
a lot the last few years, but and we got a little bit of
the last year with San Diego State and FAU going to the final four.
This could be that total chaos tournament where you see all kinds of upsets.
Yeah, all right, all right, we appreciate the time again, enjoy
the tournament as much as you can. I know you've got a lot of
work in front of you, but we do appreciate your time as we always
do. Love the insight, and go memorize some more of those names.
All right, Jay, sounds good. Good to be with you, Safe
travels. All right. That was Ryan Recki, who'll be calling the Spokane
region for Westwood one Sports. Tucson. Guy has done a great job become
a national announcer and we love having him on. He's a great and so
thanks for listening to that, and thanks for coming Ryan, and we're gonna
go and take our last break. We're going to try and raise Steve on
the phone. Maybe he's hit some civilization, babe. It's been a two
hours in a while right now. Maybe he's got our story driving. He
might be lost, so he could be well, he's with Brian Peterson,
so the chance of those two guys getting lost are actually pretty good, So
stick around, well hopefully, well get him on and we'll close out this
show. Thanks for being here. We'll be right back. If you're an
Arizona Man's basketball fan, you know it's been successful for nearly forty years.
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Streaming live on the iHeartRadio app. This is I on the Ball with
Steve Ravera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen to fifteen. Welcome back TI
on the Ball on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Jay Gonzalez, your host
for the day here with ANALYSTI our intern who's capably running the board here and
trying to get a hold of Steve, who last we heard is in the
middle of nowhere and somewhere in Utah and his way to Salt Lake City.
We're going to try and raise him. But had a good conversation with with
Ryan Raky Away was a great guest. I love his insight. Uh you
know, great radio voice. Yeah, you can tell right away right like
I've heard that before. But you know, fascinating the work that he does.
He does the NFL, He does a Sunday night game for the NFL
on Westwood One. He does you know, conference tournaments. He does college
basketball all through the year and now he's doing n C Double a's uh yeah,
and he's in Spokane this coming is coming week, and you know a
lot of good stuff. So if you're out out and about and you want
to listen to one of the games, you know, there's a lot of
ways to listen to the broadcast of the games. If you're in your car,
whatever. If you've got Sirius XM and you've got a certain level of
a subscription, you can get all of the n c Double A Tournament games.
Or you know, if you're following a specific team, you on the
Varsity app or whatever, and you can you can pick up their games.
For instance, Arizona's on the Varsity app. That's where you get Brian Jeffries
or on twelve ninety, I'll have to be listening because on Thursday I'll be
driving up to Phoenix and going out. Got a flight going uptown. All
right, So but you know all NCAA tournament talk. We will be here
again tomorrow working on some guests for tomorrow, the U of A bat You
have a press conference at the at the Salt Lake City site is from eleven
to eleven thirty and Rivera will be at that so we'll get his comments from
him, and he'll be in Salt Lake City, so we'll obviously have some
phone reception. Yeah, hopefully hopefully right is civilization. Yeah, so we'll
get his thoughts on, you know, on the comments that we get from
from Arizona at their press conference tomorrow morning. Yeah, I'll be exciting.
Yeah. So then then, as I mentioned, we're going to do the
show on Friday, there's only games from eleven at eleven o'clock our time.
Games should be over by about one o'clock or so. Steve's gonna do some
writing, but he said he had come on and we'll have some reaction both
of us on the game. Hopefully positive reaction. Right, all good,
Arizona played great, right, what a collaborative effort from the team. He
will been to the press conference. I'll try and figure out what I think.
I think those can be picked up live stream somewhere, and so we'll
trying to cut up some Tommy Tommy Lloyd quotes from the from the game,
a f postgame and then hoping that Arizona's playing, I'll get on Saturday.
We'll have another show on Friday. Again, Steve will still be in Salt
Lake City. We'll get him to come on and preview that game as well,
assuming Arizona is still playing. So will he just come back whenever they
right, whenever they lose. You know, he was very unfortunate for him.
Lat year. Drove all the way to Sacramento, was there less than
twenty four hours, and drove back and I wasn't very happy. Yeah.
So so you know, so we are planning to you know, to have
a show all week long, even though we know a lot of you might
be watching the game, uh in the afternoon during our show. In fact,
on Thursday, uh, the air Zona women play at four o'clock,
so they're gonna tip off during our show. So we'll you know, give
you some updates. We're not supposed to do play by play, and we
won't do play by play. I'm not gonna try and do play by play,
but we'll give you some updates on the air Zone. A women's game
taking on Auburn in Storage, Connecticut at four o'clock, also on Thursday,
with seven players, sevens the story of their season. Yeah yeah, but
you know, give it up to them. I know, again we've said
it before, there's fans out there who think that there's something bad going on
in the program because you know, players, you know, come and they
go. But you know what gotta find a fit. You gotta have players
who want to do well you want them to do. Ada Barnes has proven
to be a good coach. Is she hard to play for? Maybe?
But maybe not maybe her. Maybe it's you know, the fits just wasn't
right for for the players who have come and gone. The seven she's got
clearly have potential that have potential though right at Stanford. Yeah, so it'll
be interesting to see. And you know, again, don't don't let Ada
catch you saying that they're in a playing game. They are in the tournament.
According it'll beat you butt. So but that that'll that'll be fun.
Would love to take your calls. Five two zero, four, one sixty.
We're still trying to get Steve on On on the on the line.
We'll see if we can we can raise him one last time here. I
don't know if we will be able to, but uh, we'll give it.
We'll give it a shot. He's he's headed up there with Brian Peterson,
a frequent guest of the show. Is he writes for Easy Desert Swarm
and uh he's there going up there to cover that stuff together. So we'll
we'll we'll try and raise him as well. But Uh, you know,
folks, it's it's time, right. We're a couple of days away.
No more talking about and you know what you're gonna do, how you're going
to play. You know, the thing that you hear from everybody that's been
following this team all year long is we hope that they get the consistency that
they haven't been showing all year long. And so if they can do that,
then you know, then everything will be all right because again they'll be
the better team on the court most of the rest of the way out.
Just do the job. That's all they gotta do. Just do the job.
Do the work you're supposed to do. Capable. Maybe he's not here,
we can talk about that. Maybe they can just pick up a little
bit of momentum, have some fire going, and maybe it will take them.
And I think that will be a big thing for any team that makes
it for this tournament. You need to have momentum. Sorry, Steve,
Well, you know, you never know what's going through you know, the
players heads. You know, they're eighteen to twenty three or twenty four year
olds. You know, if they fall behind early in the game, does
that get into their head about you know, oh, God, you know,
we're on our way to losing the game or whatever. You know,
And in any game, you want to get off to a good start.
And so that's what you're looking for from Arizona to get out there, you
know, to be kind of blunt about it, you know, step on
Long Beach State's neck and never let them think they have a chance to win
the game. You do that, you take care of business. You know,
you try, and you get you know, you have an easy win.
I do feel like Arizona kind of picks up some momentum when they have,
you know, what should be an easy game and they because you know,
we've seen them play easier teams and win by a lot a lot of
points. And I feel like that gives them a lot of confidence. Yeah,
and that's like kind of how they start their season sometimes and it gets
them going right. And let's not ignore the fact that in the n C
Double A tournament, you know, nerves get a little more. Yeah,
there's a lot of pressure, get a little tight, you know, and
the fear of losing becomes a deal that you have to deal with. And
and Arizona, unfortunately, is in a situation we're coming off the coming off
the uh, the uh Princeton game from last year, of course they're going
to be thinking about it. Tommy Lloyd said that yesterday. In fact,
you know what, let's play that clip. There's a clip up there.
Uh it says last year right there on the Okay, let's let's put that
on. And here what Tommy Lloyd had to say. We played this yesterday,
but why don't you hear it again today? What he said about the
Princeton factor. You know, for this team, well, last year was
last year. I mean, we've never denied it. We've owned it,
you know, I mean, it's part of our history, part of our
legacy. And you know, when you're in a program like Arizona, you
you you're gonna have great successes and you're also gonna have some things that look
like monumental failures. It's just it's just how it goes. And so you
know, we've never avoided it. All year, we talk about it.
We we openly acknowledge it in our program. We're not embarrassed about it.
So you know, we're looking forward to another opportunity this year, and and
this team's journey is different than last year's journey. So you know, we're
excited to get out there and and and and play a play Thursday. And
another thing that he was asked about, and this was his press conference from
Sunday after the bracket was announced. You know, do you worry about your
team, you know, your two seed playing a fifteen seed. Do you
worry about your team looking ahead? Here's what he had to say. Well,
we talked to him about it, and and I always believe, you
know, if they're and it's hard. It's hard because there's a lot of
outside noise, But if they're more attracted and captivated by the outside noise,
maybe we're not doing a good enough job internally in our program on you know,
bringing things back home. And and we're a program that takes a ton
of pride in our culture. And you know, we know we're not perfect,
but but we work on it on a daily base. And there's not
a perfect culture in the world. But but I know ours is healthy and
strong, and so I think our guys will be locked in all right.
So you know, these are all the things that fans think about. And
that's what we ask when you know, we go to a press conference like
that, because that's our job, you know, bring the fan perspective and
have Tommy answer questions that the fans have. And those are two of the
questions. One are you thinking about Purdue? And two, you know,
is there a chance of you're getting overconfident because you're a two seed. Do
you think last year they were looking ahead and they were over confident, maybe
not going in, but when they got that big lead, you know,
then they start thinking, Okay, we got this. Then all of a
sudden, here comes Princeton. They start making some shots and the next thing,
you know, yeah, the next thing, you know, you lose
the game. And that's how you lose. Because no matter what you say,
every team in this tournament, from seed number one to seed number sixty
eight is a good team. Every team they're a good basketball team. And
that's you just have to face that. And and you know, you hate
using the cliche any given day, but on any given day in college basketball,
when you only got to beat somebody one time, anything can happen.
And so yeah, and that's what makes this tournament great. And even in
spite of the fact that these guys are talking about expanding the tournament again,
I'm like, stop, there's nothing wrong with it. Just nothing wrong.
This is the most perfect format. I feel like, yeah, just leave
this tournament to the you know, the way it is. I want to
play one more clip because immediately after the after the loss to Oregon, they're
they're starting to, you know, put some spin on a loss like this,
and one of the one of them was, Okay, now you've lost.
You got an extra day of preparation. How much is that day really
going to help? Are you, you know, not happy about it,
but kind of looking at the bright side of that. Here's what Tommy had
to say about that. I'm being honest with I'm not doing it. I'm
so much more well rested right now standing here than I was the last two
years. You know, the last two years, you're you're coming here,
you know, on adrenaline and fumes, and then you just try to,
you know, rally back your energy. And I know other teams do it,
but it's just not easy for anybody. So so to be able to
have a full day to recover and and you know, and then then yesterday
and then a day to relax today and and then kind of figure out what
we're going and we'll build it as a normal week starting tomorrow. So you
know that's sort of a bright side. Okay, so we lost, so
let's let's use that. And it sounds like that, you know, that's
where he said they were going to get back to it. If somebody asked
me, if you're telling me on Friday night, somebody said, what would
you do now with your team? I said, I'll let him take the
next two days off. Give them the two days off, you know,
the extra day, the mental aspect, the mental regeneration you get from those
guys situation from that one extra day. Look, there's no quincy, he
said. Those last two years that he was talking about, they won the
tournament. Those last years they played into Saturday night and then got the bracket
on Sunday, and we're back to practicing on Monday. They had an extra
day to kind of regenerate. You feel like, take a break. If
you're Caleb b Love, go get some shots up, you know with out
of a practice. You know the same thing with Kyle and Boswo. Maybe
they did that, but even when they do that, to them, that's
relaxing. That's what they do. It's like it's like me building a jigsaw
puzzle. They go out and take shots. Yeah, you know, so
you know, four other teams got the chance to relax and sure, sure,
and you know, and look in Oregon is happy they got into the
tournament by beating Arizona and then beating Colorado. They're excited to continue to be
able to being able to continue to practice. So you know, it's ah,
you just got to figure out how to handle things. I just feel
like when you hear Tommy Lloyd, he take he handles everything so practically.
Yeah, he's so practical. He's so pragmatic. Yeah, he doesn't like
all these complex questions like oh what does this mean and what does this mean?
He's like, I don't know. I just want our guys to play
good basketball, possession of possession, share the ball. You know, he
is very pragmatic. Yeah. It goes to what you know, when what
we said about you know him, he didn't even give a second thought about
this is the last back twelve tournam he said, I'm just trying to win
a game. Yeah, he's so, he's very he just you know,
he zeroed in and I think this he definitely does have his priorities for the
team lined up. I think the right way. Yeah, I think too
often fan are unhappy that he doesn't have the same priorities that they have,
that he doesn't worry as much about losing as they do because he's got to
think about the next game, whereas we keep thinking about the last game.
Very calm. Yeah, he is all right. Hey, thanks everybody for
being here. Podcasts will be up tonight, catch that interview with Charles mccleoll
and, the Lection Committee chair, and we'll be back tomorrow with Steve from
Salt Lake City, So be sure to come back, see you tomorrow.