This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez Sound Fox Sports
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Our two SAG and iHeartRadio Station. Here we're on. Welcome everybody, What
did this happened? A couple of seconds ago? Welcome to You're only a
couple of seconds late. We're on, Henry, Henry, you're fired.
Oh you're looking at the No, no, no, it's waiting for you
to give me the cube. I guess Hey, everybody, good afternoon.
I'm Steve. I screwed up? Does Jay he can screw up? Henry?
You and I are gone from today show. Hey, you know what
I'm so, I'm just so excited. What a great show we have played
today. We kind of got lucky with all our gifts. Actually, Cell
Point right, Olympics, right, n B A, n BA got everything
coming. Yeah, you know, well, we'll get we'll get to the
we'll get we'll get to them all. But Tri Tricia tan who's the head
softball coach at South Point, Yeah, another state championship. They beat cd
O for the state championship this year. So she'll be joining US as we
always try to get state champs on our on our first, second or third
year. I think it's her third year in three in three her third year's
coach in third state champions Yeah, so our second time with her. Yeah,
yeah, we had her last year. And then uh Roman Bravo Young
one of Tucson's favorite sons. Uh an all time great high school wrestler here
in Arizona, not just in too, somebody in Arizona went to Penn State,
won a couple of n cua A championships there, and now he'll be
wrestling for representing Mexico in the Olympics. Uh, there's a story behind that.
People keeping well, why isn't he wrestling for the US. Well,
because the Olympics changed their weight breakdowns and he didn't fit in a wait that
he thought he could he could compete for the US. So he's going to
be representing Mexico. But he'll be in the Olympics, which is very cool.
And then here at the last minute, we've been trying to get this
guy for a while. As you might imagine, he's a busy dude.
But we're gonna have Steve Kerr. He's gonna join us at four forty,
so he'll be in the last segment of the day. We want to again
in continuing to kind of go down memory lane about the PAC twelve also talked
to him about, you know, what he thinks of the Cats and where
they are now and what's going on with his warriors. So we're gonna try
and pack a whole bunch into about fifteen minutes with Steve Kerr. If you're
talking about Tucson's favorite son, he's probably up there. Yeah, well I
called him on social media. Everybody's favorite Wildcat for sure, right, I
mean, you know Mount Rushmore of Arizona Wildcats. Yeah, right. In
fact, we've gone through this before when everybody was kind of relevant. Who
would be on that Mountain Rushmore in terms of relevancy, Bob Baffort a few
years ago, the trouble cr Jenny Finch, Right, things going, Steve
Kirk because he's won so many titles and he's still in the still in the
right. And then uh, Sean Elliott, maybe you have like Mike Andre
Well a bunch of guys. Yeah, it varies time. Yeah, sometimes
it depends on what season you're in. But I think throughout you know,
I think you put Steve Kerr up there, you know, without questions,
always in any scenario. So Steve will be joining us, and uh again,
uh, you know, it was kind of a last minute. We've
been trying to get him and he's busy, and he finally got back to
us. It is today work and we said it absolutely works. If it
didn't work, we'd fix exactly. Yeah, so that'll be. And he's
always fun, he's always created. We talk some NBA playoffs with him.
We can play around with him as much as we can. One of the
smartest guys I've ever met. Yeah, for sure, always on the show.
You know, sometimes if you get a little too smart, it can
be you know, so we kind of bring him down just a little bit
to our level. You know. Well, I think it takes a hofford
to wear off to those players who did that. Yeah, he said the
coach. So we'll get to all that. There's a lot of stuff going
on otherwise, right, Uh, little bits of news right right, right
right. Baseball Baseball goes tonight, right. I got Washington tonight at no.
I think that seventh seven seven, yeah, seven seven. The women.
There's some news out about Arizona basketball. Uh, and there's in their
schedule. There's some news out about Arizona's football schedule, just a whole bunch
of little, any bitty things. We don't want to take them off from
from from Henry for breaking news, so we'll get to them when we get
to him. But there's interesting stuff going on if it's summer, but not
really summer. But it's not boring for sure, right, right, Okay,
Today's Wednesday. Right. I came on about two seconds too slow on
this today's show. But we're here now, what else is going on?
We've got a lot of things going on everyone. The kids are gone from
the u A. Henry's school. We're happy to have Henry with us.
Now, a good show today. We're not going to be here Friday,
right for a couple of different reasons. I'm headed out of town. You're
going to be without me, so what the hell? Yeah, we'll have
a show yep, and we're uh Monday, and then we're off on Monday
for Memorial Day. We'll have a show on Tuesday. We're trying to line
up another great guest for Tuesday. You know, we won't know that until
we come around to that. Then I'm off the rest of that week.
So Steve's gonna have to I'm gone for a week for our annual family trip
down to Rocky Point, and so we have a blast with it. It's
something we've been doing for thirty years. And we just go down there and
they said, what do you do down there? I said nothing. One
of these absolutely nothing. One of these days they're going to say, you're
going to stay on this side of the fence. They might, they could
keep me if they want to. Yeah, you know they could, But
for now, I'm you and you're broken mix, you're broken Spanish. You
know what? I could get myself out. Well, okay, I'll admit
I've been pulled over a couple of times and you know down there. Yeah,
and you had to open the wallet. Yep, it's happened twice.
How much did you have to pull once? I once it cost me like
fifty bucks and once it cost me like sixty five bucks. And you do
it speeding? Well I wasn't speeding, but they said I was. You
know the true story though, the first time, the first time it happened,
guy pulls me over with the radar and he's got and he shows me
his radar gun and one of the number is that's supposed to be your speed.
It was a sticker. I swear to god it was a sticker.
I could tell the sticker was peeling off, and he said, I was
going too fast, and I'm what I am I gonna I'm not, I'm
not gonna say he dude, that's a stick give you any money? How
did you get to the point and now we're gonna waste our time here,
but how did you get to the point of saying, okay, quento?
Well yeah, you say, you say how much? Get down to my
basket. How much you can charge me? And he said, sin quenta,
fifty dollars and I gave hi fifty bucks and we run away and then
he got the next guy. Yeah, yeah, it's funny. It was
literally the little the little number thing was. It wasn't the door of the
digital numbered lights up. It was a sticker. I want to fight this,
Okay, come on, you go to jail first, So there you
go. And then the other one speeding as well, Yes, speeding coming
in It must have been a higher tax bracket. Yeah, well that one
was good. That one was kind of funny because we had blown all our
cash. Okay, we had zero cash and we're coming to convoy. You
know, there's a whole bunch of so every you know, one gets pulled
over. Everybody pulls over. So I had to go back and you know,
put the hat out for everybody and collect like the sixty five bucks to
go back and give it to him. And so he'd let me go.
Said, no, you're on your own. Man, on your own.
You find a way. So hey, you do what you do, man,
you do what you do. The rules are a little different down there.
Yes, that's why I don't like going down. I do. I
love it. I love this. I love going down, you know,
uh for this trip and again we've been doing a little over thirty years.
My son Adam, who's been a guest host on the show, we went
down on over his first birthday and we've been doing it every year since we
missed the COVID year. We missed one other year, but we go down
pretty much every year. Okay, but anyways, but we digress, We
digress. Okay, last night's game, you have some NBA stuff. Wow,
come on that. We can't save that one for you, Henry,
I mean, what the hell, how do you blow that. How do
you blow that they blew by not calling the timeout advance right folling. I
mean, you couldn't have butchered that any worse than they did. You know,
I walked because I was I was doing some work and I and I
and I walked into the room because I knew that they had been down.
We had dinner, they caught up. I went and did some work and
I come back and I get there. They're inbounding the ball up five,
and I thought they're going to win this game, and then they didn't.
And I'm like, what the hell happened? I guess they don't understand how
you blow that in the NBA? How long have these guys been playing basketball?
And how you messed that up? It made it made zero sense to
me that they butchered that the way they did. Yeah, that could have
been all the chances they had to win those. Yeah, that was a
game I think they needed. Yeah, well, and look, they're not
gonna They're still not gonna win the serial right now. It's a matter of
are you going to get swept or you're gonna lose it in five? Right.
I think the ones that this hurt the most were the people who are
betting the over on this going over five and a half games, Those are
the ones that are going, what the hell, because you win this one
now, you just got to win one more and you and you know when
when one of those games at home and you got this now and I could
see I could see him losing by forty in the next game. Oh no,
well the spread is ten about nine and a half. Ten it was
I would I would give the points. I honestly would. Yeah, well,
Boston's gonna take them. Seriously, that's the first thing. That's what
tomorrow, right, because we have a game tonight. We have a game
tonight. Yeah, we'll see. That should be a good game too.
I'm not sure good how the Mavericks are, but we'll see, we'll see.
Okay, anything else that we need to kind of get through, oh
uh no, because you have the tennis thing too, right, Okay,
we'll get we'll get to that one that. Okay, softball is over.
I think what they were were they over yesterday when we're on the show.
It was done, you know, payment Yeah, they were done. They
got shut out twice. Good year, great year actually for them having not
gone that deep into into the tournament for a while. Yeah, but you
know, again, you can't argue about you know, what a great uh,
what a great season they had. You know, that twenty six game
winning streak, you know, uh, they needed that, they got it,
and congratulate them on on a great year. H on a great year.
So yeah, so they're out. Arizona Softball plays on Friday, baseball
again place tonight. They played tonight and tomorrow. Both games are at seven
o'clock. So we'll get that, all right. I think that's I think
that's it for Yeah, you know, you know there's all this stuff coming
out about this this settlement in this house lawsuit. Oh yeah, yeah,
we talked about a little bit about that, but I don't know where the
people are gonna get the money for it, don't. We're talking about that
at lunch today. I have no idea. And it's a it's it's not
a little it's a big deal because first of all, they're gonna have to
do this four years of back pay right that they got to come up with
a whole bunch of money, and all the schools are gonna have to pony
up for that. But then going forward, it's going forward part you know,
in in in Arizona's case, you know, in their quote unquote tax
bracket or whatever you want to call it for where they are as a Division
one power for program, twenty million dollars of their revenues, of their T
or you know, basically their TV and bowl revenue and all that stuff has
to go to athletes. So you got to replace that twenty million dollars in
a place where they're already desperately need for money, right, the dipate need
for money. Right. I just don't know where a program like Arizona gets.
You know, look, it's not gonna be a it's not gonna be
trouble for the Texas and Alabama and Ohio State, Michigan and in those LSU
and those programs, but for an Arizona and an ASU and a Utah and
UH Colorado and uh you know the kind of the mid level Power five schools
who kind of struggle with some of this and just to stay competitive. For
you, where do you all a sudden magically come up with twenty million?
Do so? I got an email, yes, straight from Richard, one
of our regular callers, and he talked about, well, this is the
time players will be paid good for the players. More power to them.
It's about time. Yeah, yeahda Richard, If I'm butcher, let me
know, but give us a call, because now the players are gonna get
the money, But now they're gonna be playing for like a house of cards
of a place, right, you know, house of a card for a
place u of a or anywhere, right, Because now how are you going
to get paid this money again? You know? And then if if they
got to raise this money where they raising, are they going to cut sports?
Are they going to be fewer athletes to pay now, few administrators to
you know. One thing they're talking about is reducing rosters for like football,
right, you know, eighty five saying because what they've been able to do
is they've had eighty five scholarship players and then you could have walk ons up
to anything. You can get have one hundred and five players, so you
can get another twenty walk ons or non scholarship players. And they're saying,
eliminate those, Eliminate those twenty because now you don't have cost travel costs,
uniform costs, UH, training training tables. Yeah, they were, they
weren't causing any any intuition money. They weren't didn't know, but they're but
there's there's an expense to that. There's an expense, but they're not traveling
either because there's a small Well, I don't disagree. Then you have title
line issues where if you if you have less teams, fewer teams, uh,
right, don't have to have as many participant. Yeah. But or
I think maybe they might have been talking about reducing scholarships and then reducing roster.
I see that if you do that, that's why. So let's say
reduce scholarships to sixty five, right, and then you can have up to
eighty five on your team. Yeah. Its just stuff like that. It's
I mean, it's good, and there's some not good things about it.
They're going to come out come out of this four athlete It's amazing. It's
amazing. It's not that I didn't think this would ever happen. I just
can't believe it's happening now. And and and I'm near the end of my
ropes, so I don't have to deal with this all the time. It's
just and it's the it's kind of just it's such a mess right now.
It's like, how do you put all this back? Together, so there's
some order to everything. I don't I don't know if you can. I
really don't think you can. Like like a Live of Good said yesterday and
one of his analogies, it's putting the toothpaste back into YouTube. There's got
to be a fix somewhere. Well, yeah, the question is who's smart
enough to figure it out? And part of it, Steve, is the
money rubbing of some of these conferences. Who don't who don't want to be
in it for the overall good of college athletics. They want to be in
it for the overall good of them or their conference and nobody else. So
you saying anybody specific, No, I'm saying everybody in the SEC and the
that specific enough. We've got to go. Let's go, all right,
let's get out of here. Tricia Tan the head softball coach at South Point
Catholic, coming off for third state championship. We'll have a chat with her
about her season and how things are going over there. So stick around.
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This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox
Sports fourteen to fifteen. Subscribe now to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app just
Surgery. I on the Ball. Hey, welcome back to Eying the Ball
here on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. I'm Steve, He's Jay, and now
on the phone, we have Tricia ten from the South Point Kevic softball team,
the head coach. Tricia, how are you? I'm great, hard,
thank you today? Fine? Thank you number three? Right? Wow?
What are you doing over there? We are We are playing softball and
loving what we do. I guess you know each year, each year's the
new year. But you know you have some people who come back and stuff
like that. There has to be a time, and we ask this every
time. There has to be a time when you know or you have a
sense that okay, this can go really far. And then there's times where
you think you don't you have to get lucky or whatever. What did you
think about your team going in or when did you feel you know we can
win this all again. I think at the beginning of the year they set
their goals. Their first goal is always win state, and then we sit
down and talk about how do you win state? What works, why have
we been successful in the past, and what do we need to what do
we need to adjust in the future so we can, you know, continue
that goal. They're fantastic because they'll they work regardless of what the goal is.
In the end, I mean, they work knowing they may or may
not win the state championship. They come out and they give one hundred and
ten percent of practice, They get better, They really start to play for
each other. They really have that sense of team and it's just they really
dialed in here at the end of the last at the end of the season,
and they were able to they were able to win another state championship.
Well, we had you on last year at the to the day. In
fact, after you one number two you win one baby by accident. Two,
okay, it happens. Three You must have a secret sauce. What
is your secret sauce? I am. I am lucky that I get to
show up every day and coach South Point Softball. For sure. I've you
know, we've got we've got great coaches on the field. We've got Carly
Garrett in the weight room that start with Carlo starts with them in the fall
and you know, strengthens their body, strengthens their mind. And I think
that we really drive play for what's on front of your jersey, play for
each other, and and because of that, I think they're really successful.
So it was was there just tell us a little bit about some of the
players who you think, either as leaders or just as really good players kind
of stood out for you who were sort of key to what you did.
You know, pitchers, hitters, tell us a little bit about the team
and how you got to where you got to. We we've had a very
strong team this year. We had twenty girls on our roster at the beginning
of the season and then we added too for the postseason. Each year,
I think we just have a really strong group of seniors. They're each group
is very different every year, so we really try to play on their strengths
and help them grow with leaders. And again, I think that starts back
in the fall in the weight room, and they also have They've also watched
other leaders of them, other groups of seniors. So I feel that senior
leadership is really important because at that point you've got a player led team,
and when you have a player led team, you have championship level team.
So I think you wouldn't do the game with CDEO. You had already lost
to them a time or two. Is that right? We had lost to
them three times? Three times? So how do you convince you your team
that this is going to change. I believe they just made it to believe
in themselves. It's easy for to get them fired up about CDO because it's
CDO and there's always that kind of rivalry between Top Point and CDO. For
gosh, as long as I can remember when I played back in the nineties
and still to this day, so it was it was, hey, girl,
you know, we need to adjust, we need we need to hit
the ball, we need to swing the bat. We put it in play,
and good things happen when they swing the bat and put it in play,
right, So I was really proud of them for just coming into that
game focused, relaxed, and ready to go. Yeah, so uh,
once you get interested. I mean, these tournaments seem to go forever,
right, they last a really long time. So you know from game to
game, uh, I mean, is it the old look one game at
a time kind of thing. How do you manage all that and you know
the time you have between games and that type of thing. Well, it
does get as we talk about at the beginning of the season, and you
going all the way to make may makes a very long season. So that
men toughness piece has to be there all the time because it does get it
does get a little monotonous after a while. But then we also we also
take a look at and say it's a privilege to be playing because we're at
that point. We were one of three Tucson teams still playing with CDEO US
and then Empire as well, so it was we always it's a privilege to
be playing right now, and and from game to it was a more game
to game attitude because you know, we came into each game. I mean,
we had the doubleheader with mikeel Mountain because Mike A Mountain in our semi
final came and beat us, so they needed to beat us again to advance.
To the championship game and we Mikeah Mountain came out hot and ready to
go and beat us four to two, and so we had to turn around
and play that second game. And and I think feel they really dialed in
at that point and said, Okay, they're going to take it away from
us if we don't take it away from them. And I was really proud
of would be mindset change the adjustment on the spot, and and obviously that
propelled us to the state championship and beyond. I know you've got to get
out of here for another meeting, but is there a good chance at a
number four? Well, that would be where you know, we had broken
a we broke a state record. So we have six consecutive championships in a
row, three under our previous coach, three now under I've been lucky enough
to be the head coach of those the last three. So we we will
always in pursuit of the next state championship. And I'm really excited about,
you know, the next year's team. We're still we're still having a great
time living, you know, in our six state championship. So I'm really
proud of our St. Plink girls. Super Yeah, White talk about tomorrow
when you can enjoy it. I get it. Hey, thanks, so
thanks for coming on, Thanks for coming on. Congratulations again. All right,
thank you guys so much, Thank you for having me just be well,
be well. So six straight three for her, for her? Oh
that's saying a heck of a lot. Yeah, I mean to keep it
going, right, I mean, what's the hardest thing? Right? You
come in, you know, they've had three state champions and it flips over.
You got a new coach. Expectations are crazy, and then to come
up and meet those expectations. That's a hard thing to do, A really
hard thing to do, right. You know, people, people who played
ball like I did, you did. Winning one is a difficult thing,
right, Winning three your freshman, sophomore, junior years or whatever years is
girls on that team and won a state championship every year they've been there.
Yeah, it's like the Judge Pastner thing. Hey, look this was easy.
Do this every year? This was easy. Yeah, we could do
all right. Okay, should we take our break? Yeah, if you
want, if you want, because three twenty Steve's not coming on too the
the next hour, do that. We can have some calls. Yeah,
let's take a break. We're not going to take very many calls, right
this is probably about the last segment. You can give us a call five
to two, zero, four, one, six, seventy forty. But
what do you want us to ask Steve Kerr, He's coming on at four.
We we'll throw it out there for you, but'd be nice. There's
somethings we can but stick around. We'll be right back. If you're an
Arizona men's basketball fan, you know it's been successful for nearly forty years.
Now take a look back at the Ludolsen era. In my new book,
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Steve Rivera and Jacin Salas they have their eye on the ball on Tucson Sports
Stage Chat Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Hey, welcome back to wying the ball
here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Riverta, You're Jagan Zalas,
and we've got a guy Henry in today. We have twenty one minutes,
a long time for us to get some calls talking about things. What do
you guys want to talk about? I think your question about or statement about?
Yeah, maybe calling in and say what do you want to seek Steve
Kerr. Yeah, maybe we'll get to it. Yeah, what if we
always want to ask him? Again? It has to be clean and we
within within within reason. But you know, Steve's an old friend. We
you know, we've both known him for a really long time. Steve with
all the the books and things that that that you've done, and I covered
his his his his teams at the at the U A. Yeah, Well,
and we will talk about hims, reminiscing about some of them. Yeah,
the good old yeah a button sports. You know, he came in
at sort of at the sort of the beginning of it, right. His
first year was the eighty four season. Yeah, eighty four, Yeah,
eighty three, eighty four season, his freshman year. So that was sort
of the infancy of Arizona in the in the uh, in the Pac ten
starting to make its way. By the time he left, they had won
a couple of packed pack ten championships. Then they'd gotten to the final four,
and he had that World championship thing in between, you know where he
got hurt. I mean, had he not gotten hurt, the trajectory of
the Arizona basket could have been different. Could have been different, way different,
been way different. Because that eighty six team, eighty six eighty seveneen,
the year he sat out, it wasn't ready to do what the eighty
eighteen did, right. Tom Tolbert was here his first year. He was
a junior. He was a transfer Union College transfer. Sean Elliott was a
kind of a very green sophomore who still had some seasoning and uh and uh,
you know, Kenny Lofton was, you know, was young and and
and that that whole group, Craig McMillan, that whole group was just they
were a year short, right, I remember remember because he made the book.
But I think Sean said it on the show when we had him on.
There was a time or two when he wanted to leave because Luke was
on his butt all the time and he got tired of it. And I
think that was one of the years. And Kevin, yeah, no question,
and Kevin, Kevin O'Neill says, if he if Luke didn't care,
he wouldn't talk to you at all. He wants you to be better,
You need you need you to be better. And then that's when they gave
Sean the ball. I mean, you know, it was during that year,
and I think it was I can't remember it was Kevin O'Neill or Ricky
bird songwrited the talk and this is when we could have these kinds of talks
with with coaches and stuff. It was complete off the record conversation and he
was and I think it was Kevin O'Neill. He was talking about how he
was really frustrated with Seawan Elliott because he thought Sean, I'll just say it
was a bit of a cry baby on the court. He complained about every
foul day. He complained about every single foul that either either he complained about
every father was called on him or he complained when Foles didn't get called where
he thought he got fouled. And he was just a guy that was always
complaining about stuff. And they said enough, yeah, and they and O'Neil
said, you know, he was working on him to tell me, you
got to stop doing that. He said, you know, reps are getting
sick of it. We're getting sick of it, you know not you got
to make you know, mature and and uh and and you know. In
that it was funny because in that that eighty eight team, while Seawan was
the best player on the team, Steve Kerr was still the leader, right,
He was the leader of that team. And I think that was a
good thing for Sean to not have the pressure of not only being the best
player and the guy that you want to give the ball to, but to
not have to lead like in the locker room and stuff. He could come
along, you know. I mean, he was a leader in the sense
that because he was the best player, people, you know, followed him,
pay attention to what he did, but he wasn't the emotional leader of
the team that Steve Kerr was. And I think that was a good thing
for Elliott to just be able to play, just play, you know,
and every team needs something like that, where the best player on the team
has another buffery or isn't that guy. I think in ninety seven Bibie Pat
Miles. Miles was kind of the guy and he displayed and didn't say much,
but displayed. Two thousand and one, God, they had so many
personalities. Richard was kind of like the guy he said, he talked and
he did. Luke was kind of like the guy that kind of held him
together. Well Gilbert, Yeah, And then I think another guy on that
eightio team was kind of undervalued because he was so quiet was Greig McMillan.
Because here's a guy who had every reason to say, wait a minute,
I'm the guy. I'm the first McDonald's all American who came here, but
he was he was never that guy. He's just a guy who said,
Okay, this is my role, this is what I'm gonna do, and
do it as good as I can. And he's still not that guy.
He just kind of just plays. No. You know, when you go
back and you throw this names. And I said in two thousand and one
team neighty eight teams, that eighty team was just so special. It's like,
I don't know. If you play favorites with your kids, you're first
born, well I don't, but they say I do. Okay, you
favor who your first born? They all say a favorite to one of these.
They'll say I don't favorite them when they tell me if that, you
know, each one will say I'm not your favorite. But you know,
your firstborn is your firstborn, and that's just the way it is. Henry,
are you? Are you how many people? One brother? Okay?
So you know, are you first or second? Second? Okay, so
gonna shore the baby and you know all that stuff. But you know when
you have the firstborn, okay, you do all these things. You don't
do this, don't do this. Second one comes along, you wanna eat
rocks, go right ahead, you're fine. Don't want the third one.
You want to play with knives? Knock yourself out. The little thing on
the outlet, go ahead and put it in there. You think a screwdriver
in there. You're tired by that for that time. So you know what
it is you is kind of yeah, no, it is. And so
you know again that that team just all the pieces, you know, came
together for that team to be what it was, similar to what as you
said with that two thousand and one team, you know, and a bit
and really the ninety seven team too, but didn't happen until the tournament.
The tournament came around, and no other team has played like that since ever
since. You know, I mean, those guys weren't beatable, you know,
and just the way they played. And again, you look at that,
you look at the players on that team. I mean, you know
don Al Harrison and Gen Anderson who were not the most skilled. Well you
don't stop there because you already have to app I know, but you but
in terms of you know, guys who had to come in and and know
your role. You look at those guys, you say, how did you
win a national championship? They're not They're not gonna scare you know, they're
not. They didn't scare you. Bennet Davidson never shot the ball. All
he did was rebound and played defense. Yet that was what they needed him.
You're exactly right. No, it's not. It's not a god.
Pieces fit all and it fit very well for three weeks. I still say,
and and I'll go to my death having covered all these teams, is
that they played well because no one believed in them or no one thought they
would happen, and they play unbelievable. Just look historically as an underdog,
Arizona is very, very tough to beat as a favorite money in, Hey,
Santa Clara, come on over Clemson, here we are, Miami,
Ohio right here, park your by, Prince Princeton, Hey Princeton over here.
Honestly, if if I were a senior or a grad student in terms
of sports, whatever, I would do. That's my thesis right there,
plenty of proof to write about. Yeah, it seems like it's like it's
just there. Yeah, there seems like Henry keep this in mind because it's
the football season. Every time they were underdogs, they want it right.
And then when they come out of a season, like you know, every
ten and ten win season they've had, they flopped the next year. There's
another thing that's the only that's the one thing that worries me about this coming
season coming up is all this expectation that that Tam Mac and know off of
feed and all these guys are going to have the same kind of season,
same kind of success, and maybe they will. But in Arizona history,
it's never been no, it's never been written a few times. And I
know the fans and this who listen to the show, mister poop pooh,
but they don't have a prosperity. Well, they just don't. And if
you want to look, just look at the butt the past. Yeah no,
I yeah, so that's what well you you tweeted about it. I
know you tweeted about it two days ago and got a lot of play on
it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean we've got we've got our
heart broke. Heart's broken so many times. You know, in ninety eight
basketball, two thousand and five basketball, uh, two thousand and three,
one of the best teams ever here and you go, you go to Anaheim
with Luke and Andre Gudala and Hussan Adams and Salim and all them play Kansas
and then they could beat there as a number one, right and then then
you know the ninety nine season ended on the first at the first game when
they got beat by in football, got they got beat by Penn State.
You know the the I remember the ninety four season, which is after the
ten and uh the ten and two festival team. The ninety four season.
You know, they lost this game to a bad Stanford team. I mean
they just it's just all has been that way. It's been hard to take.
Yeah. Well, I think the fans treat them the same way,
where you know, our stuff doesn't stink. Our stuff doesn't stink, or
pound our chest or Arizona pounds our chests and then guess what, stop pounding
because you just got beat. Then it stinks. Yeah, then sinks.
There's you know, then it stinks. I mean, you know, I
don't. I'm telling you because you're believing I'm here, Steve. I mean,
you know again, I've lifted for you know, for sixty years,
you know, with these with these teams. I remember and here was here
was a kind of a cocky thing. But remember what was the theme in
ninety eight after the basketball team won it. It's a marketing ploy? Dos
oh dos? Yeah, not even France. I mean it was. It
was a nice little clever thing, but it didn't get there. Yeah,
I mean you got to be really old to remember this one. So Arizona.
This is back to the whack days. Was a seventy five season,
but football basket football. You know, they get to the SU game.
Arizona is nine and one, as is ten and zero, and they it's
a game up at a s U. And it's again that game that Arizona
just never gets to win. And then there's that that catch by uh Jefferson,
by John Jefferson, and and a SU wins that game. They go
on be undefeated. They go playing the festival and stuff, and Arizona it
finishes nine to two and doesn't even go to a bull game, you know.
And it's like that that it was set up Arizona to have its greatest
moment ever in in football, and it just doesn't. It just didn't materialize
over a fluky thing like Lucy pulls the football. Lucy pulled the football away,
and and and Arizona's had the football pulled away so many times over the
years, right over the years, and and and this is this coming football
season is one more of those where you were you hope it doesn't happen,
but you can't help but think it could happen. Well, that's when the
kids are a good, smart coach. I'm not saying Brandan or somebody else
who knows the history of the program. I'm saying, Look, we come
in with our high hopes, with our chests out and all happy, but
this is what's happened in the last few years or a few times, right,
we need to not pay attention to this. Yeah, we're here to
do the same things we've done throughout the whole time. And don't look all
happy. I mean, I'm not gonna lie because of because of the fact
that that Jedfish found a way to lose the NAU, you know, and
Arizona opens with NAU and should demolish them. There's still this little sliver of
thing in me that says, no, that that that can't happen, can
it? Or can it? You're moving forward? You mean, yeah,
and did this coming season, you know, Arizona's football openers against NAU.
Like just a little bit little sliver of me thinks that, you know,
you walk on the field, you throw your uniforms on there and expect to
win, and maybe NAU is really good and we don't know it, and
then the something stupid happen. Well, you you think that no matter what
lineup Arizona had right roster. Wise they'd be able to beat the NAU right,
but but that roster was pretty dead. It was that very good and
sorry, it's apologies to everybody who was on the roster, was on the
rush back then, and you're listening, you guys weren't very good. They
weren't very good. Well they what was a losing streak sixteen seventeen twenty and
who's there, Oh well, Jason Barcaid. I think thankfully cow came around.
They got COVID, they all got COVID, and and they lost.
Yeah, and we right, and they rushed the field, well the thirteen
people like rust, don't rust the field for beating. And then they rushed
again. I mean they rushed again a couple of times right down the road
where they was like, no, if you want a game, yeah.
The next year, yeah yeah, the next season they did it like three
times, like come on, guys, you can only have one way,
you can only wear white to one way. Oh my god, yeah,
but you know, do what you do. We'll see. Uh. And
that's we have some breaking news with some of the one of the games to
right right right, I'm learning throw this out there because I don't think you've
got it for breaking news. But at the Pack twelve baseball tournament, Stanford,
the eight seed has come out of nowhere. They beat the five seed
A s U. Yesterday, they beat the two seeds Stanford two to one.
Today Sanford beach, I mean Stanford Oregon State. They beat the two
seed Oregon State. Today. Stanford is now Stanford is now in the in
the four team bracket. Now Oregon State can still get in. Okay,
okay, So what happens is I want to look this up. There there's
three pools, so the three pool winners get in, right, are in.
So the three teams that go to and oh I'll get in. So
Stanford is now in from from Pool B, which is there, which is
their pool. So there's gonna be three likely three one and one teams,
yeah or one, you know whatever, some teams that are one and one.
The highest seeded team that's one and one is the last one to get
into the four team bracket. So what Oregon State needs to have happened is
they need Arizona to win its pool because if air Zone doesn't win its pool,
but they win one game, they're in. They're still in because of
the highest seeded team with one win and and so, then Oregon State would
be out. But if Arizona wins its pool and and and Oregon State beats
a SU tomorrow to win one game, then Oregon States still gets They need
to beat s U. Uh. They as the five seed, a huge
thing. And if that, if that, if they don't get in,
you a could host. Right, you can see Oregon State not hosting in
Arizona host right on this circumstances. Crazy crazy stuff against Steve Baseball is that
sport, right? You know, you play one time, you literally literally
anything can happen. It's a little less in football, a little less in
basketball, you know, but in baseball, just on that day your picture
might pitch. They beat him two to one, so I've seen their picture.
The pitching came in and did a great job to hold down Oregon State,
who we saw the way they hit the crap out of the ball in
those first two games against Arizona. You'll put what was it, twenty three
runs on the board, uh in those first two games, and Stanford the
eight seed holds them to one run and beats them. Crazy sports, that's
why we love them. Yeah, crazy sports, say you admit that you
love them though, No, I love sports. I just hate sports.
I love sports, you know that. I just don't have a favorite team.
I don't know any roster people. I don't say I don't care.
I mean Tila Cruz. That's it. That's all I know. Yeah,
Ellie, Ellie, Tyla Cruz. H It's okay, there we look waxed
philosophical. Did you see that play? There was a great play yesterday.
Ali Dela Cruz hits the ball down the right field line against the Padres and
and it's yeah, from now, Tatisa's the other fantastic, fantastic player like
that goes and uh, you know, he's got to check it and he
and he makes a great throw trying to get Dela Cruise at second, but
he doesn't get them. But then they both kind of like pointed at each
other like you know, like disrespect thing, like okay, you're really good.
I'm really good. That was cool. That was fun, and it's
a it's a great it's a great place. Almost gets him and uh but
it was a great just at one of those moments in in baseball where you
okay, here's two guys, two guys that are just stand out above everybody
else, kind of going head to head on that. It's very cool.
Yeah, I'll try to find that. Yeah, you don't see these guys.
And he just doesn't look the part. He's six foot four, six
foot five, like he runs like a gazelle, and I mean he takes
like four steps between bases. It's crazy. Yeah, and they're and they're
fast, they're quick steps. Yeah, I see it right now, look
at it. Yeah, as we move forward to anybody call want to call
please? Do we have a couple of minutes for you guys to call in
and let us know what we're doing or what we're saying. Uh, Steve
Kerr later in this second hour, right at four forty and then Roman Bravo,
you know, right at about four twenty, we'll join us and uh,
we'll talk about his his path to the Olympics, right, which I'm
sure is something that he's been I mean, we'll ask him, you know,
how long has he been dreaming about going to the Olympics, And sure,
and it looked it looked bad for him for a while. We'll let
him we had him two years ago. I'll probably asked him again because I
don't remember because he was undefeated, right, he was like, whatever,
it was one hundred thousand and then and then you lose. How that feels?
You don't asking how how it feels to lose? Yeah, just because
it doesn't happen. He hangs up on us for that. People ask me,
how does it feel the wind? I don't know. I have no
idea how that feels the wind. Talking about so, I want to know
what did it feel like to get stabbed in the side. I don't know,
it hurt, But how does it feel to fall down? I know
that I fell today. My Risks followed. Well, that's the reasons why
they have those commercials. I know I followed it. I know I need
to go get on And I'm laying there on the ground and my family's in
the house, and none of them came over to hell. I'm like,
what are you doing? I fell? It made a racket too, so
it was because I knocked something over. But anyways, that's a whole that's
a story for another day. We'll get the other day. I just saw
the play. Yeah, two guys to two finish, two great, two
great players showing some respect for each other. That was very cool, very
cool. Okay, Uh, we have breaking news all kinds anything. Yeah,
something's always creeping up here. Yeah. Just again, little spots are
different things from all these different places and involving different sports and whatnot. There's
another football commitment. There's stuff going on with basketball and football schedules. Tommy
Lloyd's not even heat, not even around. He's at the USA coaching that's
right, as he said, the summers, he's spinning with the team USA
under eighteen. I think it is. Yeah, yeah, you know,
high school coaches moving around. Yeah, just a whole bunch of stuff.
You know, it's just just one of those days where just all these little
things. Wow, there's they're coming there. I guess that looks like the
NBA TV contract is done for T and T. So yeah, what's gonna
happen with the three guys or four guys? So I just a get little
bits of stuff all over the place. Let me ask one fifty both you
guys. Do you watch the T and T Show? I do because because
I think those guys are funny as hell? Do you watch it? I'll
watch the clips? But but do you watch your food? Do you think
they're funny? I do think they're funny, but their analysis is not.
It's horrible, no good observation because I agree with you. They are kind
of back and forth and give each other grief. But the but what they
say it is not probably like the show. You know, sometimes we're funny
and sometimes we give information. But yeah, okay, maybe a fund is
that they're entertaining. Entertaining. They're entertaining to me because there's these three guys
who were really good at basketball and they're you know, they're punching each other
in the in the neck and all the time and having fun with that.
I couldn't tell you if their analysis is good or not. So that's that's
part of it. I don't know. The last thing you want to do
is listen to Charles bark can tell you who to pick. I mean,
the time they threw shack into the Christmas tree, you know, stuff like
that. You know, I think that's you know, to me, that's
that's entertaining. I love Charles Barkley because he just says stuff. Yeah,
he he doesn't care what you think about what he says. But he never
says anything horrible, right, but you know, he never says anything like
you know, oh, I don't know the people, the girls in San
Antonio party, Oh that one was that was a little offt people. I
think he's full of it. You know. He does say something, he
does say some things, but he's never horribly offensive, just slightly offensive,
sometimes slightly okay, kind of like someone I know exactly. All right,
let's take a break, we're going to come back. Henry's going to be
here with breaking news. Let's stick around.