This is I on the Ball Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez sound Fox Sports fourteen
fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services and Sure your most Prized Possessions kat z R
two SA and iHeartRadio Station. Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to
I on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera.
Jay Gonzalez is out again today. That's why we have Matt Reynoldson former the
FKVOA, and we have our guy Ryan. Don't screw up, Brian.
We need you. I will your job. Your job is dependent on it.
Welcome everybody. Hey, we hope you get some calls from you,
guys, first time callers. We'd love to hear from you if you've listened
to us a while now. I know Jay is out, so we can't
fight with you, but I'm here, and i'm Matt here as well.
I think Steve's more likely to fight with you than I am. But yeah,
yeah, yeah, you're the nice guy in this room. Jay's the
bad guy. I'm the goody in this room. When he's here. I
want to ask you, so you're gonna go to game tomorrow? Right?
Are you going to get tomorrow the baseball game. Yeah, absolutely, regional
opener between Arizona and Grand Canyon leading off that regional. I think you're gonna
be one of the fifth five thousand, maybe probably so now that you're not
working temporarily, right, you're gonna give me a fan. Do you look
at the games differently? You know what? I don't think I do necessarily.
Obviously, you'll you know, you'll enjoy things with your friends a little
bit differently than you wouldn't press spot, but what do you mean, You'll
have a drink? Yeah, pound, you know, pound the pound,
the bleachers a little bit, maybe chirp some batters from the other team.
I kind of like doing that here and there. But it's all in good
fun. Mostly just because I cover college athletics. I know what, I
know what guys on both sides are going through. So I carry a little
slanted objectivity. But you know, do I do? Uh? You know,
get out there and just enjoy sitting in the stands because you hear all
that sort of stuff. You hear the chatter, and it just makes it
more of that baseball atmosphere as fun as the press box with like Brian Peterson
and Michael Levis Yeah, and I was talking to as Brian Is in the
locker or in the press box. So so you look at it a little
bit differently, enjoy yourself more. Do you think about the questions? If
you were now this would be a first your first event? Were you not
working? Oh? No, I've been. I've been to several baseball games
this year, even when I wasn't when I was working, I went to
I went to baseball games just as fans on the weekend. But you know
the capacity you're in now, kind of just a casual observer. Yeah,
So do you kind well you kind of think maybe I want to ask this
question. Maybe I want to ask this question because I'm always thinking on a
question basis, Steve, aren't you you know, I mean, you've been
to games as fans before professional teams that you don't necessarily cover. What would
I ask about this? How would I approach this? Okay, here's what
they need to do with this inning for this inning that happened three innings later.
You know, why didn't they do this and why didn't they do that?
Exactly? We're all analysts in in our basis forum, and that's what
comes with the character. So let me go here even though we had nothing
planned. Right, So so we had Chip yesterday, good good baseball.
I'm asking you, you're you're you're you're young. So a good baseball strategist
in what you've seen? Yeah, is that what makes him good at this?
I think so. And I think he communicates with this player as well.
I think one other thing is that he's not afraid to move off things
that aren't working. I think you saw that with the addition of Kevin Vance
this year as pitching coach and his very unique philosophy that he brings to attacking
every pitch. And when you hear him talk about it, when you hear
Advance talk about it, when you hear Chip Hale talk about it, it's
like, why isn't everybody else doing this? Why isn't every other pitching staff
in the country employing this philosophy? Well, and one of the things he
said yesterday was that Ken Diatty's going to start. I mean, he's he's
a change guy. Yep. If one thing is not working, and he
said the former number one is not playing or pitching, well let's change it
up a little bit. Yeah. And he said in his press conference today
before the before the first game of the regional that actually cam Walty will be
starting on Saturday, depending on It doesn't even matter who they played, They're
just they're sticking with cam Walty starting on Saturday, moving Jackson Kent down to
Sunday after he's struggled in his last few out of is the Friday night starter,
and I think that's okay, And I think that gives Jackson Kent,
you know, a couple other days to if you work out of the maybe
work on some different things, refocus and dial in for that Sunday game.
You hope it's a Sunday game to advance and not a Sunday elimination game.
But regional this loaded like it is with Dallas Baptist, West Virginia and Grand
Canyon, Arizona's going to have their hands full, and I think it'll be
a really interesting weekend of baseball at High Corbett. Yeah, no question.
And the number two on Saturday again, is the number two on Saturday is
Dallas Baptists. No, no, no, no, no, I'm sure
the picture a picture. Yeah, the number of number two Saturday is cam
Walty and he had a fantastic game against USC. There was a couple of
miss misplays, and that that's what got him under the three, got him
down three zero. What really stuck out to me in his start against USC
is it is really tough to continue to go out there and deal when you're
going up against a pitcher as hot as USC's starting pitcher was in that game.
Ioki was throwing flames in that game and really confounding Arizona batters. We've
seen it happen at several points this season where they're prone to the strikeout a
little bit. That was certainly the case against USC. And Walt's sitting there
in the top half of every inning watching that and watching that and watching that
and watching him work and doing an exceptional job from the USC side of things.
But he just went out there. You know, he knew there he
had left some runs on the board. He knew there were some defensive areas
that caused that. But he went out there, held things down, ate
up those innings and so Arizona could eventually come back, chip away and win
games like they have all season. Right, he held them close and eventually
he broke that. Well, we talked about that with Chip yesterday, which
which was a great move. They finally got to him a base hit of
here, base hit there, and Cam's the only one who hold the held
down that Oregon State offense, which was by far the best in the back
twelve this year. Yeah, they were unbelievable, and you know they looked
to make a deep postseason run, hosting their own regional up in Corvallis.
Yep. So if you want to call, please do five to two four
one six seven four four zero if you were in just did in the podcast
from yesterday, it hasn't been posted yet. I guess Jay is enjoying the
beach a little bit too much over there. I would be in Rocky Point
too, I guess we So we'll try. We'll track him down and see
what's up with that. He did post Today's guests, who are Matt Modenial
go asy cats will be with us today. I wanted to talk to him
about a few things we spoke about yesterday. The movement with the Caleb Love
incident, but the he's returning yep, yep. And then the kind of
like not fileout, but the domino effect. There were there were a lot
of dominoes that fell from that, especially from the recruiting standpoint, right,
and then the new guy coming in from USC different alignment. Uh, So
we'll get Matt's thoughts on that and anything else he has to say. And
then in the second hour, we have your guy, Dwayne Rankin from Arizona
Sport, Arizona Central, the Arizona Republic. He's the Sun's beat writer up
there, has been for a number of years and he's seen the ups and
downs of the last half decade for the Phoenix Suns, which have been an
absolute roller coaster as a supporter myself, and he's been doing that for a
while. So we'll talk about the past, we'll talk about the future.
We've had some discussions about the Suns from other guys up there, and they
said it was probably the worst, the least fun year they've ever had in
covering a team, right, given the circumstances of the events, right,
you have a good team, supposed to good team, and they didn't live
up to expectations. Now and Steve I went up there for they supposed the
debut of the Big three, you know, back in November, and that
didn't happen because Bradley Beal was a late scratch because of back issues he had
a terrible luck injury year. He fell bad for him because he's a competitor.
But you know, they didn't have enough games together to really make it
work. And there were a lot more reasons why it didn't work than that,
But the bottom line is when it came to the playoffs and going up
against the defensive team like Minnesota, there was a lot that didn't work and
it showed. So you've been in this business maybe five six years tops or
whatever. I'm sure you're well aware and you don't need me to hear this
from me, But there's always more to the story then yesterday. Then what's
out there? And I think with the Suns and we'll ask Duane. I
mean, I'll even use the same phrase. There's always more to the story.
And when we were up there in for the Final four in April,
and I was there a week after that and talk videos like this were saying
this team just didn't mesh. It just didn't mesh. But but they were
all hopeful in that in that positive way that they can be it's gonna change
Minnesota. They had kind of Minnesota's number, right, blah blah blah,
Well they had no Minnesota number. It was the wrong number if they had,
but they had the number in the regular season, they I mean swept
them in the regular season and then got swept in the playoffs. Yeah,
and and that means pretty much nothing exactly. So we'll talk to him about
that and just how his enjoyment because this is a this is a fun job
for many people, but it's also work for those who do the job it
is and you get invested in kind of the day to day of the ebbs
and flows of you know, am I being a conduit to the fans?
Am I being a true conduit to the fans and conveying their frust will also
being fair in an objective way because I'm a reporter as well. Right,
let me ask you, so six years in the business, you came from
Green Bay, had some big games to cover. And this may be not
a couch question, but a few days that you just said, I wish
I didn't have to go to the work to the job today. Oh,
I don't know if there was a lot of those even at all. Really,
I you know what I would say, just the just the weather part
of it, you know, up in Green Bay. That would get me,
That would get me. I will never ever complain about triple digit temperatures
here, because I'm of the philosophy that you can only complain about one temperature.
The only days I didn't want to wake up and go to work and
do this incredible job that I'm so lucky to do were the days that it
was sub zero and the wind was blown in your face and I had to
get to my car and then maybe go outside to get out and go to
the station, or get out and go cover something that was a little bit
missed. Well, you grew up in Nebraska, right, I did what
you used to it. I was, but the winters last quite a bit
longer in Green Bay. You're you're getting some winter stuff from October to late
May a lot of years. So it's a bit of a bear. So
you're telling me that if you get a call from somewhere in Michigan, upstate
Michigan saying, hey, uh, Matt, we're looking for a sports guy,
you want to come up here, I don't know. I don't know
if I'm in really a position to turn too much down, but uh that,
uh, that would be a harder, harder thing to say yes to
than somewhere here in Arizona somewhere will Paul be saying exactly, you ready to
come here and start your career again, or you know, restart your career
and get it. Yeah, so, no, I get it. I
totally get it. It's I like golfing year round. I mean, I'm
not I'm not that good, but uh, you know it's consistent upper eighties.
Well you're in the right seat because Jay isn't either, you know.
I just uh, I just enjoy getting out there and hacking the ball around.
And you play for the rare birdie. You really do. Oh that's
the reason why I don't play, because I suck at it and I don't
want to be four hours of sucking at it. That would be horrible.
Yeah. I feel you there. But we've got great golf weather, great
golf courses down here, don't we. Yeah, there's no question. Well,
so we're gonna have some great guests. Like I said, the big
Games this weekend. If you're hoping to get out there. I think the
tickets are fourteen dollars each. Did you did you get some? I'm gonna
look tomorrow morning, Okay, because you asked the question, right, how
much I think they're like fifty dollars for the special seats. I think it
was thirty six all session all session regular general mission. Yeah, and fourteen
dollars per ticket for a game, and the single session tickets, so they're
per game, right, but it'll single session tickets will get you into the
games of that day. Oh really, Okay, so fourteen dollars a day.
So if you want to go check out the Dallas Baptists in West Virginia
game and come back, yeah, I'm fairly certain that it'll get you into
bothams. Okay, no, great, Yeah, so that's twelve right noon
and then six ye noon and six hopey marow. Yeah, that West Virginia
Dallas Baptist game should be really good. I actually saw, you know,
just a casual observation from Michael lev who's over there watching and it's scouting,
you know, both the workout day for all these teams. He said,
West Virginia looks pretty loose, so maybe we could see a three to two
upset coming up tomorrow in that noon game, maybe they catch Dallas Baptist by
surprise, and then West Virginia will be waiting the winner of Arizona and Grand
Canyon on Saturday yeah, reach the base. Let me excuse this too because
I get a kick and maybe it's me having done that in the past.
So you go see a team, all they look really loose. What what
does that mean? And you're not playing that day anyway? It means if
you have the glove on your head or you're touring water on people and messing
around, then you're pretty loose, then you'll say. And then when you
get your ass beat by ten points ten runs in a a ten run rule,
you're thinking, do you mean not? It should not have been so
loose the day before? You know who else looked really loose Arizona before the
Sweet sixteen loss against Clemson. Good, great point. That's thank I was
at that practice day. I watched it the entire time. They looked loose.
Yeah, they didn't play loose. What didn't matter, not a damn
thing, No, not at all thing. Well, I'm sure Killed Love
hit some shots. He did then in that in the day before. R.
J. Davis did too for North Carolina. The weirdest stat that I've
heard this year, or the weirdest statistical occurrence I think I've seen in sports
this calendar year, were shooting two shooters of the caliber of Caleb Love and
R. J. Davis, and back to back games on that court in
La going a combined zero for eighteen for seventeen yea but over eighteen yea and
back to back games, and two guys who have a definite connection with each
other. Yep, yep for former teammates at UNC. Right, No,
it was that was not unnoticed for that day because once it was over,
we were thinking we got to get back on the road and come back to
Tucsa. Yeah, we were all stunned. Well and both won. It
would have been the story lines would have been incredible. I mean, that's
and that's what we do this for. We do this for those incredible storylines.
I think when we saw the draw, the field of sixty four or
the field of sixty eight draw, and we saw number one seed North Carolina
with number two seed Arizona, we were looking our jobs for the possibility of
just highlighting that story in the return and it was true to form until that
Thursday afternoon, of course, it was so we'll see. But the good
catch they both missed shots all day and both teams went home. Yeah,
okay, so we're going to take the break, We're going to have Matt
Modono on and talk about what's going on recruiting lines. We have Matt often,
and this week has been crazy. We've been waiting for this week in
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Jay Gonzalez, they have their eye on the ball on Tucson Sports yet Fox
Sports fourteen fifty streaming live. I mean iHeart radio wams Hey, welcome back
to I'm the Ball here at Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera and
today for Jay is Matt Reynalton and we got our guy Ryan with us.
Now we have Matt Mordeno. I'll go easy cats. Matt. How are
you the great defense for having back? Yes? Are you are? You
very busy or is it busy yesterday with that Caleb Love announcement and then everything
else that came with it. Yeah, I mean it's always a busy time,
and you know, right now it's kind of crunch time for a lot
of rosters coming together. Obviously, the NBA deadline are just passed, and
you're trying to there's a lot of players trying to figure out, Okay,
I staying in the draft? Am I not going to draft? If I'm
not going to draft, I'm not staying in the draft. Rather, what
am I gonna do? Am I gonna stay at my current school? Am
I going to complete my transfer and go to where I was going? All
that kind of stuff. So it's just kind of fitting all the pieces together.
Obviously, Arizona yesterday really kind of started to make some real headway with
its roster and its future roster and everything kind of taking shape. And obviously
Caleb Love is the pivotal key piece to that, and so I felt like
everything else was kind of centered around what Caleb was going to do, and
uh, you know, where Arizona kind of went next and what happened with
the roster, you know, and what it was looking like and what it
will look like. It was based on what Caleb Blove decided to do.
It always felt like he was going to end up returning. There just wasn't
that overwhelming NBA draft buzz for him for various reasons and obviously not getting you
know, the big combined invite was was kind of a pretty significant tell about
kind of the NBA NBA thoughts on where he stands and how he sits into
the picture. But you know, it kind of always felt like that,
and obviously, you know, just talking to different people and getting a sense
for it and what even when you kind of thought play out, it's like,
do you want to be you know, big man on campus? Obviously
there's going to be significant and I owe money and play when you in your
players' caliber is coming back to college and do you want that or do you
want to go you know, being in the G League and have to work
your way up and kind of quad to get into the into the main kind
of league and get into the NBA and kind of being the spotlight there.
So you know, he can continue to work on things he you know,
go in next year and try it again and see if he helps himself and
is able to kind of move into that the first round and get drafted and
have a spot in the league. But I don't think it's uh, you
know, a bad thing for cable Up to return to school and obviously for
Arizona gives them, you know, a very very key piece to what they
want to do this second season, Matt. Obviously, for a number of
years, players have been able to enter the NBA draft process and then withdraw
and put their name, you know, get their name back in their school
and back and rolled for another year of college ball. But it feels like
this falls into hyper drive from the recruiting standpoint when it comes to unlimited transfers
as well. Yesterday we saw the Domino's fall with Joe snson On decommitting and
Jamari Phillips decommitting as well. How often and how commonplace are these sort of
days going to be with this the portal being so many part of the Dominoes
as well as the NBA draft process as well. Now, yeah, I
mean I think it only gets ramped up that much more just because again there's
that nil element, and that wasn't there before. Yes, there was decisions
like this before, and there's players who are kind of deciding what they were
going to do, and that's not new, but the nil element where it's
like, well, now you have that money spoken for and you got to
figure out how all those pieces kind of fit. And so I think throwing
that into the mix really is going to make this part of the norm.
And you're going to see players who are committed one place or even signed you
know, at one school figuring out Okay, well, you know a month
ago, this wasn't the scenario. Now it is, and so you know,
I think that's going to be commonplace and we're kind of seeing that,
you know, play out right now. And I think for Arizona it's going
to continue to be part of the picture because Arizona the Spaces is going to
have players who are going to be in this position every year. It's a
place where there's NBA caliber talent every year. And you know, it's really
difficult to get it to the NBA, and so you can be a player
like Caleb b Love and have a difficult kind of path and road to try
and get in there. Not everybody, you know, a clear first round
pick, and that league is looking for different things and what makes players successful
at the college level, and so I think you're going to continue to see
that. I think it's going to be even more so the case of the
team's move forward here and as a college game moves forward, and you know,
puts everyone kind of in an in a strange spot and in limbo for
some of those high school recruits. And that's not something that necessarily had been
the case, you know, five ten years ago, obviously, and you
know, the high school guys were the premier guys and you're trying to you
know, battle for this top group of premier talented players because you had the
rest of your roster set and now it's kind of you know, figuring it
out every year and every off season. And uh, you know, Arizona
fans know that's that's the case, and it hasn't been the case for a
while now that he's kind of making the match in the roster and then setting
all the pieces together the best you can and sometimes that runs e ntil the
summer. So do you think that that Arizona's I know that the teams coaches
haven't chased high school players as often now because it's all about the transfer portal,
But how do you think the kids coming in from the high school level,
very good recruiting class are going to be able to fit in with the
transfers coming in. Now, Yeah, it's gonna be really interesting. I
know there's a lot of kind of a mix reaction, maybe more negative to
Joe thompson Non's decision to flip to ASU about well, you know, Arizona's
bringing back these players, and I think Arizona chancel like what they've made their
decision about, at least themselves about what cale Glove is and who he is.
And obviously you know that exit from the tournament doesn't sit well with the
fan base, and so at least on our message boards and an rs our
subscribers, there is a lot of like, well look what they did.
They ran off these other young guys that are going to be compted players.
And Joe Snson is a very very compent player. But I think if you
have any college coach in the country, they're going to take experience over youth.
It doesn't matter the talent in many cases, and Johnson Ons can be
very very good at the college level, but you cannot replicate the experience that
you know some of these players have, especially someone like Caleb Glove, who
has been through the NCAA terms played at a high level. Coaches really really
value that. They've always have really really valued that, and I think a
lot of the top tier, kind of premiere programs really value that experience on
their rosters and know that's what's going to take them far in the end.
But I really like this this class that Arizona is bringing in, and what
all this does is lets them kind of bring them in a little bit slow.
You don't have to rely on so much youth, and that's difficult.
I mean the early part of the season, that's that's a struggle for a
lot of those young players as they kind of figure it out. And you
know, when you've done it as long as DFCS and you know, all
of us there're seeing kind of all these seasons play out. You know,
you've seen it before with those young players. They're just not the same you
know, you know in November as they are in February, and so there
has to be that time for growth and development, and you can kind of
let that happen a little bit more slowly and kind of allow it to kind
of happen organically. When you know that you have a core group of veterans
and experienced players you can lean on more so than the freshmen. And so
I think it's going to be beneficial for a lot of those guys that really
like this group still, and I think there's going to be a well bounced
roster in Tucson next season. That's I think it's a really big deal.
And you know, if you're Arizona, you don't want any drop offs,
and I think that's that's key, And especially in today's game, you really
want to have kind of a seamless transition from one season to the next,
and it's difficult with how much movement there is, but I think Arizona has
been a really good spot with that. Man, I want to follow up
on a point you made a couple of minutes ago about these kids, these
high school recruits making business decisions for them, and I want you to put
yourself in the mindset of a high school recruit, which because you talked to
so many is probably a little bit easier for you to do than maybe some
others. But when these kids are going through this process and they commit to
a school, is in a scenario almost at this point when it comes to
the nil game when it comes to the portal that even if you're committed to
a school, you have to keep other options in your back pocket. Or
are these guys truly just starting over when it's become a parent that it's not
going to work for them at the school they committed to. Yeah, no
doubt. I mean it really feels more now than ever that it's just kind
of a placeholder. The commitment is just kind of a place holder, like
if anything, you know, if it all kind of came crashing down and
I don't get what I want and I all wise, or the situations elsewhere
doesn't you know, isn't to my liking. I know I would belong here.
I know I would sit into this program. So it really is like
a placeholder in a lot of cases. And you see that on both the
football and the basketball side. But you know, it really is kind of
a situation like that where recruits will tell you outright like I just want my
spot. I want on my spot locked up. There's too much going on
with the transfer portal. I don't want my spot to get taken. I
like the school enough that I would feel comfortable playing there one day, so
I'm going to commit it happens a lot more, I think on the football
side in terms of early commitments and then a lot of deconmitments later on.
And I've had those words told to me where recruits are like, yeah,
I just want to make sure I have my spot, and so it definitely
means something different than what it used to in terms of commitment, and that
kind of goes for both sides, because you know, college coaches kind of
change the situations themselves, and you know, a player comes into the portal,
they go, hey, we like him a lot more than you know
what we have committed, and maybe the words that to get back to those
recruits like hey, you're not as high on our board as you want to
work and so it kind of goes both ways. But yeah, I think
it's it's kind of becoming pretty complex. I think it's less secretive than it
was before. Before it was like you have recruits taking secret visits and nobody
would know about those until after they happen. It's it's a lot it's happening
a lot less now where that's the case and a lot of the recruits are
open and they hey, I'm visiting no. Five more schools and I'm committed,
and if you don't like it, I guess, you know, to
deal with it because I need to keep my options open. I think everyone's
a little bit more kind of transparent about that now. And yeah, these
recruits in a lot of cases are continuing those conversations with other programs, whether
they're initiating those or not. A lot of times it is other college programs
just reaching out and being like, hey, what's your situation. Are you
open to you know, coming to visit? Are you open to listen to
our pitch? And in a lot of cases that is that is the scenario.
And so I think there is a lot more of that where the recruits
are definitely keeping their eyes open and trying to find what fits them best because
I think they've seen everything kind of play out with programs, you know,
where the programs are trying to figure out what's best for them as well.
So it's kind of a two way street. And then yeah, they're but
there's a lot more of that where a lot of these recruits are kind of
keeping it You're open, and keeping those conversations open and looking at all their
options before they really settle in on the final final decision. So we've been
going through this rented player stuff for about I don't know, ten twelve years,
whatever it has been, it's been. It's been about that because I
know Wisconsin, the coach back then when Arizona played him, talked about the
one and done's as the rental players. But let me give you the scenario
to both of you, guys. Okay, so Sonan goes to Issue,
Uh, Boswell goes where he goes, and I don't want to connect to
Boswell to love all that much, wink wink. But but okay, so
Love comes back, he plays the year. Would it be a surprise,
guys if Sondan decided to leave a Issue and come here, if he chooses
to stay another year in the college level, I'll start with that. I
think from what I've heard on Joe sonson On and Matt you can definitely speak
to this is that he was someone that was interested in being a one and
done type player, and I think that was part of the reason why he
reclassified to twenty twenty four in the first place. Right, So if he
has you know, if he even shows good flashes at ASU where he will
play a hot and he probably will start if he shows the flashes there.
I mean, this guy could enter the draft and be be maybe an impact
player right away. I know this year was a real is a really you
know, is regarded as maybe a lower end NBA draft class. I don't
know if people are really expecting next year to like bounce back in a huge
way and be this generational NBA draft class. So if he shows out at
ASU, maybe NBA is in his future. So he must be seventeen I
think so, yeah, seventeen b eighteen when he plays here next year.
So he'll have to have a fantastic here because his name's not Browny. What
about you? What do you want to think thinking about that modern Yeah,
I mean I think a lot of why you go to a place like Arizona
State is because you know, you want to have that ability to shine.
And I think if you look at Arizona roster, it's much more difficult to
do that at a place like air Zone. And yes, as you've started
to build some things there and it has some real talent come into to tempty,
but uh, you know, you have a I think the greater opportunity
to do those things. And yeah, I agree that that that has been
the conversations like one and done has kind of been the topic and you reclassify
for that reason, you look at the options you do for that reason and
to put yourself in a position to do that. But there have been moments
where that hasn't happened, and you, you know, guys seem like sure
things to be one and done, and they've gone in with the mindset of
like, no matter what happens, I'm going to be out of this place
and on to the next level within you know, nine months or whatever it
is. And it just hasn't happened, and so and so, so we'll
see kind of how it all plays out. But again to your point,
Steve, that's why a lot of coaches don't try and burn bridges during the
high school recruiting process because they know it can come back around. They know
what happens and if if you can be in play that second time around today
eight we're still the same, You still like this, you committed to this
one, just do it again, and you're in a different position. You're
in a different position. And so I think a lot of coaches are doing
their due dude dealing and making sure that they don't burn those bridges kind of
across the board because they know there could be a second recruitment coming in the
not too distant future and they want to be in a good position to land
that recruit one. Sure, yeah, so mad that you're saying. It
means a little bit more now to be the second or third hat on the
table. Absolutely. I think I think you can't be overly discouraged if you
come come in second. In a lot of these retreatments before that was hey
it's over and we got to move on and figure something else out. And
yeah, that's the case still where you have to kind of uh, you
know, uh look at you know, uh, situations and solutions in the
interim, but you know, moving forward, it's like, well, if
you don't get it. There's been that conversation. I've heard these words from
coaches where it's like, if you don't get them, you can get them
next year, and there's kind of maybe half joking, but I think there
is a lot of seriousness to what they're saying, and they believe that,
hey, if you don't get them this year, you do to get next
year, and you know you'll be in the same position and hey, you
came in second you'll be one of the favorites to land them again. And
so you know it's definitely the case. And if you're one of those top
two or three, you're going to be in a great position. You've seen
it a lot to play out with those schools that were you know, second
and third, the original recruitments, uh, you know, come back and
you know there's green guys who have transferred a couple of times where that third
school dur in the high school trewment comes back and now they're you know where
he's playing and finishing his career and so, uh yeah, you definitely can't
rule that out. And it's it's not a terrible position to being if you're
if you're a cool right now. So I need a quick answer, Matt,
So make this quick. Uh. I know this is gonna be difficult
for you. Uh. Football, the defensive lineman from USC coming here,
What does that mean? It means good things. An experienced player, somebody
that I think they're missing, helps them replace, you know, some key
departures. And I think a very very good thing for Arizona. And it
could be a sneaky, sneaky, uh, really good pick up for Arizona.
Okay, so now I like we have I like this would be my
next question, another quick one on we didn't even talk about Phillips. Yeah,
I mean, we'll we'll see what happens. I mean, uh,
you know, this is just part of the whole process, Steve, and
obviously, uh you know it's there's one ball and when you have some ball
dominant players coming back and some guys are going to carry that workload, it'll
be interesting to see kind of how it all plays out exactly. Okay,
thanks, Matt, appreciate you go back to thanks Matt crunching those numbers.
Absolutely, thank you, Matt. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's about
playing. What I asked you yesterday, why do athletes come here, come
go to school. They come to go to school for the money and the
plane money played the school. What do you mean, what's that? What's
the school? What's the academic side of it? Okay, well, let's
take a break and discuss more about all this, maybe take a call or
two on the other side. 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 Loudolsen era in my new book, Lessons from Loot, It was
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two zero seven four eight or Picture Rockschooling dot com kes rocks, Cooing,
Cheating and Plumbing streaming Live Honey, iHeartRadio WAP. This is I on the
Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. Hey,
welcome back to I on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm
Steve Rivera. I've got Matt Reynoldson in with me today. My guy Ryan
here manning the board and checking the phones. If you gonna want to call
five to two zero for one six seven four four zero, I'd love to
hear from you, just maybe on anything you want to talk about me,
the Love situation and the new team as you see it today, and you've
seen what we saw last year last season. Do you like what's left and
what he has because it's not gonna change now, right. I do like
what's left, and it was when I was looking at the offseason, you
know, back in March, when the season ended so abruptly in Los Angeles,
as we've talked about, it looked like, okay, this is gonna
be a reset year. We'll see how the young team progresses by the time
you get to March, and they'll take their lumps in conference play and maybe
lose a home game to Duke or something to that effect. But now you
have a team that's loaded with veterans and loaded with guys, assuming Jayden Bradley
comes back, loaded with guys that are going to be guys that have seen
March basketball. kJ lewis taking another step. Caleb Love obviously has seen his
well worthy share of March moments. Tray Townsend went to the tournament with Oakland
this past year, and who played really good minutes for the Cats in March
this year. Yeah, I'm assuming, I'm assuming you played ball at some
level baseball I did. Yeah, I played tennis, basketball at Socceray,
basketball was kind of what I obsessed over even more so you played You played
sports obviously, So you have a pretty good team. You have a pretty
good sense of this. And I say this with Jay all the time.
You could be very good, You can be very good, but guess what
you have to do. You have to play against other people who are just
as good, if not better. Uh, Arizona's now as we stand,
it's probably the third or fourth best team in the Big Twelve. Maybe in
Houston brings back a lot Kansas, Baylor loaded next year Baylor Iowa State is
going to be good. So I think that, uh, we kind of
we can wax poetic here on the show because we were in Tucson, but
realistically, other teams are doing what Arizona's doing too, right, and we
don't know that. You know, who would have thought Clemson this team that
nobody knew knew anything about would be that good, right, you know,
know, until you know and then by that time you're down ten exactly.
And if they had a really hot march run and played really strong defense and
you know, I mean, uh, now that we're removed from it,
right now that we're removed from the what in the world happened of it all?
I think we can say that what Tommy Lloyd said after the game is
somewhat of a fair assessment because he said, bad shooting nights happened, just
happened at the wrong time. Let's take a call real quick. Hello,
you're on the air and eye on the ball. Hey, wherever this is
Mike Quinn. How are you bou Mike? How why are you good to
hear from you? What's on your mind? Yeah? So, you know,
I was, I was, I was listening to what guest Matt was
staying, uh and about luck coming back. You know, I'm not sure
if it's it's additioned by subtraction, the subtraction by addition, but you know,
he one thing he said was that, uh, you know, oh,
we get these guys that are young guys playing in over They're going to
benefit from the fans man, I tell you you used to beat in my
head about November doesn't matter, March matters. Are we better in March.
I wouldn't want to be better in November. I'd rather be better in March.
Yeah, no question. And I also thought Matt and both you guys
that Arizona whatever, no faults of their own unless it is mortgage the future
for the present. I think at some extent they did. But also you
have to consider that a lot of these guys can jump to the NBA Draft
whenever they want, and so if they have a good year, it might
not be your thinking about the future. It might not be you're developing guys
right now. You're developing guys to lead. So it's not like it is
in football necessarily, where if you are taking a senior transfer, you're potentially
mortgaging a roster spot on the eighty five for a freshman. So in basketball,
I think you have to look at what your needs are of this team
and the investment that they've already made in Caleb Love. And yeah, he
didn't have a very good March, but he was the closer all year long,
and I don't see another closer on this roster as of right now as
we sit here on my thirty So you qu uh did you did you want
him back? Did it matter your auditioned by subtraction or subtraction by audition?
What are your thoughts? Yeah, I don't I don't know. I mean
I think that you know, certainly he's he's a hell of a talent.
I mean, he's a hell of a basketball player. I mean he's shown
that, uh pactoral player of the Year is to have to argue with that.
I just wonder if they're a better team with somebody else. And I
don't really know. I'm not very familiar with the folks that decided not to
return or sure or not to be committed, which is why I'm really why
to call him. But it's uh, I'm not sure if I would say
that I wanted him back. I wanted to turn the page and see if
we could get better as a team. Mike, that's an interesting point too.
And you know, but I think what you're doing is with any high
school recruit, and with any high level recruit and even a transfer coming in,
you're taking a dice roll on how they fit with the culture of your
team and the culture that you're trying to establish in this program, and Tommy
Lloyd going into year four, has really come into his own on how he
wants to establish the mindset of a program. And he had a lot of
hard conversations I believe, with Caleb Love last offseason to say, hey,
you're going to come in and be a part of this. These are the
things I want you to do. This is what I want you to represent
as a person and a locker room guy, not just a basketball player.
And I think by all accounts all year from you know, the press conferences
and the games that we went to Steve, is that we saw a Caleb
Love who was coming in to be a teammate, be humble, and be
that guy that was going to fit into Tommy Lloyd's culture. Yeah. He
did a pretty good job of that in most of those instances, but not
all of them. Sure. So okay, thanks Mike for calling. Appreciate
it. You appreciate it, Mike. How do you given his reputation rate,
he was this star in North Carolina, had up his ups and downs,
led him to the Final four, and then had a bad game in
one of those games. Last year was what it was. The previous year
was was what it was. That's why he left, right in fact,
so well here we got another call. Hold that thought. I can remember
it. Hey, welcome to Eye of the Ball. You're on the air.
How's it going today? Good? How are you? What's going on?
Good about that Caleb Love thing? You know? I you know,
to me, I think it's you know, it's fine. He's coming back.
There's no guarantee that these two kids that were coming in we're going to
be here, whether they transferred nil money somewhere else or decided to go pro.
I mean, today's roster is built on one year and one year only,
not Okay, what can this guy do for us two three years down
the road? Right right? That's not the way basketball is anymore. And
I think people have to realize that. Yeah, no question. I think
you're definitely on the ball with that one, because you know, I looked
at last year's team as almost a perfect mix of the five and then they
eight that were in the rotation and what everybody brought to the floor, and
one bad night causes you to sort of question everything, and you know what,
maybe they would have lost in the Elite eight and we would have had
these questions on a you know, on a broader level as well of okay,
what were the cracks in the foundation throughout the season, But because they
played their worst game of the season, perhaps against the last team they played
and really laiden egg shooting wise against Clemson, we had those conversations a little
bit earlier, you know. So let me ask you real quick. The
expectations are here, always big, right, always big? What would be
really what would be the realistic expectations? And you know, you know,
you listening and you call all the time and the time of my realistic view,
what would be next year's realistic view? I don't think there really is
a realistic view. I think there's a hope, maybe a realistic hope,
and not a view in the sense that, okay, we all expect to
get to the final four. Okay, that's Arizona basketball. I mean,
we haven't been there in about three hundred years, it seems. But you
know, I think you know, we all looked, you know, with
the team, the players we have that we would like. We know,
we assume we're going to try and get to the final four. But unfortunately,
there's forty other teams in basketball now right they're just as talented who they
have the same feelings that we do. Yep. And you know, I
mean if we didn't have Caleb Loved last year planned, yep, there's probably
six seven more losses on that on that resume, easily true. And on
the topic of expectations, I want to I want to float this to you
and to all of our listeners. Are we okay with looking at this Arizona
basketball team in twenty twenty four to twenty five and seeing a team that plays
their way into a five seat or a six seat in the NCAA turn right,
because I think we've become so used to the one in two seeds team
at the top of the bracket and then you know, maybe being disappointed in
the second weekend? Uh, you know, are are we okay with seeing
Arizona struggle throughout the regular season in a rugged Big twelve conference and then maybe
being more battles test to come? Mark, go ahead and answer that realistically,
because you know, and I know that's not good enough. No,
it's not, you know, but I mean, we we've done our best
basically well, well, I don't know what we remember if we were a
four or five seed where we won the national championship. But it's just you
know, at that time of year, whoever gets hot gets hot. Yep,
And that's basically all it is, right. You know, all the
talent in the world, there are a lot there are a lot more teams,
more talented us than us last year who didn't do that? Well yeah,
right, well, thanks for the call as usual. I just don't
know if people are going to sit there and go, oh, Kayla's coming
back. I'll bet when we lost these two guys. We don't even know
what these two guys are going to be like. They may not even have
been in the top seven rotation, right, you know, you're right,
yeah, and you know what you know because you've seen it already with love.
Yeah yeah, okay, Well, thanks for the call as always,
Thanks so much, appreciate it. Yeah you well, yeah, you know
what you know, and you know, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad,
right, right, And we could look at the potential of Joe sonsen
On or Jamori Phillips coming in and being that closer, but that's tough to
take over in November, and you've got a lot of veterans on this roster
that it played a lot of minutes I mean, look at the guy who
was the five star that came in last year. kJ Lewis came off the
bench real quick, another call. Hey, welcome to eye the ball.
You're on the air. Hey Steve, this is done? Hey done?
How are you? I'm good man? Happy to be late at birthday,
I had a chance to call in. Yeah, thank you, don what's
on your mind? With love? I assume no, no, enough for
the basketball discuss how disappointing the basketball team is at the end of November,
because we're gonna be doing it then or the third week of March next year
anyway, So okay, I mean, well, well, the thing is
trying to talk about the roster. It's like the previous caller said, everybody's
got to get used to like, hey, we don't know what the roster
is going to be between now and that they start the season and so.
And it's been it's been years since I've even worried about recruiting or trying to
even get to know the rock with the picture of a player, and I
have no idea who it is, right, who is by picture with you?
Yeah? What I what I did want to talk about was I did
want to command ship hail on adjusting the rotation for this weekend. Not you
know, nothing against Kent, but you know he might need a cup extra
days hopefully to not think about it. I don't know, it's not there's
not going to be any taking the pressure off, because if he's when he's
pitching on Sunday, you know there's certainly going to be pressure. I'm in
lockstep with you, Hope, I'm sorry, I'm in lockstep with you on
that. I think it was a great move. I think it was a
savvy move, and I think it just goes to show a coach that you
know has played at a high level and coached at a high level at many
levels of baseball, and he's not afraid to adjust on the fly in the
most crucial time of the year. And this is coming off a regular season
championship, a postseason championship, and earning a regional host that he's still willing
to switch things up. It shows someone I think, who's willing to adapt,
which you don't only see at every level of baseball. Well, he's
also done it with the batting order as well. And if and if you've
been paying and if you've been paying attention, in the last few weeks,
guys have been moving up and down. Summer Hill was hitting fourth, then
now he's leading off and and he does that, you know, and usually
baseball guys don't do that. The batting order is usually written in ink.
I think injury. I think injuries part of that too. You know,
Emilio Corona had his spot in the top three of the order pretty well locked
down, and then injuries hit him a little bit. Chip said today that
he's still working his way back for this weekend. But I think you do
have those chess pieces that you use to your point in guys like Brendan summer
Hill, and guys like even Blake McDonald who's a lot of times playing behind
a Donnis Guzman there Mason White obviously with his power and what he can do
with the plate, and you know, change a game in one swing.
I think they used the ability to move that around really well and be able
to manufacture some runs in a lot of situations. And I think that really
helped at the end of the season, because even with the injuries, there
was like Saturday night, that guy from usc was dealing Holy we went up
for the game, we saw it and in the fifth inning, I said,
hey, somebody, I'll tell that guy he's throwing a no hitter,
you know, because we need to end this thing quick, right But as
soon as as soon as Mason White scored that first run, for me,
I didn't say it out loud, but for me, the game was over.
Arizona was going to come back and win that game. That's the confidence
I have in watching this team. And these guys have the experience because they've
moved up and they've moved down, so they've they've been in the pressure spots.
They've gotten the chance to move down to work on that and everything else.
And just and Chip Hale just pushing the buttons. You know, even
with the injuries we have, they you know, we should be able to
get out of this region. I think, thank you, Don we got
about ten seconds. Thanks for colling. Appreciate have a good one guys,
right we've got to get a break right now. Thanks