Breaking down all the xs and os. It's Steve Lameira and Jaden Summits.
This is I on the Ball on Fox Sports fourteen. Different Hey, welcome
back to on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen. Cookie, I'm Steve
us Jake. Now we have Sammon were breaking news. Well, this is
I on the Ball breaking news on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. All right,
guys, so we talked a lot about football and what you have is gonna
do against Washington, But the NBA world is fully back right and if you
thought that it could go silent for more than a couple of weeks, you
were wrong. Damian Lillard has been traded to the Milwaukee Bucks. So let
me break it down. Milwaukee gets Dame. The Blazers the third team with
the Phoenix Suns in this get Drew Holiday, DeAndre Ayton, Tamani Kamara Milwaukee
twenty twenty nine unprotected pick and two picks swaps in twenty twenty eight and twenty
thirty, and the Phoenix Suns get Joseph Nurkics, Grayson Allen, Na Seer
Little, and Keenan Johnson. And now Devin Booker is the only player left
on the Phoenix Suns roster from that twenty twenty one Finals team. Wow.
So obviously the connection here is just DeAndre. Right, it's not a surprise
that he's gone, because remember we said last year it would be about a
year or so before they leave. And I think we know the act do
this? Want to ask you anyway, Jay, And I don't know if
you followed DeAndre here? Yeah? What makes him so polarizing? And I
think that's accurate, right, Yeah, I think it is. I think
what it is is that he's such an immense talent, Okay, an immense
physical talent. He looks like a guy and feels like a guy who should
be a dominating player in the NBA, and he's just not because of his
dang head, his attitude or whatever it, his approach and his attitude between
the ears. It's just not where you feel like a guy with that kind
of talent should be. God, we saw we saw that here, right,
nothing's really changed. No. I think being here with Sean Miller and
he was the guy in Arizona and he wasn't he had to realize that he
wasn't going to be the guy in the NBA. He might have that chance
now in Portland to maybe show if he can be the guy, but he
wasn't going to be. And I think he might have struggled with that,
and it just never was the same in terms of his attitude and his mindset.
If you're gonna be the guy, you need to be the guy.
Yes, not kind of every time. I'm going to be the guy every
day. Right. It's like the stuff when they if you're gonna be a
talker like we see now in college football, you better back it up.
But but not to put him in this class. But that was the thing
that was a thing about Michael Jordan. Whether it was a practice or a
game or around a golf Okay, he was giving it everything he had and
and all that's all you ask of Dian or anybody like him, and he
just never has done that, right, as you said, even we talked
about that when you first, before even before you got here, because when
you're that size and you're playing against your kids, your own age, you
kind of don't have to go right. Your motor always well, I'm better
than all you guys. I'm just gonna do what I need to do.
And he kind of adopted that theory all his career. Not that he's he's
making millions of millions of dollars. He's doing okay, but you just see,
God, this guy could be this guy and it's like he doesn't want
to be this guy. And what sucked is that you would see flashes of
that. Yeah, you can see his potential and yeah, the skills that
you have come to fruition, but it just wasn't consistent. So yeah,
the DeAndre Ayton era and Phoenix is uh coming gone and now Damian Lillard joins
Jannis onto the Kumbo Who who talked a little bit about and are they now
the finals winner? Odds on favorite? Do you think? You know?
I mean yeah who Milwaukee? Yeah? Yeah who? They are in a
three and a half to one. I think it is. Would I put
money on him? I don't know. I still like Denver. Okay,
it's all chemistry too. You don't who knows how they're gonna fit in,
but they're gonna be pretty good. They're gonna be pretty dang good. Your
team from Phoenix Suns, well you have how old are you? You've had
a tough life, tough life in Arizona sports, but hopefully, hopefully it's
turning around in the next couple of years. But you know, it's not
program isn't turning around, or maybe it is, depending on how you look
at it. Is the Michigan State football team, melt Tucker is fired for
quote unquote breeding bringing ridicule to the program. That's what they said, Yes,
that's what they said. Yeah, yeah, I knew that he had
been officially fired, right, I didn't know that they used that word though.
That's a good one. So we'll see who the next coach is there.
We'll see if there's a settlement there, and how much money he is.
It's eighty million. That he's old, he's not gonna get eighty million.
But if he gets ten million, he's done. Well. Sure right.
You'll be interesting to see if what comes up there, and Michigan State
may put their foot down and say we're not giving you squat. You mess
this up. Dan Walkin, our buddy that we've had on, wrote a
column today just said dude, you were you were stupid. Uh just ripped
him, that's that, Yeah, basically saying he did this to himself.
Yeah, you know, And now to the golf audience. The Ryder Cup
is a day away. It starts Friday, early in Rome and Brooks,
Kepka Rory McElroy, obviously two of the faces of golf, had some things
to say this morning. Rory sounding off about the players not making the Ryder
Cup team that are playing on Live and that that should sting for them and
if they the choices that they made are now being reflected in some of these
decisions, and Kepca kind of maybe had his back of saying that these guys
just needed to play better. It was simple as that and so interesting.
It's obviously Bryson Deshambo, one of the guys playing on the Live tour,
was not extremely happy to that he didn't receive a phone call to play.
And so I think it's it is at the end of the day, if
you if you play better, you're gonna be on the team. He's not
been that good, right, He's he hasn't been the Bryson we've been used
to seeing the last couple of years. He has won a couple of times
on Live, and he has competed, but it's you look at the USA
team in your though, where does he finish? Who's coming off? And
and the fact of the matter is is that do these guys like playing with
him, because at the end of the day, you have to have the
guys that are quote unquote good locker. It's a team. It's a team.
This is a team. So the United States haven't won in Europe since
nineteen ninety three, and I don't know if that's gonna continue. Yeah,
I think it'll be. I think it'll be an all time Ryder Cup.
As a golf fanatic that I am. There's world class talent going on there.
And the last couple of things, actually last thing, So Arizona is
a seventeen and a half point underdog at home and there's an anticipated fifty thousand
crowd to come out on Saturday. Do we think the number will get that
high? They'll announce that number, but it won't be it won't be that
number they'll have. They'll be forty eight thousand people there. Mm hmm.
That's a good day, Steve. I feel like I feel like fans have
been waiting for a game like this to play because it's been tell me what'll
go. So they got Washington, they got USC next week, right right,
they go to USC a week off, Okay, go to Washington State,
Okay, then come home for Oregon State and UCLA and then and that's
and then one. Well then if they'll have after that, they'll have a
Colorado at Colorado. You taught home. If the fans want to see this
team against a good team, this this is the one to go to.
Yea. And again they're three and one. They're not ranked or anything like
that. In fact, Big Game Boomers got them twenty fourth words team in
the in the country, but among Power five. But like I said,
there's a sense that Arizona has a chance, even though it's not a very
good chance. Let me say this to both you guess then Okay, so
you have this gauntlet of a schedule, right, I think that's the right
word. Maybe okay, And you still see six wins, right, Jay?
Yeah, so what do you see and it's more likely to get six
wins or go three and three? Ish, I think, well, because
you have three wins already, so all you need. I think I personally
think you they can go to Colorado and win that game. Okay, I
know there's by that time in Colorado season, I think the wheels will have
fallen off in terms of the hype bandwagon and so it'll be a less anticipated
game in Colorado still may not be as good as Okay, what about the
wheels on this bus? I think Arizona's got more wheels. I agree their
death the death the driver of the buses. Well, by that time it'll
be figured out either either Jade Delores playing really well or he's not the quarterback
anymore. Okay, so okay, there's one I think you. I think
I still think Colorado Ucla and asked yours three wins? I think, yeah,
I think that's three wins. The question is do they get another one
by beating say Oregon State State at home? Yeah, and that's homecoming,
right, and UCLA is at home? Okay, that doesn't really and I
think I think I think their defense will be good enough to keep Colorado's offense
in check enough for them to win the game. You have to win.
I still think. I don't. I don't know. I don't think Colorado
is that great. I think they showed a lot of those first three games,
a lot of offense. But if but Oregon showed if you've got a
pretty good defense, you can stuff them. And then what they did,
they almost they almost very good. They almost got shut out. Well,
the things I like, my bet with you more more now than I did
before. Because that's fine. I bet it because you know I know him.
But and I said, I said five, and I said, okay,
maybe six, and I would have bet six. Yeah. But as
you said, Arizon has not been impressive yet. They have not been.
They have been and they can't. They've gotta step something up here. They've
got, even even in a loss to Washington, to give you, guys,
you some hope. You already have hope, but you need more hope.
Well, me and me and my my group position. As a fan,
I feel like Arizona will get there's stuff to get, there's stuff together
in time to win three more games. Okay. Now, as a Nun
fan and be a journalist, it's gonna be hard. You're gonna have to
You're gonna have to upset a team. Whether it's oh yeah, we talked
about that, it's the Oregon States, the UCLA's, the Colorado's because they
go to Colorado. You know they're not gonna be a favorite. They're gonna
be like four and a half dog. No, But I think it depends.
It depends if because you have UCLA in Oregan State the two weeks prior
if you win one of those games, you've shown you're you're an established I
don't want to say quote unquote legit football team, but you can win a
tough game. And going to Colorado, who we've talked about maybe isn't as
great as we've all thought, you can win that game. I think that
you kind of got disilutioned by the trouncing that they had against Organs really good.
They had an agenda because no one talked about Oregon all week, you
talked about Colorado. It says, well, Colorado get off me. Well,
but yeah, exactly, we're going to know more with this USC game,
right because if if if USC puts it on him as well, yeah,
and because we saw USC didn't look great last week, but if USC
puts it on them and where they don't score and they get blown out again,
then Colorado is not the Colorado that we thought they were going to be
coming into the season. But they're not a whole lot more than that.
Sure, And maybe one of those things where last game of the season at
ASU you need to win get into a bowl, and that that's already fuel
to the fire. That could very well be the case, because it's always
one of those cases. Always one of those things where it feels like either
ASU needs a win to save something bowl game or something like that. But
it also could be the case where you look back this season and you go,
of you have a wins that overtime game in Mississippi State. They they
only need to win two PAC twelve games. Yeah, so that's the breaking
news. Okay, all right, a couple of there's a couple of other
little things. Uh god, what was it. I had a couple or
oh, the College Football Playoff Committee mett these last couple of days and ended
up doing nothing, and so they're trying to a lot of discussion about whether
they you know, right now, they've got six automatic bids plus six at
large bids. They're trying to get off of that to go five and seven
with the PAC twelve being gone. You've got the American Athletic Conference Commissioner Mikelresco,
who is who is uh saying, you know, they want to hold
on to the sixth because that gets that gets the group of five two spots.
They need an unanimous vote to change it from six to six to five
and seven, and he's holding, he's holding. Let's take this just okay,
let's take it all right. We got a call. He hight you're
on the air and I on the ball. Hey, Jake, it's Howard.
Hey Howard, Howard. We haven't heard from you. You got a
minute, how We got a minute, Howard, and we got to go
to break. Okay, wasn't it twenty points to spread and it's down to
seventeen. I'm going I'm going all the way with they're gonna beat that seventeen
maybe not twenty one. And of course they got rid of Andre and it's
great. We got you sick a guy that's six to eleven or tough,
tough European guy, and so I'm pretty happy. Do you feel better about
your chances now than you just? Oh? Oh yeah? But everyone it
was confusing, but like she hit it on the head, Steve. We
know what DeAndre is and he's gonna have to carry and they're they're they're saying
a good rookie. He's he's gonna see that. It's not greener on the
other side of DeAndre is not going to show anything in Portland. Yeah,
Howard, good to hear from you. Yeahland, thanks for calling. Welcome
back. Yeah, I appreciate it. We didn't have we didn't have to
hit the button. All right, let's go and take our break. We're
gonna have Dave Hickey. Come on. We've got some questions and we'll see
he answers them. We'll be right back. For more than twenty years,
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I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen fiftey.
Hey, welcome back to I on the Ball here on Fox Sports Sport
teen Filkie. I'm Steve Rivera, Ki's Jaken Zoss now on the phone.
We have Dave Hike, the VP, and director of athletics at you of
a you know who he is, Dave. How are you? I'm good,
gentlemen, how are you today? We're doing great. Do we have
some important questions, but great to hear your boys. It's been a while
since we've seen well, we've missed you, and you know, there's so
much going on, but so much we nobody could talk about. So we're
glad to have you. It's good to be with you, guys, and
it was a good summer. But glad to fall is off to a fast
and furious start and looking forward to it. It gets fast because look football
here, basketball, men's and women's basing, a lot of things going on.
How busy are you internally? Well, we are busy. I mean
there's a lot happening when you talk about transition too and going forward, but
you're still celebrating this final year in the Pac twelve, doing it the right
way, honoring our student athletes and the opportunity to compete in this great conference.
So we're going to try to continue to that. But you know,
we do. We have golf going, we have baseball, softball, football,
cross country. You know, there's just so we have volleyball, obviously
soccer going all right now. I mean there's a lot happening, all right.
So you've got a game with a lot of anticipation coming up on Saturday
with Washington top ten. Uh. You know, Steve and I have been
kicking around. You know, at least you feel like Arizona's you know,
got a chance to you know, to to do something special if you know,
things fall into place. But you mentioned you think it's going to be
a sellout. What are we looking at on Saturday? Well, I know
we're pushing that fifty number right now, so we're really close to a full
capacity of full night. I fully anticipate that will happen. So anybody that
still wants a ticket, there's still one there, but they are becoming very
scarce. And as I've always said, this is time we got it.
We've got to all be in. Fans, everyone's got to be in because
the football program's ready, and you know, special things happen on evenings like
this and special nights, and the fan base can make a difference. And
it's a big opponent coming in. They are very good. You've been here
five years, I think now this is about how about almost seven? See
if I know it goes quickly, but I'm sorry about that. I'm doing
all We're just throwing away years that we didn't like. We're not doing those
years when COVID was here. We forgot time you very much. Just this
is gonna be. We talk about how difficult to pack twelves in terms of
teams, but from your end your life, thinking, okay, next week,
we got this demo. Crap, Well, nixt thing, we got
this team. Everybody's good. Everybody's good. That's a compliment to all of
our coaches and our programs and the leadership across the board. It's good.
That's a good thing when you have a great conference. And you I've been
in a long time, over twenty six twenty seven years now, and I
look back and it's one of the best ever I think in my time.
And you were in it too in Oregon. That's correct, That's right.
So all right, So a couple of things, and I brought this up,
you know, off air. You know, I was looking at we
were looking at future schedules for some reason at lunch today and I saw the
Kansas State is on the schedule as a non conference game next year. I
don't know how far you know, Big twelve has come come along in terms
of how it's gonna do. It's football scheduling or basketball. But what do
you guys do with that game? Well, you know, we've looked at
it. We have several games as we go forward with BYU Texas Tech and
then the series with Kansas State that are now our conference, will be conference
opponents going forward. We look, it's hard to flip the schedule in one
year, So next year with that Kansas State game, we're examining what Canada
could not be done. It sits there as a placeholder. We'll let the
Big twelve kind of speak to it when we get to the right point.
I know it's been talked about as being a non conference game. There's nothing
official, but that is one of the options that could certainly happen if we
are able to find different You know, you've got to find an opponent for
us to play and for Kansas State to play. It's a two game series.
We both need home games. That's hard to find those in such short
windows and meet everyone's needs. And they're scheduling agendas. Look, look,
we know that stuff like this takes time. You know, scheduling and all
that kind of stuff. But how far along is the Big Twelve in deciding
how it's going to schedule whatever sport? Right, with all with all these
things going on, sixteen teams in a conference now traveled, YadA, YadA,
YadA, how far along or when do you think we'll hear what it's
gonna look like for football, basketball and all the other sports. Well,
I don't think it's the best answer always, but I think it's a truthful
answer. We don't really know, and we're working very hard though. Even
with that answer, we're working really hard here on campus and in our program,
but also with all of the Big Twelve members in coordinating that. You
know, there's urgency to the football schedule for next year to get it in
place. There's urgency for basketball to understand, and there's urgency from both the
competitor side but from the economic side of the remainder of our sports as well.
So we have individual groups working on that, different sport groups, and
I think, you know, you'll see something in the next few months,
but it's going to take some time to get to where we need to be.
Well, we do know, Dave, and I'm about a tear to
my eye. Is this basketball schedule that you have going in Kamy Lloyd is
not afraid to attack. What a fantastic schedule. I think the fans are
gonna love it and have been missing it for a long time. Well,
it's a heck of a schedule. Tommy never walks back and it loves this
kind of a schedule. The opportunities to play, you know, big games
in McHale have set up home and homes with the duke and you know Wisconsin,
but to go to great neutral site venues that our fans can travel to,
get great exposure at great times on television and really play the best.
And so he comes out of that model a little bit, you know,
with the Gonzaga experience. How you frontload that schedule and it can really pay
dividends in the long run. Now, it also these conferences, whether it's
the Pac twelve or the Big twelve, carry a pretty heavy load. Two,
So you've got to balance that out, right. But Hey, if
you're a basketball person, and I mean I tell you, the value of
our tickets certainly are high right now and are continue to be very valuable going
forward. Well another reason why, and I don't know how you feel,
people are well when people are sitting to you in the in the in the
community. I love the fact you're moving to the Big twelve because of BASTA
and Jay's talking about the football program where you have more of a level field.
Right, there's no USC, there's no Oregon, there's no Washington,
but basketball Kansas. Come on, Baylor, you got texts, you got
the big guys playing here, and you're going there. What a fantastic opportunity.
Well, I think we all saw when we went into the tournament in
Tommy's first year and we ran into TCU and then the next you know,
two nights later, ran into Houston. Uh. Those are highly competitive programs,
tough physical, ready for the tournament, you know, and we all
said, wow, man, you know, we need to be more like
those guys. But we're in that league now, and you're gonna be tested
every week into full, full arenas, intense environments, and you might finish
twelve and eight but still be your favorite to win the national championship coming out
of that conference. So with that, with the difficulty of the of what
the conference is going to be, does that change the attitude and the approach
in non conference scheduling do you try and ease up a little bit or do
you continue to do what you know Tommy's done for this schedule. You know,
once you know you've got Kansas and Houston and Texas Tech and Baylor and
all those teams ahead of you in the league, well, hey, I'm
gonna let Tommy, you know, do that because that's what he does so
great and his knowledge and how he wants to test his team or challenge them
or build them up, all the things that are you need to consider when
you're building a schedule, and he'll do a great job of that. I
know that he likes to play big games and that will continue to be kind
of one of his calling cards, There's no doubt about that. But it's
going to be a great schedule. And I think that conference schedule, no
matter who you're playing and what night it is, boy, it's going to
be a battle in the conference. Okay, So you know these coaching hires
from a few years ago. You've got Jetfish, Tommy Lloyd, Kitlin Lowe,
Chip Hail all in their third year sort of a year where you say,
okay, this is your team. Now you know you're not. You
know you've gone through recruits that we're here waiting for you and whatnot. You're
just sort of the feeling on all of that with with the with these coaches
and you know what do you kind of keep an eye on as you're watching
their programs develop, you know, with their leadership over the last few years.
Well, I love our coaches and I love their leadership. And I
think the six that we brought in that are now in that third year.
You know, when you include soccer with Becca and you include Lagat, you
know we in our cross country program, Bernard. I mean, so anyways,
great leadership. Now all of those programs will be careful. All those
programs were at different you know places in the spectrum, how how solid they
were, how how developed they were, what needed to happen. I'm really
confident in how each of those coaches have been handling that Now they're they're different
though, you know, I think basketball's pretty seasoned. Were in a really
good, good zone. Uh. I do think there's other programs that are
still building and still getting to where they need to be. But but I
like it, and I think we're solid and we've got really good people as
our head coaches who have great head you know, assistant coaches and that's important.
Just have really good people. So one of the questions I got today
to ask you is the Red Blue Game is Friday. Obviously it's going to
be a lot of excitement, probably sold out to got Richard and Channing here,
Why is it not on TV or being streamed? A good question,
and we should have a great night. You know, we probably will sell
out. We only had we had less than a two thousand tickets left for
that game for Friday nights, so we'll probably sell that out like we do
most years and then have to sold out football game. One of the things
traditionally the PAC twelve network has come in. You know, for all the
bad things that we say and people say about the PAC twelve network, it
was an incredible asset. It had all the pieces. It came in and
televised these types of events, had the equipment, the crew, It was
built into the contract to do that. You know, we don't really have
it this year because of some other commitments. They have some of the leanness
that they have right now too, but they have multiple sports. They've got
some commitments on the football side that they can't you know, kind of pull
away from the on the Friday night, so we weren't able to do that
now, Again, not trying to make up any excuses, and we are
not in a position ourselves on a weekend like this to pull staff all in
and to stream it completely. We're going to have a lot of content that
will shoot out during the game and then certainly post game so people can see
it. But unfortunately we're not in that mode where we can stream it and
do the quality job that it deserves right now, or else I might have
a bunch of staff that will walk out, and I'm sensitive to that.
I think going forward, we're going to have to find out ways to do
that. You know, that'll be That's a nuance and a newness to the
Big twelve. We need to produce all these events ourselves. Now those were
all done by the Pac twelve network. We now have to do that ourselves.
Besides our football, men's basketball, and a few select women's games.
Everything else we've got to produce internally. It's gonna be a big lift for
us. Okay, you know, I wasn't going to ask you that question,
but now you know when you say you're produce internally, so you'll be
able to put it on a network somewhere or is it or you're going to
have a streaming channel that people can go to, you know, see a
softball game or a women's basketball game that's not on ESPN or ESPN Plus.
How is that going to work? Well, that will be our streaming service,
will be ESPN Plus. Okay. We will produce that internally at a
very high level with the you know, the right technical aspects, right kind
of cameras, a full broadcast team, and then we will deliver it through
the direct to consumer ESPN Plus. Okay, yeah, yeah, this you've
I know you're a baseball player. You must have hit curveballs. Well,
because you're getting this. We had Jim leaving Gudan. I don't know if
you've heard it two weeks ago, and and he's really happy. He's no
longer than I'm sure you were. You're aware of that. But you know
what, it's a changing world. And it's not just yesterday, it's today,
tomorrow, and third, you know every day. Well, I used
to be able to go the other way with a curveball and try to get
myself on base. Now it seems like sometimes it's a knuckle all the time.
And you're just trying to put the ball in play and make contact sometimes
and that's what you gotta do. Hey, it's a changing world, changing
landscape, but we just try to break things down, simplify it a little
bit, moved to the next step, keep getting better each day. There's
just so much that is converged here in the last few years. We've talked
about this before, guys, It's all happened at the same time, and
it was so much pressure on our industry, on our staff, on our
coaches, and I'm convinced on the kids. All the things that we've done
and say are for our students, isn't always the best thing for them.
Yeah, yeah, all right. So I'm not gonna I'm not gonna talk
about the nachos today, but I do have something just one of those little
things that as a fan, I'd like to see or see something happen.
Excuse me, the band. I did talk to James Francis about this quite
a while back. But the band needs an entrance. You know, you've
seen it at Ohio State, Wisconsin, even cal where the band comes in
and creates an atmosphere, create some excitement, and you know, Arizona band,
they walk out onto the field and then they started playing. They do
the thing. How do we get a band inference? Well, I appreciate
that, and I appreciate you know, those are usually the big questions I
have. You know, how clean are the bathrooms, how hot is the
popcorn? Are the hot dogs and nachos good? And now we got the
band, so now well it's a great, great question, Steve. I
mean, I know our group does such a wonderful job Pride of Arizona,
and we we we're limited a little bit. We don't have a huge tunnel
where our band can can march right through in those traditional styles like in the
Big Ten they come right out of these large tunnels. So it's a little
challenging for us. But you know, point taking, we'll put that on
the staff agenda and and when we liaison again with the schooling Music, we
share that that relationship with the band. It is not a program that we
run here in athletics. We we do share some of the expenses. We
provide them an abundance of funding, but that's a school of music thing.
We'll we'll have that conversa with them. Just so you know, my my
family, if they're listening. They're shaking their heads right now that I brought
this up. Well, so you know, let me just tell you,
I think it's I think that might be easier than getting our nachos, right,
I don't know, So let me be clear. That was a that
was a Jay question. That don't put that one on me. I don't
care about the band. I just want to see a good game. I
care about the band. It's all part of the great game day festivities.
You know. They're all important, they all have their roles and and you're
right, we want that atmosphere to be great. We want those kids to
be able to perform in the band. They're a big part of the experience
on the day, and the more we can get our fans excited, the
better. Well, and again you talked about wanting to get the because of
the crowd. You want the fans in early this week, right, And
I feel like if you create something like that, there'll be a more of
a tendency to fan for fans to show ups. Don't disagree at all.
Well, we'll keep kicking that one around and put it in the old U
the washing machine and see what kicks out, all right, I love,
thanks as always appreciated. Day. I love the guys that can't wait for
the hard question next time, anytime. It's always good to be it.
I hope everybody comes out really enjoys the weekend and there's a big night for
our football program and something exciting could really happen, and I hope everybody's there
to enjoy it. Down got thank you, Thank you, Dave, Hekey,
of course, a lot of fun with you. My daughter Rachel is
just going, oh mind, you know what are you asking question? He
did it. He said he was going to do it, and he did.
All right, Dave, thanks so much for being for being a good
sport again. So uh take our last break word and come back and we'll
take your calls five to zero, four, one, six, seventy four,
forty Right now, we go back. If you're an Arizona men's basketball
fan, you know it's been successful for nearly forty years. Now take a
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Miguel High dot org. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and
Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. Subscribe now to the podcast on the
iHeart Radio Whap Just Surgery. I am they welcome back to Win on the
Ball here on Fox Sports sporteen fifty. I'm Steve Brown. You know Jakin's
O. We got Simmy and we got about ten minutes short short segment here.
If you want a call, please do five two o four one seventy
four forty Did you like what he said? Not what he said? I
already have somebody did I I already somebody somebody say that what the red blue
game? It's lame and they're gonna have to get used to it next year.
Well okay, but they're not ready for it, right yeah, yeah,
Again, there's so much stuff going on. And look at blame it
on the weekend that it is, right, right, If it was next
weekend and there wasn't a home game, maybe they could do it. Yeah,
right, But there's so much going on. And look again, we're
in that transition period where you got all the fall sports are playing and all
the winter sports are starting, and then you've got spring sports like softball and
baseball that have got their you know, their their fall seasons. But there's
so much going Let me go here, and and I hope people don't turn
off the show because they know I'm not the fan. You're the fan of
the room. You're a fan of the room, and you know the fans
and you have you know these people are they are they a bunch of whiners?
Yes, okay, that was simple. I mean, come out of
the simplest things. I mean, I don't understand it. I loved what
you know what Ali Farhang said. You know where you know Mike Lucas said
that, you know those games not being streamed, and Lilly said, go
get a ticket. That's what I step up your game, right, And
that's it, you know, it's it's like when we've become the same,
we've got to have these things handed to us. It wasn't until you know,
the last few years that the air Zone that the Red Blue game was
even televised, you know, and people so many people would go to this
game who couldn't get tickets during the season. Normal people. Well, you
know those people go to the damn game and and and and enjoy and it's
not even a game, Steve, I mean, it's yeah, let me
put it this way. If I'm a fan, Okay, I'm not the
stat guy. If I'm a fan, I wonder if go ahead, and
it's on TV, I'm not watching watching You're right, We'll let me tell
you. It's not I don't want to poo poo on it. It's it's
you gotta be there. You gotta be there too to write that's how that's
how you enjoyed by being there to see the dunk contest, to see you
know, all the things that they do. And then you know, but
as a game that you want to watch, it's you know, it's it's
it's not going to grab my attention. I'm not you know, I know
you gotta be there to enjoy it. You've been to a few of yeah,
I've been the last three years, and I once the inner squad stuff
happens, I'm like, okay, this isn't how we're gonna look, we're
not gonna play exactly. You're not gonna find out anything about the guys exactly.
No, that's exactly it. In fact, you're there because you have
to be right. I'm there because I have to be and I have no
qualms about being there. But it's not it's not a game. And you're
thinking, okay, it's kind of made for TV or whatever. It's it's
made to be in there, mean right, right, yeah, you know
again, I I just look, our fans in general are bunch of weenies.
I'm glad you said someone's gotten out of me. Said I call a
bunch of winners. And your weenies is fine too, because again, you
know, it's like football. Oh it's too hot. Oh it's too late.
Oh it's too cold, Oh it's too early. It's Goldilocks. There's
never there's never a time for a game that fans are happy with. You
know, ever, Oh, don't play home games in September. What right,
eight o'clock is too late? Well, one o'clock is too early.
When's when's it just right? Exactly? There's never there's not a sweet spot
for our fans because they don't have one. You know. The Zona Zoo.
Well, I'm leaving at half time even though the game is tied,
right because because I'm I'm losing Bronman, it's over at dirt Bag. We
you, we have all the evidence we need. Just show it to them
and they say, oh, you're right, but they're not gonna believe you.
They're not gonna believe there was There was a game of several years ago.
I mean it was when I think when they were good. I think
it would have been in the twenty fourteen season, and you know, and
they were talking about Arizona was you know, the Zona Zoo was this Zone
Zoo was that? And I'm there, a game is about to start and
I took a picture you nobody in the Zoo and I posted, I said,
where the hell are you? Right? Uh, you know, don't
tell me you're the best student section in the country when this is who showed
up today. You know, remember that that that the twenty thirteen Oregon game.
There was nobody there. It was cold, it was rainy, There
was nobody there. Then they started winning and they all came out of the
library and went to the game. No, I remember that. It was
It was a dark and gloomy day. It was a cold day, and
then the sun came out and they all came out. Sure, well,
okay, if you're a fan and if you're the best student section in the
country, you're gonna be there no matter what it's like. But it's got
to be perfect conditions for so many of our fans or there's football, basketball,
baseball, softball, whatever, to show up. Simmy, you're your
people. Let me know what do you think about your people? I was
gonna say coming on the library as a bold statement that you know, I
think. I don't know. I think with football it's hard because you have
has never been a quote unquote football school. So it's you have the you
have the tailgates. You have Saturday during the day, people go out,
they have fun, but they never it's never surrounded by oh I'm doing all
this to then go to the game. Right now, I will say,
in fact, this year, this year, if it has been but they're
leaving it a halftimes. Yeah. Still, of course the games have been
unappealing. But let me say this to you, because you see the people
in the in the tailgating area. Of those, how many stay and go
to the game and go to the game? Oh you have to you can't,
you can't stay. What do you mean you can't stay in the tailgate
area? No? No, okay, But do they just go home?
There's some people who go. There's I know, some people can come to
tailgates and then they then they leave. They don't stay for the gun.
Yeah, yeah, because that's a good but but but but I'm gonna say
the tailgate crowd is really good. There's some people who are still I mean,
we used to be very very serious about our tailgate you know, in
terms of what we would set up. We don't do as much anymore because
we're just too damn old and a lot of our people just aren't around anymore.
But there's there's still a lot of serious tailgaters with you know, with
their with their custom built trailers and you know, we I mean we you
know, we were next to a group that brought like, you know,
nightclub speakers to the dang to the dang thing when they were blasting everybody.
But you know they're they're there are a lot of very serious, serious tailgaters,
and most of them I think go to the game, especially because the
fact that you can't stay in the tailgate area once the games, well you
can't be you just can't physically be there. But you can pack up and
you can pack up your stuff and leave it and then go to the game,
which is what we do. We pack up our tail game in the
in the car and then we go into the game. But you physically can't
be in the tailgate area. They come and they throw you the hell out,
you know. So your people, ye, your people tell me about
them. They're not in the libraries, not that they have to be at
the game. But are they fair weather, are they enthusiastic? What are
they? That's a good question. I think when it comes to football,
there are a lot more or less critical because there's less expectation. I think
with basketball, if we have this great first non conference schedule, right,
if we go out and Tommy Lloyd and his team takes a little bit to
get used to the new guys, and we start out two in three.
Some of those people, some of my my people are going to be very
hypercritical because it's you of a basketball. This is sometimes why they come to
this school. And so it's they can be a little fair weather, but
they're passionate at least in terms of the basketball. The football side is like,
oh, we're good, it's a bonus. Yeah. So so let
me tell you this. You were on the call I think with Richard and
chanting today, right, you were not on the zoom. So they're you
know, they're doing their little spill and having fun. And and and Richard
said they haven't been to the final four in twenty some years, you know,
twenty onever. And then I'm thinking, we see he gets it.
He does project taught me to get there in the next three or four,
which is, you know, a good news. But even the guys say,
it's been way too long. It's been way too long. And you
talk about Arizona basketball, and and and Richard brought this up. Okay,
Sean had some good want a lot, right, want a lot. I
guess where he didn't go, ye didn't go to the final four, And
how are you measured by going to the final four? By going to the
final at least when you're a right And he talked about that and he says,
we haven't done this or that, and and Channi says, well,
we got to the lead eight. We're the last team. How many years
was at twenty fifteen to the two thousand and five, Sean I'm talking about
I'm talking about Channing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, So it's been a
long time. Yeah, it's been a long time. Yeah. Channing was
part of that, the debacle. Chicago should be ashamed of himself. So
so, but you know, that's how you're married. That's how you're married.
You're measured, measured, measured, not married. You said married,
Yeah, I said married, And and see that was a disaster. That's
where I was gonna go with it. So you know, come on,
you're that's you talk about everyone with basketball, Okay, but you're not You're
not that yet. You're not that anymore. And I think ahead, but
I think there's I think I wasn't alive to see this, but Loot set
that expectation terry early. He won the national championship, and he had a
sense of culture at the U of A that we had hoped to see and
hope we're gonna see in the next couple of years of Tommy to where it
does feel like when you step into mc kale, Oh this is this is
amazing, right not to say when you step into the football it. McHale
lost a lot of juice, particularly in the Sean Miller, you know,
and and the tail end of the years very much so. Well, you
looked up and there there were some seat up in the round twelve. We
talked about this Sean. It was twelve thousand, and people don't want to
believe that, but it was true. He lost a lot of games consecutively
that never happened in Arizona basketball. Yeah, okay, thanks say for coming
in today. I'll see you. I'm not here tomorrow. I'm here Friday.
That's right, I've got I'll bring it be bringing in a guest house
and and working on a couple of guests. We talk about this game coming
up, so we'll see what we come up with tomorrow. We hope you'll
be around. Okay, all right, thank you being here. We'll be
back. We'll be back Friday Fab Five Friday Picks on Friday, so's have
a great day off. Steve, do you remember my love is changing