This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jagan Zalaz on Fox Sports
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R two SAD and iHeartRadio Station Yet. Hey, good afternoon, everybody.
Welcome to Eye on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve
Rivera, He's Jagan's aus and we have a possible intern in with us today.
Henry. Henry. Welcome, Henry. Say what up? Henry?
Just go ahead and put it down, that microphone down. We should't gotten
you ready for that. Push it down. You'll be fine. We'll get
back to the way the other way there. You'll learn quickly. We'll get
to welcome Henry, thank you for being here. Henry's from New York.
Yeah, I'm not sure what to make of that yet. Well, he'll
have a big like a lot of opinions like new York, New York.
Ya. Are you like a Manhattan all the fan fan of all the New
York teams or what for baseball? Basketball and hockey? Yeah? Football mccoles
soon all right, okay, okay, that sounds good. Just say you're
Dodgers man and he'll be happy the rest of his life. Yeah, but
don't but don't you Yankees are man. Okay, get out that. That's
one Demerica for not making it the team. Now that's okay, We'll see
it's okay. Well, welcome to Wednesday Show. A lot to get to,
a lot of things going on, breaking news and otherwise. Uh,
we have a couple of different guests, right, we haven't had our first
guy whatever ever. Matt Reynoldson, who's the sports director at kV o A
been here since October reading his bio. He's been wanting to get Arizona for
a while. He's a Nebraska corn Husk. Well, he's had a tough
light. Yeah. Uh, he came to Tucson working in Green Bay,
so he's got some pro football background up there. So we'll talk to him
a little bit, maybe get a little bit drafts, but we just want
to you know, get this community to know him a little bit. And
we've been wanting to get him on for a while, but things have been
so busy. You know, ran into him a bunch at the Final four.
But he's you know, one of the local guys uh here at kV
AWAY. So we'll just kind of get introduced to Matt, see what he's
up to and how he's doing and kind of how he likes it here.
Yeah, okay, second hour, Second hour, It's it's the It's draft
eve. The NFL Draft is tomorrow, so we're gonna we're hitting up our
resident NFL expert, the only one we have, Pat Finley, former reporter
at the Star, now at the Chicago Sun Times. He's covering the Bears,
who happened to have the first pick, but he's also basically their NFL
writer, So I think he'll be able to give us some perspective on on
the draft as a whole. You know, what he's hearing, uh,
what we can expect to see. You know, a lot of chatter on
all the on all the shows today about who's doing what we'll ask we'll ask
uh Pat what he thinks about. There's sort of a excuse me an informal
over under that there will be six quarterbacks taken in the first round something.
Michael Pennix is the last of the sex. He could go in the second,
but there's there's starting to be a lot of buzz and he'll go in
the first. So we'll see what what Pat knows about that? Okay,
sounds good a lot of things. I still think that Rebecca Curros will never
speak to us again. They got swept yesterday. I'm sure you saw.
That's your faulty. It's not my fault. I think that's your fault.
I'm guilty by association. It's very sad. I hope that she comes back,
that's up. I hope they win it all. So, hey,
we were the impetus for kind of getting it recalibrated. Well, I just
hope her dad isn't out of the parking lot waiting for me when we come
out, because you know he's he's a part of that. As Rebecca said,
he works with the still works as a volunteer assistant coach, is still
involved with them and U non Remando for thirty some years. And if he
was waiting for me in the parking lot, I wouldn't be surprised. So
tell Henry why you saying this? Well, Henry, there's this thing.
I'm kind of the kiss of death all things, whether it's a winning streak,
picking a team in a game, whatever, whatever it might be,
it's a it's literally a thing I seem to have a way of picking teams
that just and uh so we had we had Pema was on a twenty six
game Pima Sopha was on a twenty six game winning streak, and we got
their coach to come on as a guest on Monday, and then they got
swept yesterday. A double headed so wow, it was not even the right
word. It's like we expect that stuff to happen. We even joked with
her about that that this could possibly happen. No worries, no worries.
Yeah, but I mean we had to talk to her. I mean that
was my thing right right. Well, they've come, they've done a lot
of great things. They've done a lot of great things, and and yesterday
was not They got swept at Central, which is a big deal. So
anyway, okay, okay, so a lot of things going on at you.
We gotta get ready for Saturdays up right. Uh yeah, your credential
too, That's what it was. How we got our credentials to so we
we don't have to pay to get in. We're gonna they're gonna allow us
to go up into the press box. We don't have to set out there
on the sea if if we don't want to the most important thing is our
food probably not, probably not today from Oh, yeah, don't say anything,
we'll do Okay, we'll do that during breaking, talk about that's what
we come over the breaking. A lot of stuff like that, but stuff
like that, right right, right right. A lot of things going on
softball in baseball. What's going on with them? Oh well, women's golf.
Oh got picked for the nub A tournament during the Las Vegas Regional.
Actually moments before I went and picked up our credentials for the spring game and
need a mad answer down there, and he said they'd just gotten the news
that that golf is in the n cua A tournament again there and they're gonna
be in the Vegas regional. So which means I think you and I need
to go to go there. Yeah. The expense that I'm not really sure.
We're our own expense, Yeah we are. My boss will not allow
that. But but no, you know, good for Lori and Llo and
her team. Uh, you know, they were national champs if you not
to not too long ago, so we'll see. You know, Look,
you can't win if you don't get in it, right, So they're in
it now. They can have a shot at it, and golf is one
of those things where you can just get on a roll, you get hot,
your team, you guys start playing good and the next thing you know,
you know, you're you're you're winning the thing, right right? Okay,
okay? What else is going on? A lot of stuff? Uh
in U N I L Well did you see? Well? I know this
is breaking news. This is not breaking news. We wouldn't talk about in
breaking news anyway. You see what's going on in Texas A and M.
No, they're firing a lot of people in the in the department, big
time people, like long term people, people who make money people. Guess
what? Uh, someone I one of one of my guys I was speaking
to today before I saw this news was guess what. Every every college situation
is gonnappen like this. Arizona was in no different rule, but that became
public and it's they're they're changing the thing. If you google it, Texas
A and M is changing the landscape because it has to it says, uh,
given the given the construct of what's going on today, Uh, it's
just crazy. Some big time people, long time people, and nothing that
they did wrong. They just had to make cuts that the money. You
know, the money, the money is being has to be spread around differently,
right when you when you're having to come up with ni L money and
stuff like that. Right. So, and it had nothing to do with
the Jimbo Fisher debacle. The millions they had to pay there, that was
probably from a different slush fund or whatever. Uh. That this is the
way of the world. I would venture to guess, Jay, this is
going to be the first ball to roll in a lot of different areas well.
You know again, and we've talked about there, you know, as
as we talked about with Cody Ritchie, you know, yeah, days ago.
Yeah, there's only so much money the boosters, not just the boosters,
but the fans as a whole have to give. Yeah, these programs
who need more money than they've ever needed. Now, yes, did because
they didn't see this coming. Or these school spending hundreds in some cases one
hundreds of millions of dollars on facilities, and then the increased coaching salaries,
all those things. They were just money, money, money going to all
these things. Then all of a sudden, wait a minute, you know,
we could have used that money. You know, I heard today that
somebody wrote a letter to the editor complaining that the fourteen million dollars that went
to the golf facility, they should have spent that on the debt. Right,
two separate things, very separate, and they're not going to do that.
And let me tell you, Jay, because you know, I was
there at at the ribbon cutting. I'm doing a story for you. And
they made sure they made certain the president did and I think we erecked in
that none of those funds were from anywhere else but friends of the program,
right, boosters, right, and those boosters were giving their money for that.
They weren't going to just hand a check over to cover the you know,
the death that was not gonna happen. So for somebody to suggests that
is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. It tells me that
it's somebody who understands zero about how all this right. Well, this is
the problem. I have a hard time, especially in this situation, and
I have no stake in the game. For someone else telling somebody else how
to spend their own money, well, that's in the end, that's the
bottom line, and that is that it's my money. If I want to
build a golf facility. I get to build a golfice, that's right,
That's right. And if I don't want to, if I don't want to
help the u A pay its bills, then I'm not gonna help the v
A paid. I'm curious to what the person who wrote the letter, what
have they given exactly exactly? And I happen to know who the person is.
I'm gonna say zero. You do? Is it in the paper paper?
I just heard about this, somebody having a conversation with me Wednesday lunch.
That's that's the difference. Don't, don't, don't. That's the difficult
thing. You know, Jay, you have twenty bucks in your in your
pocket. Why don't you do this with it? You don't guess what,
Jay, that's your money. You do whatever you please with you know,
buy this burrital, this size of no, no, no, you do
what you want, you know. And I'm sitting here and in my particular
situation. Whether this matters to anybody else, you know? For for however
many years, we've had two season tickets, my wife and I for football,
for football. My son is you know, he's been working at the
in the side department. My daughter rach worked in the side department. My
other daughter Lana hasn't been in town because you'd be going to school. That's
so for a number of years to you know, to two season tickets,
and that's been my contribution, and that's really for my particular financial situation.
All I could do right now, Well, I got my two daughters in
town. Now I gotta buy two more season tickets. And you know,
might I have given that money as a or some of it as a donation,
maybe, but now I can't because I've got to buy two season tickets.
Prices have gone up, and so my contribution this year is for for
season tickets and a tailgate pass instead of too. So you know, everybody
does what they can do. That's my that's my bit if they decide to
do that, right and that's and that's what I have to do. And
everybody does what they're gonna do or what they want to do. You know.
Also heard heard another story that that you know, the Jenny how the
Jenny Clements Academic Center got you know, how she gave the money for that.
Jenny Clements is somebody who has been handed out money to the u A
because she loves the U of A. What was what was that somebody else
was going to put the money in for that and then backed out, and
then she she stepped forward. Well, yeah, they acknowledged her big time
because she's done a lot for that school. You know. Uh, there
was that they had somebody else lined up to to to to do that,
and then that person decided to do something else with their money. And then
you know, Jenny Clemens, don'kay, I'll do it, you know,
a couple nine bucks. Yeah, So I was wondering about that. There
was something I read today billions. It's oh, you saw you saw the
the golf. I don't know you're gonna do breaking news the golf. Tiger
Wood gets a hundred thousand, n hundred million whatever it was just to stay
loyal to the LPGA. Have you You haven't even seen it, to the
PGA. So they gave him a ton of money. Uh, and and
and Rory a fifty fifty million I think Tiger for one hundred million fifty to
being loyal to the to the PGA. And it was one point five billion
dollar one point five billion dollar fund to ward reward on some of the local
who decided to do this. Right, So I'm thinking what would you do
if you had a one point five billion dollars? Would you do this with
it? Obviously they have more than that, but you know what I mean,
you know what I mean, come on, who has that type of
money just to do that? Give Tiger one hundred million dollars just for being
Tiger Woods, the last guy you'd expect to need it. Yeah, you
know, God, I'm just looking at this right now. Oh my god.
You know, hey, you're a brand, you know, yeah,
you are a run I mean a hundred million? Really? He play said,
okay, you know whatever, Yeah, crazy, but there you know,
there was rumor, a rumor floating around that he was that Rory was
going to get eight hundred million play on the Lift Tour. He would have
never done it. I mean, as adamant as he was, well,
he would have if he he would have. If he had done it,
he would have done it knowing that he was gonna have to withstand a lot
of yeah, a lot of criticism, criticism if you don't. You know,
look, you got fifty million. How much more money do you need?
Right? You know? They need to give you that eight hundred million
dollars more than you need that age sure, million, Sure, eventually it's
gonna something's gonna happen with all most organizations. Where where all this money is
coming from is from us, Steve. You know, from a fan or
a company. You know, a corporate sponsor of a golf tournament. You
know, the price of the price of a of a corporate suite at you
know, at the Phoenix Open just went up because the PGA is gonna put
all this money to keep these players within the PGA. Hold his thought real
quick, I know, Hold are you twenty you sports fan? Yes,
Okay, we'll get to we'll get to that. We're gonna jornals want to
be okay, so we'll talk to you about that down the road. Okay,
okay, all right, let's go take our first break. We're gonna
come back. Uh, Matt Matt Reynoldson, I keep on, Matt Donalds
and Matt Rynoldson gave you a sports director is going to be on. Uh,
we're just kind of introduce I know he's introduced himself all over time,
but we're going to introduce him our way and get you to know him a
little bit. And so stick around for Matt Matt Reynoldson We'll be right back.
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saliz they have their Eye on the Ball on Tucson's sports stag yet Fox Sports
fourteen fifty streaming live. I mean iHeartRadio. Wapp Hey, welcome back to
Eye on the Ball here Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, He's
Jacinsaus. Now on the phone, we have Matt Reynoldson. He's sports director
at KVOA. How you doing that? Hey, good you first time guest,
longtime listeners, long time you don't want to think of I was with
Matt and Brian in LA I think it was for the tournament. And you
know already hate Matt. He's only twenty eight years old. Twenty nine years
old. I have T shirts older than Matt, Yeah, I think.
Yeah, I'm not one hundred percent sort, but I think the under where
I have on her Well, let's how does that make you feel? Matt?
You know what? I have some T shirts pretty old too. I
think some are still in the circulation for my middle school days. Oh.
I can't judge anybody for having an old, decade old T shirt. Yes,
we all have our favorite stuff that we appreciate. That. Well,
man, welcome to the show. Thanks, thanks for joining us today.
We've been wanting to get with you for a while. You've been here a
few several months, right, I think your your bio on your website says
October Right, that's correct. Yeah. I came in on the first day
of the U of a football win streak, So consider that lucky, if
you will. Nice, Nice, what was your What was the big reason
why you decided to come to Tucson after seemingly having a pretty good gig where
you were before. Yeah, you know, it was a real big step
for me to kind of take the step to be a sports director for the
first time. You know, I thought that that was a real big appeal
of you know, being in that spot where I could make a lot of
content decisions for how I wanted to build the department and stepping in with someone
like Jenna, who has just been incredible is it has really been a really
nice journey for me to see exactly how we can build a sports product and
in a way that we have and the energy that she brings and you know,
the kind of trying to get to everything energy that I bring is something
that I take a lot of pride in. So that's been a big reason
why I wanted to come here. Plus I've always loved Arizona, so that
was a no brainer decision for a location standpoint. You mentioned that you got
your drink in the middle of the football season, so you know what was
sort of your first order of business. I mean, where you just you
know the proverbial you know, fire hose down the throat kind of thing.
Was so much going on or did you have any kind of a chance to
kind of get the lay of the land and start doing stuff. How did
you manage all of that? Well? Yeah, for me, first of
all, it was just get in and get as much stuff done as I
can. You know, my third day, I think it was it was
a basketball media day, and I know they had that kind of late in
the afternoon and still came back and anchored the six o'clock show. I was
anchoring my third day here. So I was just itching, ready to get
going and ready to get rolling and ingratiate myself to this community because I saw
from a distance with Paul Takala, my predecessor, you know what this community
did for him, and you know all the things that all the ways that
he invested into the community, and so I just really wanted to hit the
ground running and start doing that myself. And I thought being on air for
the first time very early on was the best way to break into that.
Well, let me tell you one suggestion. Please don't be shooting any selfies
with shirtless stless and actually don't don't hit the ground running, because the right
funny thing about Paul is that he did hit the ground running literally in Vegas
the clip. So those are two suggestions. A couple guys, So what
was what have been your biggest impressions so far? You've been here a while
now, but what were your biggest impressions to this point? Well, twofold,
I think, first of all, there is just a really passionate sports
community here, and it ranges beyond just one sport. You know, you
go to a lot of campuses that are very hyper focused on one thing,
and here it's so well distributed energy wise, amongst all the sports at the
U of A. You know, people care about the pro sports going on
in Phoenix as well, people care about other professional sports in our community like
the Roadrunners and FT two Son, and that that energy is just really well
placed kind of throughout and it makes it awesome to come to work every day
because it feels like everything I'm covering is valuable to someone and to most people.
And then twofold, I love living here because, hey, the weather's
incredible, but be I mean just the natural beauty of southern Arizona. It's
been fantastic. I'm a big hiker. I've hit probably over a dozen trails,
maybe two dozen trails. I've been here in October, even with the
busy season, so I'm looking forward to continuing that even with the hot weather
coming. Okay, so your your your last job before here was Green Bay,
right, so you get pro pro football. I'm sure it was that.
What that was, you know, mostly all about me, I'm you
know, being up there. There's a lot of other stuff going on in
Wisconsin. You know, Milwaukee's not that far away and all those things.
So you know, but did you kind of come here with a sort of
a football background approach angle, you know, and then you came during football
season? How you know what did that feel like for you when you got
here and we're you know, you talk about all the different sports are important,
but yet you know, you came from a football city to a place
where it was football season. I did and felt especially in the time that
the uba was really turning things around in the football season. You know,
I'm such a football junkie, if you will. I love studying the game.
I didn't play the game for very long as a kid, but you
know, just being able to be around the game growing up in Nebraska as
well as a football crazed state and so got to really study the game and
learn it from an analyst standpoint, and that was really fun to, you
know, be able to learn about the game in that way, and then
it helped me translate to Green Bay and then obviously it helped me translate to
here as well in the middle of that win streak. And so it's been
very fun to see the success of this program and hopefully it continues moving forward.
I'm I'm curious you're you're twenty eight or twenty nine, right, I
can't remember which one it was, twenty eight, twenty eight, So you've
been in the profession of relatively short time, I'll estimate six years. Has
it changed much since you've gotten out of school? You know? I think
I graduated at a very very unique time in that things were sort of starting
to transition from the linear setting, which is what we call just basically traditional
TV, whether it be your networks or your cable towards digital. And I
feel like that transition has gone maybe a little bit slower than you read about
or that it seems, with all the cord cutting and things like that.
I think the death of linear television has been a little bit exaggerated, but
it's always been sort of a backdrop to what I've been doing. Obviously,
everybody went through a lot of changes in twenty twenty, and that actually happened
right as I was transitioning jobs between Lincoln and Green Bay. So it was
unique to learn about the new things and at a place where a lot of
people knew everything about how it worked at that place, but knew nothing about
how to work in a pandemic because it was new for everybody. So that
was a little bit unique as far as that. But I feel like that
while it hit a lot of people extremely hard in their careers or in their
school or things like that, it came at a time that was very unique
for me because transitioning anyway with that while everybody kind of transitioned to a different
style of work, was maybe a little bit easier for me than it would
be for what would be for some people that had been in one place for
a long time. So I'll say this, all six years have been completely
unique, and I wouldn't change anything for the world. So, you know,
we all always talking to the you know, the other media people here.
We in fact, we had Damien Alameda on the show late last week,
and I'm sure you know you've met Damien, you know, Jason Barr,
you know those guys just how quick, how drastically? Though, is
it changing because it's different now, I mean, Steve and I, you
know, we're we're guys who are doing this in the eighties and nineties and
whatnot. It's so much it's way different for us, but it's still you
know, you talk about, you know, the social media aspect of it
and those kinds of things, sort of the twenty four to seven aspect of
it. That's kind of what you've been doing the whole time. More list,
isn't it. Yeah, it is. And I think I've started my
junior year of college as well. I intern for the Rivals Network at Nebraska
and it was basically in a full time capacity, but it was in that
I learned how to be a beat writer that paid attention to everything all the
time. So, you know, I got a million Twitter notifications on my
phone, I've got you know, this email that I keep track of,
this message board that I keep track of, and at some point it just
sort of becomes a rhythm. You know, it doesn't feel like you're constantly
just buried in your phone catching up on things. It's just okay, I
can ignore this. I need to pay attention to this. And I feel
like because I came up in that and was trained by really good people that
were exceptionally diligent on that, it's been a pretty easy transition as far as
that. But I think at the end of the day, as much as
this business is changing, there is between TV, radio, print, you
name it. There will always be a value in low sports and a value
to going out and telling the stories. And you know that's what I just
take a lot of joy in it, and so I love this job.
Well, you mentioned that telling the stories. You know, again, when
we're talking to Damien, he's talking about how you don't so much as do
the scores. No, right, it's about telling. It's about telling stories.
You know, people can go get the score of the Yankee game and
the Dodger game and wherever they want and a million different places. So you
guys aren't putting your time into that, right, You're trying to tell different
types of stories. Is that the approach that you have as well? You
know it is to some extent, But I honestly just take the approach of
let's get to everything and then see what stories come out of it. I
think the biggest thing about being in a new place for the first time is
getting your hands in as many things as you possibly can and being at everything
and watching the stories sort of unfold in front of you. You know,
there will always be incredible stories of triumph at every level of sport, and
whether you tell those in a two minute format where you really dive into you
know, the history or the or the person's past or the emotions or things
like that, or you just do that in a thirty second highlight and you
watch, you know, a baseball player buried at the end of the bench
hit the walk off for the first time he's ever done it. I think.
I think it just for me at the position that I'm at, comes
down to being at as many things as I possibly can and watching those stories
unfold, and then circling back and finding the stories you know when it makes
sense to tell them. Yeah, no, that's exactly right, especially because
you only have two and a half minutes three minute stops probably to tell those
stories exactly. Yep, it's that condensed format, but you know it's something
new every day, which really does make it feel like so much more than
that three minutes. That's what we're talking to. Matt Reynoldson, sports director
at KVOA. So, Matt, Iran and you probably a number of times
you know you're covering in the Final Four. Tell me, you know,
tell the listeners you're covering an event like that. Yes, it's in Phoenix,
so it's semi local, but you know Arizona's and I in it.
What stories are you looking for there? What were you trying to do there?
I didn't get to see your newscast because I was up there the whole
time working the thing, But what what was your goal when you were and
I saw both you and Jenna up there? What were you guys looking for?
Yeah, that was a very unique experience for us, just because neither
of us had covered the Final Four before and Jay, as you saw hundreds
of media there. It is extremely well organized as well, major credit to
the NCAA for how they organize it. But if you've never been to one
of those things before, it is extremely overwhelming and the walking distances are a
lot further so you have to allow more time for everything. But what Jenna
and I were doing, we were covering it and always planning to cover it
from an Arizona local interest perspective because it's a major sporting event going on in
the state. But we have sister stations through our ownership company, which is
Alan Media Allan Media Broadcasting, and our sister stations in Huntsville, Alabama and
what Lafayette, Indiana had actually sent a you know, materials like mic flags
and things like that to cover these events for them. So we covered practice
day and went in the locker room and talk to these players from a from
almost a beat reporter perspective for Purdue in Alabama, but also at the same
time we would throw a question in there on hey, what does it mean
to be here? Hey what do you think about walking onto a court that's
raised in the middle of a football stadium? Things like that, so we
could tie it back into our local stuff. But doing things for three stations
were was a unique boust and it was a very fun and very hectic five
days. So outside of the work, because there was your first one,
how did you enjoy it? Because people think, you know, I've been
to I've been to nineteen of them. Jay's been to a few. It's
it's work It's not oh, go ahead foot in the final four, right
right? It really it really is a lot of work, and you know
it was. I won't lie, it was an exhausting weekend for us.
But I think when it comes to this, and I've tried to be more
intentional about this as I've had so many new experiences in this early stage of
my career, is just taking those moments whenever you have a moment to stop,
keep the phone in the pocket, look around, breathe in and feel
this thing that so many people care about. Feel the seventy five thousand people
around you, feel the swell of the crowd, and you know, listening
to one shining moment live on that court and things like that. I've been
blessed to have a lot of incredible experiences, and it's always those moments that
I remember where I just stop and let the goosebumps kind of roll in and
realize, hey, this is a pretty cool job too, in addition to
the work we're doing. All right, So you've been through a basketball season.
You saw what that can be like around here. Sort of your impressions
not so much of Arizona and the teams, but the fan base watching you
along with those lines. Can you can you compare the green Bay fan base
to Arizona's fan base, because they seem so not disappointed, but you know,
they have all these high expectations and then at the end of the year,
it's like, oh God, here we go again. Well, I
think that is every fan base to some extent. I mean that stretch of
January through April. I love living in Green Bay and I loved my time
up there and the people up there, But that stretch right after green Bay
loses into playoffs, that becomes a really sad stretch of time in the dead
of winter up there. So everybody everybody has I mean fanas short for fanatic.
Everybody has somewhat unrealistic expectations of their teams. I do too, I
mean we are we are people that are close to these programs and love these
programs and are conduits to the fan base, and so we feel the same
swells of emotion that they do. And then our job is to put it
all in context. So I have just seen I have just been so impressed
with the incredible fans support, the incredible attention to all the details of all
these different sports, with the u of a and as I mentioned earlier,
the interest with Phoenix Pro Sports too. That Diamondbacks World Series run was on
my second or third week. It's so fun to see people care and latch
onto these things and just breathe in the nitty gritty of the matchups those things,
but also in the broader effect, the stories that go with it,
and the greater context and the historical context and what it all means in relation
to what it means to be in Arizona sports. Then well, if you
listen to us enough and you may have their longtime sufferers and first time callers,
well I am. I am a no time sufferer, but first time
color and long time listener. Now I pop you guys on the radio every
afternoon. I'm always kind of running around the old Pueblo getting stories and doing
different things, and you know, all my days off while I'll showing you
guys in Well, you might be the youngest listener. Thank you very much.
I appreciate that very much. Thanks man for coming on. Hey,
thanks a bunch, all right? Thanks? You might be him and Nico
Nico old, Yeah, I found out that is really Oh man, what
are you gonna do? I remember when I was turning in, I was
like, kind of can't wait till I get old. No, I don't
want to be as a sports director. Yeah, I'll tell you what I
will say. He sounds really smart. Yeah, he sounds really really smart.
Okay, thanks Matt for being on. We're gonna take our break.
When you come back, I would love to take your calls. Five two
zero four one forty. As Steve says, a lot of stuff going on
right now, so's stick around. 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 a labor of love through the eyes of twenty five former players, coaches,
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built the program into a national powerhouse. What one email me at Steve dot
rivera ninety five at gmail dot com. Ki this is formal. While get
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Com. That's the Centurions dot Com. Dreamy Live, I mean, iHeart
Radio WIP. This is I on the Ball with Steve Bravera and Jay Gonzalez
on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. Hey, welcome back to I on the Ball
here on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. I'm Steve, you're jay uh if you're
listening to a live I'm sure you're listening to us. We would have known
something's going on, right, but one of our listeners is saying that they're
having a hard time giving us on the app. Okay, but not sure
why not sure? Why put bars? I know we're everybody else we're laughing.
Yeah, right, so okay, they may have turned it off by
now. Right, Wait, it was good to talk to met see what
was quite? You know? You know all of them though, well,
Jason Barr has been around him while he's been a well no, yeah that
Damien. This picure forever cos got a young crew. Everybody is Do you
watch locals? Do watch local news occasionally? Part one channels all of them?
Yeah? Just yeah, I'll flip around. Good answer, So I
watched you I flip around. I watch because you know, the the the
sports casts aren't as regular as they use There's some days, you know,
a broadcast won't even have sports on right, or there are different times like
it used to be like twenty one after the hour, that's when sports right
right after the weather. You know, it's not like that anymore. So
I go back and forth, right, so I would. If you watch
there's twenty five years old, they're twenty eight years old. It's very rare
to see Sean Mooney, guys like Sean Mooney up right, uh doing the
anchor. Very yeah, it's a it's a it's a young person's uh yeah,
it's the young person singing. I mean, you know, the old
and we'll go and this used to be a mid major, mid major market.
Now it's people coming out of college. Yeah, yep. Well but
it's like it's like that, you know, across them or you know,
pretty much everywhere. You know, you go watch the Phoenix stations and yeah,
well a lot of it has money to pay, right, you're gonna
pay the young guys and the old guy. I know. That's why we're
sitting here. I'm okay with that. Who's your boss? You? Yeah,
I guess I am. You like him. He's always tough to deal
with. Sometimes he's a big giant Steven pile, you know what, teams
and he knows that. And you can change the clothes and you can cut
the hair and do all those other things, and he gets up on the
wrong side of the bed. Man. Now I'm getting a text that that
that the hap the app is just playing yesterday's show. Yes, that's what
this guy was saying, because he said I was saying Tuesday. So I
haven't said Tuesday since yesterday. Okay, well yeah, I just got we
have no. We have no, Yeah, we have no because Jim called
a couple of times yesterday or at least once. Yeah, okay, we'll
have to call this up and see what. Yeah, we'll toget with with
me, Paul or yeah, but we'll go on here. We're on the
radio still, I'm assuming, but who knows what's going on with the app?
Okay, A lot of stuff, a lot of breaking news going on.
I know you're gonna have some of that. The draft is tomorrow.
The draft is tomorrow. Some of your a guys, you think anybody at
least one or two maybe tomorrow. Jordan Morgan is supposed to be drafted tomorrow
by one of the breaking news items is where he's at in one of the
one of the more prominent UH mock drafts. But Jordan Morgan is since last
year, has been talked about as a first round draft pick. He's an
offensive lineman. Those guys are hard to come by. Uh, you know,
he's sort of at the at the tail end of of round one according
to according to some of these mock drafts. And we'll talk to Pat Pat
feeling about about some of that. But you know, as as always,
the focus is on, you know, the quarterbacks. You know who's you
know, who's which quarterbacks are drafted where I think, you know, we've
known all along that Caleb Williams is going number one, and they're saying that
Jade and Daniels will go number two. Then after that, I don't know,
yeah, you know you got you got these guys, uh, you
know these there's these six quarterbacks that looked like potential first d Well, did
you see a meme like I saw one yesterday this morning where the draft class
of three four years ago, the Fields, the kid who's just got to
will Wilson, Lawrence. Yeah, all these guys except for baby Lawrence,
there're all been busy, yeah, or been traded yeah, or just kind
of just there Fields, Wilson, the Wilson's, Zach Wilson, he just
got you just got traded to your backup and they didn't pick. And there's
another one. There was four of them right right, So that Dallas Dallas.
He's a backup there who will never see the time of day. Trade
Lance was the I remember, I was the myster of that draft. Like
the guy had played one season, Yeah, one season in North Dakota State,
not even a D one school. Yeah. And then they the Packers
movement, I think drafted in tenth. The Niners took him. I mean
the Niners, Yeah, took him at number ten. I think it was
hard as number three. I think they gave up like three first. Yea,
that's why we have you, Henry. You can remember that stuff that
was yesterday week. We can remember back before you were moving. And he's
not even reading off, not for his thrownery. He just knows this stuff.
Yeah, he just knows this. But uh, you know, do
you watch the draft? Do you like it? Not? Not? If
I don't have a rooting interest, and I don't, so I don't.
And it's a long process. It's funny because I know I don't watch I
don't watch it after day one, but I do watch day one. I
can't pay attention, but I don't watch it. So the w NBA Draft
was what last week? Last week? Yeah, and I think everybody kind
of paid attention because of Kaitlyn clark uh and some of the other ones.
And it was done in an hour or two, right, it was done.
And I'm thinking, that's not even the first round of the NFL draft,
right, because it goes so quickly. Well, everybody's got to get
their words in, you know, with the way it gets covered. But
I do like the first round, but I don't think yeah after that,
I'm just I'm just looking on Twitter to see when Arizona guys are getting drafted.
And that's it. Here's the funny part. Well, and we talk
about sports, right, and you know how much a fan I am,
not of a team. I don't you know now that I pay attention because
I want to go see the Reds here. I don't know people's people on
the rosters. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Do
I care de la Cruz? I do that because it's kind of a sensation.
Other than that, you know, maybe some Yankees, maybe some Padres,
some Dodgers. Outside of that, you know, when you see the
betting lines and the money lines and the pictures, I have no idea who
they are. If you asked me to name my fantasy baseball lineup, I
could. I I could probably come with three guys, maybe four. Don't
you know that that whoy that I know. I don't even know the names
of them, just guys that ESPN says, this guy's got good stats,
to go get it. I'll want up. You and Henry. You probably
know this better than us, is that you look at the rosters in the
NBA. No, not rosters when they're playing the games in the NBA.
There are some dudes you've never heard of, right, and and we covered
college basketball. I'm pretty good with college basketball. Some dudes, you're thinking,
I never heard that name a Kansas or or whatever. You don't,
Yeah, because we would have known if he was at Kansas. Well wait,
you know, Adam and I, my son, we were watching.
He was over the house and we were watching. We had an NBA game
on and I can't I can right now, I can't even tell you what
game it was. But there was a guy. I looked at him.
I thought, how was that guy in the NBA. He's just a big,
tall guy, big heavy, tall guy with a beard, running up
and down the floor and he's in the NBA's No, it wasn't Jokic,
And it wasn't Jokic, right, but it was a Jokics kind of looking
guy. Yeah, all right, except with a beard. And I'm like,
who is that? And Adam Yew his name, and I said,
never heard of him. He goes he's been in the league like seven years,
and I'm like, you know, what's you know? I look at
that guy and I think m Bell is better than that guy. Well you
think, but he's obviously not. He's not. So we'll even look at
the Toronto or the guy from here went to Toronto and I was on the
d L Coloco. I mean, come on, we thought he would be
making it and now he's injured or whatever. So the kid, the kid
who's at Toronto Toronto, he's with Indiana now yuk yuk? Oh no,
no, no, not Pearl. Yeah, okay, So where you go
to school? I know, in New Mexico State. I would have never
known this. How you know three four years ago this guy could play a
guy? Yeah exactly when New Mexico stay grad And I'm thinking, where'd that
dude play? He's pretty good And I'm thinking, how did I not know
this? But he was pretty good during the time that they were pretty good?
Right, and he was the reason. That's right, they were good
there. Yeah, took Auburn to the overtime. Yeah, two three years
ago. But again again, but this was a guy and he's a foreign
guy. But I'm like, hey, how's the guy like that get in
the league? And then how does he stay in the Well, that's the
whole thing. You got to thirty two teams in the first round and all
these guys with dreams of being in the NBA, and guess what the for
the the international players come in and invade and there's very few spots. Yeah,
you go, you just go to the google the G League rosters.
There are some pretty damn good players in the G League. And you know,
today at lunch we had that, we had the discussion that we had
a little bit yesterday. kJ Lewis, Yeah, and and uh and Dale
and Terry the similarity between what they're doing and how and what they say.
The expert in the room, who is my son, Adam, He says,
kJ Lewis, you know, we'll be back. He said, he's
you know, he's good, but he's not He's not. No, he's
not Terry n He'll play in the league, just not now. Not now
yeah, that he'll be out. Yeah, but he because he's even you
know, even with all his you know, physical attributes and all those things
that he hasn't played it. He hasn't even played enough. He said,
Dayling Terry's better. Well, here's the problem is better at this point,
here's the problem with him. And like Dylan Terry, you go and you're
probably going to play on the fifty to fifty. You're gonna play here sometimes
maybe, but you're gonna play a lot in the G League. Really,
if you're good enough, you should be able to stay there for for for
a long time, right right, right right, you know, am using
my hand like people can see in the radio stuff. But you know,
but and you know the one he talked about it when we thought because that
initially said that I think k J. Lewis is better. But I think
he maybe because he looks better, he looks like he'll be better. He
will be. Maybe today he's not better, he will be, but you
know, you never know, you got you know, he goes and starts,
you know, playing in these games at the car you know, at
the campus and stuff like that. When somebody sees something right and says,
you know, what let's not let this guy go back to school, let's
go get it. Sure, you know, but then again, what about
ni L what's he gonna make here? Be comfortable here? And I don't
know if college is good to you, Henry, but you want to stay
in college as long as you can, as long as you can. This
real world is not a fun place sometimes, well, especially at the NBA
level. Your your lifespan is not it's not a long one, UNSI Lebron
or someone like that. Sure, and how many Lebron exactly exactly, Yeah,
no, I I mean, I hear you. I it's I.
But I'm kind of still in the where you are. In that I could
see, I could see kJ lewis catching on with somebody takes one, takes
if he if he goes, and somehow he gets in sort of his own
plays well shows well, somebody might say, you know what, that's the
guy that we needed. Well, it comes again to this thing where we
saw what we talked about for a fell combine. You get the measurables right
there, jumping and leaping and the blocking and all that all he has to
do is break out of that, right And someone say, oh, look
at this guy even though you can't play basketball, you know, not with
kJ. But you know what I'm saying, well, who's the Henry guy?
Who is the guy from here? Henry Chris Henry? Who did he
do a year? You know he did okay, but then he was just
such a physical specimen. He couldn't ignore that, right, They certainly couldn't
ignore that. And he got drafted and didn't do much. But you know,
he got drafted. It's not an exact science, and and people even
at that level screw it up. We just talked about it with the quarterbacks,
all those quarterbacks that that that haven't made, they make one great thrown
and every things, they're gonna be the next great quarterback, right right,
And they want to find, uh, the next Mahomes. They want to
find, right, everybody's looking for that nugget, right, that that nugget
somewhere and say they see somebody that nobody else sees, so that in the
end they can say, guess what, I was smarter than you. You
remember that one time we threw side on him? Could you do that again?
She's a number of times? Yeah, no, I yeah, I
mean that's that's that's the way. That's why it happens. So all right,
well, we'll see if we can get this figured out of what's going
on with the APP. But we're gonna going to take our break now,
we're gonna be back, but breaking news, a bunch of stuff coming up
today. Uh, we'll be we'll be uh going through that. And then
we have Pat Finley and we're gonna get kind of get knee deep into the
NFL draft with him. He covers the NFL and the Chicago Bears for the
Chicago Sun Times. So stick around for all that and we will be right back