It's time for coffee and company, fueled by Thornton's on Sports Talk seven nine
day. Now here's Nick coffee. I guess in the end, like it's
a good thing, But isn't it fair to say that, like the expectation
the predictions as far as like severe crazy weather, like that was a little
over the top, right? I heard sirens on my way home last night,
But whenever I heard them, I was looking around and I'm like,
what's going on here? So what triggers those sirens? Like? I don't
think somebody sets them off manually like I would just but what the hell do
I know? Maybe I'm wrong? I feel like it again, I could
be completely talking in my rear end, which wouldn't be much different than what
I typically do. But I just assumed that, like conditions are a certain
level to where that goes off. Yes, maybe it's manual. I don't
know. I think something has to be reported like what you were just describing
to the local weather service and that type of stuff. Yesterday on the way
home, I was listening to eight forty whas Joe Elliott doing a phenomenal job
filling infantry miners who's on vacation and they went live to our partners of WKY,
who were of course live on television track, you know, given everybody
updates. Jake rd Oci and I noticed throughout he kept mentioning, what I'm
seeing does not show a tornado. He wasn't, you know, he was
being professionally, wasn't calling anybody out for being wrong, but he was basically
saying, like, yes, they've issued a tornado warning, which is a
super serious thing you can't take lightly, right, But what he was saying
is that what I'm seeing does not track that, Like it's not to that
level, which is good, right, It wasn't as dangerous, but yes,
the sirens were going off, and man, it was wild. I
left here. It was sunny, and I think you and I left here
at the same time. The sun was out downtown when we left, and
there were like little patches. It's almost like, obviously this used to be
a hurricane. And so you see the different breakups in the clouds, and
it looks just very eerie the way that it was up in the sky,
and the clouds can appear in a certain shape and form to where someone can
take a picture and you will believe that it's a tornado, but it's not
like three different instances of that happened yesterday with me. And I'm not saying
like somebody sent it and said it's a tornado, but I looked at I
mean, I took a picture one myself, and I'm like, you know,
it's not even Wendy, which in a way it kind of scares you
because like, you know, the call before the storm, but you know,
whenever we were leaving, it was I guess around the and I guess
it started around Litchfield, made its way to eat Town, Radcliffe, and
then it kept saying, you know, northwestern Bully County, which I'm pretty
sure that seems like exactly where I am, where I live. That's where
I was heading. So I'm like, I guess I'm driving right to it.
But it never I mean, it never did anything. It never even
was Wendy, which again that's good. I'm not like bringing it up to
blame someone. But you know, weather's tricky man, because you can never
like you can never just say, well, hey, they've been wrong a
bunch of times. So I'm going to assume whatever they say is nonsense because
you know, mother nature, she's not consistent. You know these guys who
are in gals that are meteorologists that are paid to, you know, inform
us of severe situations to try to keep us safe. I mean, I
don't you know they're doing the best they can. They wouldn't you know?
They clearly have training. But it's not a perfect science, and it's just
an odd industry to where you can be wrong and it is not and I'm
not saying it should be, but you could be wrong, and it's never
really looked at as if like you you you know, you aren't good at
your job, or you did something wrong, because at the end of the
day, if you if you thought something crazy bad was gonna happen and it
didn't, everybody wins, you know what I mean, because it means it
wasn't severe. But do you think a certain meteorologist at WDRB was phoning up
the bats last night? Oh? I don't know if the bats were playing,
but I saw what happened last week. Yeah, I mean I don't
know what he was doing. I mean I didn't see any clips of him.
I didn't I didn't see any tweets. But yeah, knowing what I
know and knowing the pattern, like I would imagine he was a high alert,
like, hey, I'm not saying you're about to die everybody, but
you you might want to call your mom and dad and say say you love
him or something like. He would never say that I'm exaggerating, but you
all know what I mean. Like he again, when we really did get
tornadoes that hit us in one rocked the Fern Creek area, in fact,
the Glenn Mary area. I remember my mother left my house and she was
going back to where she lives and she'd literally cuts through on Barchtown Road through
Glenn Mary that area to get to her home, and there was a tornado
on the ground in Glenn Mary. Now, luckily she'd already made it back
to the house and she was safe. But I didn't know that at the
time, and I'm freaking out. So I'm going back and forth to what
to to stations and I'm on DRB listening to Mark with a CEA, and
you know, I felt scared, and to be fair, like that was
a severe situation to where, like you know, people should have been fearful,
but it was a when I think of my preference in how a meteorologist
should handle it, and really, I guess It's just a matter of your
personality, right, Like I think what you see is what you get with
Mark with the C. I think that we have a good variety of personalities
with me. You can kind of you got options, right, we have
plenty. Yeah, And I remember I couldn't take it anymore because I was
worrying, and I'm like, man, come on, like I I you
know, even if you're not exaggerating, like there's a level to like do
it. And I didn't exactly know how to give him it. You know,
I couldn't tell him what was bothered me so much, not that he
was giving it damn about what I thought, meaning meaning Mark with the C.
But I switched over to WKY and sure enough it was Ja card O
C and he was kind of saying the same thing but saying it differently to
where like I knew it was severe and I was worried, but you know,
I wasn't panicked as if we were all about to die. And even
if you know that is the case, like let me go in peace,
don't scare me. I would prefer to be wiped out and not like my
mind would my mind if like I if if that kind of impending doom was
coming. I would die before it happened because my head would explode because I'm
such an anxious person that would lose my mind. So yeah, I ended
up being I think, pretty mild. And today I don't know why.
But we didn't have once the once the once the decent weather got here,
humidity seemed pretty low. And you know, again it's probably different now,
but when I got here about an hour and a half ago, it was
beautiful outside, which is which is what we want, right not you know,
low humidity, not temperatures that are you know, near one hundred degrees.
So that's uh, that's that's what we want. And what John was
referring to in regards to to last week, I mean, I sometimes need
to just not like make it. You know, I can't help myself,
and I should because I can tell I'm a I'm a jerk when it comes
to some of this stuff. Like it's not personal, I don't insult,
but like clearly, I mean I poke fun of our Kwanberg online. Again
not in a nasty way, but like clearly the guy takes himself very serious,
and I'm somebody who does the exact opposite and whenever. He On July
third, tweeted out, for those of the Louisville Bats game, I am
in contact with the team and advising with storms approaching like that, Like that's
just you wanting people to know your your power. So I tweeted out,
and by the way, I got a lot of traction in case anyone was
wondering who calls the shots in this town? And then I shared that tweet
because like that's like, hey, just so you guys know, I'm the
one deciding what the little of bats are gonna do tonight, So just keep
it locked right here on my Twitter account and on WDRB because I'm the one
that's gonna determine what happens here. But like, you know what's crazy.
I can appreciate a guy who's that into it. You know, it's a
little much when I'm actually scared about weather. But like one day, and
to be fair, like he moves the needle WDRB, like you know,
everybody knows who he is. He's the kind of guy you want to open
a couple of bush lights while you're watching him. Yeah, I need a
couple of I don't know if there's always a want for me to pound some
bush lights. But yeah, like if I'm like if if he's the only
option as far as getting some updates on a severe storm, I need to
pound a couple of bush lights before I can take his company. But he
maybe I don't know. That's uh, I'm loyal to bush light. But
if they didn't have any I would I'd probably take whatever. I'd probably take
shots of something, just to kind of, you know, calm my nerves
a little bit, because I I worry about things that are out of my
control. And one thing that is out of all of our control, mother
nature. Right, it's a scary thing. But you can take caution,
you can you can do whatever. But at the end of the day,
she's undefeated. She wants to wipe us all out with with some crazy weather
a tornado, a hurricane, tsunami. Like there's certain levels to it to
where you can take cover and be safe, and you should do that,
by the way, But like at the end of the day, like,
there's we can do about it if he gets that bad. But again,
yesterday wasn't bad, which is a good thing, all right. Coffee and
Company, that is us. We are fueled by Thornton's here on Sports Talk
seven ninety. Appreciate you hanging out with us. Don't forget you can take
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five three zero seven ninety. And if you want to give us a call,
you can do that too. Phone lines are now open five oh two
five seven one seventy nine hundred. So a lot of people reacting to Rick
Patino, which again confirms what I said earlier. Regardless of what you think
Patino is a he's a polarizing talking point and in character, I guess that's
the better way to describe it. Like Patino is. When Patino does something,
he finds himself in the news, he says something, it usually gets
reaction out of a lot of people, which is why I started the show
today by saying, look in radio, regardless of what kind of radio you
do, if you're playing U Musick, if you're doing news talk, you're
doing sports talk, whatever it is, play the hits. That's a radio
cliche that is true and will always be true. And Ruy Patino's a hit.
So him two weeks after breaking the hearts of some Louisville fans and claiming
that he you know, still loves Kentucky fans and loves his loved his time
there, and he loves Mark Pope and will support him in any way,
and that he donated money to the UK Football and IL Collective, which still
is weird, but you know what Rick does weird things, Like two weeks
after he did all that, he'd posts something on Twitter that has fans,
you know, probably in their fields a little bit. I mean, it
didn't make me emotional, but it you know, regardless of the just let's
just say the whole UK thing didn't happen, and he didn't go on pardon
my take, not knowing he was actually going to be on KSR, and
he didn't say what he said. I would still have the same feeling about
seeing him sharing that picture of all his former players preparing for the TBT.
So it was a tweet that said, let's see here. I just said
it pulled up here, Well here we go. Rick's tweet said this This
was posted in the two o'clock hour. Warms my heart to see my guys
together. Let's win this thing. He's referring to the TBT, the tournament
that he mentioned Russ and said, sell your great bourbon, no drinking it.
That's like a is that that's a dad jokes, Such a dad joke,
and like Rick Bettino dropping dad jokes as his former players who gave us
a national championship, as Louisville fans, at least a handful of them,
Like that's that makes you feel good? Right, I mean, at least
it does me. And then the picture is his mop Luke Hancock. By
the way, he still looks like a million bucks. He's not playing in
the TVT but he looks like he could play right now. But it's Luke
Russ Smith. One of the all time great players ever to play here and
always will be Shane Behannon, who was on a national championship team. Earl
Clark, who didn't win a title, but was a part of a great
run there back to back Elite eights. One of the most talented teams I've
ever seen at Louisville was his last year here with him and t Will and
those guys. Peyton Siva, legendary point guard now on staff here at Louisville,
helped guide Louisville to a national championship, one of the best point guards
ever play here. And then Reece Gaines, who was the holdover. You
know, Reese played for both Rick Patino and Denny Crumb and he had success
under both and was a first round draft pick. And by the way,
Reese is the one coaching the tv T team for those who didn't know.
And then Chris Jones is in there as well as David Johnson, so you
know that. I can hear Rick say what he says about Kentucky and their
fans and his time there, and it doesn't change anything as far as how
I feel about the Louisville experience for him, because even when he coached here,
it was hard to even bring it up because he hated Caliperi. He
hated him. They were personal rivals. Take away Louisville Kentucky, they were
rivals before they were coaching against each other in this state. They were there's
a history there. I think a lot of people know about that. So
it wasn't even something we thought about because it was so like we'll never be
able, in my opinion, to match the intensity and just the I mean
you could feel and I mean it like you could feel the tension when watching
Louisville and Kentucky play the first four or five games of the patinocal going up
against each other here and in this state. I mean, it was down
and uncomfortable when they when they tipped it off. Whenever Eric Bledsoe got in
was it Reggie Delk's face, And Cali Perry got in Reggie Delk's face too
and said, you're you're messing with the wrong m effort. Like man there
were. It was a it was a personal game for everybody involved. Fans
hated each other. Of course, it's a rivalry. I mean, Louisville
clearly had been bullying Kentucky a little bit under the Billy Gillespie era. That
was, you know, expected to change. And clearly Cali Perry his players
knew that he hated Rick. And to be fair, you know, cal
had a lot of success in Kentucky and one of the most successful things he
did was beat Louisville. I mean, one of the things I guess he
had the most success that I guess I can't speak today, but anyways,
my point is this, like we never really thought about it because of the
level of the rivalry, Like it was so intense and we didn't win much
when Rick was here and Cal was there. But if anybody else would have
coached Kentucky, I wouldn't be shocked. Like let's say it's let's say Tubby,
you know, never left, which, by the way, Tubby was
there whenever. Well, yeah, Tubby was there when Rick was there for
a little while and Tubby had success, and I don't really remember how,
you know, how friendly they were with each other, but it hit a
different level when it was Cal there. So like I think it made people
kind of just forget the fact that Rick really has no reason to be bitter
about Kentucky at all. And when it comes to the way the fans treated
him and the things that they said about him and the ks R coverage where
every I mean that I think that website and I would say this to Matt,
and I don't think you would disagree with me. One of the biggest
factors in the explo and growth of KSR, which, by the way,
say what you want about those guys and Matt and and it's now been sold
to a different company that's run I mean, it's not Matt really involved with
the actual website. But my point is this, you can't recreate that.
There's nowhere else that exists that. I mean, it's just insane. So,
you know, their website really a huge part of the explosion is because
of the Rick Patino content that they did. I mean, and we gave
him good content. I should say Rick gave him good content with the Karen
Cipher and the Katina pal stuff. Right, So with all that said,
like Rick doesn't get lost in the weeds on that. I mean, he
probably, I mean, I know he knows who Matt is, and I
know he was aware of some things that were said, but like he's not
listening to a whole lot of fans. That's just not him. He's you
know, he's above that in his mind. So you know, I don't
I don't think with a lot of people ever, you know, those who
just still feel as if like he did some disgraceful thing by going on that
show and talking up Kentucky, I just think you've never really given it a
deep thought, and you never given it much thought. As far as the
fact that like that's natural. It would be almost unnatural for him to,
at this point in his career now at Saint John's to not look back at
Kentucky. Finally, Kentucky, let's be real, made him. I mean,
he was with the Knicks and clearly was successful there. I don't want
to say, but he became the larger than life future. I mean,
he was the most talked about college basketball, one of the most talked about
coaches of every level. Obviously Phil Jackson was doing the damn thing with the
Bulls at that time, but what Rick did at Kentucky it put him on
a different level to where the Celtics came in and offered him a job.
So, you know, any expectation that he would hate, hate Kentucky and
feel bitter and never acknowledge them, I think the rivalry component makes people like
believe that that would be realistic, but it's not at all. And Rick's
a hard guy to like humanize because you know, he's not relatable to most
of us, but he is human, that is true, and I think
it's understandable and reasonable for him to still feel fondly about Kentucky and want Mark
Pope to do well and As far as how he thinks about Louisville, I
don't know if he wants them to do well or not right. He'd probably
tell us that he does, but I don't know if he believes it,
because he still feels bitter about how it ended right or wrong. He's bitter.
He says he's not right. What's his line, get better or not
bitter? But he's bitter and he's he's He's shown that without saying it,
and the people he I guess owes that bitterness towards are no longer around,
but still doesn't. That doesn't make the feeling that he has go away.
But one component to this that he's not bitter about as his players. He
loves these guys. He loves it. And I remember it came up a
couple of weeks ago. Somebody asked, like, do you think the'll ever
be a day where Rick Patino comes back? And I said, here's here's
how that happens. Like if there's no like if there's no if nothing happens
until this point on the fifteen year anniversary of that twenty three team national championship
team, if these guys asked him to come back and be a part of
it and he could do it, meaning he's not still coaching at Saint John's,
or maybe he has the opening on the schedule. If Peyton and Luke
and Russ, if they asked him to come back and be a part of
it, and he could, he would do it because of those guys,
but not because of Louisville. And I don't think if you asked him that
he would blame fans or even blame anybody currently involved. But he still feels
as if his world got turned upside down unfairly, and he blames Louisville.
And again I think he'd tell you it's Pizza Boy, Papa John, It's
Greg Postal, who is a UK fan, It's you know, David Grissom,
who was clearly incompetent throughout his time in his position at u of L.
And then who else was it? Oh a Bevin. I don't know
if he's ever mentioned Bevan. I feel like he has, but like I
think he knows it's geared towards them, But like, just because they're not
around anymore doesn't make that a motion that he has, and that bitterness that
he has towards Louisville just disappear. So again, I'm not telling anybody to
like feel a certain way about Rick. You can feel however you want.
I just I think if you really gave it some thought and kind of put
the rivalry emotion on pause for just a moment, you'd realize, like,
this is like he didn't really do anything that crazy. The UK and IL
football stuff is just weird. I'll never be able to really understand why he
did that or wanted to do that, but you know, chalk it up
to Rick being Rick. A right quick break will come back. On the
other side, we'll hear from the future of louisvill basketball. I mean,
he's not the future coach, he's the current coach. It's Pat Kelsey.
He did a really good interview with Andy Katz, which I want you guys
to hear. We'll chop it up into two sections. We'll play the first
half of it coming up here on the other side, and I think you'll
enjoy it. So stick around. We're about halfway through here on a Wednesday
Coffee and company feel by Thornton's on Sports Talk seven ninety right. So the
text line five point two six five three zero seven ninety is the LNN Federal
Credit Union text line and a couple of people A couple people have asked kind
of the same question a little bit differently. Do you think somebody asked Rick
Patino to post that picture? I would say no, I mean, maybe
they did. I'm not sure. Like, I think that's a I don't
mean, I don't think he's doing that to try to like make Louisville fans
happy because they were upset about what he said when it comes to Kentucky.
I think I think that's a I mean again, I think it's a natural
thing for him to feel the I mean not to defend Rick here, because
you know, he's clearly going to say things that are just insane at times.
And by the way, nobody's ever really like if somebody fact checked and
found out that he didn't actually donate money to the UK Football Like, would
anybody be surprised if it wasn't true and it would just be chocked up as
Rick being Rick. But you know, even if somebody did encourage him,
Like, I don't think it's like a forced thing for him. I think
he does feel strongly about all those guys that are in that picture that that
he shared all right, let's see here real quick, I'll mention this just
because somebody had sent it in and I think it's it's worth mentioning. The
Evan Maya Evan Mayakawa. He's college basketball analytics guy, kind of like a
Ken Palm type of guy who has his own formula and does a really good
job of crunching numbers for those that really get into the analytics side of college
basketball. He has updated transfer portal activity class rankings, which is a lot
that sounded just like a bunch of mumble jumble, but he's got updated rankings
here. I guess now that some of the dust is settled, or maybe
he retooled something. I'm not quite sure because I feel like he actually did
this not that long ago, but currently the top five programs in the twenty
twenty four transfer portal class and again he does it differently. Overall, transfer
activity ranking is viewed in who you lost and who you added, right,
Like, there's two of different There's a lot of ways to look at it,
but the two that I think are both worth looking into, although I
think the bigger, the most valuable one is to look at what you lost
and what you added rather than just who you brought in. Both both are
important to an extent, but as far as overall activity, that's considering.
You know, you didn't lose anybody. That's a huge loss, and you
brought in good players. Saint John's is number one and both both overall activity
and their incoming class, and it's really top heavy with Davion Smith who transferre
from Utah and then Kadari Richmond I think it's his name. Was that the
guy who transferred from Seaton Hall to Saint John's. Yeah, I mean this
guy entered the portal not super late, but I kind of feel like everybody
knew this guy was a good player, but like it just didn't get Like.
He's the number one player in the portal in college basketball and at least
a couple of the rankings, and Rick Matino landed him, so that's why
he's at He's at number one in both. But Vanderbilt is number two in
overall transfer portal activity, Louisville number three, Indiana number four, and then
Kansas State's number five. They got who did They landed it the last Yeah,
they landed coleman aginst the last minute, and got some other guys along
the way. So that's your top five. Kentucky came in at number twelve.
So again, and I'll defend Kentucky a little bit here, Kentucky is
being hurt in these rankings by something that I don't really think is legit,
and that's this despite their production kind of being blah and certainly underwhelming given expectations,
the fact that Aaron Bradshawn DJ Wagnertle left Kentucky and are still viewed as
like really good players in the portal, They're being hurt. Kentucky's being hurt
in these rankings because of that, and those guys may be great at Ohio
State in Arkansas respectively. But I don't mean I don't I mean I think
Kentucky has added players that are better than them. To be honest with you,
but if you look at just incoming transfer class ranking alone, meaning just
where you rank as far as the guys you brought in, which is a
little a little misleading with Louisville and even Kentucky because literally almost every single guy,
I mean, everybody's new. However, Kentucky has, I think,
is it two freshmen. They have one freshman and Travis Perry a second freshman,
and the kid who transferred from BYU but never played because he was on
that mission trip. But Louisville is at number two with just the collective amount
of guys they brought in, and Indiana is at number eight, which they
got to be being held down by some of the last guys they got,
because I'm sure Langdon Hatten wasn't somebody that was highly touted. But I mean,
not to guess up Woodie, but like everybody they added other than the
other than the kid from Bellermne. That's his name, right, That's the
guy I just mentioned. They're guys that I think like everybody wanted, so
I don't really understand that. But they came in at number eight, and
then Kentucky is at number six, so huge difference there. Kentucky's twelfth in
overall activity. Six then just when you rank the guys specifically they brought in,
and again it's because some of the guys Kentucky lost don't look like big
losses to you, and I get it. But yet in the eyes of
these metrics they do. All right, let's talk about the little of Men's
clinic again, Fellas I'm telling you, there's a lot of things they could
do to help you. You may feel like you're good, right, you
don't need any help. You're a man, you're tough, you're strong,
you're happy, you're healthy. And if that's the case, God bless you.
But what if you could be even happier and healthier? And you'll never
know until you go talk to the friends that I have at the Louisville Men's
Clinic doctor, would you know, let him know? Say, Hey,
Nick was talking about all the things you can do. Here's my situation.
Do you think there's something maybe that you guys could do to help me out?
And you know, there may be a situation to where you don't need
anything, and hey, you know, at least you tried. But I'd
be willing to bet that if you had your levels checked, you may feel
like you're the toughest, most masculine dude out there. But your levels may
not be where they're supposed to be for somebody your age, and you've just
been and you've just been chalking that up as being normal for years now.
And then once you do get your levels where there need to be with testosterone
treatment, you'll feel like a million bucks, just like I do. So
again, liblemnsclinic dot COM's the website. Fibo two four four four four thousand
is the number if you guys want to give him a call. All right,
Pat Kelsey on with Andy Katz, which Kats used to work for ESPN.
Now I think he works for like everybody. He's on NCAA's website doing
coverage. I think he works for the Does he work for the Big ten
network too? He has, I don't know if he does currently, but
I know he has before. He's done some like studio work for him.
So this is from the NABC website, which is the I think the National
Association of Basketball Coaches. I think that's what that stands for. But a
sixteen minute conversation here. I'm not going to play the entire thing right now,
but here's the first half of it as Pat Kelsey and Andy Katch chop
it up and welcome everyone to an off season ANYBC chat. I'm Andy Katz,
pleased to be joined by Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey and Pat, I
just want to go back a little bit here because you had so many opportunities.
You've had great success, and you could have left a number of different
times you chose to stay. You're a very loyal person. Why was this
the right fit at the right time. I mean, Andy, it's Louisville,
and I have to correct you. I'm so sorry, but I was
corrected probably eight or nine times before I finally got it right. Because in
this town it's Louisville. You can't say Louisville. Oh you're right, Sorry,
sorry, Louisville. I've been corrected so many times I can make it,
thank you, But I think the best way to answer it is,
it's Louisville. It's Louisville, basketball man. And I grew up ninety miles
from here, so I was close enough, you know, obviously, to
feel the magic of the Louisville brand in the eighties. But even if I
didn't grow up ninety miles from here, and I grew up a million miles
from here, it's one of the most powerful brands in college basketball. It's
one of the most tradition rich programs ever, so I think the power and
the mystique of this program's past was what was the biggest thing. Well,
and you're coming in at a pretty crazy time, not just in the sport,
But I don't think anyone could have imagined that Louisville would be toward the
bottom of the ACC or whatever league it happened to be in. They've changed
a lot of leagues during its history, and so you've got you know,
you're here, and you've got the ability to take it up to where it's
been. How did you assess sort of the landscape of the program of where
the ACC is at this point where there's a lot of movement, there's not
sort of just these teams that you can't see at the top of the mountain
that you can't you know, try to match, because we've seen a lot
of different teams get up there with do Carolina and take their turn. How
did you assess sort of the overall landscape of the job and the league.
Well, you know, I started my career in the ACC. Skip Prosser,
the late great Skip Prosser, hired me. He used to say it
was the biggest meteoric rise in coaching history. I went from the freshman basketball
coach at Famed Elder High School in Cincinnati, and I was selling cars for
my dad on the side to the ACC. I thought that was funny.
It was the mediorc eyes. But you know, so it's it's where I
got my start in gosh, ACC basketball is is traditionally the greatest league in
the history of college basketball, in my opinion, and you know, to
be a part of this great league again and there's there's there's movement, and
there's changes and but that's that's happening. That's happening everywhere. But you know,
you talked about like kind of where the program has been the last couple
of years. That's not my focus. My focus is what we're doing from
the moment we took the job I think one hundred and two days ago now,
Uh, and moving forward. So what's happened in the past is the
past, and what happens in the future is what we're all about. So,
look, there's a different path in terms of roster management for everybody and
and resources. Are you know good at Louisville. Uh, it's different than
where you've been, that's just obvious. But what was your your mentality at
least in this first year. Maybe going forward, you pick up Chucky Hepburn,
who had a great career at Wisconsin to try to manage sort of high
school international transfer to get this thing going right off the bat. Yeah,
you know, it was a crazy whirlwind of the first several months because you
know, we started at zero, right, we had to build an entire
roster. And I give my staff a ton of credit, and I think
I have the best basketball coaching staff in the entire country. They make this
dude look smart, which is pretty hard to do. So they busted their
tail. And I know it's boring interview speak, but we stuck to our
process what we believe in. Obviously, we had to utilize the portal heavily,
you know, getting the job kind of you know, in the spring
and starting from zero, and we wanted to put together a team that can
compete from day one. So, you know, we have a process that
we go about and how we identify guys in the portal that we want to
recruit, you know, traditional recruiting, grassroots recruiting, underclass recruiting, high
school recruiting obviously, or relationships built over a long long time, and that's
always going to be at the center and the heart and soul of our recruiting
efforts in the portal. It's kind of recruiting on steroids. You know,
what usually is a two year process sometimes becomes a two week process, so
you can't skip steps. You have to make sure you're doing your due diligence
and making your calls. But at the same time, you know, thirty
forty other schools are trying to recruit the same person. So all these things
are going on at the same time, where you're building a relationships, selling
your program, and that the ends at the same time checking all the box
to make sure that the players you're bringing in that you're recruiting are great fits.
I don't want to dwell in the past. I won't, but they're
obviously you know, the us some apathy. I think that has changed dramatically
just with your hire, because of your passion and your energy. If I'm
a Louisville fan, Louisville fan, Uh, what am I going to see
on day one when I get to the YOUM center on the floor at both
ends. Yeah, that's a great question. And I was asked questions similar
to that at my press conference and what's this going to look like? And
what are we going to be this year? And you know, I'm I'm
a big believer that those things will take care of themselves. If everybody in
an organization, starting with me, all the way down to the student managers
are doing their job every single day with excellence. We got a weightlifting session
that's going to start here in three minutes, and the goal of that weightlifting
session is to be the greatest weightlifting session in the history of our program.
And then as we turn the page to the next thing we do, and
the next thing we do, and the next thing we do, that'll be
our focus and always been my way. Right. I let the guys like
you right make all the prognozers a lot, But what style of play?
What? What will what will me and everyone else? What will we see
in time? I want to play well. First of all. I think,
you know, Skip Pross used to say a team usually takes on the
personality of their coach. So you're gonna see a high energy team, you
know, that plays hard. I like to think that our teams, our
staffs, teams, my teams play with grit, play with tenacity, play
with passion, play with fire. We're always going to play stinking hard.
Our teams are usually from an offensive standpoint, dynamic in terms of our pace,
how we play, we push the ball, we play downhill. There's
a lot of possessions in our game. We value ball movement, people movement.
Uh. We value three point shooting typically one of the you know,
uh towards the tops of the country, and three point volume rate. We're
also usually very very good in offensive rebounding, so we go and pursue our
own missus as well. On the defensive end. You know, we're going
to be a tough, nasty, tenacious I like to think Manda Man team
predominantly all right. So we'll get to the rest of that a little later
on. And a lot of that, of course, is things that you've
already heard from from Pat Kelsey and his other interviews that he's done, including
when he joined us on the show here. But I know Louisville fans have
to appreciate him already, feeling I mean, he is clearly one of us.
He's leading the basketball program. He's the guy that has been tasked to
get this thing turned around. And I think he's got a lot of support
here so far. But obviously we have to wait and see what happens.
However, he feels as if it's his duty to correct people who don't say
Louisville correctly and say what Andy Kat said, which is Louisville I don't know.
That's the fact that he's already doing that is I think a good sign.
All right, quick break, we'll come back on the other side,
and to wrap up the four o'clock hour, I want to talk about something
at some point. I don't if we're gonna have time to do it before
we get to the five o'clock hour, but at some point I do want
to talk about something that I'll give credit where it's due. It was somebody
a former NBA player on Instagram had posted this, but like it's a very
obvious thing to bring up in the always played out lebron versus MJ thing,
but it has something with Bronnie James. I think it's a really good point
that I haven't heard many people talk about. So we'll get to that in
a lot of other things throughout the rest of the show, So stick with
us right here, Coffee and Company feel about Thorton's on Sports Talk seven ninety
as we wrap up the four o'clock hour, A couple things on the football
side to share with you. When it comes to the on three rankings of
the G five transfers only meaning guys who are transferring into the ACC from a
non Power five, they've got a top ten and Louisville's got some major presence
here. In fact. Number one is Colin Lacy, the receiver from South
Alabama, which you know we talked about him really since he decided to transfer
Louisville because he was one of the big gets in the portal, but he
did not have a I don't want see he had a good or bat spring.
It just was you didn't hear a whole lot about him, and I'm
not sure if that's for any reason, but he is still somebody that has
proven to be a pretty I mean, I'm pretty I'm trying to find the
number here, but there may be only one player in college football that's returning
this twenty twenty four season that has more receiving yards than Colin Lacey. So,
yes, he did it at South Alabama. That's a lower level.
But you know the top receiver leisvel had last year also came from that level,
right, I mean, Jamari Thrash was a pretty successful G five transfer
to the ACC and hopefully Colin Lacey is the same thing. Number two is
justin Jolly, the tight end to transferred from Yukon to NC State, but
Number three is louisvill was tied in Mark Redman, who was an All Mountain
West performer at San Diego State. And then at number five is Thor Griffin
of Griffith. I should say who I this guy is. You know,
there's a lot of hypes surrounding him. He already had some NFL buzz after
a great successful run there at Harvard. But you know, if it does
translate like seventy five percent, he's gonna make a really big impact. He's
He's one of those guys that you see on the Freakly the Freakalist every year
from Bruce Feldman, just guys who physically and athletically are are different. You
know, you never know what you're gonna get from the Ivy League. That's
a much different level than even G five. But this guy had a lot
of options transferring from Harvard, and you know, Jeff Brown feels really good
about his d line and I would imagine Thor Griffith is is a part of
that. And then the only other leus of a guy mentioned here in the
top ten is Jordan Gerard, who was kind of a late addition in the
portal. He transferred from well I don't think he was that late, but
he just didn't get mentioned a whole lot. But FIU is where he transferred
from, and obviously they weren't very good last year, but he graded out
as one of the best defensive linemen in the G at the G five level,
was an all conference performer there at FIU. So again, obviously there's
always the question mark is just how much of that will translate from the lower
level to the power for previously power five, and you really never know until
you actually get out there and see results. But again, last year,
I think Louisville was able to see that. Just because somebody you know,
played below the power four or five doesn't mean they can't come up and help
you in a major way. I mean, I think tomorrow Thrash might have
been better at Louisville than he was. Was it Georgia State that he transferred
from. I think that's right. Also, really quickly before we get out
of here at the top, you know we're not leaving. Yeah, we
another hour, so make sure you guys stick around. But another football thing
here to Brent to mention the the what's the what's the award? Let's see
here. I want to make sure I get it correct, because if Jeff
wins this, we're going to be talking up this award like it's the biggest
award ever. Yeah. So it's the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year preseason
watch list, which Jeff Brawm was one of the twenty one coaches on that
list, So shout out to him. Not a surprise. I mean,
he wasn't gonna win National Coach of the Year and he didn't even win acc
Coach of the Year last year, But still doesn't mean he didn't have a
great I mean, he totally took advantage of his first season and really gave
the program a lot of momentum. But these preseason watch lists, like we
all know, they don't mean a whole lot because you cannot be on it
and then be added once you actually, you know, have results within the
season. Like I'm not really sure, Like John, what do you what
do you think they would tell us as far as why they choose to even
put out a preseason watch list. Yeah, I've never really finished a value
yourself, because I mean, I guess you're basing all of it off of
potential or maybe past results, especially when you're thinking about guys who have already
played a couple of years the college level. So what to me, it's
it just gives people an example to like say either that you left somebody off,
which wish they did here, or that you know, like, wow,
you really showed us that you were way way wrong here because you had
five guys on this list coaches or play depending on what the award is,
and like none of those guys were nearly as good. They might as well
just let big Game Boomer make these things exactly exactly. So again, like
I I'm not surprised that all the Jeff's on the list, and I have
no reason to think that if Lowell has a good season he won't be considered
for that award. But they left off a guy who I think you could
argue has I mean as far as a name that a lot of people didn't
know recently in the last few years. I think this guy now is a
known name and has a lot of momentum. That's Dan Landing at Oregon,
Like, how could he not be on the list? Yeah, he was,
Like, that's just clearly one of the top candidates to be Alabama's head
coach. He turned him down, right, I mean, like, I
just I don't know. He's been at Oregon since two thousand and twenty two,
so he's entering his fourth season. They went twelve and two, eight
and one in the PAC twelve last year, won the Fiesta Bowl. He
was ten and three in his first in his first year. I mean,
like, I think it's clearly like cause again it's not just because he's a
good coach, but like, this guy's got momentum like this guy's is.
I mean, he's the only guy that, like pretty much everybody who covered
this coaching search for Bama, Like there's other guys that got extensions right and
acted as if they turned Bama down, which I don't believe all these guys
did, but I believe Dan Lanning did. Like it was quite clear that's
who they wanted, and within twenty four hours, like you know, he
said he's staying at Oregon. So yeah, I mean, I'm not bitter
about Jeff not winning those awards last year because the Coach of the Year award,
like there should be two of them. There should be the coach who
has the best season, coach of the year did the best job coaching,
because the results tell you that and there should be the Overachiever of the year
because they're two different things, and sometimes, you know, the award just
goes to one of those two, and it's really two different types of criteria.
And last year Florida State exploded through had an undefeated season the until the
uh you know, to the bowl game where they got killed. But Brohm,
last year, I mean that was I mean, Louisville was seven and
one in the acc All right, quick break, we got the five o'clock
hour coming your way, so make sure you stick around right here on Sports
Talk seven to ninety