This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jagon Zalaz Sound Fox Sports
fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services and Sure Your most Prized Possessions kat z
R two sad at iHeartRadio Station. Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome
to I on the Ball here Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera,
he's Jagan Zawas. Got our guy Kevin in today working the boards, so
no mistakes will happen. Save our butts. Hey, good, Good Monday.
Busy, busy weekend. Holy cow, busy week busy weekend on all
fronts. You know, women basketball, men's basketball. Football is still football
school. It looks like it's gonna continue to be a school football. You
know some of you guys who were up up in the press row at the
basketball game there, and I'm like, okay, guys, what are you
gonna cover? You're gonna cover the football thing? You cover the basketball game?
You know what? It was crazy, man, It was that had
to be nuts. It was a crazy guy. Let me ask you,
because you've been to every game that I can remember there from you thirty some
years, I've missed about two games over there. The introduction at halftime and
and recency bias, right, things go on and we'll say, oh,
that was the best play ever and it wasn't. But that loud. How
it got loud on halftime or when the kids came out, it was pretty
damn loud. It was loud, Steve, You know when when the when
the players came out, and and just just the entire game, the whole
second half of the game. Yeah, you know, someone texted me and
then even after the game, someone as they said to me, someone's mentioned
that there was no energy in the McHale Center, and I says, what,
what the hell are you talking about. It's another dude just on the
computer texting there's no energy here. I don't know what game he was at,
but that's that was loud as that compared to as loud as any game
that I can recall, sure, any game winner, any Mark Lands last
second shot. You know, we were good, you know we're look,
we set shoulder to shoulder at at at the stat table. We were doing
hand signals. So so we'll talk about all that. But I just so
loud see this because you get the front row seat to a bunch of crazy
crap. This was crazy crap with cronin. I was gonna mention that I
was like the found his face found his way into a video. He was
right. We talked about this, the colorful coaches that walked by, and
so either say a lot of stuff or don't say anything. The dude.
The dude talks a lot of crap. He does. He does now because
he's talking away from us and with the crowd noise, we rarely hear.
We really only hear him is if he says something when it's quiet, you
know, relatively quiet. So I didn't hear any when he got teed up.
I heard, I saw that he was yelling, but I didn't hear
what he was saying and he got teed up, So we just assumed he
said the magic words. He did. You see the lips. Yeah,
he'said a bunch of magic words. I don't think it was just a magic
where he said the magic words. But you know, we're also wondering,
well, if you know, if he got teed up there, why don't
you get teed up these other times? Because he was on it, you
know, the whole time. Yeah, and he's always on it. Yeah,
And they talk about that in the NBA a lot where with guys like
Draymond Green, who are always really demonished and aggressive towards referees, the referees
almost give them a longer leash because they expect it out of them, But
the choieter guys are like, whoa, yeah, you usually don't act like
this, What is up with you? All right? Well that was a
fantastic Uh well, let me see this. I could be totally wrong.
When people turn off the radio, zona still does not look good. They
didn't, they didn't and and and you know, there's about eight different ways
to look at what happened Saturday, right One, man, they're still not
playing very well and they were lucky to get out of there very much.
Or two, they were playing like crap and somehow flipped on a switch and
one came back and won a game that they probably shouldn't have won well or
usually lost. Or three U c l A must really suck to have lost
that, to have done what they were doing, playing as well as they
were playing and then still lost the game. There's probably some other things in
there, and there's some different a million different ways to look at that,
and and I don't know which one is the right one. They might all
be right. It could all be true because you say they had them on
the ropes, could have easily put them away. They were kicking their asses,
Steve, Yeah, yeah, they could. They're not as physical.
Arizona got him to foul trouble. Yeah, And that was Croden's beef.
Twenty three shots in the second half. And then our guy, our guy,
I wanted to say, our guy bollow who I questioned two days before,
and Tommy when we used to ask he looked directly at me when someone
asked him about technique, and I was like, I'm not asking that question
because I had asked the day before. Are you concerned? Let me say
this, Joe Jay, he was seven and eight okay, Just because Gab
tells you to bring your bread home seven times out of eight times and you
do it, there's always that one time you mess up. Yeah, you
know. And we don't know if this is going to be the thing for
him the rest of the season. We don't know if he's figured it out
right. I will say his shot looks different, and he was the difference
in the victory. Come on, if he goes two before, he's shot
poorly. But he was he was. He went seventeen and thirteen, seventeen
point thirteen rebounds, seven of eight. You know, free throws. His
shot looks different, so he's done something. Not like he kept shooting the
same shot and was making it his shots different. So there's that. You
know, there's so many things. Uh, you know, Pella Larson again,
we keep saying that Pellet plays great, Arizona wins, Pelly plays that
crap, Arizona loses in spite of what other no matter what the other guys
do, right, but the one guy that has to come back and play
some better best well is Boswell. Yeah, there's something going on with him
in his head, not on the court. Yeah, there has to be.
You know, there's not a one off. It's not a two off.
It's like a too, it's an off off. It's a way off.
It's just about to be a month. It's about to be a month.
It's just sustained. So you know that's unexplainable. Only he would know,
and maybe Tommy. But it's not good. But you know you're gonna
think this is stupid too, because you know, because remember I told you
early on in the Washington game, like the first five minutes Washington State game.
This feels like loss already. Okay, for some reason, even when
they were down nineteen points, I didn't think they were gonna lose. I
just didn't. I just thought. I just thought, at some point U
c l A Is going to figure out that there's still u c l A,
that there's still that team that's been really bad all year long. They're
gonna stop making three pointers, they're gonna stop running their offense, and and
and they're gonna start playing like a bad basketball team, which is exactly what
they did. What was the key? What was the key to them win?
They they they went away from what they were doing. No, no,
no, no for Arizona winning First, Arizona got physical with them,
right, you know, at least became you know, you know, uh
uh, what's his name? The coach, You know, he can bitch
and bitch and bitch and bitch all he wants about how they kept finally kept
fund they kept following. What do we hear coaches always say, let him
play, let him play, let him play, you know, let's let
the kids decide the game. Well that's what the refs did. And look
for years, Steve for years and years and years I sat there and watched
visiting coaches complain, complain to no, no, that was that was my
complain to refs about uneven numbers of fouls. Okay, uneven numbers of files.
Yes, is there one or two files of the game that you go,
dude, that was not a foul. Yes, there was one year
there was one to get that they called on Arizona where the ref just assumed
that he was going to follow him. He didn't follow him, but he
called the foul files or fouls. You know, I don't care what people
anybody says. You're getting called for a foul because you committed a foul,
you know there. And so he's bitching about all these files. Well,
you know what, stop filing, and the game never really truly comes down
to one foul. Stop filling. Your guys were folling, you know them.
Bona was complaining about every foul and every file was a legitimate foul.
Who was ne were getting physical and it is him. That was a great
conversation because Creepus couldn't handle him. Yeah, creas that's why he didn't play
it very much. There was one foul where both both Balow and Bona ended
up on the floor right and they called the foul on Bona, all right,
and he bitched and and and and and and and Mick Cronin was bitching.
Then they showed the replay Bona grabbed his arm and pulled him to the
ground. That's a foul. Yeah, I saw that. The sequence was.
I think it was him who missed the dunk, the easy dunk,
yeah, fourteen easy, and then came the love came back and get the
three point point. The game was over right there. That's when it ended
for me. Usually could have taken the taken the game over right there.
Yeah, and he missed that bunny of a dunk and it changed them.
You know what, you guys blew a nineteen point lead, and it had
nothing to do with the rest. That's the zero to do with the rest,
that's you blew a nineteen point lead. Seventeen of that in the second
half, you lost the game because, as you said yourself, well we
turned into our one guy just driving to the lane all day. You stopped
doing what you did in the first half. Yeah, it's funny though for
the first half they looked really good. Number ten, the guard, yeah,
the guard. Yeah, he was he he had like four three pointers
in the first hand, he couldn't get another shot in the second half.
Well, why was that because Arizona's defense got better or because your guy played
like crap or a little bit of both. It's gonna be different on the
road this team. You know, Jay, guys, we were here five
six weeks ago, right when you talk about the month, right, we're
talking about what's flawed by Arizona. We didn't have any idea they were playing
so well of passing the ball, doing all that. I think that's one
of the problems. They're not doing that. But now we're seeing a lot
of things that we see and the road is gonna be very treacherous the next
month and a half, right, because they're not playing well on the road.
And and Steve, you know again goes back to what you know,
what I brought up last week is that God, maybe maybe the league is
better than anybody thinks. Okay, there's nobody in the rankings. They're not
gonna get in the rankings because that because you know, the voters think they
know what the PAC twelve is. A su is the type for first place?
Now have they did? They suck at the beginning of the end.
Yes, but they're tied for first place and they're beating some teams. You
know, Oregon is all of a sudden, you know, you know,
Arizona goes on the road this week and could come back in second place again
because they got to go play Oregon at Oregon. To both of your points,
Oregon's undefeated at home, I believe as well, Yeah, we're struggling
on the road and now we're going to go to can Sells at home.
People are not going to give the Pac twelve any credit for being any good,
so they say, any loss Arizona has is a bad loss. Well,
I'm not so sure about that anymore, right, well, at least
from our eyes, from what we see, because we see this so and
and look, I mean, remember, everybody's thinking, who's there some good
good? We said, I think I said, maybe we both said.
I know, I said, who's theres going to lose to in the Pac
twelve. I don't know. I don't see anybody that can beat them.
Well, there's a a bunch of teams that can beat right now. That
changes if look, if Arizona goes on the road, they're going to Oregon,
State and Oregon. A road split would be pretty damn good for Arizona
considering where where they are as a team, but you know where the other
teams are as well. Oregon is not an easy an easy game to play,
especially at Oregon, so it's gonna be a tough road. We're talking
a lot about basketball right now to begin the show, because we're going to
talk a lot about football here in the priming segment. We have Barrett Baker.
Barrett Baker coming back. He's the captain of the ninety eighteen special teams.
We've had him on before. He's been very vocal, very very busy
on social media. He you know, he knew or knows Brett Brandt.
I think I think in one of his chiefs he say still good friends with
him. So well, we'll talk to We'll talk to Barrett about about that.
Yeah, and then we we we missed on Yogi Roth on last Friday,
so he agreed to come back to us today at four fifteen. So
now that this has happened with the football team, he'll have more to have
more to talk about with him. And look, and an interesting guest for
tomorrow. I want to bring this up because you know, he's been very
visible. Humberto Lopez, the boot, the booster, who had a lot
to say last week. Obviously it sounds like he's very involved with uh.
The program from an NIL standpoint, has been and has been for a while.
You know, we we don't look as as I've said to Javier Morale
as you know on social media, let's put let's put jetfish in the rearview
mirror. We're not going to talk to him Berica about the things he said
about and he said he doesn't want he said plenty. But what we do
want to talk to him about is the role of people like him going forward
in athletics. Yeah, money wise, interest wise, support wise, uh
and all of those things. And so it's I think it'll be an interesting
conversation with her Lopez and he's been doing it a long time. Now he's
visible because he's done some interviews and talked about it and now it's kind of
like the sung hero over the euro But there's also stories behind the stories.
You know, did Jed want some of these guys? Maybe not. We're
hearing, We're hearing not so much. We're hearing different things. You know,
we get you go into Michale on the weekend like this last weekend,
and you hear a lot of stuff. How much of it is true?
How much of a speculation. There's always more than a story either, there's
more to the stories. And uh, you know, Jed's gotten a couple
of guys. You know that they decided to go up there and that that's
fine, that's that's gonna happen. You know, we decide there's a running
back at San Jose State who's now jumped into the portal. You know,
obviously his speculation is that he's gonna come here. So these things happened.
The key for Arizona was what happened Saturday. But the core of the team,
you're never going to keep them all when the coach leaves. Even even
if a coach doesn't leave, guys leave. But the core of the team
has come out and said there's State. That's a big deal for it,
no, no, no questions. It helps with the sustained thing that we
talk about all the time. He just needs some good luck and some you
know, being some consistency in what's going on. Right Well, I think
he's gonna be fine. We talked to him on Friday. We had the
interview on Friday. If you missed the show right, you can still go
download the podcast and here are ten minutes with Brent Brennan on Friday. It
was the first part of the first segments. If you go download our one.
We put it on on our Facebook and Twitter pages. But you can
also go to the iHeart website search on the ball and you can get the
podcasts here and listen, re listen to what or listen for the first time
to our conversation with Brent Brennan on on Friday. So all that going on.
See, man, it was a busy, busy It's a busy week,
maybe another busy week, but that's what makes this show very fun.
Yeah. Yeah, and we'll have some stuff to say about that too,
because we've got some good, good stuff with our finding out. You know
who's listening to us and how many people and it's been great, So we're
doing great. So Kevin, take us out. We'll be back and we'll
have Barrett Baker nineteen ninety eight, Special Teams Captain for theres on a football
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This is Eye on the Ball with ste Brivera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox
Sports fourteen. Hey, welcome back to Winning the Ball here at Fox Sports
fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera. He's Jackensaux's founophone. We have Baker from
the University of Arizona football team back in the late nineties and superhero right now
as a as a fire chief, as a what's your what's your title?
Oh? I guess if we're gonna do an official title would be a deputy
chief of operations. But I just say lucky guy. How about that?
That sounds good too, too? And you guys are all lucky guys at
the University X guys, current guys with a football program. Uh yeah again.
To go from an Arizona football team that you know, gold driven and
working around fun people every day and then get to be a part of an
organization with fire department that pretty much gets to do the same thing and tries
to make somebody's bad day a little bit better. It's been a good,
a lucky run for me. So I'm very blessed in that really so bad.
You've been clearly excited and visible on social media talking about the hiring of
Brent Brannan I guess you were here when you were playing here, when he
was here, he played with his brother Brad. Just well, you know,
what can you you know, we're just trying to find out for maybe
what can you tell us about what you know about Brent Brannan the coach.
Well, I think first and foremost, our job is alumni is honestly to
support the University of Arizona football program, the coaches that make up the staff,
and the players. Ultimately, they put on the uniform every day and
if the city of Tucson does that on the whole, then we have a
much better chance of having a successful program. And so you know, I
think I've been out of the player ranks and now an alum for twenty five
years. I've tried to support the program over the course of twenty five years.
But you connect with certain coaches a little bit more than others. And
I think with coach Brennan, you know, working at the U of A,
and he talked about that in two thousand as a GA and then Brad
with his brother a teammate of mine, wearing the red and blue from ninety
seven, ninety eight, ninety nine, two thousand. It's a little bit
more. It means a little bit more to them, and I think you
see that with how he talks about it. I think he has fond memories.
He grew up in a great coaching tree with coach Tomy, coach Donahuett
from UCLA. He knows winning football, he knows he's been a part of
it before. And I think as an alum, we're just really excited because
we think that we've got a guy that is going to give back so much
to the players, the program, the community. And I think we nailed
it on this one. Not that I want to rehash, but we don't
have to rehash. So Jed announces he's leaving. What's your first emotion and
are you one of those guys? Oh man, who are you going to
get now? Or how do you react? I think there was a lot
of disappointment there because obviously we were on the cusp of really taking it to
the next level. I mean, he talked about that eighteen and twenty two
guys coming back at key positions at that and again I think coach Fish I
did not like the exit. That obviously was not handled very well from a
lot of different standpoints, but he did a great job in his three years
getting the program back. So I can't just turn my thumb at him or
turns my nose at him and say, you know good, you know,
he did a great job for us. He's turned the program over to somebody
that wants to be here. But that extreme disappointment for the first you know,
forty eight hours, But you can't wallow in that because at that point
there is somebody out there that does want to be the head coach of the
University of Arizona, that does want to lead those kids to championships. I
think Coach Brennan is that guy. I know he was chomping at the bid,
and life is kind of funny that regard that as a finalist three years
prior to that, the roster is in a much better spot today than it
was three years ago. So it's again the way life works out and timing.
I think he's got a much better chance to be successful with the team
that is here today than what it would have been three years ago, you
know. And he was asked about that, how disappointed were you that,
you know you didn't get it last time? And you know, Steve knows
I'm a grudge holder. I probably would have been pissed off and not ever
wanted to come back to the U of A. He didn't seem at all
like that. He was like, you know what, I didn't get it
last time, but I'm happy to be here now. What. I really
liked his answer in that regard because when that was asked, he also said,
how do I get better at San Jose State? Right? It wasn't
how do I make myself a better candidate? It's what do I do better
as a coach to make my program better? That was powerful to me because
you know, coaching is the most transient job in the world. It's one
year here, it's three years here, it's two years here. Get fired,
you get hired, you get promoted, you get demoted, all of
that stuff, and you never really know what it's going to happen. And
so for him to get the opportunity three years later to come back when the
stage is set for great things for our program. The facilities are great.
I think the fans support is there. We've got some great parents when it
comes to obviously the jew the Jews County squad. There's just a lot of
excitement about the program. And I think that he's going to take that get
the right mix of coaches in here as well, and I really believe that
he'll connect with the players because the Brennan family they're just good people. I've
been able to speak to Brad a few times as well over the last week,
and you know, you'd be so proud of your brother, but he
also knows he's a heck of a football coach, and there's a difference between
the two. Let's go back to a conversation we had before you came on
earlier, and as you were talking about how it would be for the young
kids, the eighteen year olds going through this, what were you going to
elaborate with? Well, I think you just you know, social media,
you see the best of it and you see the worst of it. And
if you go to social media when all of that stuff is going down and
you see anger, you see almost hatred, Well that's from coming from adults
that are supposed to be mature. And I mean I felt a lot of
those things myself, just the disappointment, the sadness and thinking that you were
going to have something and then all of a sudden, you know, the
rug is really pulled out from under you. So when you're eighteen, nineteen,
twenty years old and you had been told all of these things from a
coaching staff. And I don't think you can understate this. The coach has
become the father figures for the players. When you're in college, your positional
coach, you develop a very very deep bond with that person, and so
for that person to be gone, within many cases, they might not even
have been able to say goodbye. You know, that's I guess I would
use the word traumatic. And so for Coach Brennan to be able to get
in there within three days and have a meeting with them and say this is
who I am, and you know that's what I'm going to tell you who
I am. But talk to other people and they'll tell you who I am
as well, And you've got to kind of build that relationship, and it's
really got to be fast forwarded. And so it's certainly going to take some
time for Coach Brennan for them to truly understand who he is. But you
know, first impressions are powerful, and I think he did a great job
with making that connection. And as we can see now, the number of
players that have already taken their names out of the portal and and recommitted to
the team, recommitted to their teammates, and recommitted to coach Brennan. That
speaks volumes. So looking at it from from a player standpoint, now you
got this new coaching staff, You're going to have a new position coach most
likely, you know, whatever position you play at Arizona with with the staff
coming in, you know what what what's on your mind as a player in
terms of you know what you have to do, how you have to approach
this? You know, do you try and go, you know, buddy
up to the coach and let them know who you are? Uh? You
know how you know who? Who? How do you do that? How
do you get the coach's eye? That's a great question. But there's twenty
two guys on a team that are happy and there's about eighty that aren't.
And I say that tongue in cheek, but every backup wants to be a
starter. And so if you're one of those eighty guys that's been a backup,
you're excited because you have now a new position coach that you have the
ability to make a great impression on that person. Let them know that you're
going to work your tail off and do anything that you can to be one
of those lucky twenty two. If you're one of the twenty two, you
don't get to rest on your laurels because you've got to now prove yourself again
to a new position coach. So when it comes to competition, it is
actually a very positive thing because now you've got eighty guys that are trying to
battle for twenty two spots. Now, the coaches aren't dumb, and they
obviously are going to be very very familiar with our roster, and they're going
to think and forecast as to where the strong points are, where the places
that they feel like they need to shore up a little bit. And thankfully
we have Spring Brawl that'll kick off here in a couple of months and that
will help them really identify those things even more. But again, just from
a competition standpoint, there's blood in the water for one hundred guys now,
and who's going to be the twenty two that that are able to lock down
those starting positions. Yeah, no, that's a good, good way to
put it. I'm assuming you know, Jed Jed did something that no other
coach after Dick had left was bringing the X guys right, which was how
simple is that U with the with the connection to you go to you old
guys, Sorry to call you old. That's why guys. Yeah so so,
And somebody asked me this on Phoenix Radio. Of course it's going to
happen. I think it's going to happen even more now given that you have
an insider play coaching you guys, and that comes with responsibility on our end
as well, because you know, we can't abuse that he is the head
coach of Arizona football and yes he has been here before, but you know
that doesn't give us free reign to just go anywhere, anytime whenever. So
we really have to understand what his request is of us when it comes to
attending practices, attending functions and do our part of being good alum. Now,
the flip side of that is that he will have people that support him
as much as possible and in all ways, whether it's social media, seven
tickets, you know, going to events that owners falls on us, and
I think that we just have to get a little bit of an understanding and
that will be obviously you know, moving forward through spring football. That's a
really good opportunity. Oftentimes we have our football alumni weekend that's usually in March
or April, and so we get a good group of guys that come back.
I'm sure that will happen again and we'll get to put some faces to
the names. But to your point, Steve, you know, it's a
relationship and Coach Fish was very good about opening those doors and making guys feel
welcome. I obviously think that Coach Brennan is going to do that in a
little bit more, but I would say again just on our end as a
lums, we can't abuse that. And so I'm looking forward to it because
I love being part of the program. I love wearing the uniform. But
the second job now after the university gave to us, is that we have
to give back to the university in those ways of support and because again it
takes a village, and when we've got all of the ex players doing that
and convincing friends and family and Tucson to get to the stadium on Saturdays,
it has a big impact. Well, and that you know, and you
know, kind of following up on that, I mean, that is becoming
a bigger and bigger, bigger deal, you know, all the time with
you know, Steve, and I said, you know, okay, so
you know you've got all these boosters that support the program. Now there's more
money that needs to come in for nil. You know, you know,
guys like you, you know, whether you're a lums or professional football players
or whatever, that has to kind of double, you know, if you
want to if you want to stay competitive, and what can you as a
former player do to a well And it's just a different ballgame, you know
than it was five years ago. It's every year is getting a little bit
can I use the word worse when it comes to this level of free agency.
But again, I mean I love taking my family to the games on
Saturday. We've had season tickets for I think over seventeen years or something like
that now, so I want to make sure that those players know that I'm
there cheering them on on Saturday. You know, the alumni functions that we
have and trying to connect with as many people, bring back as many teammates
as possible. The Desert Takeover that is the name Image Likeness program that the
university is set up, and we've talked about that with our alumni meetings.
You know, if you can just give ten bucks a month, that's one
hundred and twenty bucks a year. But if you do that times the number
of players that have come through the program, then it gives you an opportunity
to put some solid footing down. And then obviously the mega downers they obviously
have a role as well. And when you put all that stuff together again,
Arizona football it's in a good spot right now. And I think we've
got the guy to lead this program because when you hear him behind the mic
and you see him smiling and happy and realizing where he's at and why he's
here, then I just I've said it before, but I think people are
going to fall in love with them. They're going to want to support him
and the kids that make up the team. So I'm going to ask you
to become a journalist real quick. We have m Berto Lopus tomorrow. What
would you if you had a chance to ask a question about what's going on
today with sports? What would you ask him? And it's not your place,
but what would you ask him? If you get a chance. I'd
probably just ask him, where do you draw the line in this new age
of sort of a free agency? And do you expect help from the NC
Double A and try to rain this in, because how do you put the
genie back in the bottle here to where it's not just who has the biggest
boosters and who's throwing the most money at the players, Because when you're nineteen
or twenty years old and someone's I mean again, these are all hy hypothetical
things. But if someone says here's one hundred thousand dollars, and someone else
says here's two hundred thousand dollars for your commitments over the next three years to
do X, Y and Z, how do you go with the team that
says one hundred thousand dollars. I mean, that's just the reality of it.
So I think I'd be interested in asking the boosters, you know,
where do they see this going and how do they stop this, you know,
avalanche from continuing on and they'll say, well, my pockets are only
so deep exactly, Yeah, yep, yeah, Okay, Well, thanks
a bunch, appreciate your time. As always, Bear down, Steven Jay,
hope you guys have a great rest of the week, and let's keep
supporting those cats, all right, man, than you take care of guys.
Good to talk to bar it again. Good insights. Yeah, you
know, I mean yeah, and I like what he said that. You
know that the alarms have a responsibility to It's not always about what is the
you know, how is the going to reach out to me and pull me
in? Well, you know you got to go out there and be a
part of it too. You know. We talk about that, especially with
Nil because remember we we had Adam Czaris with his group there and people are
saying, well, okay, but where's the money going to? No,
if you're gonna tak a lot of crap and say, well, the boosters,
the general public, people who are cheering and doing a lot of complaining
on Twitter, and well, well, don't worry about it. Just do
it right. Let them handle it exactly exactly. All right, let's take
our next break. We're to come back. We'll take your college five two
zero four one six seventy four forty again. We'll spend a little more time
talking about football and what's what's happened and what that means to Arizona. It's
uh look a little better than it did last year. Okay, stick her
out an Arizona men's basketball fan. You know it's been successful for nearly forty
years. Now take a look back at the Ludolsen era in my new book,
Lessons from Loot. It was a labor of love through the eyes of
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down all the exes and ohs. It's Steve Rivera and Jagin Salves. This
is I on the Ball on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Hey, welcome back
to I'm the man here in Fox Sports fourteen fifty on Steve, He's Jay.
We have Kevin with us. We have fifteen minutes. Come and join
if come and join us on the party, but you owe four one six
forty. The line is open. The line is open. It is open
four six. Our phone is working, so take a bed check. Yeah,
so just give us a quick call. We'll talk about whatever the game
over the weekend football. Okay, So did you know this thing was coming?
The team getting on the floor and the anounce, Yeah, Hey have
you heard that? Yeah? Because I didn't. Yeah, I didn't know
what was gonna happen. I thought you was just gonna honor them and the
right, right, that's right, that's right. I heard. What I
heard was that they were gonna bring the almal Boll Trophy on the floor and
you know, honor the It makes perfect sense, which was great because they
felt the presence of or at least felt the fandom. Yeah, there is.
Well, you know, you know where I was sitting, you know,
because I sit under the scoreboards. It's hard for me to actually see
the scoreboard. But when you know, they started playing the thing the video,
then the players started coming out under the floor. Yeah. I'm like,
I'm looking to see you know, who's coming out on the floor.
So I miss that In the video we're Fefita and and and and McMillan,
yes, saying we're running it back. I missed that. No, no,
no, you're not the only one. Because as that was happening,
tasked to do too many things. I was hackey away at the computer.
What a great experience taking photos to the city. And I said, did
they just say that they had to ask choice? You said, yeah,
I said, what the hell? Haven't changed? Because I too, I
too was not paying attention, you know, so you know, so you
know so then so then it looked up and it was, you know,
all the play stuff and they're showing you know, all the guys and I'm
like, and then I see, I see you know, uh uh.
Fafita comes right in front of me, right and he's doing the Wildcats sign
up into the seats. I'm like, is he saying that he's staying or
they or they are they just saying, you know, we won the album?
Did you do something? Hit you in the ribs and say dad to
pay attention? And yeah, you know, you know, because that's kind
of I said, I missed that? What the hell miss Yeah? So
it wasn't until I got home and I saw the video on social media and
I'm like, is that the exact same video that they played up there,
because this one has t mac and and and Fafa Yeah, with a little
caption in the boy running it back. I'm like, I missed that at
the at the game, how many assists and turnovers do you miss? Dude?
We were money on Saturday. Well, the thing about it is because
you saw these guys. If you watch you game, you see him on
the satelline because Cronin was pacing back and forth, and you know, the
whole Gonzales klan right there on the sidelines. I gotta throw some props to
the guys behind us, the fans who sit behind us. They they're really
good at at a right and at ragging on on on the particularly the opposing
coach. And the funny thing is that they're very creative. And I really
don't want to say what they said, but I'm just going to say that
they had their game on on Saturday. They were relentless on Mick Cronin.
They were just and and I got to give Mick cronan credit. Not one
time did he look over, did he look over and engage because some coaches
due I remember the LSU coach I thought was gonna go into the seat years
ago. This was the guy that came after the famous guy you're talking about,
the guy from Stanford. No, no, no, no, ls
you guy guy, But he's the guy who followed, Yeah, who was
the who is the Yeah, he's a he's a handsome guy because he was
a Utah anymore. Anyway, I thought he was going to come over the
table on this one time when they just said one thing to the guy and
he tried to get the rest to time to shut up, and I'm like,
what are you doing? Yeah, what's the damn game? Yeah,
but Mickkron, they were they were awful to it. Let's go there,
because I thought the fans were again obnoxious and painting in the ass all the
stuff that happened by that by the time, because I was there, I
watched it. Yeah, and there was one specifically, uh that was just
a pain And that's the guy that they were talking about who was right on
the rail take, you know, with his camera in front of the fans
and being obnoxious. And I'm thinking, this is what has come to Were
you there on Saturday? I wasn't. It was I had stuff to do
on Saturday. Come on. And then you had a guy, you had
a guy about fifty feet from us. Sheer me and I'm sitting there and
yelling bottles or what's his name, Bona Bona's name. Well, you guys,
just well, Arizona was shooting free throws. It's like, shut the
hell up. Don't you know when to scream at the opponent, not at
the free throw line. It was kind of almost uncomfortable. Well, it
is and you know, and and it I hope it doesn't get to the
point where, you know, Arizona wants to keep this rivalry going, right,
they do, And I hope it doesn't get to say, good point,
we're not coming to your place because your fans, let's go there.
Even more because our colleague you saw the clip with with Justin right, yes,
Justin asking about asking about that incident, asking about the fans, and
he didn't want to go there and talking about that, well there was trouble,
No, there wasn't. And he says, i'd expect that, expect
nothing. What did Justin do to you? Yeah, yeah, that was
just probably just something he said. I was gonna actually ask when Jay was
talking about the fans behind him, if you if you guys thought that maybe
mccrona was conflating, you know, Arizona media would just Arizona fans in general
just hey, when I come here, this is how I get treated.
He hates it. Here's he has them won here, he's treated poorly.
People. Look, and he's got he's got a reputation of being a bad
guy. Yeah, well, well deserved reputation because I've seen it in person.
I've seen it firsthand. You know, well deserved reputation of being a
bad guy in terms of how he conduct conducts himself during the game and and
so you know, and and the fans know that, they sense that and
they get on it and they do it. Yeah. Yeah, I don't
get are you how big of a fan a scale one to ten? How
big of a fan are you of You's basketball? Just yeah, just sports
like that ten being you know, every box score and everything like that.
I would say, I'm like a seven. Okay, obnoxious are you?
Oh? I've I've matured in my time. I would say, like as
a freshman, I was pretty obnoxial. You would would you do something like
that? As I saw the video, I wasn't there. I saw the
video. He was just leaning over like detail end of it. They didn't
show the actual time. Yeah, what what happened? He had the phone
like right in the guy's face. That for a number of guys, he
was all because you seculated on social media. I was like, that's kind
of that. Well, that didn't happen. That that vide happens every game.
That video that got shot came after what they were saying, why they
called the cops so so to you the same thing. You're a big fan.
Would you ever even think I was doing that? I was never like
that. I did. Did I yell at games? Of course they did.
Did I taunt opposing teams and stuff like that? Once it was an
ACU was an a It was after an ACU football seventies. It was specifically
nineteen eighty five. Okay, okay, no, that's fine. That was
you were still young in Goosey. I was what twenty six years old?
Okay? So physical though, I don't understand your physical I don't understand the
fans today, even Arizona fans were there. What joy do you get from
being a jerk? They did get exactly what they're getting, Okay. On
social media, yes, they're on tension. They're on social media. We're
talking about him on the radio, although we're not putting we don't know names,
we don't mean, we're just saying, this is an incident that happened.
You know, they get on YouTube, they get on their tiktoks,
and yes, that's what that's what it is, Steve. Yes, it's
five minutes of fame, fame for for nothing. I mean, it doesn't
pay you, doesn't do it in Steve. It doesn't. It's like social
currency a little bit. You know, it's not I'm not justifying it,
but I'm just saying anywhere. Look, I don't know. I'm just saying,
is that he you know, his his video of him taunting coaches at
u c l A Is gonna go viral on barstool and his buddies are gonna
DM him. Hey man, do it on barstool? Isn't that so crazy?
I have no idea how many text messages and or comments I got because
of Jeff Goodman tweeted the video of of yelling at the rest because and I'm
right behind them, and and and you know, on the photo or the
still that comes out on the tweet, I'm right there, you know.
Yeah, And you know what, I thought it was cool? Well,
you know, the good thing is he wasn't telling you that he was.
I wish, I really wish I could have heard because he when, like
I said, when he got there, I'm like, wow, they teat
him up, and like I didn't really know what he had said until later.
But you know, we've heard some things over there. We've heard some
things that have gone of course gone past the refs. My thought was,
My thought was because Mick Cronan, Okay, there was a foul where an
Arizona guy it was on it was it was in the in the first half,
so U s LA was on the other end of the court, and
an Arizona guy ran through a screen, okay, and they called a file
on the Arizona guy as they should. He ran through the screen, you
know, he basically ran over the screener. And Mitt Cronan is calling for
an intentional foul. He's in intentional that he's yelling at the ref that it's
an intentional foul. Dude, there was a foul like every other foul.
Do you think you think that at a point a ref has to get sick
of it? Of course? Yeah, yeah. And do you think that
that bleeds into the team. We were talking earlier about how certain players on
U c l A may have you know, fouled someone, knowingly fouled someone
and then complained about the call afterwards. Do you think that the attitude of
the coach kind of bleeds into the team and he's going to complain about every
call and so up and down emotionally. His team is also probably going to
be up and down emotional because if the ref, if if the coach is
complained about every foul, than the guys and that's what that's what they were
doing. They were getting they were committee files and they were clearly fouls and
then complaining about the call. Just who happened to be in the building at
the time. The guy who complained mostly about every foul everyone who touched him,
Benedict Matherin, because he was you know, he was always complained,
as complained about he touched me, shot you know, not you know,
not to throw out names, throwing Sean Elliott went through period his sophomore year.
Sophomore year, he was complaining about every fight. Well he thought he
should get everything, and then he was told and he was told, knock
it off. You know, if you get fouled, you get fouled.
Or if somebody's gonna complain, let coach Olson complain. Kevin Kevin who told
him that I think you said, you know, it was Steve Condon.
The trainer told him. The trainer told me, which you basically you look
like a starts with a word. Yeah, you know, because I didn't
remember that because you saw him. But Benedict did that lot, you know,
just play, just play. But you know, but to the fans,
that was my thing. It's just uncomfortable. It's always for U.
C. L A. The guy two years ago who spit that was that
was exceptionally crazy to me that that happened, because I had never seen anything
like that. Yeah, getting getting back to the technical fault to me,
since I didn't hear what he said. You know, how many as you
said, how many of the magic words? I think he cast a whole
spell. Yeah, I think you know. A bunch of my thought was
they finally got tired of it. Yeah, they finally got tired of it
and said, that's it. You're you're you know, you've used all your
mulligans. This is a technical So so I'm sure you guys have all watched
the movie past. To me, that's what you what? You a movie
guy has never seen You've got to rent that. Have you seen Patton?
No? Holy who are you guys? Get the hell out of this room.
I know you guys have seen it. It's like you know who Donald
Summer is. Yeah, you got I've never seen that, never watched it.
Never interested me. Oh you got to rent it one of these days.
When you're by yourself and you want in your short desk watch Rented.
It's it's a great movie. And that's who Croda reminds me of. It's
a war movie, right, it's a war movie. The general you know,
you know who? He reminds me of the cow mascots with his hand
behind his back and walking up and down there. What the hell I've burned
somebody today. I'm sorry. Have you seen the Godfather? I've seen the
god Yeah, but he's had a bunch of look Mick has Mick. I
haven't seen it. I haven't seen a fan base and airs the Arizona fan
base dislike a coach this much since Walt Hazard. Yeah, oh no,
computer. Steve just opened up a physy soda and it blew up on his
computer. So we got that going on. That's good RATINGO. No technical,
I don't plug it right now. If I were, you going to
turn it off. But you know, I think Walt Hazard was the last,
the last UH coach of any team that that fancy. I mean,
Bobby Hurley gets it. Bobby Hurley gets it pretty bad. Yeah, how
different would it be because Hardy gets it horribly? That okay, you know
what I should say, non a s U coach. Okay, because they
hated every They've hated every a SU except for Bill Frieder. They thought Bill
Frieder was cute like a coach. They have no reason other than right,
yeah, you're you're right. It could be, but I mean, I
I I maybe it's because I'm thinking of U C l A coaches because Walt
Hazzard was a guy that fan base just absolutely hate. But Walt Hazard also
brought it on himself because he was you know, he was he was a
jerk to fans and he was a jerk to everybody. This one at home,
right, Uh, UCLA's gonna be different. It is there because l
is gonna walk onto that four thinking they should win that game that they can
and they they should have. They should have won Saturday and they didn't.
So that one's gonna sting for a while because they they they had every they
they were winning the game, and they just in my mind of what it
looked like to me is they went away from everything that they were doing to
get to where they got to. They just stopped doing it. And I
don't know how much of that had to do with Arizona, but they did
all right, let's get out here. We're gonna take our next break.
We're back. Lots of breaking news at the top of the order, so
we'll we'll get to Kevin on that. Then a lot of cool stuff going
on, so stick around.