This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports
fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services and Sure Your Most Prized Possessions kat z
R two side in iHeartRadio station BED. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to
Eye on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. I'm Seve Roberta.
He's Jagins. Also got a guy Kevin in today. Got fifteen minutes here
in the first segment with a nice show today. Yeah, you know,
uh, I don't know that. We're introducing her to the you know,
the radio airways, but Jenna Fink is gonna join us. She's the sports
anchor now at KVOA. That now after Pascala headed to Our Passo and Dave
Dave Kelly moved to the radio side on the on the other station. So
Jenna's around and been very very busy, as you can imagine when you're a
one person show covering sports for They got the new guy. I think it's
the new guy. Oh, I don't know they got he was probably with
the back with you asking questions. He's been here but like a week or
two. Oh, okay, well anyway, so but Jenna has been there
for since since June June, so she'll be joining us today to talk about
the job and what she thinks uh of Tucson so far and what she say
and why she decided to come to Tucson. Because you're so good looking,
Steve, let me shave Brian who somebody says yesterday, well, you said
you're getting better looking, and we said, no, you're not. You
know how I'll be really good looking to hit the lottery? Well, yeah,
good, you know, some dollar bills sticking out of your mile.
Garrett said that today the Pat McAfee show. He said, you know,
I had no fashion before I got to the NFL, and they were like,
yeah, because I you have money, you have four to look good.
Yeah, you can look a little bit better anyways, and then la
Mott Huntley will join us in the second hour. We'll just pick his brain
on and what he's seeing. I'm sure he's pretty happy to see, you
know, as a defensive guy, pretty happy to see what the defense is
doing this year. Guessing he leans towards towards that and wants to see you
know they're doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'd be good. Should
be a fun show. Today. What else is going on? Nice?
Last night's game got home late, as you did, probably, Yeah,
I hate these late games because it was a seven thirty game. It was
an awful Yeah, but you get home, I have to write. I
know, I get home about twelve. I know, I leave and I
peek in the window and I see you guys are all just getting started,
you know, start because they take a while to you know, we sit
down, question and the players come in. Then I mean, he's he
was good last night. We were not concerned about last night' s came.
We're more concerned about what's coming up on Friday. So we had to ask,
you know, because we don't get them until we see him again.
Well, I was. I was so busy today I didn't get to any
of that, so I didn't see anything. So just tell him, tell
us how Yeah, you know what he talked about. What he sounded like.
He was happy with the effort and the and the intensity. A lot
less uh turnovers, fewer turnovers. They only had seven seven and that team
was like, I think second in yeah the nation last year. Turnover rate.
Yeah, but you know when you look at these teams, they have
zero chance, I mean zero chance. They had one hundred and twent two
points. They were a good airport team fifty what airport you watching at airportjunction?
Yeah, I know, I just I you know, but when they
walked on the court, I was expecting a sixty point blow. At one
time they had the little dude guarding crevas well there. Well, yeah,
there were a couple of times when they there was a switch off and like
just throw him the ball. Yeah they did, and it was like you
know, he'll me, he'll me. Yeah. But well again, as
you said, you know that the effort, you know, from from the
get go was you know, was pretty good. I mean they were just
hauling. But and and uh then you know there was that there was a
period where they had were crevious and four guards, you know, the four
guards were in the game. Yeah, and it was it was interesting to
just it was interesting to see the lineup combinations that he threw out there to
see what they looked like. And I asked him last night, so tonight's
game will not afford you the luxury of going deep, but you do you
have a sense of what you're gonna go with on Friday, And I obviously
knew that was not. It was a softball answer just to get a question
or answer. And he doesn't he wouldn't say obviously. But it ain't gonna
be fourteen players there, yea. If he goes eight deep, that'll be
about a deep. Yeah, you know, I was listening to to Brian
Jefferies and and Ryan Hansen. Uh, you know, having the same conversation
thing. You know, you can see them going eight maybe nine, but
probably not ten right any game like that. I think they'll they'll play with
that a lot because at some point he's gonna need it for certain games.
Yeah, but what do you call load management in terms of you know whatever?
But Pelly's back, Yeah, that helps. Okay, So you see
the five starters that we saw last night, so you got you got,
you got Love Boswell, Larson, Keisha Johnson and and Bob those five good
Yeah, which is which is a good lineup? You'll see creevious because I
guess Dylan Anderson is read is that official? Yeah? Okay? And and
and I don't know when we're gonna see U they sar so so you so
the so you know inside it's gonna be creevious and ballot and then you'll see
you know, you'll see Kate so Creavas is six, Creavs is six,
You'll see j Lewis seven. Uh, I don't have the I don't have
my box scroll with the other guard Jaylen James Bradley eight. Yeah, and
there could be like you said, nine, it's gonna be the couple of
the international guys, Phelipe or the other guy Brovich and or or yeah,
Morasco. One of those two might come in get a get a quick blow
if they need some some help inside or you know, in the you know
kind. I like that. I like that team. I really that's not
that's not a bad group of guys to roll out those eight guys. Yeah,
nine guys. You know, but let's say those eight before you get
to Morascas and and or Okay, you're not are gonna you know, are
gonna get you. That's a really good there's no job. You know the
guy I really like, uh, but he's not even starting just kJ Lewis.
Yeah, he's got some dog in him. He's got some dog.
He's green, you know, as much basketball as you can tell. He's
a little green. You know, you mean, you see you see Tommy
calling him over and telling him some stuff, and so he'll be I think
he'll be the eighth guy off the bench. Yeah, well, because he'll
come in after Bradley, Okay, because Bradley's experience and he's you know,
he's but but but kJ can fill it up. He can get to the
rim, he could do a lot of athletics, and you can you can
put kJ at the three, you know, because he you know, any
of those guys can play, because they're all pretty good, pretty tall guys.
And I think I think that they did answer a question that a Rhino
yesterday shooters. Yeah, bos is a shooter, loves and loves Love is
going to shoot a bunch, whether he's good at it, whether we want
him to. Yeah, well, Kevin, you were talking about that one
sequence where they, you know, a three pointer clangs out to get a
rebound, another three pointer clangs out to get a rebound, another three,
and then and then get then it was exactly what you were talking about earlier.
But in the preseason discussion about like, actually, I think we're gonna
expect it to be Caleb Love shooting the threes, but in reality, it's
gonna be Boswell making the three ship right and you don't want you want the
guy making the three right. I thought it's it's irrelevant because Morgan state.
But I thought Hella had a wild three point shot last night. The guy
flew right past him and he didn't even care on face. But you know,
looking at the stat sheet, Boswell was four six from three last night,
seven of ten overall. Caleb Love was three of eight overall, and
he was two of six from three, and he didn't shoot well in the
exhibitions either. You know he's going to be a streaky Yeah, that's not
he's like that, like the dude from a rainy court. It's a same
Lewis point guard thing. Yeah, yeah, remember remember I remember I declared
that Ramie was the guy, and yeah, Rammy Dunk, don't declare.
I'll tell I'll tell Tommy, tell me. This is not his fault.
There's an old dude on Prince and whatever, and we and we continue to
stay at the table that Conrad Martinez looks like teen wolves. He's Michael J.
Fox out on the court. So it's pretty fair. A little bite
to him too. Yeah, yeah, you know he's uh, you know,
he'll be a guy that'll come in. He's not gonna play a bunch,
but you know he'll get some minute like that. He looks like he
could be a pretty good point guard in terms of the way he handed the
ball. He almost never looks for his shot, but if it's there,
he'll take it. He was one of two we're twenty years or so removed
from a guy like him coming on the scene, biting his time and becomes
a good player his junior senior year, right, because now we judge on
what you can do right now, right, and he's got he's got a
future, just not right away, not not today, yeah, not today.
And but those guys, as we say, moroscs is, you know,
he'll have some work to do. But if each and and I'm he's
not where I thought he was going to be, tucked him up on and
we got we got some crap about it. I got some crap last night
because I still defended him. I'm gonna start to start losing my rings on
it. Yeah, I might have made a mistake, but but I look
at the I look at this group. But you know again the top eight
players, uh, you know in the box score, and you know it's
a good team. It's a good team. And they run them, They
run them, They run really well. I mean they see each other.
And again it was against Morgan State. We'll see if they see each other
as that's gonna be a thing with all Tommy teams, right, That's how
Tommy wants to play. He wants to play fast, he wants to play
yeah connected, you know, And I love his philosophy. It's more of
it gives you more room to screw up. Where if you have a ten
point lead, it didn't do any good last year in March, but you
don't get a good lead and it gives you some wiggle room. Well,
and again, you know, we talked about well, you know, you
know there's only one ball, you know, how how is that gonn get
spared on? Well? When you have as many possessions as these guys are
gonna have, uh you know, uh, there's plenty. You know,
everybody's gonna get their shots. Was the assistant coach from Pima who said that
anytime you run with more pace, you're gonna have more turnovers because there more
possessions and that kind of just opens you up to more failure. Yeah,
I think the funny thing is we need to ask you Tommy and maybe at
a press counrach or something about that. You know, you know last year
it was more of a a a year before, it was more wherever the
ball finds its twice, that's where the shot is. Let's see how it
goes this year. If Kevin if Love, Kevin Love, if it finds
the ball, will anybody else get it? Yeah? You know, because
I mean, look at the shots last night. Kisha Johnson eight, Ballow
eight, Caleb Love eight, Boswell ten, Bradley six, Palla Larson five,
how much you love? Eight? Love took a shot well, and
you would think that he took more. Maybe he took me three pointers.
Look like he missed some shots and it looked like, damn, what shooting.
But you know, every everybody in the starting line up between five and
ten shots, that's all those guys want, you know. And then you
know you had, you know, the five starters, and three other guys
were in double figures, so you know there's gonna be plenty of plenty of
possessions, plenty of chances for these guys to get theirs, and that's all
they want, you know. And again the minutes were spread out quite a
bit, and it'll be different when they're playing Duke. But you know,
they all got their shots, and I think they'll all be happy with that.
You know, when you're when you're running up and down the floor like
like that, you know you're gonna get your shots. So that's something that
Steve mentioned it. I was. I was impressed last night with how they
were flying around. I mean, considering they were playing the Morning State Bears.
I thought, you know, it would just be a lesser of an
effort, but I was pretty pleased with like how in transition they were still
trying to work steals, still trying to put the ball, still trying to
harass. Yeah, and it's the first game. You want to have a
fun time and and impressed. I was disappointed in the crowd. Maybe I
shouldn't be, but I was. I was. I was pleasantly surprised.
I thought I was going to be emptier and you were up in the rafters
or wherever I was moving around mounds. I had a nice little pretzel.
It was a good night. Okay, you're selling towels on the corner,
not selling there for my own use. I you know, I only noticed
that during the national anthem, the the upper deck behind as it was empty.
Yeah, where the flag was. Yeah, that's the only time I
really looked up to see. Yeah. There were other places as well,
and we were busy at the table all night long. He's not just no,
there these guys running up and down the floor. Man, you could,
I mean, you couldn't look away. And stuff was so much,
there was so much happy. I mean, I asked you this last time
we saw the guys last week. Crevios looks like a monster. He's so
big. He's huge, like big. Now now he's clearly got some work
to do because he got he got blocked like three or four times from behind
right too. He's got to realize there's tall guys behind him. Yeah,
you know, you know, you know, he makes the movie and he
knows he can go over to the top of somebody. But there's still some
guys behind him who are quick enough to get to him and get and get
up there, even even though he's holding the ball, you know, twelve
feet high. He's got that he can that they can block him. You
can just sense it. He's got some great upside does and it's different than
Caleb Tarzuski and and those guys because those guys were stiffish. Yeah, he's
not as stiff. He's not. No, he's not. He's fluid.
You can just tell when he shoots a free throw because he makes them,
right. But it's a it's a it's an it's not a force. I
mean, it's a it's an easy stroke. And he makes the free throws.
Yeah. He looks good doing it. Yeah, and so he doesn't
look awkward awkward at all. He was eight of nine last night from the
free throw line. You're if your big men are making freak, you're in
business. O're just gonna say that because usually for the big man, it's
it's the wasted points on the table, right. He was two for seven
from the field though, Yeah, but the touch around that he was promising,
he was two for seven. I think four of those he got blocked
from behind. Yeah, because he was going up. I thought he was
you know, you know, he made a move on the guy. He's
going to the basket, and then somebody came up from behind him and blocked
him. I think three or four, at least three, and there may
have been the dude. The dude I really gonna like to see. Besides,
kJ is gonna be is uh Is Johnson. He's just I like him.
He's just a lot of fun over the place, and it looks good
doing it. I like you the time. All Right, we're gonna take
our break. We're gonna have jennaf Fink from KVOA shall be on our show
for the first time. We'll talk to her about how it's going over at
kVA and how she's going the job. So stick around me the time.
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Live, Honey, iHeartRadio Act. This is I on the Ball with Steve
Bravera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. Hey, welcome back to
Eye on the Ball here Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. He's Steve Ververa, He's
jagin zaus. Now on the phone, we have jennefink Oh KVOA Sports.
How are you, Jenna? Hey, thanks so much for having me on.
Are you a Tucson and now officially yes, I think so. I've
been here. I've been here going on five months now, so I think
I'll soon earn that title. If you survived one hundred and twelve to one
hundred and fifteen, you are a to say you count. You're in there.
You go, well, this is the part that everyone told me about.
Now that we're getting well, not today, but we're still getting in
seventy degrees in November. Can't complain about that, exactly exactly. So you
came in here, and you know, obviously a great a great time for
us covering sports, and here in town the football team is good, the
basketball team is good. Just tell us kind of your approach when you got
here, you know, how you kind of picked up what was going on
around here, and what do you think of the place so far? Well,
as you said, I really came a great time. It's been.
It's been a lot of fun. I was doing a lot of research before
I got here. My sister goes to the u of A. Actually,
so I've been through her for a couple of years now, been following just
you know, from a distance. So when I got here it was kind
of okay, Now I have a basis. Now it's time to dive a
little bit more in. But I think the best way that I've been learning
is just by being there, being out in the community, which has been
so welcoming and so fun to be a part of, whether that high school
football all or of course college and all of that good stuff. It's been
a lot of a lot of fun and a lot of talking to people.
And that's kind of one of the biggest ways to learn. So let me
I heard you went to Syracuse University. Tell us if that's true. Tell
us about Jay's favorite guy, Jim Beeheim and then and how you dealt with
him. Yes, I did go to Syracuse. Covered Jim Beheim for four
years, which was never at Omon and I will say I did cover as
a senior, which was cool. Uh, his final Sweet sixteen run.
That was the year that March Madness was in the bubble in Indianapolis if you
remember that years ago. So it was really fun to cover that run because
you didn't think they would get that far. I mean that just them making
the tournament that year was like, was you know, unlikely. We didn't
think it was gonna happen, And then for them to make it all the
way to Sweet sixteen was pretty special. And then it ended up being his
final Sweet sixteen run. He as I'm sure you know, he kind of
became known for his questions, you know, he would just however, he
felt that I always had a good experience with him. I remember freshman year,
I was doing a documentary for one of our journalism classes and I ended
up doing a documentary on him and his son, Buddy, who at the
time was going to be an incoming freshman. And I remember that he gave
us, you know, ten fifteen minute interview just talking about him, and
we went to his house and got a bunch of video of like he had
a half you know, half court down in the basement of his house,
and it was really cool. Okay, so at some point you fell in
love with journalism because you decided to do that in school and then sports journalism.
It was one before the other. I mean, was that your intent
when you got into journalism to go into sports or how did all this happen
for you? Yeah? Well, I grew up with two parents in the
business, both on the news side of things, one in radio, one
in television. So I was exposed to journalism, you know, as long
as I can remember, and so that was kind of the first, you
know, just knowing that this was a career possibility. Sports I always was
passionate about. I was a figure skater growing up. And the way I
was first kind of exposed to sports journalism was when I was ten years old.
I went on my mom's radio show and I used to predict all the
Dallas Cowboys games. I'm from Dallas originally, so I would predict, you
know, who was gonna win and why I did my research. You know,
I read the newspaper every morning before I did it. So that was
kind of where I was like, oh, you know, this would be
a really good career, and it kind of just stuck after that. So
anyway, So did you you grew up in Dallas? Were your parents on
TV and radio in Dallas? Yeah? My mom was on five seventy KLIF
which is that morning news drive type of show, and my dad is a
reporter at the CBS affiliate in Dallas. Well, okay, because that's where
I came from many years ago. Wow, many years ago? Yeah,
okay, cool. So, So what did you know about Arizona sports before
you got here? With your with your background and stuff. What did you
find out before you got here? Well? I knew just from years of
watching March madness. How good Arizona basketball was, both men's and women's.
I remember watching the women in the National championship back in twenty twenty one,
and so I knew the basketball. I knew that was going to be something
that I was kind of going to. From Syracuse, you know, that
was a big basketball town. I was excited to be going to another basketball
town. Football, I know, had been through its trouble, had had
some down years also similar to Syracuse, So I was kind of pre prepared
for that. But I think what what we've been watching this year with Arizona
football has been has been incredible. Well, well let's go to that because
you know, again you're you're new Beta Tucson, so you didn't suffer through
that stuff like we did. But but but nonetheless, you know, when
you see I mean, it's not hard to see or look back and say,
Okay, this program was really in the dumper, and then to see
where they are today. You know, what have been your impressions about Jed
Fish and why do you think in your mind from what you see, why
do you think they are where they are? Yeah, I think it's very
clear that Jed had them, you know, came in saying this is not
going to get better overnight. From what I've seen, was very committed to
the rebuild and embracing everything that comes with a rebuild in terms of, you
know, going out and focusing on the offense last season and then this season
really focusing on defence and taking up people with size and versatility and players that
have experience. I think for him, just embracing that and having players that
embraced that, I think has been one of the key things. And everyone
in the program you can see how highly they speak of coach Fish and just
everything that he's done. I think that's one of the biggest things that has
been stood out to me. So as you are well aware because you're in
the business now, but it's changing. The journalism world is changing. Don't
give me any stories about you the involved involvement. So what's your best story
to this point, not in Jova, best story that I've covered that you've
created or ye covered non u of a. There was a story I was
in Chico, California before I was here, and that that market was pretty
much mostly high school and there was Division two college and stuff like that.
But there was one young woman who I did a story on who did horse
racing. So I don't know if you've heard of the Tevis Cup, but
it's like a big race in Tahoe that goes up through northern California, and
she was writing in that and it's a big it's a whole big thing,
takes months of preparation. But I did a story on her and she had
donated her kidneys to one of her kidneys to her younger sister who had kidney
failure, and then also survived the campfire, which was the deadliest flags fire
in California back in twenty eighteen. The five year anniversary of that is actually
tomorrow. So that was one of the most impactful stories that has stuck with
me to this day. You know, I thought about her and just the
incredible story that she had and what about here? What about here that you're
kind of just did this year? Oh? Sorry, this year, I'm
kind of think. Oh, there was a young woman from Pema College who
races on the cross country team, who had suffered burns when she was really
young, and she's running, which is so unlikely, you know, to
have severe burns on her feet and for her to be run and competing at
a college level, which was that was a really cool story. There's so
many there's so many great stories, sure in Tucson that are not you know,
there's a lot of great stories with you, of a, but there's
a lot of sure also great stories throughout our community that I've had the privilege
of telling so far and then looking forward to continuing to telling in the future.
Well, well, how tough is that? Because you know, as
you know, there are never enough people to cover all that you got to
cover. When you're covering theo A, you're coming high schools, you're doing
all that stuff. You know, how do you not how are you able
to go out and find that story when other stories like that with all the
other stuff you got to do And Jay, you only have two minutes,
right, Yeah, yeah, you don't. We never have enough as much
time as we hope we have. But no, I mean a lot of
it is is like I went, like I mentioned earlier, just getting in
touch with the community and talking to people in the community and having them say,
oh, hey, I heard about this athlete who's doing this incredible X
y Z thing. You should reach out to them. And that's you know,
how I've been privileged to find a lot of stories, and then there's
some other stories that you kind of enterprise on your own. Uh. You
know, you notice a trend or you notice an athlete doing really well,
and you say, well, what's what's the deeper story here? What's there?
What's their story beyond the stats that they're doing. And unfortunately, you
know, we can't get to everything. It's just you try to do as
much as you can. But at the end of the day, we're you
know, one person, we're two people trying to just tell the stories that
we can tell. Yeah, so we're talking to Jenna think from kvoa A
Jenna. You know when you when you come into a job like that,
I mean, it's is it is it kind of intimidating to try and figure
stuff out really fast? Or do you just want to kind of take your
time and kind of you know, ease in to kind of get it or
you know, I you know, I think of the proverbial, you know,
you know, fire hose down the throat. You know, it's like
there just has to be had to be so much going on when you got
here. Uh, how did you manage all that? Yeah? I joke
about that too. They get and kind of thrown thrown right into it,
I think because within a month of me being here, I think the PAC
twelve Date twelve news broke right, and so you were kind of just right
in the middle of that, which was which was fun. I wasn't intimidated
by it. I was excited, you know. I was excited to be
covering you of a and all the great sports here in Tucson, so where
it wasn't so much of a I got to cover all of this more so
like, oh, I get to cover all of this, right, So
that's kind of but like, yeah, trial by fire or whatever the whatever
the phrase is, where you kind of just get thrown right into it.
That was That was certainly what happened here. But I'm grateful for it because
it makes you learn faster. And now I feel like, you know,
I know kind of what's going on around Tucson. And now you've become another
a good one in the long line of females who are behind the mic.
Right. Yeah, on TV. I'm sure you've kind of did some research
about some of the women who have come through here and have had your job
as well, not just at your station but other places. Yeah, and
we had you know, we recently celebrated seventieth anniversary of KVOA this past September,
which was a really great way to do research another way I was able
to It was fun. I got to do a project that was seventy years
of Sports. I talked with Lacey Collins, who was one of the right
whomen I was able to get in touch with that worked at kVA So it
was great hearing her experience and just all the all the greats that have come
through KVOA. I know, you know, there's a long, a long
list of talented sports reporters and sports anchors that have come through here. So
I'm very privileged and excited to be, you know, following in their footsteps.
Okay, so this is the time, you know, we're getting the
last couple of minutes where I want to pick your brain about places you've been,
restaurants you've been to. Well, first of all, Steve, and
I want to what, what's your favorite Mexican restaurant so far? Oh that's
fry, I mean there, I forget what it's call. Oh my gosh,
I gotta remember what it's called. There's one not too far from our
station that that's really good. It's at Oracle and Grant. I believe I'm
blanking on the name of you. Yeah yeah, little hole in the wall
place down there in the corner. Yeah yeah, that one's really good.
I like face, I've been there. There's a lot of good place,
there's no shortage. I'm looking forward to trying a lot more of them.
But there's there's also a lot of good food here, which I was told
about before I got here, and it's definitely lived up to that. What
what are the ways besides the work? Have you have you? What have
you done? You're trying to learn more about you know what we're about here?
And I say we because I'm a native, so you know, you
know, aside from the the you know, the job, the sports that
you're covering and stuff like that. You know what, what have you tried
to learn about the community? Yeah? I was. I think that's kind
of the nature of our job allows us to learn a lot about the community.
But I've been trying to go to some more community events, trying to
get involved in the two community. I'm Jewish, so trying to get more
involved in that community as well. But I'm going on on hikes, which
is fine. No, that's a big part of culture here. Hike culture
was a little too hot before, but now it's rolling down, starting to
go out on some you know, Sabino Canyon and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, Steve and I don't hike you. That's the case. It's
always hot for us. It's hot until you know, last week or so
sixty, it is too hot for us to go hiking. Hike. A
hike to me is throwing my clubs in a golf cart and hiking from the
car pass through the green. But if I did golf, I would be
really excited to live here. Hikes for hikers for me is going to seventy
eleven to get a slurp. Okay, Hey, Jedna, thanks so much,
Thanks a bunch, and good luck with the job. And I know
we'll see you around. So appreciate you doing this. Yes, thank you
so much again for having me on. That was good. That's fus.
Yeah, you know, I mean we see these guys. We see these
people and sometimes you get to know them. Sometimes we don't, but you
know, most of we do. Like you know, the David Kelly's,
you know, Damien Alameda, Yeah, you know Bar all those you know,
call all those people. Over the years, we see them enough that
you know, say hi, you might you know, you might run into
him at a restaurant or something like that. So that's very cool. So
brings a tear to my eye remembering how I was young and so enthusiastic.
Now I don't even cry for anything or care for anything, because you're a
big I'm just a big grumb all right. That was great, jennifink kVA.
You can watch her on their sportscast, so you know, follow her
a little bit and see. But some of the stuff she covers it,
she's she does good stuff already. So all right, we'll be right back
lamon Honley coming up in the second hour, but we'll take your calls in
this next segment. Five two zero four, one, six, seventy four
forty tell us what you thought about the Walcats last night. Yeah, you
know, if you're an Arizona Man's basketball fan, you know it's been successful
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team security dot net. Breaking down all the exes and ohs. It's Steve
Rivera and Jagen Salves. This is I on the Ball on Fox Sports fourteen
fifty. Hey, welcome back to I on the Mall Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
I'm Steve Rivera. He's Jacobs as got our guy Kevin at the helm
here with thirteen fourteen minutes left. Do you want to call? Please?
Do we'd like to hear from you? Five two oh four one, six
seventy four forty Give us your grief, give us whatever, Yeah, give
us your give us your Stevie grumpiness, gruppy, gruppy. He's mad at
me because I didn't read his story. Kevin. It's tough, it's it's
it's hard. It's not it's not in my hands anymore. It's their hands.
I again, I really, I mean I oh no, no,
no, no, I'm talking about the golf story. The golf story.
Yeah, the Gulf story. Oh that story. No, I'm talking about
Oh yeah, stuff. You right, you're sport, You're not too much.
That's nice. Game was just like get me in, get me out.
No, I mean, what can you say? It like a fifty
point game. He just can't really say much. Also got to point out
that the Barnes, the women one when they're opener, Yeah, yeah,
did they did you see the box? I wonder how many they played?
I'm gonna I'm gonna look it up right now because I'm that kind of a
guys. But you know they were New Mexico State, right right. So
but you know which is you know, they won, which is way more
than you can say for LSU defend. That was amazing. They defending national
champs. That was amazing. And then I you know, I don't follow
it that closely except you know who they are. Uh, and what they've
done. And then then Colorado beats them. They're in the Pac twelve.
I think they're picked to finish one to fourth. Where were they picked the
finish? Colorado up high up. They're one of the better teams. Yeah,
and then they then I find out during the game that one of Arizona's
former players is on that team. Yeah, and she scores twenty four.
Yep. And then I then someone else tells me that there's a girl Conor,
Maddie Connor goes to TCU, right, she doesn't play much here,
she scores thirty. Who knows? Who knows what a change in scenery does
for somebody? Oh yeah, right, speculating? No, no, no,
no, no, you know why because I gotta I gotta be at
the table at those women's games, and if I say something bad, she'll
kick my ass right in front of everybody. Right, it's called the agenda
journalism. No, you know, I'll get it like a I'll get like
a stiletto heel in the eye or something. So I'm just not going there.
Yeah, just my friend. Yeah, we'll see what she does.
Yeah. Looking at the box score, nine nine nine players played, so
you know, almost the whole bitch and maybe somebody's still up with an injury.
Player had thirty six minutes, she only scored uh, she scored uh
two points. He was one for eight from the field, well for four
from three, so she had a bad shooting night. And they still want
Kaylen Gilbert uh sixteen points, Mayonaji fifteen points and then off the bench Bray
of Cunningham at twelve, so three players. They won sixty eight to fifty
seven at the at the New Mexico State. A lot of minutes though,
thirty six almost thirty seven minutes, Kaitlyn Gilbert thirty three minutes, as Mary
Martinez only played fourteen minutes. I'm not sure what happened there, but that's
where Bray Cunningham and Scotler Jones came in. They at seventeen and nineteen minutes.
But uh, you don't now again, better than losing, right,
Yeah, it's better, way better than losing, Better than a stick in
your eye. Yeah. They shot forty nine percent from the field, but
only five of twenty from a two point point. We'll see what happens.
Yeah, what's next to come back here? So they got to They got
two home games this weekend they are. They've got Friday night, they've got
uh, I'm trying to call this up. They've got anau Friday night at
six thirty at McHale, and then on Sunday they've got Loyola Marymount at two
o'clock in the afternoon. Well, as we mentioned, and everybody knows the
manor at Duke at five o'clock on yeah, Friday, and then the men
play at home six o'clock on Monday, and they've got Southern and that's the
game that that had been scheduled to be at Southern over this weekend. But
when they they wanted to schedule the Duke game, they asked, Southern,
would you come and play us here again? We'll pay you, you know,
instead of us going over there, and can you play it on Monday?
And they did. Then we've got a nine o'clock game next Friday against
Friday Belmont. Man, okay, we're busy. Yeah, that's that's nineteenth,
that's say seventh seventeen. Oh man, I'm not coming up. The
women have five three games in five days because then after Sunday on Tuesday,
they've got San Diego here, so they got you know, that's gonna be
that's a tough stretch for a team because they have a ton of players.
I probably missed that Belmont game, you big wienie. Well, I gotta
get up at four in the morning to go to Bill Tour the next day,
oh afterwards, the next day. Let me tell you that's gonna be
trouble here. Trouble trouble here because uh, there's very few windows left for
the Utah game. It's gonna pall afternoon game. If it's an afternoon game,
watch out for traffic, watch out for traffic. Get there early.
We will know. We won't know till Sunday, right because they they made
it a six day window, sixth day window, which is a bad break
for you guys as well. We we bet you're unhappy when we were.
We've been waiting for this for months, hoping that please making an eight o'clock
and it doesn't look like it's gonna happen. Yeah, And it's not so
much a conservative traffic because it is, obviously, but it's it's safe.
It's a traffic safety because there's cops everywhere and it's not enough of them.
Right. Well, yeah, it's like the last two weeks the last two
you of a games because they've charged, they've rushed the field. When we've
left the stadium. You know that intersection at the Cherry Cherry garage right there
by Michale, there's always cops striking, you know, traffic. They're not
even there, not even there, they're inside with a free for Holy moly.
So do you how long does it take you to get out? Not
very long because because I park in the tailgate area, so I just get
hop out on the campbell. It's just hot. You're smart. I didn't
realize that we're in the tailgate. Yeah, yeah, okay, that makes
sense. No, we're We're out easy. See. By the time we
get out, it's like nobody's wrong, which is thankful. I go back,
I go back to our eyes est, grab myself a chicken thigh and
a coke and drive home. Yeah. Makes sense. By the time I
get home, I got grease all over my shirt and my face and all
that kind of stuff. But it's fun. Been fun the last few games
you go home to that have you? Have you? Uh, given the
circumstances with these rank teams, how has your your group and yourself been giddy?
Wise? Because it hasn't been like this a long time. But can
you compare it to any other time? The giddy meter is very high.
We're like, you know, a hundreds, it's bouncing on one hundred,
you know, one hundred out of one hundred. The getty meter is very
because you're playing well, yeah, well because it's none of these wins,
none of these wins have been seen as oh, we got lucky and won
a game. All three of those wins, everybody felt that they were the
better teampressive, that not only not only the better team that day, but
just these guys think Arizona is better than Oregon State, and that they're better
than u C. L A. And that they're better than Washington State,
so that that they weren't. They weren't wins that you think, uh,
you know on that day we won. These guys, you know, my
my my crew is thinking that Arizona's you know, the best has been the
best team actually four of the last five games County USC and he mentioned that
that's where they got their confidence. Right. Well, you know, this
was something I wanted to bring up yesterday because I was thinking about this.
And again, if you're I'm me, so I can go so far back,
right when when Jed I listened to Jed's press conference on the way home
from the game on Saturday from from inside the car yea his postgame pressent,
and when he said that about usc being a turning point, even though let's
put them on hold because I want to say that, just go let's answer
the call. Answer the call, goa Hi, this is on the ball.
Can you hold for just a second? Yep, Okay, we're very
back. So my mind immediately went back to nineteen ninety two when they lost
to Miami and that was their turning point. They became desert swarm. They
won all those games, and you can take them off hold of it.
Not that you can take them off hold there so you can hear this.
No, no, not there on the phone line right there. Just hit
the hit the red button, hit the phone line. Just that. Yeah,
okay, now that our caller can hear is that's why one did that?
Okay. So, but what struck me was that that Miami game.
It was a loss, but that turned everything. They won a bunch of
games in a row, including three ranked teams. Okay, they got to
the end of the year, but then that season didn't finish. They lost
the last three games. They lost to usc they lost to a SU and
they lost to Baylor in the sun Bolt. I remember so to me,
I said, I sit here and think about Okay, they've gotten to hear.
They've got these three games, two of them which they should win and
one of them which they very much can win. And you think, if
you're an Arizona fan and you're thinking back to that, you're thinking how that
season ended, and it wasn't it wasn't very nice. But this team doesn't
look like that team in that regard. Because those games at Arizona won,
you didn't necessarily think they were the better team. You didn't think they were
better than Washington when they beat him as the number one team in the country,
but they were good enough that day. Whereas the difference here is you
think all these games that they've won, you feel like they're better. They've
been the better team each time. Let's take this call. Hi, you're
on the aaron I and the Ball. Hey, this is Bill. Hey,
Bill, I hate that I'm agreeing with you so much, Jake,
because you're absolutely right. This is so much fun to watch this year,
and it's so much fun when you're in every game and you're right, we
dominated that game this Saturday, and it's it's just so, it's such a
different life when your football team is better in Tucson than it is when you're
when you have no hope. Well, are you so giddy like I gave
the word to Jay? Did you listen to yesterday's podcast or yesterday's show?
I couldn't listen to yesterday show, but I did listen to the podcast.
Yeah, And will you giddy like Jay that they're gonna win ten? I
don't. I don't. I don't see us winning ten right, kind of
like he is, Like if you'd have asked me before the game of we
were going to beat Easlly out, I probably said I don't think so,
but I hope so. So I think we're gonna be Colorado, and I
think we're gonna beat as U, and I think we match up well with
Utah. But it's not gonna be easy. But I'm an Arizona Wildcat fan,
so I expect doom and gloom every minute. Come on, this is
a turnaround, maybe twenty twenty three. It feels like, you know,
it feels like when Luke got here and and said, you know, better
get your seats now because you may not be able to get him in a
while. And he was absolutely right. If it feels like we're building something
like that, but this is Arizona. You know, Jed will have another
great year and someone will pull them away or something, right, you know,
that's what that's what we're used to. But I've had so much fun
the last the last two or three home games, you know, because it's
it's like watching real good football. It is, it is, it is.
And that's the thing, you know what walking into the stadium now,
it's such a much better feeling, you know, thinking you can win this
game. But even like I said, I told you guys, I you
know, I didn't think they were gonna they were gonna be UCLA. But
I still walked in that steat thinking they could and then this could be a
really really good game. And then they want to we handle them and they're
a good teams. Yeah, you know, our defense, our defense took
them out of their out of their their comfort zone, and our offense was
our offense, you know, And it was fun. It's fun to watch,
it's fun to go to I you know, I know, it's basketball
season starting, But I don't even want to talk about basketball yet. I
want to keep talking about what we're going to do to d on this weekend.
I can't wait for that. Oh see what happens Friday and how much
the conversation moves to basketball if they if they beat Duke, or what happens
if they don't beat Sure? Right? Right, because I know Arizona fan
thinks, oh, we should beat Duke. Well no you shouldn't. No,
no you might and you can, but not, Oh we should.
You're right, you're right. Day when we beat Washington it was like,
you know, we knew we weren't better than Washington. We knew we were
better than them that day like that, that's exactly the truth. But we
were better than UCLA, and we were better than Oregon State, and we
were better than Washington State. Yeah, completely agree. Hey Bill, thanks
a much, man, We got to run. Appreciate the call you.
Thanks. I was going to ask you to forgot something forgot, but they'll
come back to me. No, it'll just come back to me. Okay.
Well anyway, so I again, I and that's a throwback for a
lot of people that probably you know, I mean, we're talking thirty years
ago, that ninety two season. That's how it was, and it was
so disappointing the way it finished. That's what it was. Sat down next
to Anthony at the game. He talked about ninety two all the time.
I guess he did a big column about it, and he referenced all the
things you were talking about. And I remember it because it was my second
year in basketball, so it's it's all news to me. But I mean,
again, the gety meter at that time it was very d because they
had tied Orgon State the tide Oregon State, a battery state team lost to
Miami but should have beat him, and then they went on this run and
ended up beating number one Washington here but then it fell start. Does it
feel like thirty some years ago? Yeah, you did, Like that was
a long time ago. I was a young man. No kids. Yeah,
the smile on your face with kid, All right, let's take our
break. When we come back, Kevin's got breaking news.