Breaking down all the ex'es and olls. It's Steve Rivera and Jagen Salmis.
This is I on the Ball on Fox Sports fourteenth fifty Heay, welcome back
to all you about here Fox Sports fourteen fifty M. Steve. He's Jake
Samuel breaking news on the ball news. Okay, I'm sure you guys had
to have talked a little bit about it yesterday. But the NCAA's president kind
of proposing a new NIL proposal, and in this most recent article written by
ESPN Charlie Baker, the NCAA president saying that this is just a starting point
of where he wants to go, and he mentioned that Division one might be
split up, not into tiers, but there might be a top tier of
teams that want to pay their athletes more than just their scholarship. And so
some of it, he's saying that some people are going to say you're going
too far. Some people will say you're not going far. And Baker said,
I promise you that's going to be where most of the dialogue on this
will be in the short term. So it sounds like there's obviously this isn't
going to happen overnight, but the NCAA's president wants ANIOL to continue to take
over college sports. Well, well, the conversation needs to be had.
And what one of the reasons we are where we are is because they didn't
do anything right? Right, right right? Well, like you said yesterday,
the toothpases out of the tube. Now they're just going to try to
fix it. I don't know if they can. I don't know either.
Yeah, and so it says Baker's proposal would require schools that want to be
a part of this new tier of Division one to pay their athletes tens of
thousands of dollars per year on top of their athletic scholarship. Well that that
wasn't clear yesterday. Yeah, we hadn't heard it. You know, is
tuition and room and board part of the thirty thousand dollars that they're talking about,
that that would be a minimum. So it sounds like it's not.
Well, here here's the key. So some guys, let's say, Caleb
Williams, that type of people, What the hell I'm here, Caleb Williams
goes, I keep that in my couch cushion. Yeah, and I guess
a part of this new Division one. They said that schools would be also
allowed to create their own set of rules for recruiting, transfers, roster size,
and other policies. So kind of recreating the nc double A, which
no, they're recreating the NFL is what they're in the NBA. Yeah,
so it's a it's a it's a lower level NBA, which then I you
know, you're almost gonna have to take away rules about who can go straight
to the NBA, you know, from college and stuff like that. They
don't eve want if this is just going to be an in between places to
go make a little money, some some guys are gonna want to say,
I just want to go make the big money right now. Yeah. Well,
and in basketball's case, you kind of have that in the G League
of where you see a lot of guys high recruits that maybe think they are
good enough to play in the league or some sort of professionalism. They go
to the G League, make some money, they get to play against other
professionals, and maybe but it's still more than sure. I mean, it
also depends this was this the G League option was a little bit more financially
smart, went before an I sure, no, I'm sorry, where are
you going to go? With this, No, I was just going to
say it sounds like because Jay was mentioning, like to bridge that gap of
like that's what maybe they're trying to do. But some some sports, like
the NBA kind of offer that if you do want to go make some money,
play against professionals. But just I don't. You don't watch NBA that
much, right, I don't, and I don't. I do certain times
and you probably do semi. But then some names, some names on the
rosters, you never heard of them, you've never heard of You go to
the D League or G League and look at some those guys. We know
some of those, Yeah, and they'll never touch the NBA, right,
because once you're there, it's a heck of a lot of work to get
out of there. Yeah, And it's well, that's that's if you've been
in the league before. I think, because if I was looking up NBA
mock drafts the other day, just like kind of what I do sometimes,
and like I want to say, ten out of the first like twenty picks
are all G League guys, and so it's it's kind of like if this
is their end goal to make it to the NBA, to get a first
contract in the league. Then that is proving to be just the first point
they check off. Some of these guys obviously aren't going to be super successful
in the NBA. It's hard to. But it's then say kind of that
new tiers maybe kind of what they're looking at of like, we're gonna we're
gonna pay you. It's gonna be different, but it's not gonna be for
everyone. Well, yeah, and plus and again in the added bonus,
you're gonna you're getting an education too. Yeah. You go to school seriously
and you come out of here with a degree where you go straight to the
G League. You got a high school diploma. You got to go back
to and at some point if you you know, if you become a businessman
or whatever, yeah you're doing, you need to go back to school.
Yeah, So we'll see how that develops. U A's basketball game this weekend
will be a ranked on ranked game. Yes, u of A's number one
in the country. Wisconsin now up to twenty third in the country at six
and two, And take take a guess at who's right above Wisconsin in the
rankings. Duke Duke is twenty two after their third loss in Michigan. State
no longer. They lost again. Yeah, they're five and three. I
didn't know they lost again. I they lost a second time, but I
know they lost Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech beat him. Yeah remember Damon Damon,
Well yeah, I thought that was only their second loss. The lost
again. They lost, So they lost to US and then Georgia Arkansas the
right, they lost Arkansas. Then I did know that they had three losses.
And let's remember that the first initial poll is just an eye test and
names or you don't really know who's good or who's not good. Even even
now, you're kind of just settling in. Right. I'm looking at the
AP top twenty five right now, and the one in the preseason. Arizona's
wasn't in the top ten. Preseason, the number one, Kansas obviously was.
Houston was not there, Number three in the country, Purdue, Yukon
both were in there, and then Baylor and Gonzaga were not in there.
They're now six and seven. Marquette was North Carolina's up to nine, and
now Creighton's ten. You got beat last night, Carolina to get beat by
Yukon last night. I watched the college basketball no way, but that game
to me, it's more appealing than the NBA's way, more appealing to than
the NBA way way more Man, that hurts. That hurts. It's more
fun to watch. Oh man, it is not. Because I don't get
me wrong. I'm I could go on a tangent. What do you have
to say, don't get me wrong? That means we don't get me wrong?
Man, excuse me, I hate to bother you or what are you
gonna do? Man? Because I because I could go on tangents about this,
I under stand it kind of like saying I'm not a racist, but
like the whole, the whole. If you're a basketball fan and you're saying
that watching college basketball is more entertaining and better, then you're not a basketball
fan because those guys a minute percentage of them are going to play in the
NBA, which is the best quality. I'm gonna do this. I'm jumping
in right here. Okay, before you go any further, is that to
me watching I don't watch basketball for the quality of the player. I watched
basketball. I watched college basketball because of the the environment, the excitement,
how the how meaningful it is to these guys. Sure, and I never
said that That's why I watch it. That's why I think NCAA Tournament is
like incredible, especially when when you get these guys at Saint Peter's and all
these places that you know, Princeton or wherever that come out and give everything
they have to win a game. I never feel like an NBA guys giving
everything he had ever. Maybe last night they got robbed, that was that
was next up. But to go back to that, I I totally agree
that for a majority of the these guys playing in college basketball, this will
be the peak of their of their basketball game. And as someone that had
a dream of playing college basketball or just basketball as long as they could,
like I totally respect that, and you do see that on a night tonight
basis when a look, when you have two mid majors playing against each other,
they get after it, right. I respect that. But when it
comes to like I love watching high quality basketball, and so like when UFA
plays Duke, Like that's a game where I would love to watch because those
guys you might be seeing in NBA jerseys or overseas, and that game is
gonna be high quality game. It's just hard for me to wrap my self
around just on a night watching games that where most of these guys just may
not be playing at the next level when I could be watching, when I
could be watching Detroit, Hey, I would I would rather watch those guys
major. But stop stop. Okay, some of my favorite games college basketball.
Favorite games are the conference championship games, some of those lower mid major,
lower major conference where you know you have to win that game get into
the NC Double Trump and they don't care that they're gonna get into the NCY
Double A tournament as a sixteenth seed, get beat by forty. They want
to win so bad. I get what you're saying, but do you I'll
take NBA playoffs. I'll listen to you that, but not regular seasons.
Yeah, maybe even this playing games like last night. Last night was high
quality, like great stuff. Don't did they get did they get? We
got hose? I hate to bring to bring weeds. Phoenix Suns got absolutely
hose last night. And as someone that watched from tip to the last play
of the game, don't get me wrong, the Suns maybe didn't deserve to
win that game for how they played. It was one of their worst performances,
I thought. But the last the last two minute, reports you know
refs do that in the NBA, which is a joke. I don't think
they should when when that one comes out, there's gonna be quite some missed
calls from from that from that crew. I think there was. Yeah,
Sons were down two points with just under twenty seconds left, inbound the ball
to Austin Reeves for the Lakers. If so, Lakers Suns and Booker and
Durant both have five fouls, and they go to trap them so they're not
gonna foul because they're gonna foul out, and Austin Reeves loses the ball,
it's at his feet, it's going around. No one has possession, and
all of a sudden ref blows for time and Lebron James, who's one of
my favorite players, but in this case, dude, no one had possession,
so no one could have called a time out. The ball was rolling
and Grayson Allen was either gonna pick it up for a layup or it was
gonna be Sun basketball and the bass line. They gave the time out to
the Lakers, and Anthony Davis ended up going to hit a free throw and
Sons are no longer in the n season tournament, and there there are a
lot of reasons why, and I'm not going to just point to one missed
call. They were a lot, but Sons just needed to play better.
They didn't. And now the inn season tournament in Vegas is uh Pelicans,
Lakers and Bucks Pacers. So he looks like somebody just stole his ice cream
cone from I was. You should have seen me last night. I was.
I was. I was on the phone with like my friends, my
parents and they were like, what's wrong with you? You lost? I
was so pissed off. Man. I was like, oh man, but
anyway, yeah, man, and so I so after the fact, I
went and like, as an NBA nerd, I was like nerding out with
like stats and it's almost it's about a quarter the way through the NBA season.
So here are my two favorite stats. Are three favorite stats from the
NBA season thus far. So Tyrese Haliburton, who's on the Indiana Pacers who
are going to be in Vegas in clutch time this year, so games under
five minutes within five to nine points is considered clutch time. He's shooting seventy
three percent from the field, seventy seven percent from three and one hundred percent
from the free throw line, which is nuts and absurd. So that's that's
stat number one. You had to dig. Why would you? Somebody needs
to watch him at home? Me? Yes, what would you? Why?
That's incredible because guys, first of all, to shoot seventy seven percent
from three in any circumstances nuts, let alone in clutch. You're like searching
for a fish in a big lake thinking, oh, this fist catches my
line. I don't know, man. And also the Indiana Pacers have the
chance to have the best offense in NBA history and the worst defense in NBA
history on one team, so it's very interesting. Might be one of the
reasons. Hey maybe Also Lebron stat it is the longest period in between thirty
point games in NBA history. So he had thirty points last night, and
he had thirty points exactly twenty years ago to the day, So twenty years
between thirty point games. And lastly, Monty Williams, the x Phoenix Suns
coach, just I want to say, three years ago him and the Suns
went undefeated in November, and this year now coaching the Detroit Pistons went winless
in November. So coaching matters. Coaching and talent matters. Talent doesn't matter,
and I'm saying the Pistons are still very talented, they just need to
figure it out. But also, Zach Wilson, my doppelganger, is back
at under center for the Jets this week. And also twelve quarterbacks or twelve
NFL teams are playing their backup quarterback this week, so a little less than
den j might have one or two of them. I haven't heard anymore about
Trevor Lawrence, most because I love because I'm upsetting him for being such a
big baby. And last two things, no word on where Sho hal Tony's
going. He's keeping his free agency very under the radar, very quiet.
And lastly, kind of it's not sad news yet, but it would be
detrimental to the PGA tour. A lot of John Rahm Live going right now.
And the number that I've been seeing floating around is five hundred and fifty
to six hundred million dollars. So what yep? For half a billion dollars?
For half a billion, it would be just like an a su guy
to holy moly, I'd take it. Call me Stephanie. I'd go play
golf necket for five well, they're paying you that not to do. No.
Yeah, some interesting stats and breaking news, but that's just what I
had to do last night. You have a little inside baseball with that he
did. Man, Holy cow. All right, let's take our next break.
We're to come back. Eric Rhodes from the Aarson a Ball. We
haven't had a chance to talk to them since they announced their pairing with Wyoming
and Toledo and Toledo, so we'll let Eric talk about what we can expect
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app. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jake and Salez
on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Hey, welcome back to I'm the bau Hero
Fox Sports fourteenth fifty. I'm Steve Rivera. He's Jacin Sauce. Now on
the phone. We have Eric Roads with the Arizona All the Barstool Sports Arizona
Bolt. How are you, Eric, I'm great, gentleman. How we
doing today? We're doing fine. You know. As I as driving into
the to the show today, I'm thinking, you guys do your due diligence,
do a lot of stuff, you know, scouting and do all these
things, and I'm thinking, you guys, really I don't say got lucky
or whatever, because that's another case, but you guys are fortunate a good
Wyoming team, a team that's been here before, and a very good Toledo
team coming here. Yeah, I mean we were very excited when we saw
the potential matchups, and you know, some other really good football teams were
in the mix. But you know, you can never go wrong having Wyoming
here in Tucson. They've shown up before, they're ready to show up again
this year. And then what today's breaking news that our bowl game will be
head coach Craig Bowles last game. That's the head coach of Wyoming, he's
retiring. It's just going to elevate that. And so you know he's been
at the Helm ten years in and Laramie there, so you know it's I
think we're gonna have one of the biggest retirement parties south of Laramie, if
you will. Well, you know, as you mentioned, Wyoming's been here
before. What do you remember from the last time they came down and how
they you know, how they supported their team. Yeah, I mean their
hands are always great, and I every time I'm surprised, you know,
when we go around here in southern Arizona to see how many Wyoming tis there
actually law you know, whether it's an in law or somebody went to school
there, they have family, or they went to school there. You know,
we have our advanced visits right now in Wyoming. This is how small
the world is. Their director of football operations, we're outside a local restaurant,
Barrio Brewery, who does a bowl root for us, and their director
of football operations ran into a guy wearing a Wyoming hat. And it turns
out they went to second grade together in Wyoming and ran into each other thirty
years later. So you know, it's a big, small football community of
Wyoming. There's no question. In fact, I'm assuming I don't know if
if Cody is part of your group, but he turns into the mayor of
Tucson when Wyoming's here. Yeah, it's one of our first calls. We
extended the invitation to Wyoming, and then we call Cody Richie and we're like,
Okay, what do you mean, Call all your buddies. Yeah,
call all your buddies. Yeah. So yeah, I'll have the Cody Richie
Wyoming contingent will be in full force. Yeah. All you need to do
now is is challenged Wyoming to drink as much beer as a New Mexico state
people did. Yeah, you know, they came to this in the close
second and we shared them with that that that tidbit with them last year.
So I think they've been training and our local establishment has better be ready because
they like to have a great time. They do it responsibly and if you
run into them in town, just talk to them. They are some really
fun people. Well and so and now and then you've got Toledo, which,
again, you know, just one of those programs that you know,
you know, as a MAC team though you always think of them, right
you think of the MAC, you think of you think of Toledo because they're
always you know, they always seem to be there. Yeah, I mean,
they're one of those programs. There's there's a handful of the g fives,
the Group of five that have a bit of a football brand, you
know, if you have a decent football memory here in Arizona. They came
to Tucson and twenty twelve, it took Arizona in Week one to overtime and
almost won that game. Yeah, and then you know, they're the highest
winning total team to ever play in Arizonable. They have eleven wins. You
don't do that by accident. You don't do that by you know, running
into you know, a bad football team. They're a good, talented,
well coached football team. In fact, in all the coaching carousels that's happening
right now, I was a bit surprised, and I'm gonna knock on wood
here to see that their coach Kandell has not been mentioned in a bunch of
jobs because he's a great football coach. Yeah, yeah, no question.
So this is a twenty four This is a three sixty five day a year
kind of thing for you guys. You finish the game, you get ready
for the next one right away. How was it in the final weeks before
the actual event? You know, it's I like to call it, you
know, organized chaos as we've all been through. You know, Coach Roger
used to talk talk about being comfortable in the uncomfortable, and that's kind of
what we do here for the entire month of December at the Bowl, and
our staff and our volunteers are all amazing, our Blue Blazers. It's a
it's a month of just kind of being prepared for what other. And now
that we've added the transfer portal into the world, my gosh that you know,
things can happen every day and we can have different players and you know,
you're just kind of ready for it all. But we're very excited to
the two teams that are coming. You know, Jay, you mentioned a
min ago we've had great football games and I think this is going to be
another good one. So what's when you got to these two teams, and
in particular two teams coming from you know, really cold weather type places for
you know, this time of year, what's the most important thing that you
as a as a Bowl, as a host have to have ready for them?
What? What do you what's the what's the main thing you want them
to have when they get here? Besides you know, yeah, besides side's
about sixty five. If we could have today's weather, it's you know,
it'd be great. But we hang our hat on hospitality. We have.
This is our ninet year already, which surprises a lot of people and where
we've made a lot of headway and been able to kind of rocket up the
Bowl hierarchy, if you will, is hospitality of Southern Arizona. We've done
a great job. Every team from the second day foot foot on the ground
where they're to greet them, We take them to all the great places.
We have Ladies Day for their families, We have kids day at the Children's
Museum here in town for the kids is a week full of great activities that
we want to showcase, not just a good football game, not just our
facilities for football, but Southern Arizona as a whole, and really tell them,
hey, this is one of the places as you move into a career,
all you student athletes, you might consider moving someday too. Sounds a
great community, yeah, especially will You'll be specific because it's so darn cold
up there, but it is. I went Toledo, I'm sure it is
too. So this game would not work infl if not for the locals help
you out with the volunteers, with the jackets. You know, the people
in jackets tell us about that and how many volunteers and it's a wide ranging
group, right, Oh my gosh, it's huge, and you head it
on the head. We certainly could not deal without them. We have our
you know, our board of directors, which is phenomenal, a lot of
great women and being here in the community. Rocky the Rose is always the
one I mentioned first, Like, if you can be in college athletics,
then you have Rocky the Rows on your team. You know you're you're starting
way ahead of most teams. You know, Erica Barnes from Arizona is on
our board as well. You know Ted Maxwell from mets Als. But it's
really our Blue Blazers, which there's about one hundred of them. They're all
volunteers. They are they are the engine in our car. They help us
go, they get out in the community. They're there at five in the
morning sometimes helping us out. There'll be there all of whole week. A
lot of them taking time off from their jobs to help us. So,
I mean, when you talk about this being a community effort, there's a
couple of us like myself who gets to come on shows like yours and take
some credit. But man, we would not do this without an entire community
effort. So obviously, you know we don't want to you know, Kai
bash the weather. We're always you know, hoping for that. But you
know, still in any case, you know, when you're in Tucson in
the end of December, no it it always looks good, and you know
it can be cold. I remember there was one if you remember that was
just but then it got warm. Cold, but you're warmed up later in
the day. But you know, there's some things you can't control, you
know, do you do? You put a bunch of things in place to,
you know, in case something happens, in case this happens, the
case that happens, or is it kind of like roll the dice, let's
see what we get. Yeah, I mean, honestly chase a little bit
of both. You know, we we certainly do have contingency plans for for
things. But uh, you know, from a weather steam point, especially,
both these teams think mid fifties is summer. So while it's cold for
us, they're like, I don't know what your problem is. You know.
It was funny today we were walking around with the Toledo folks and showing
them facilities, and a couple of us were wearing quarters that pullovers, and
they were wearing shorts and T shirts and so we we're like those things.
And then you always got to resort to what my grandmother used to say,
if you want to make God laugh, tell them your plans. So we
can plan the best we can. But whatever's going to happen is going to
happen. And we've got a great kind of army that will help us roll
with those punches. Yeah, no, no question. So what are you
hopeful for. I only tickets are going out there and you're trying to sell
the heck out of this. What are you hopeful for in terms of fans?
Yeah, I mean this year, we're all very excited here and Tucson.
I can you know, I'm a Tuson native, so I can be
at Homer hopefully on your show and say we're all thrilled to watch you play
in a Bowl game. You know, I've watched a million games that areason
a stadium, so very excited for that. We're hopeful that the folks who
tune into that are going to be able to rally themselter one more football game
on a night Saturday afternoon. And the thing to remember is any ticket you
buy, any beer you buy, and soda, hot dog concessions at our
game goes towards that pocket. We're going to give back to our community right
here in Tucson. So you know, those sort of things matter. Scanning
your ticket matters to us. And in some of those Bowl games around the
country that are funded by ESPN, they don't really care how many people are.
Understand they've already made their check from ESPN. It matters every ticket that
scanned helps us give money back to charity here in southern Arizona. So logistically,
I mean you probably you guys have probably a big fat notebook that says
this has to be done by this day. That's got to be done by
that day. Everything going smoothly, you run into a lot of stuff.
I mean, how does this go from year to year? You know,
learning lessons from the year before and that kind of stuff. Oh my gosh,
Jay, it's like you're a prognosticator or you've been in sports for a
really long time. That notebook is sitting right in front of me right now.
It's our team manual. It's about ninety seven pages long, and we've
been going through it with both teams of the several days. So yeah,
there's there's a lot of planning as obviously, you know the silly things that
you gosh would never think of, Like here's the one I doubt what today
that kind of might be fun for your listeners and something I just never thought
of. You know, we let teams in based on uniform. Once they're
in their uniform, they don't need a credential to get in. Well,
somebody brought up last year that their mascot. The person who was their mascot
got stopped on the way in because they didn't have a credential, nor did
they have a uniform because you know, they they weren't a rocket when they
were walking through the door. So, uh, you know, learn something
new. I've done this a bunch of times, but I was like,
oh my gosh, I've got to get a credential for the person who's the
mascot because nobody knows who that is and they can't walk in as a rocket.
Things like that. We've all heard that story of Loute not getting into
a somewhere because he didn't have a right. It was like the yo.
It was like the Yello mean commercial yo. No no, no, not
ye know loot exactly. I could have seen Bill Frieder happening too, you
know, not so much, not so much as the governor himself. So
great for you guys, I mean things have worked out well. Two great
teams coming in Wyoming who travels well Toledo will see and should be a competitive
game real quick. So you know, you guys had the announcement last week
that the game is also going to be on the c W. You know,
we we we know that the broadcast. We know that, we know
that the streaming broadcast was a little let's say different right then than you normally
see. Are they going to be able to keep that be going on a
you know, on a broadcast channel or how's that doing? I mean it's
it's a little bit of the old school and the new school combined with what
have been saying. Uh, you know you have you're certainly gonna have the
edge of barstool, but within the guardrails of the SEC. Okay, so
I will let you figure out exactly what that means, but yeah, we'll
have We're really excited to be on the CW this year. You know it
was it's streaming sports is where the world is going. We were a little
bit ahead of that. We still had over a million views on the on
the broadcast last year. But being in the CW, which is distributed in
one hundred percent of homes. I mean, if you still have like the
Rabbit ears, you can get the CW, you know, So being on
that game nation on that network nationwide, it's going to be really great for
us. It should be good, should be good. Okay, thank you,
Eric, Thanks the whole bunch of Eric appreciate it. Good luck.
I always appreciate it. You're on the clock. You're on the clock.
You got a few weeks weeks like countdown as well. You know what this
work? Well before you leave. Uh, this is more of the game
because you have parties throughout the whole week. Oh yeah, we do.
We have. We've renamed it our Kashuanga Week, which you know, it's
like a party that's got the five pm starting a question mark in. We
have you know, our pep rally downtown. We have our Barrio pub troll
the day before the game. We have our tailgate, which is free to
everyone to come to. Plenty of food, beverage and so on. The
game itself, of course we want you at. And then the Taco Bell
New Year's Eve Downtown Bulbash, where we were calling it the Taco touchdown now
that you know tie in football, because you've got to do a lot of
alliteration. So the Taco touchdown where the taco drops from the crane and while
have fireworks at midnight. Warrant, we're all the three of us are old
enough to remember Warrant and she's my cherry Pie. They're headlining our New Year's
Eve band, So they'll be out there again. Uh. You know,
if you want to see a bunch of guys our age rocking it out,
they're going to be there. That's gonna be a lot of fun. I
told Kim last week, I'm going to start growing my mullets, so maybe
i'll get it by that time. Let's not pretend you haven't tried that lately.
I mean that looks upeared exactly. There's not much left under the hat
up there. It's kind by one of those are we talking hair or you
know, brain? Thank you appreciate, Eric, Thanks about good luck if
you had a mullet, oh he was, we're talking. We're talking like
like my body moment. Yeah, curls from the girls, baby, yeahl
oh my gosh, that's fantastic. I'd pay to see you. I haven't.
We'll find you a picture, man, fantastic. All right, let's
say take our last break. We'll take your calls five to zero, four,
one, six, seventy four, forty. We got about maybe fifteen
minutes after the break, solet's stick around. Now. If you're an Arizona
Man's basketball fan, you know it's been successful for nearly forty years now.
Take a look back at the Ludelson era in my new book, Lessons from
Loot. It was a labor of love through the eyes of twenty five former
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a team security dot net. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera
and Jay Gonzalez Son Fox Sports fourteen to fifteen. Subscribe now to the podcast
on the iHeartRadio app Just Surgery I on the Ball. Hey, welcome back
to Winning the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Young Steve, He's
Jay, You got boys, Sammy with us, thirteen minutes left. You
want to call us? He looks he looks like a little wound up about
some more NBA stuff tonight. I mean he's like, well, there's so
many games. You look tight or stressed or something. You been on the
NBA. Yeah, sometimes so tonight I've got some first baskets bets out there,
next steps. No, No, they're like they're like for a dollar
they're like a dollar. They're fun. So like you can bet on you
can parlay first baskets and so you can have like Paul Bancaro to score the
first basket in the Magic Game to Night and then parlayed with like Joel Embiid
and like those odds are pretty fun and so all right, but you don't
been in a buck. You know, he's just doing for the juice,
just the juice, it is like, and so just give me the dollar.
No, Like I could have two hundred and thirty seven dollars if Franz
Wagner, Joel Embiid and Jared Jackson junior Franz Wagner okay and his brother exactly
Franz Wagner and his brother Moe. They played for the Magic. The Magic
are one of the hottest teams in the NBA. And you got those guys
and then you don't know, I don't you know they are and you know,
look at the NBA the Gen League roster and you say, oh,
yeah, that guy I've had the G League ross was like some of those
guys just bouncing around. Like for example, like Nico Mannon who played here
for he could very well be on a G League roster and maybe even on
a two way contract with the team he's balling in Italy where he's from.
His family's probably out there, and like that's a that's something where like that
situation is so much better for him, Like he doesn't want to be going
to Waco wherever in North Dakota to play some basketball game and in front of
nobody and make not as much money when he can be playing in the top
top tier league in Italy and making a lot more money. Yeah, I
think his team won the championship if it was if it wasn't last year or
the year before that, and like like that's good, like good for him.
If there was a guy, if there was a guy I know that
that had his career screwed up and maybe not to that extreme Inn's time,
it was him. And I'm saying this all legitimately because he was that he
was that good. I agree, But when Miller made him play slow and
thinking about you imagine him and Tom That's what I was say. And Josh
Man, they would have been a lot I mean, Josh Green was a
lottery pick, but Nico could have been a first like a lottery pick would
have played he came here. Yeah he did. He played himself out of
it, like yeah. So I grew up playing basketball against him and against
Josh and like all those guys, and so from like eighth grade we would
play and then he just kept getting better and better. And then in high
school we were one of the only teams that beat his team, and we
were like, oh, man, like this is crazy. And then he
went on to u of A, and all my friends, all the guys
I used to play with, were like, man, yeah, he We're
gonna see him in the league in a couple of years. He's gonna be
great. And then I came down to u of A watched him, and
I went to almost every game his freshman year and watched him just crumble under
shown system. It was night and day from high school to club whatever into
now, and it's just like I just felt bad for him because like,
that's not that's not the way he and I totally understand, like the coach
has a system, he's gonna coach the way he has in his mind.
But also here's the issue with that. No matter what Sean would tell him,
we're gonna let you run, he never ran. It's like you know
I love you, I love you, I love you, and then you
get married, Well, well I don't really love it. Yeah, oh
well I do love you, but you're gonna have to do what I tell
you exactly. And to Jay's point of if he was in Tommy's system,
think about it. Think about it two years ago, the way Kerr used
to just run and get the ball up, get shots up. Tommy was
all his goal atter wait without question, right, and imagine those two dudes
on this team or two years ago, three years ago, whatever it was.
Oh man, oh man, oh man, is right. And then
it it took a fact, took his toll, and he was never the
same player after that. Like I would watch him in Warriors game, Warriors
games and when he'd go back and forth between the G League and stuff,
skittish even in the summer league when like anybody's shooting shots, he still kind
of had that like tentative nature that he never ever had, and he would
I mean, he's doing he's doing more than fine. But I would have
loved to see him in the league and play under Tommy and stuff. But
that just goes to coaching in college is so important for their their eighteen year
old kids. Yeah, they're still well here's another one and nothing. I
want to beg on Sean. But Barcelo Barcelo, Yeah you played it with
him against Barcelo, a guy who had a lot of promise, a lot
of recruits tracing him. We came here and the same thing happened. Him
goes to Boyu who plays freely and he had a good career career. Yeah,
he was never as explosive whereas I mean, maybe he hypes the wrong
word. But it was Barcelo and Bagley, those two guys, and then
it was it was Nico, and then now you have the Williams brothers.
Jalen Williams is in the league. He went to high school in Phoenix at
Parry and then his younger brothers at Colorado and then co A. Pete is
like the number one recruit in the country down in Phoenix. So that there's
a well wave. DeAndrea DeAndre from I mean lived in Phoenix for a while.
But I wish most more of those guys would come come with Tommy.
But would DeAndre have have have benefited from tom I don't know, like you
would have no, because he's he was He's a back to the basket guy.
Right. Well, even though the NBA is not a back to the
basket leave, I mean to recall that he ran the court. He still
had the same little trot, you know. But the way he say,
umar bellow, who's kind of a bigger wait guy runs up and down the
floor. Well, the big men here are different too. Yeah, I
know. To answer your question, I couldn't tell you why or because he's
not that guy. He's back to the basket guy. Yeah, yeah,
you would have love he would have loved to have him. I feel like
I could have made him into that. Yeah, but he'd have to shoot.
It's like we yeah, yeah, here's why I think if DA came
and played with with Tommy with a lot of wait a minute, I mean
I think it's it's a lot of guys especially I mean I've watched him because
you are older than him. I'm older than DeAndre, so he yeah,
he's like twenty two, isn't like that we're we're I think we're about the
same age. I'm sorry, right around the same age, different, I
think, yeah, definitely, yeah, all of us put together. He's
made a little bit more money than that. All right, Sorry, but
I think if he would have played with Tommy with a lot more drible handoffs,
a lot more pick and rolls, and he does like to run the
break. That's more NBA style per se. When when it breaks down like
next time, like this Saturday, when it breaks down, watch what Caleb
Love and he shot, they'll run two man game. Where Kylon will run
two man game when there's the offense breaks down or they're in a secondary break,
it's a lot of dribble handoffs and hard rolls to the basket. Not
to say he didn't do a lot of that under Sean or when he was
here, but the way Tommy coaches, that would have translated a lot better.
I think the motions of the towards the NBA. Not saying that would
have changed his career, but it would have given him more of a pro
style. So the thing about is what he can't, what Tommy can't teach
is still what he lacks is in between his head and the wheel of players.
Yeah, yeah, you could push it. You could, but if
you don't do it, guess what Bonna would be coming up the bench.
And yeah, and I never knew like how Sean coached his players in terms
of the mental side of the game of that was the problem. Yeah,
it was obvious with with Sean, how about how he did that? How
was it like, how did he do it? How did he do it?
It was it was do it my way or else. I mean guards,
the guards every time, and Jay had his witnesses. Everything. Every
chance he looked up was dribble. Dribble dribble looked to Sean set up to
play and run the offense. You don't see that now. They just go.
They just go. So that's why maybe maybe d A Deandre's mindset would
have been a little bit different because I think at u of A you kind
of saw him. He was so dominant where he didn't need to think sometimes
but when it push come to shove, even at u of An and the
NBA, he thinks too much. On the floor. Tommy would have helped
him just be like, dude, just go play basketball. Yeah, and
that's have to battle exactly. I mean that's what we see. Yeah,
just just guys just go play. Get over it. Just they're comfortable going
doing what they do. You know, they know what, they know what
not to do, and they're not concerned about it. If they make a
mistake. I'm getting pulled. Yeah, we got a collar. Hi are
on the aar and on the ball. Hi, it's James, James.
What's up? Not much this heer and you guys talk about Miller and Tommy,
Well zero, James, you know what side of the isle? James?
What do you got to? And I think Miller's style of coaching was
just scream at the players and barked the whole game. Yeah well yeah,
yeah, I mean we saw that and the rest. Yeah, but no
we well he again, it was it was Steve, as Steve said,
it was his way or the highway kind of thing. We wait had to
be to his credit and his year off and a you're away from the game,
he's re retold his his game as a coach. Yeah, we were
go ahead with the with Miller. I agree he kind of eased his own
system and recruit the best players and try to fit him into the system,
unlike Lude, who would just recruit the best players and then change his system
based on who his best players were that year. And we're really seeing that
with Tommy this year. Right. He realized, you know, you know
what was kind of what was missing, right, and try to fill those
gaps, and for now, it looks like whatever gaps we thought he had,
you know, he's filled. I mean, there's a lot more basketball
left to play. But the things that we we said needed fixing, it
seems like he's working on fixing. Though. So let me ask you,
James, because I'm sure you've seen some Arizona basketball to this point, I'll
ask all of you, what if Arizona is flawed, if there are flawed,
where's their flaw this year? Yeah? Yeah, go James? Coaching
coaching. Well, I'm just saying if we if we're just looking at March,
oh no, no, sure, Well well okay, okay, but
but when you when you when you think back to what happened in March and
then what you're seeing so far this year, you know what what still needs
to be fixed in your mind? You know, just adving that great entight
games against tough opponents who played good defense, and you know, just just
sticking to your it's to your heart and playing the hardest you can. You
know. I don't have anything specific, though. Yeah, it's hard,
it's hard to pick something up, and I think this team is totally different
than last year's. It's a way so we'll we'll see how it goes away.
I definitely agree. Did you guys see that a huge win by another
great coach in America? Which give the suspense? Yeah it was Damon Stott.
Yeah. Yeah. The problem with that is he lost to a smaller,
small school right out of the box. But yeah, hopefully, hopefully
it goes well for Damon over They're interesting that one one Arizona guy followed another
one over there. Very cool, All right, James appreciated, we got
a run. Thanks a bunch your guys. Listening to James always it hit
me the other I said, wait a minute, Josh Pastor gets fired and
and here comes two totally different styles to completely flawed anything from you. I
don't have anything. We won't know. There's you know, these next few
games are gonna tell us right and just before we go, I want to
say one thing. If Arizona fan, and I think I said this on
Arizona fan thinks that they're gonna feel a whole lot better about twenty fourteen and
with the twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen that they lost to Wisconsin. If farison
A beat Swiss Bow, yeah they won't get that out of your mind.
Okay, that's not gonna feel any better if they beat them this time around,
right, No, this is just a pimple on the butt. Yeah.
I think if I had to see one thing that if you of A
does this well, then I think they can win national championship, and that's
shoot the three well. Because la Kylin and Caleb are all capable shooters.
It's a matter of if they can be consistent enough long term to hit those
shots. Then if that's the case, I think they are one of the
best team. You remember, there's all the good teams out there there are,
and hey, same thing basketball comes down to. If you make the
most shots, you win most of your luck. Be good and healthy.
In addition to all right, let's hit the road. Okay, well,
we'll be back tomorrow, Glenn Parker and Doug Faff. We're going back to
the Oklahoma game nineteen eighty nine, one of the big wins far Zone ever.
So see you tomorrow. Happy high a day, every every smile,
happy day. Who even waiting? Are here for the smile? When the
snow is besting on the trees outside of all the