This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jagon Zalez on Fox Sports
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kt z R two SAG and iHeartRadio Station. Hey, good afternoon, everybody.
Welcome to Eye on the Ball Hero Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve,
We're gonna He's Jagan saus Got our guy sat me from California in town.
We're all here from our trips, healthy, wealthy and wise. Maybe
not two nine wealthy? Yeah, two out of three. Bat, I
just got back from Vegas. I'm not wealthy. Yes, I'm glad you
made it back, though I made it back from my place. You made
it back from San Diego. Were here? What a great weekend you guys
have. Well, he had a great weekend. But then there's also so
much going on to talk about it, even aside from yeah, you know
what, Arizona dead, you know with that's games over the weekend. I
have something to talk about. I don't want to go there right now,
though, I don't want to go Debbie Downer, Okay, so let's talk
about her. Yeah, I'll wait for that. Let me be whatever so
football football. Okay, we had Jed today. He was not as as
Jed like has been in the past. But that's whatever. I thought.
You went a place where probably needed to go. But I'm not sure you
asked a question that what was that qull It was a question that if somebody's
not asking it, then we're not doing our jobs. All right, Somebody's
got to ask it, regardless of I knew we weren't going to get.
Yeah, of course an answer, but you have to ask it because it's
happened. Yea. And what's happened is Jed's name is getting thrown around already.
Wait wait, wait, wait, so where did you see it?
I haven't seen it. He's been mentioned with Texas Tech u c l A
has even cleared. He's been mentioned Texas Tech. Yes, he's been mentioned.
He's been mentioned that if Harball leeds at Michigan, he'll not Texas Tech
text saying that, okay, if Harball leads Michigan with all this stuff going
on, then he'd be considered. Journalism sucks. If you know, uh,
Billy Napier got his ass kicked again in Florida. Is billyon? If
Billy Napier goes in Florida, the Jetfish would be a candidate there. Who'sould
say, you know, this journalism sucks if if if you know Kaylin de
Borr and Washington and and Dan Landing at at Oregon are both being named as
you know Texas Texas at Texas and m that if one of those jobs clears,
jets Fish would be named there. Just people Saint Steven's. Whether it's
credible or not, it's being said, and so I don't know who's saying
it, but I understood the question. I understood the questions. Uh.
In fact, I was thinking should and then you did, then you asked
it, which is fine. I'm just seeing it all over how it was.
Of course, we all preface it. We all know that the media
makes these lists on their own, correct right. In some cases you've talked
to somebody who says, yeah, I would look, would consider Jetfish or
Dan Lanning or kaylan bor or whatever. Sure. Other cases it's just guys
like you and me putting a list together. Yeah, but jets Fish,
Jetfish's name is showing up on those lists. I'm getting asked all the time.
We you know, you know what Gabe is. You know every week
comes on and says, you know, we got to do all we can
to keep ted fish. His name is going to come up. He knows
it. He's it's gonna come up, and it's already. Okay, I
get the question. I'm not saying that's a bad question. I get the
question. To me, it's all premature because because it is, he's already
done it correct and then maybe he's good enough to go. But it's still
premature in my mind. Well, the question, let me the question was.
I don't have my question, qute I have the answer. Yeah,
that's all right. Yeah. I asked, you know, how how do
you handle because this is already said, because this has already happened, Yeah,
how do you handle your name being tossed around? I thought you asked
it perfectly because you got into it. I wanted to make I'm not making
this up. This is happening. And here's what he here's what he said.
Yeah, that's this time of year when you're successful and your team's playing.
Well, that's what happens. I think our only focus is beating Utah.
This is a great team coming in. I told our team yesterday that
you have a chance to uh. They are the reigning champions. They are
the two years reigning Pac twelve champions. Uh. We need everybody focusing on
one thing and one thing only, and that is Utah football and trying to
have the best Arizona football program. We can have to go beat Utah football
team, and we are going to give him everything, uh that we have.
We are going to empty the tank, and we need a full house
to do that. Yeah, and that was a great answer to that question.
He was a non answer answer. I was almost the exact answer I
was expecting. Yeah. Of course, you know, he's shrewd enough and
he's smart enough to know not to answer whatever. Uh, he was a
little not The guys who covered him daily said he was a little cranky.
I didn't get that. Well, he might have been to you a little
to your question because he's not used to meet him. But he also didn't
like Jennifer Fink's question. The way she the way she phrased it showed he
was human. Basically, she said, no for you to play like crap
in the first half, what did you think? But but everyone was thinking
of it. He was thinking, so why not ask it right? So
to more power to her, I thought it was a good question, and
he kind of poo pooed it, but answered the question. He did he
did he? You know, she basically question was he was human in the
first half. You know, how do you how do you think? I
think it's like, how did you react? It was? Here's his answer
to that. Yeah, I mean I think that we had a couple of
drops. I think we had a couple of misreads. I think we had
a little bit of pressure. We made some bad throws. He never flinched,
she was not worried. You know. I think that there's times where
that happens, and you know, he's a he's a good quarterback. We're
very lucky. We have two great quarterbacks in our program that have been played
a lot of football, and we have two young quarterbacks that want to become
great and want to work really hard at it. So I think that what
Noah able to do is what good quarterbacks do, is why throw out of
time one play at a time. So you miss a throw high, or
you miss a guy, or a guy drops the pass on you, it's
come back. But I think the second drive of the game, we score
a touchdown. So yeah, we went three and out. The first Drive.
We probably had Jacob open the first play of the game, and then
we probably we did have Tea Mac open the second player of the game,
but we wound up missing those and after that, you know, it is
what it is. But moving forward, I don't have any doubt that whoever,
if you're throwing completion, you're throwing completion. They're very they're able to
handle those. Well, guess what, he's had a pretty good here for
two and a half, two and three quarters years. No tough questions,
pretty much, and this is what you become pretty good at what you do.
The questions will eventually get tougher, sure, more direct, and still
well they still love you, honestly, you have no You're just you're asking
questions and you're more favorable than not favorable. Either, get used to it
and if you're moving on, if you do move on, they ain't gonna
get any easier. And Steve, you know, and preticularly in our case,
you and when I say in our case, you and me, you
and me. With what we do and what this show is about, we're
asking the questions and trying to talk about the things that we think fans are
talking to. Sure, I got to call this morning from you know,
are you you know, are you ready for jet Fish to be the next
coach at U c l A. You know, like what you know?
I said, his chip? Has chip been fired? He said, no
chips. But you know who's calling you? If that job opens up,
he's certainly is going to be considered show Okay, sure right, sure?
Now I was also told that job's not opening up because they don't have the
money to buy him out. Who does they don't have the money to buy
him out? You know they're going to the big ten. He's chip Kelly's
not going anywhere. But you know, if I'll give you no more serious
question, more serious question that maybe you can't answer, there's only one guy
that can answer. He's the president of the university. Right given how serious
are the money problems that we saw last week, which that was the talk
of the talk of a lot of things, variety of sources, although they
quoted the same the same story one and two, Jed gets good? How
much how much more can you get? How much can you give him from
from a definica that you already have? Right? Well, that's the question.
What can you do to keep him here? And there? Their hands
there, you go there, you go right, and they might be in
a bad spot as far as that, and then you say, sorry,
we can't keep him because we have no money. He's only getting like two
and a half million dollars two point one, two point one. But then
when you add in the other shows like two and a half million dollars,
you know they you know, they just they just fired Jimbo Fisher and they're
giving him seventy five million dollars to go away. So let me ask you.
I know you probably don't know much like me, I don't know much
about that story. But how serious do you think the money situation is?
One one, it's bad. It's bad. So how do you recover from
that? You move conferences? There's no again. They heard the word Dracone
and cuts. You know, they're just going to do some things that they
haven't had to do, and one of those might be cutting sports and in
the athletic department. Because the athletic department owes the university fifty five million dollars,
they haven't been able to pay it back. They're gonna have to figure
out the university needs that money back. So there's a lot of things going
on that's a guy. That's a conversation for you know, we can do
an hour on the right. So there's that. And that was the talk
of the weekend for me, at least, being on the road every where
I went boosters and I said, I don't know. I'm yeah, I
don't know because I don't know, And I think December fifteenth will know more.
Yeah, because that's the next big meeting. Right. I'm standing in
the line to make a bet at the west Gate on Saturday, and I've
got a sweat jacket on, and so a guy standing sitting in the chair,
you know, right next to the front row. You know, he
asked me, what's going to happen today? You know, there's on the
Colorado game. They said, how the hell are you guys going to fix
that budget thing? How the hell do you know about it? Yeah,
he was way. I was wearing an Oklahoma. It was where a duke.
I saw it everywhere. I saw it everywhere everywhere, and it was
kind of chance. You know, Yeah, you win, but you you
can't pay your bills or whatever. It was what it was. Yeah,
Steve, we've gone ten minutes into the show and we haven't mentioned Duke there
were something Duke. Yeah, we'll talk more because Brett was there. Yeah,
but we have to talk about our guests real quick. Okay. We
decided to ask Brett Farrah Sports Center at there and then it started coming.
He was at the Duke game, as was Steve. So we'll let these
guys compare some notes about it, okay, about the experience and and just
what the what it all looked like from where I said, it looked pretty
cool. It was fun. Yeah, Well it's funny because someone I went
to somewhere before after the press corvers before this to see my doctor and he
says, you got more TV time than Tommy Lowe who it was. And
I was not smiling apparently, but it was it was It was fun.
It was fun. Did you ever go to Stanford like at maplew was rocking.
It was rocking. It was rocking. It was rock This was rocking.
But Maple's rocked too because the kids were right on top of you.
And you remember the deaths they had, just simple deaths like little makeshift death
and if they won, they were jumping on top of you and your your
your your laptops were not safe. That wasn't this because they were going to
jump on top of you. And they didn't win. But it was crazy.
It was crazy. They didn't they weren't now to sit down. They
couldn't sit down. They were filed. You know how you watch a game
straight forward. They were sideways. They had to get more people in there.
Crazy, but they weren't just crazy because they weren't winning. They weren't
winning, and then and they were down the whole game. Yeah, pretty
much the whole game. Yeah, I'm glad I went because I needed to
go see to get the experience. A lot of fun. You've been there,
obviously, it's a it's a great campus. I've been to the campus.
So you're in the campus. Okay, So were you there in the
summer or when spring spring? Okay? So I was there? Now were
obviously both times? It was cool? Okay, so it's coldish the changing
of the leaves to me, do you remember Dark Shadows with Barnaby Jones?
Barn barnabas Colling, but Barnaby Jones was My mom loved him. That reminded
me of that because he was so creepy. But you didn't want to be
dark at night, You didn't want to be on that campus. My mom
would have left our family for Barnabas College. Dracula she loved. So you
understood what I was saying. I know, exactly very it was very an
old school, but it's a spectacular campus. You know, the big church
in the center of it. You know. We went to the you know,
my daughter was in biomedical Engineers. We went to the labs over there,
incredibles. Yeah, well we so Troy I went and he was there.
We were asking, do you know how to get to Cameron Arena,
Cameroon in the north. Uh. And then they're all smart, smart,
they had no idea where the all the smart people didn't know what arena was
exactly. You know. We went to her graduation in the stadium. You
know, the stadium is a stadium, the whole thing. But uh,
I purposely wore an Arizona T shirt on a day that we went and went
to the books door and stuff. So I'm sitting there in an Arizona T
shirt in the bookstore buying Duke gear and then people are going, who the
hell are you? And what is wrong with gifts? Gifts? Here's a
funny thing, funny story. So on Saturday morning that Saturday morning, Friday
morning. We haven't left for Vegas this week. Yeah, this last Friday,
we hadn't left for Vegas. We're getting ready to leave. My son
comes over to drop off my grandson for us to just say bye. You
were going to Vegas. And my daughter who just wakes up. You know,
she's the Duke and she just wa had just woken up. She walks
out into the living room and she got duke sweatshirt on and he blew her
head off. He yells at her in as loud as I've ever heard me
yell at her, what are you doing? Because she had and she goes,
what you're wanting a duke sweatshirt? We're playing Duke today? What are
you doing? I mean people were head off, like, races back to
her bedroom, puts on the u of a sweatshirt. It comes back better,
better, feel better, he screamed at her. It was. It
was a fun game. It was a fun game of the dudes. The
dude showed up. They did the dude. That's that doesn't shock you.
Nothing of this game shocks you. It didn't shock me, but I didn't
think they were going to win that game doing it, And I tweeted it.
I tweeted this, and I still believe this. Keisha Johnson had some
stones, He's got some st man a man, this is a mode boy.
This is a dude they haven't had in a while. I can't.
I'm trying. I'm sitting there trying to think of the last time, and
I keep going all the way back to Brian Williams in terms of guy for
the level of toughness underneath the basketball. But he was. They had other
guys. He would wield. He would wield the time too, but it
have You know, Jean Jean wasn't that guy, but he was guy guy,
But Jean was. Jean was a Jean was a bruiser, but he
didn't play enough to have that kind of impact right on a game. You
know, you think of a guy like the tall dude of the two thousand
and one team. So who tall dude? Lord Woods? Yeah, Lorden
Wood. No, he was, you know, he was a great guy
underneath the basket, but he wasn't a tough no, no, beat the
hell. Michael Wright. Maybe at least he had that manner and he was
he had the person of a man. He was just Yeah, in those
two buckets. He they got huge. Yeah, it was like he grabbed
a rebound and we go to each other. That was a man read.
Yeah. Yeah, and that's what they needed against Princeton last year. We
did. You needed one two rebounds the game would have been over. He
got. He got a couple of rebounds that a Zulus never got. Yeah,
you just need to do that. Could take over the game like that.
All right, we're gonna be back. We're gonna have a Brett Farrah
come in and talk about his experience at camera. Then the second we got
Joe Jodyayler from Phoenix, we'll talk about Kyler Murray in the day he had
yesterday. Cardinals came back in one again. So stick around for all that.
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website. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez sound
Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Subscribe now to the podcast on the iHeartRadio WAP Just
Surgery I on the Ball. Hey, welcome back to I on the Ball
here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera. He's Jagins Alas don
if On. We have Brent Farah, the sports editor of the Arizona Daily.
Start Brett, how you doing good? Guys? Thanks for having me.
Appreciate it. You have a good time over the weekend. Yeah,
it was. I mean, it's kind of weird. I kind of joked
with my wife when I she was with me on the trip. We have
family that lives in the Raleigh area, so we kind of plan this on
purpose to be able to have me be able to go out with the Star
and Bruce pa go to cover Arizona Duke on Saturday or on Friday night.
And I joked with her, I go, do you remember what I always
say about our wedding day that I don't really remember anything that happened. That's
kind of how I feel about Friday a little bit like I need to see
pictures and things because it flew by. I mean that that two and a
half hours just went by so fast and so much happened, as I'm sure
you feel the same way Steve, where it was just a action packed you
know evening at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Yeah, no question, And there's so
many things and you have one story, two stories and you won. You
don't think you're going to do it justice, and you have to do it
justice because it was fantastic. Yeah, it really was. I Mean the
most fascinating thing to me was a conversation that Bruce and I had actually in
the media room. We were kind of the last ones there as we were
leaving, and it was with a guy named Brendan Marx. He worked for
the Athletic based out of the Research Triangle area, and a couple of TV
journalists that were there, and I feel bad that I didn't catch their names,
but we were all talking sort of about the place in that area that
Douke holds we think of Tucson and how relatively big of a city it is,
even though some people feel like it's a small town, and how u
ofa dominates the scene. And we were asking them, you know, is
Duke just like carry the load in terms of attention for the research Triangle area
of the Raleigh Durham area. They said, actually, it'll surprise you know,
it's NC State. If NC State's competitive and good, dominates ratings on
TV, dominates Page US. And it kind of makes sense because NC State,
like U of A, is fifty thousand students and tons of alumni and
everyone is kind of connected in some way, where Duke is a very small
institution all things considered. Jay, you know that from your family, and
so you know, people go to school of Duke and then they move across
the country to do big things. They don't really hang out necessarily, a
lot of them in the Raleigh Durham area. And so anyway, we were
talking about it and he said, at the local level, it's NC State,
UNC Duke in that order. At the state level, it's UNC Duke,
NC State, and then at the national level it's Duke by a long
shot, then UNC and then NC State. And I just found that to
be really fascinating because not that it has anything to do with the gay but
just how they were very attentive to media needs there was, you know,
and it made me wonder because we asked that question. They said, oh
yeah, they they want media here a lot, even though they're in a
national brand, because they sometimes played second fiddle in their own city right.
In fact, in fact, that so interesting. I said this to somebody.
I guess maybe the raleig beat right around, and it was. He
turned to me, says, do you guys always travel like this typically if
if Duke was on the road, we only have one guy, he said.
I said, no, not necessarily, there's pretty much one guy in
that's Bruce. But this is a special game. So here we are.
Yeah. Yeah, it really was so okay. So you're you're, you're
you're the I mean, had you been to Cameron for anything else? Was
this your first time? I had, like I said, my in laws
living out there. We've I've gone, and I've been hung out on the
Duke campus a little bit. I had not been to a game though.
Back in four when Arizona it was kind of the first crack in the Ludolfson
regime in my opinion, was that four team when they were the nine seed
playing Seaton Hall in Raleigh at what was the RBC Center, it's now PNC
Arena where the Carolina Hurricanes and NC States basketball teams to play, and they
lost in that first round. They would have played Duke in the second round,
but ended up getting knocked out. I was a student reporter, and
we paid for the whole weekend in terms of flights and hotels, and so
me and one of my colleagues we stuck around and we spent I think the
game was Thursday. They lost on Friday, we went to Chapel Hill.
On Saturday, we went to Durham and went and saw Duke and we kind
of snuck into the building. We just opened the door kind of like you
can do it, Mchaale occasionally. I didn't tell anybody to do that of
your listeners, but kind of just walked in and looked around. And then
we got kicked out. Because the Duke women's basketball teams, I think we're
number one in the country at the time. We're practicing because they were hosting
the first round of the NCAA tournament on campus two days later. But so
we got about a fifteen second peak inside the Cameron at that point, and
I think my eyes darted straight to the you know, two thousand and one
National Championship banner from Minneapolis, and and then kind of got got ushered out.
But other than that, no, it was definitely my first time there.
And if everything that everyone says about it and an old barn feels like
a high school barn but on steroids and and just the noise level everything,
I'm shocked. I didn't leave it with a headache. Did you have a
headache? Get out of their seats? No? No, But it was
so cramped. I know it was cramped because the guys with the guys,
the kids were right behind us. Well, Bruce and I thought, so
this is I know, this isn't talking about basketball, so I hope I'm
not waiting all that time too, which but this is like inside baseball and
the media. But Bruce and I were talking about this before getting there.
We're like, we always thought that the media were court side, but we
weren't totally sure. That's not the case in Tuson anymore. It's sort of
gradually evolved, and over the last couple of seasons, the last couple of
seats, which was Bruce and I think ap or something kind of got moved
up into that corner in McHale and so we weren't totally sure if media was
going to be court side, and then when we got there, we looked
at the scene and we're like, this makes total sense because if they didn't
have media front row with the tables and the teeth, the monitors that were
you know, rotating the ads in front of us and us sitting there,
the camera crazies who were like touching our hair, breathing on us, fitting
on us everything. Not not on purpose, but I mean just because they
were an inch from us, would be so close to the court and the
players that it'd be dangerous. So we actually serve a purpose in Cameron for
Duke to be a buffer between the students and the visiting players. So in
that sense, for anyone who's covering a visiting team, the chance to go
and sit and watch those games court side is a real interesting tree despite it
being a little jarring for the first few minutes when you're you know, being
sort of hovered over by these you know, thousand and eighteen to twenty two
year olds that are just screaming at the top of their lungs an inch from
your ear. So it's funny because I was at Rolly two and I was
gonna lost in that first round. We did the same thing, but we
did it before the game, before the game before they lost in that first
round. And you go in, and I'm sure you felt the same way,
Jay, when you first saw it. It says, really, this
is it. It's a small place. It's a it's exactly like the high
school gym, but better. Nostalgia that crazy. But Jimmy, have you
ever gone to the White House press room? No, it's you think tiny,
it's tiny. It's just like this room. You're thinking, oh man,
it's not No, it's just a small it's once you get reality,
it's not real. It's not real. It's not real. No, And
you know, and and again I know when I the day first time I
went to Durham, you know, the first day that there was daylight,
I told my Daddy said, we're going to the campus and the first thing
we're going to see is camera. And so we did. We drove in
and did in that little circle that's right there, and we got out of
the car and I'm like, what the hell? You know, it looked
like tomorrow high school's gym, right, but nice but nice. Yeah,
it was really nice and everythink it's just you know, just not the size.
But Brett, you know the nine and it's Steve Camston is too.
You know, there's less than ten thousand people go to these games. But
how loud does it get? Right? How you know is because Mikale with
five thousand more people, is it louder? Well at moments. But but
the thing with Duke that I would attest to you, and I'm guessing Steve
would say the same as other than halftime and other than you know, the
national anthem, it was that loud, non stop. It wasn't like there
were the ups and downs, ebbs and flows and like things will play on
the jumbo tron and they'll play the DJ music. It was the band and
it was the non stop just humming of the group behind us, which I
think I've kind of attested as to why I didn't get a headache or get
unnerved is because it almost became white knowing. Yeah, it was just so
constant for the whole time we were there, even though it was right on
top of us, right, No, No, it was exactly that.
It was. It was cool. It was cool though. Up. I'm
glad I went and it was you got crazy during certain times at the end.
Obviously obviously you know there was closet part the people that were there,
the X guys, because of how they do it. They show their jerseys
and in the house, YadA YadA, Grant Hill, YadA YadA, Grant
Hill shooting free throws to win someone a one hundred dollars award or something.
I mean, like it's so weird, Like they literally bring Grant Hill out
and they're like, okay, NBA Hall of Fame. I think it's all
for Hall of Famer and maybe not or in Nate Smith Hall of Famer,
but either way, he's obviously an amazing college player and played a long time
in the NBA. I can't recall, but you know, long story short,
they have Grand Hill go shoot a free throw to win someone a prize,
and it was like, wait a minute, like the nostalgic kind of
closeness of it, you could tell is really legit and wasn't just for that
one game. I think they said that was the second game that that had
been at. Is that right? Yes? The other one was Notre Dame
last January and were you stuck? And he was he was there and they
showed him obviously on the on the screen and it's President. He's there with
his wife Mickey. After the game, we had to wait to get out,
you know, because it's you can't get out. You just can't get
onto the students to get out, so you stuck in the students where the
Arizona fans finally kind of caught up to them and started yelling at them,
and they yelled back. Blah blah blah. It was fantastic because well,
the funnest part of the night was them saying safety school, safety school,
safety school, and as happens in Vegas, has happened in Tempe, has
happens in a lot out of these places that we see U of a Fans
travel to. Once the buzzer sounded and they were yelling safety school, and
it was still kind of a loud, you know, there were still nine
thousand people that were Duke fans in there. The U of a Chance got
really loud and kind of drowneded out, and essentially the Duke Duke students kind
of gave up and just walked out. As as Lloyd came out from his
I don't know what he was doing exactly, posting it with TV or radio,
but he walked across the court and and kind of fist bumps towards the
U of A fans leaning over the railing that had come and visited, and
it was there was there was a loud, a small but mighty contingent of
U of A people in that building for sure, Right, very cool,
very cool. You know again, you know, I watched it at a
sports bar in Vegas, no volumes, just watching the game, so zered
in on the game. I did. Couldn't catch the atmosphere although they kept
showing Shozhevsky on camera and he was never smiling, which we were like every
time they showed him when we were fingers at him and the arms cross probably
arms cross looking. Yeah, there's a clip around the second the second Kaled
Love banks, then the halftime buzzer beater, he's like up out of his
seat and grabs his wife's hand, and yeah, I think it was probably
prescribed, you know, get him away from the crowd at half time,
but it was. It was really funny timing just because it looked like he
was just getting the heck out of there. But hey, the game,
by the way, itself was pretty good as you guys are sure have talked
about it. I was most impressed with even though Lloyd only stuck to eight,
and I asked a couple questions about that post game only stuck to eight
guys. He got all eight in early and Arizona's first nineteen points were scored
by at least two points a piece by all eight players, So sixteen of
those nineteen were two points apiece, so spreading it around a little bit,
and I think the leading scorers were fourteen, thirteen, twelve, twelve,
eleven were the top five, where the five starters basically in double figures.
So so that that reminds me a lot of the one National Championship runner up
team that had a ton of firepower and NBA obviously potential or future star in
you know, Richard Jefferson and Lauren Woods and Michael Wright and Jason Gardner and
Gilbert Arenas, but all of them averaged under fifteen points of games. So
I think that's an interesting thing to look forward to with this team, is
how a different guy on a different night might be stepping up. The guy
that impressed me in Brett was maybe two guys three guys down from me and
right in front of us? Was Johnson when he got those rebounds? Yeah,
he was right the fifteen feet in front of us. I don't mean
this as a dig on Neumar Bollo, because I thought I thought Ballo played
fine, even though Philip Hoski is obviously a specimen for Duke, I thought
Bollo played fine and he'll have his moments. So I don't mean this,
but Kishaw Johnson played bigger than Umar Bollo and he's significantly not as big,
and that impressed me the most from that vantage point, with seeing how large
se Shawn Johnson played in terms of his reach, in terms of being able
to corral rebounds, to those couple of plays that we've seen one hundred replays
on where he goes up over Philip Howski to dunk, like all those things
I knew set Johnson was capable of, but when you see him from ten
feet away in a game like that, it opens your eye. Well,
and that's the thing, you know, Steve, we what we saw.
And I almost hate to use this expression with you go, what does that
mean? Way? He had some man rebounds and so by that I mean
rebounds that just other guys that have come through Arizona over a lot of years,
never have been getting you know, at a time and in a game
with guys that just you know, we haven't had well, we haven't seen
Arizona guys do that. This team is built differently. Yes, it's just
way different. And he said that after the postgame, he he you can
kind of see what he means right now because Caleb Love gut Stones, Bradley,
Stones, Johnson, Stones, these dudes, don't. They don't.
They're not gonna give up. They're not going to bow down to anybody.
I know plus minus is meaningless to some degree in basketball, but I think
jam Bradley was a plus nine yea when he was on the floor for his
Like, I think I don't have the numbers and pretty, but eighteen minutes
or something like that. I mean, there's there is definitely some deep opportunity
from this. You know. I was just mentioning that one team and I
don't know why that one's the one I keep fixating on in a comparative way.
But maybe it's just skin because of the spreading out of everything. But
we talked about Keshaw Johnson. I don't think Keshaw Johnson's going to go for
thirty points a game once or twice this season. But you know, I
mentioned Richard Jefferson, a six steven forward and who could fly out of the
building, only averaged eleven and five, but that was a big eleven and
five and that two thousand and oh one season. I think we're gonna see
that kind of year out of Johnson too, where he just the numbers are
underplaying how important he is all over the floor for this team in his greatly
lone season. I guess in too song and then guess what Conlin Boswell is
the guy who gets named right of the week. Well, you you mentioned
man rebounds Kylon Boswell looks grown up and it sets the joke because of being
seventeen and now eighteen, and they said that on the broadcast, and it's
the thing. But he looks so grown up to me compared to last year.
But he's the same player. So you add in that maturity that experienced
a little bit of size of thickness, and he he was legit on both
games last week, but specifically against too right right, No, great time,
great time, all right, Brett, thanks a bunchy Brett, Thanks
all much, man. Glad you had fun. Thank you guys. I
appreciate it so much. Talk No, it was it was all that and
more. I mean, you could talk about a lot of a lot of
things. And then he opens up his press comes like in a very kind
of like perspective. Way started almost to tear up, you know, about
his friend having cancer. And he spent about fifteen thirty seconds there, and
then we went into the game. But that was kind of like, you
know, this doesn't mean much, but in the big in the greatest sense
of the you know, and that's what is. That's what Tommy Lloyd,
that's what he is. That everything for him is in perspective. No matter
what we do and say and ask, everything comes back to a certain perspective.
All right, let's take our break. We're gonna come back. We'll
talk some more. Airs on a football, Airs on a basketball. There
is a game tonight playing Southern University. The police line. All right,
man, okay, we'll be right back. It's right right. If you're
an Arizona men's basketball fan, you know it's been successful for nearly forty years.
Now, take a look back at the Loudolsen era. In my new
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today at a Team security dot net. Steve Rivera and Jacob Salaz they have
their Eye on the Ball on Tucson Sports Stay shaf Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
Hey, welcome back to Iron the Ball Here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
I'm Steve, He's Jay, got Sammi with us. You got twelve minutes.
So if you guys want to call talk about the great weekend. How
did you celebrate? Did you get all trickle? What does that mean?
Yeah, just assume you know what it means. You know, I don't
you know why because we're on Saturday, a Friday. You know, we
got in, we went I mean, we got in just in time to
catch the start of the game. So we watched the game, you know,
eight bunch before we're watching the game. Then the game was over and
we basically went back to our rooms and just hung out. Okay, you're
old, so let me so we get this all the time too. Okay,
So December fourteenth, I cameraber December eleventhook game was that Florida, New
Mexico. Yeah fourteenth. Okay, So people who don't know any better say,
that's the best weekend of our day and the day and they forget they
went to They went to a title and won a title in April of twenty
nineth, of nineteen ninety five. Whatever year was. My point was a
long time ago, so give me the weekend perspective. It was fun because
you know, what what you want is to just feel good about where what
you're doing, where you are. I would have felt good if Arizona had
lost the game by seven points. You're talking about basketball Friday night. Well,
the thing is everyone's going to split right right, because we're going in
on Friday night. You're going to see the game. You're excited about seeing
this game, in the atmosphere that we're going to see it. You know,
we're in Vegas. We're having a great time, a whole bunch of
sixteen of us besides you. Besides you, was the rest of the place
kind of fixated on the game. No, no, we no, we
you want to hear this. So we're in a place called Blondies. It's
a sports bar in this mall. We're playing Hollywood Is and we stay at
a place called the Alara. They're both attached to. So we go to
the sports bar a couple. There's probably sixty TVs in there. Okay,
not a one of them on the Duke Arizona game. When it started.
We had to ask and so we can and they kept notup. We didn't
get We didn't start watching the game till after the first TV time out is
when they finally put the game on a TV where we were sitting, and
that was the only TV that had the game. What was going on?
There were talk shows, eight Man Out, the movie was playing, there
was hockey on, There's this bunch of NBA stuff, you know, and
the oh there was one other TV. Because so we're sitting in a corner
at a big table, there's sixteen of us and we're yelling, right,
we're watching the game and we're yelling and screaming. Again, we got the
TV right next finally, about the second half, there was another table that
we could tell was cheering for the game as well. But that was it.
Nobody else was watching the game in there. Nobody else was watching the
Duke Arizona game. I mean the James Madison was on the biggest screen in
the place. James Madison was on it. That's what we're crazy. So
anyway, so we're watching the game. I haven't had a great time,
and let's like, then you win the game and all of a sudden,
your weekend no matter what, it's fun, right because now, no matter
no matter where you go back to fire night. What a great time we
had watching that game. And then you know we got the game. There's
on the football game was at eleven o'clock Vegas time. So that's either gonna
make or break our day there, and it was tense. We were I'm
not gonna lie, we were. Every one of us was worthy. There
was losing that game. So I was in Denver, Denver on a layover
there to get back home, and it was like the end of the second
quarter, halftime and then the third quarter they were tied and then not tied
and blah blah, and we couldn't see it because it was a back twelve
network. They didn't have the back twelve network. So I kind of just
got my phone and kind of monitored that way. Them sid they're gonna they're
gonna lose because they weren't playing. They obviously weren't playing well. I'm thinking,
what's going on because it because they couldn't get us when they got a
stop, they didn't go down and score, you know, then they go
down and score. Then that's you know, Colorado'd score, the Arizona would
score, and Arizona couldn't get over the top get the lead. And as
we said, no, Flafita was not playing well. Well, don't tell
Jid that. So it's funny because we got on the plane. Colorado was
driving in the fourth quarter at six seven minutes or whatever, and then all
of a sudden, I see got on the plane somebody had on their little
monitor and I said, how did they get the ball back? So I
guess he missed the field goal. Yes, the badness was it, No,
it was it was he because he's clutch. It looked, it looked
good, and then it faded or hooked whatever. It just he just missed
it. And and then ay, and any other year that goes in and
then Arizona's yeah, but you know, and I tweeted that out. Uh
you know, either after the game, I think after the game said any
other year, you know, with any other Arizona team, they lose at
Stanford, and they lose this game. He said, but this team is
different. And I don't know what's different about it, but it's different.
And you know, you see, you just there's no as you know,
as as uh Jet said, there's no flinch in this team. They moved
the ball down I mean Joan of Coleman, Oh my god, on that
last drive. I mean, holy hell, they handed him the ball.
He's the dude, though he's he's the dude. That's when I started being
convinced about this team. It was him against Washington State. They can't they
can't stop him, you know, and he takes the pressure off of no
for he made some plays in the last drive, but he didn't have to
make all the plays. And and so you look at you look at a
guy like Coleman, and and you and you see that you know, they've
got something in that guy that makes no forefeita uh much better. You see,
you're ready to go. Okay, So here's here's what. Here's what
Jedfish. Somebody asked Jed Fish, what makes Joda Coleman really good? He's
very strong, He's low to the ground, He's got very strong legs.
You know, he has a he has a very similar bill to Maurice Jones
Drew, who was also very hard to tackle, who also had a great
you know, lower body power that he could you know, that he could
run with. And I had the privilege to coach Murray's when we were at
Jacksonville, and he's very similar to him in a lot of ways. You
know. I mean, think about you know some of the really good teams.
Arizona has had the ninety eight team, right, they had Jeremy McDaniel
number eight, What the hell is his name? Steve who Arizona Pete number
eight? Uh? God, Dennis north Cutt oh yeah, right back in
the day. Yeah, and all these geries. But then they add running
back to Carter who uh the guy who ran for oh yeah, three hundred
yards give me, give no, three hundred yards against issue. Oh god,
why can't we think of his name back in the day, yes,
ninety eight, ninety eight? Ohay, I covered basketball, Come on,
h football? God, God, anyway, I'm gonna be pissed myself.
But anyway, but they had they had both. Uh they had both.
You know, quarterback right back to the twenty fourteen team, uh had uh
Nick Wilson. But then you know they threw the ball all over the field.
You know those you have to have that that kind of sure. Sure,
look at looking like this, this team too is built this way.
They have t Mac, they have Cowing, they have the running backs,
they have a quarterback, they have a tight end. The lines are capable.
I mean, come along, freaking candidate, candidate. I know I
was gonna say, he's give me eight inches and now you know not.
So you have that and your quarterback is one hundred times better. And that's
you know, they that that's what Jonah Coleman and the other guys do you
know, Michael Wiley, you know had you know, he got a couple
of passes you had a DJ Williams the score a touchdown. Mean, you
have these guys that make them so much more complete that if this isn't working,
this will work. And that's that's what they're doing. Yeah, it's
a it's a complete it's it's it's as complete a team as we've seen since
twenty fourteen because they have they have dudes on on both sides, and Steve
I would argue special team. I would argue twenty fourteen wasn't a complete team.
Their defense was not very good. True, true, but it's just
that their offense was so damn good. You know, every time they got
the ball, you thought they're gonna go down and score, and a lot
of times on the scale a little surprise. On the scale of surprise,
give me a number one to ten that that they're seven and three right now,
nine and a half. Really, yes, today, I thought they
could get to seven wins with a couple of things falling their way by the
end of the year. But seven to three right now, you still got
Asu out there who we think Arizona is going to be. And then you
talk coming in who you think Arizona can be. Yeah, I'm I'm,
I'm a nine or nine and a half and there being seven and three.
And here's something else, Steve, They're they're not mathematically eliminated from grading to
the I saw that. You know, I have to break my leg.
Turn left. No, it's not that bad, and we'll get you know,
We'll got two minutes. But I want to play one more clip and
that's you know. Uh. Jed was asked about this team developing a mentality
of expecting to win, which is what you saw both against Stanford and against
two games that this team normally loses. Yeah, well, you know that
was from the very beginning. We felt like we needed to build our program
to that. I think the first year we talked about winners wanted, and
then that's what we were looking for. And then that second year we talked
about expecting to win and going into games with that mentality. After the second
year and more and more we did that. Last year, I thought we
got to a point of times. I don't even know if we were there
this year early on in the season, certain games, I think we probably
would take a mulligan on a couple if we could. But I think,
as I've said numerous times that since the USC game, I think we went
into the Coliseum expecting to win, and I would say that every game since
we have had absolutely that conviction in the way we've played and the way we've
prepared and the way we've practiced. And if you could play with confidence,
uh, you have a chance to do that. Now, we've got a
great challenge ahead of us with a team that I have the utmost respect for,
that's also sitting at seven and three, that also is playing for a
lot that's also looking to continue on their momentum. So we need to put
everything we have into this game and do the best we can with great confidence.
So I think that's when I say this team is different from the others.
You know, this team doesn't believe that they're going to lose the game
in the situations that they've been in, you know, particularly like I said
the Stanford and Cal games, which again I'll just go go to the end
saying that those are two games Arizona would lose the past years. Yeah,
I think something we talked about earlier is the confidence. Yeah, this team
has that confident has it? You know, no if a Fida has it,
Joana Coleman has it. You know, the defense has it. Look
at the things that have happened, look at the things that have budgeted.
So I know, we only have twenty six seconds if you want to call
the col next to uh. Jayden gets hurt, Noel steps in, Wyley
gets hurt, Jonah steps in. And what if those things don't happen.
Something's happened for the reason. They may not even for me for the better.
Yeah, yeah, you don't know, you don't know. All right,
take our break when you come back. Jody Aaylor coming up in the
second hour to talk Cardinals and Kyler Murray. But we'll be back with breaking
news and Sammy