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 while just surgery I
on the Ball. Hey, welcome back to I on the Ball hero Fox
Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve, he's Jay, and you're sid with Ricky.
News on the Ball. News. All right, for the news today,
We're starting off with the Raiders hiring Antonio Pierce. I know we kind
of touched on it earlier, but that's huge news for him and the way
that he's been able to jump up the coaching ranks. Yeah, he fell
forward, he did, Yeah, he did. He fell forward. Not
to say he's not a bad coach, but the circumstances of him coming to
coaches, well, the thing about what happened up at ASU was the fact
that the whole disregard for the rules, and you think about you think about
a guy's way of doing things, and you know, hopefully Antonio Pierce has
realized, Okay, I gotta be a different guy. Right, there are
rules that I have to follow. But again he's at the Raiders, so
who knows or I don't have to follow anymore? Because because I did that
and now I'm here right. Well when you see when you if you were
an issue grab, how would you feel one of seeing her on ESPN giving
his advice of being herm and now this, I'd probably be indifferent, I
really would. If you're an issue guy. Yeah, I mean yeah,
you know, like I like, I'm indifferent if Kevin someone goes and gets
another job somewhere, like he's out of side, out of mind. True.
Okay, well did you go to churchs this morning? I've told you
I'm not even a CND Catholic anymore. You went somewhere? Let me check
the ingredients on these these throat drops I've been. I've been, Uh,
I need what your dream? I don't know, Steve. I think I
honestly, I think i'd be pretty different because once they're gone there, they're
honestly, I don't really care what what they do or what happens to them.
Well, you're holding the bag of I mean like like, okay,
like we saw the other day that that Kevin someone got arrested for pop I
was like, okay, I read it, I looked at it. I
wasn't surprised, and then I moved on right, I'm not wishing bad things
on the guy, am I am? I will I forever be pissed at
him for what he did here. Absolutely, I'm still pissed at John mcovic.
But you know, uh, if somebody told me John mcovic got a
job at wherever I'm not, I don't really care. I can't let that
stuff in my life, Steve. I have enough grudges. I don't need
any extra words if I if I'm going to take on another grudge, I
got to get rid of one. Yeah, so so that need that would
not rank to give up one of my other grudges. That's just it,
all right. Sticking to NFL news, I don't know if you guys saw,
but the Buffalo Bills fans back at it again, helping shoveling snow out
again again that bat over there still, Yeah, two weeks in a row.
The field was great when they played the other day. Yeah right,
yeah, So the fans they're bad, they're committed. Why would you live
there that I can't Yeah, I don't understand. I people in Buffalo,
and you know who lived there or who has a lot of tiser's Kevin Leeman.
We'll talk to him sometime soon. But the people in Buffalo and Joe
Arsons, what the hell you think? You know what, all day,
all day, I'll go golf in that weather. Are still go golfing in
the weather they have right now? So yeah, but that weather's going to
be huge over there, ye Buffalo casee. That's I think it's probably gonna
be a game of the weekend. I mean, right with all the previous
matchups they've had, and they both playing that stuff, so it's not like,
you know, it's like kind of fair for one, fair for both.
It was it was. It was you know when when Miami went to
Kansas City last week they got no shot and they didn't. Yeah, so
so a big news for this gamepe hopefully we had another good one. But
sticking with the topic of football and moving into college football specifically, Dean Sanders
made a comment today saying, how fifty thousand dollars will get you a walk
on these days? What? How is this money? How is this money?
Where's coming from? Yeah? I mean, you gotta pay fifty thousand
dollars for a walk on? Come on. Maybe he was being sarcastic in
a way, but maybe he's just emphasizing the fact that even walk ons at
this point are something. But just the whole topic of money college football is
is insane right here. The more I hear that, guys, is exactly
why we had Rubio on and and then and coach Lopez on here before.
I don't know if I'd want to coach under these conditions. Yeah, I
mean there's already so much to coaching, and now you throw Now you're a
coach and a general manager, right and have to go out and sign players.
You remember, did you watch your movie Blue Chips? You must a
million times and that was a different situation. Right now, it's like get
them, get them the bag, make sure it has a lot of Diesel
hundreds in it. Get the bag, the bag of money in the track.
We've got to keep them. You gotta keep them happy. And there's
that. Yeah, it doesn't make any say each college sport at some point
is going to need to have a GM to to run the money for their
sport. I mean for nil, especially again if the Charlie Baker thing comes
to fruition where it's the schools that are paying, Yeah, how do they
find that money? And like you said, Ohio State has thirty six sports
with eight hundred students or whatever. It seems to me the only way they're
going to do that is they're gonna have to get back get into the coaching
salaries. Coach is gonna deal with that. They might have to. They
might have to guess what, you know, if you think you can go
get that money somewhere else, go get it. This is all I got
because we got to pay players. Yeah, I mean, there has to
be a way to to put a limit, because I mean the amount of
players on a football roster, and each of them have to guess sort an
amount, right, you'd assume, yeah, or maybe it comes down to,
Okay, we're gonna have our eighty five scholarship players and that's it.
I don't know. I don't know how you manage all that. Yeah.
When when I first started, I mean, the main problem everyone was thinking
about was, well, certain players look at other players and say, well,
I'm as good as this guy. Why am I not getting that?
My initial concern, right, you know, if I'm blocking for sid who's
making one hundred thousand dollars, how much do I want to block? I
don't get nothing? Yeah, you know, hell would you? Then you
get hit see how it feels. I was gonna say something spetter, but
yeah. Sticking with the college football, Ohio State has announced their offensive coordinator
Bill O'Brien. I thought was very interesting stat from him. He spent eight
years with Saban and Bill Belichick and he didn't win a Super Bowl or a
national championship in those eight years. Everybody else did, but not that,
not him. Did I find that a really interesting thing? That h that
Bill O'Brien. I mean, he keeps, he keeps getting great jobs,
and like everywhere he goes, he proves that he was not that good.
He must interview with I guess, yeah, I guess. I guess it's
right up there with the what the Cliff Kingsburg getting? You know? And
did you did you see or listen to Jody Jody Taylor's brand, because he
continued he doesn't shredded him? What he? What do he? He just
went off saying, what the you know, what the hell you do?
It's a complete disaster. The guy is terrible. He was awful with the
Cardinal. I mean it was very long, basically saying, what the hell
are you doing even thinking about this guy? When did you listen to him?
This morning it was, he tweeted it out. I I listened to
the clip on on social media. Yeah, bubbah. Sticking with the college
football topic and transfers, Alabama five star Julian Saying is in the transfer portal
now, so we'll see where he lands. But I mean, like we
said, this is gonna be very common no matter what coach you bring in,
it really doesn't matter at this point. It's up to the player.
And and and I yell too well, I think it's all too though.
Also, a highly regarded quarterback from Washington is now Alabama. So this so
it's funny because the coaching changes have impacted not only coaching staffs at other programs,
but but players all over are transferring now and so replacing each other.
I don't know, we'll see what happens with with this kid, but yeah,
at this point, we don't know nobody, nobody on any roster with
with the new coaches is safe, right right right? And then uh,
we have the topic of Arizona women's basketball tonight and Seattle. Oh did you
see who's gonna be there? Coleman? Right? Coleman and the quarterback Williams.
Yeah, in the game, local kid we'll see. We'll see if
we see if they show up on camera, Yeah, we'll see. If
it's personal tonight for the women's basketball to handle business, Yeah, there in
need of a big road win here. Okay, what else? So,
sticking with basketball and Christian Coloco, Yeah, we talked about him yesterday,
right, Yeah, briefly but yeah, but now now we have more news
about he has a blood caught issue that has impacted obviously his play and and
teams having him on the roster. I was asking about that, like,
if you're injured or something like that, can't you not be waived put you
on the I or something? Yeah? Don't they don't they put you on
some sort of an And who plays for? Who plays for the team?
Does they're supposed to even even when they're no longer with the team. Well,
that's what I'm saying, though, I thought you couldn't get rid of
a guy I don't know over an injury. That's the first thing I heard
last night when when he when they announced that, I thinking, Okay,
now he's hurt, Is he on his own or what? So? I
don't know, I'm not I'm not sure how how it's gonna work out.
But yeah, unfortunate news for him. He had a great career, he
developed. We'll see you at some point. He can let me back.
He would have been he would have been a junior, He would have been
done. This would have left, would have been his lest y. Yeah.
Uh, did it matter that he left, saying it didn't matter at
Arizona? Didn't you right? Right? Right, right? And he would
have got any better, right, He would have been the same he was.
Yeah, exactly, he was lumar Balo. But about one hundred pounds
later. Ye see, and Jake is talking about the basketball team, He's
seen exactly the same thing I'm saying, ballow and they're not playing hides.
Could be if you start developing these habits. Did you see that's about lay
up and dunks that they missed? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was
in my story. Tell you about Brian Peterson. It was. It's horrible,
it's bad, not good all that. You know, who decides if
a shot is a layup? Oh no, never mind, check those numbers,
check those numbers. But it's around the basket. Yeah, yeah,
it's just you know, it's a it's pretty easy. A layup is a
layup, right you're under the basket. You're you're trying to lay it in.
But yeah, that's that's one of my judgment calls when i'm when I'm
putting instead. One of the things that I wish we could see, I
don't know if they have anymore, is the shot clock shut chart where you
have the members shot truck, how the shot truck, how late in the
games? In the game book. Yeah, because we never see those things.
We just can go on and get the game book. They posted pretty
much right after the Internet. Okay, I don't want to use that to
go to the schedule where you get at the game. The game book is
there and that's got the shot chart. Okay. And I'm telling you this
program that we produces everything, and it's got a whole bunch of it's got
a whole bunch of other stuff. The shot chart is. I wanted to
make sure we ended on the most important news, in my opinion, of
the day when it comes to sports and uh journalism. Uh Sports Illustrated had
a huge amount of layoffs today and I wanted to see your guys opinion.
Obviously, you guys have been in this business for for a long time.
It was it was the new York Yankees of journalism or the whatever what you
know, whatever, the best team in it was. That's the you know,
you went, you went it, you went and worked at There's no
daily start because some day you wanted to work in sports illustry. You know,
we we all wanted that. But then it's fans, right. I
mean I was great shorts and they had access that we didn't have access to
the old sports illustriets. Okay, Jay Steven, you deal with the interviews.
We gotta take this guy back, yea, we gotta take you got
it. Sports Illustrated is here, you know. Uh and those guys,
you know, the guys who wrote the guys that the people who wrote for
that were you know, to us, they were celebrities. You know,
you go to a final four or a n C double a tournament and you
see this there's that's the Sports Illustrated guy. So so I sent you because
I told the story that Anthony and I started with them may even about four
or five years ago. So I sent Anthony a note in that time.
I said, see what was happening in s I says, yeah, weird
message. It's a weird messaging though, because if you read the story.
It's kind of gonna be defunct, but not really defunct. Somebody might buy
it again. Blah blah blah. Pat Forty says, not everyone is gone,
and they will still be doing a magazine, which is weird because you're
getting different news from these stories from today. I think that certain people are
going to try to buy it and still kind of do it. But have
you seen it lately. It's like the Sunday Paper. I mean, it's
really thin. I'm just an online subscriber now. I follow a certain writer.
Yeah, Pat Forty being one of those. I read that stuff.
So I'm an online subscriber. But you know I did. I did miss
the magazine. You know, you get on Monday mar Market, right,
you get on my near, the the the the NFL previews and the Major
League Baseball previews that would you would use for your fantasy drafts, all that
stuff. I mean, now, you know we grew up with that.
I remember. I remember. It's funny because remember I bought my dad we
got to get out of here to get I bought my dad a subscription to
Sports Illustrated for Christmas one year. But it was for me. No,
just it's just I bought it because I wanted the magazine in the house so
that Christmas, Hey, get out of the bathroom. I want my magazine
back. All right, we got to hit the road. We're gonna come
back. We've got Yogi Roth waiting for us. We'll talk to him about
the the Brent Brennan higher and uh and the things went on as a relationship.
Backbll what's left of it? So we'll be right back top of the
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dot com to schedule your free evaluation today. Steve Rivera and Jacob Solis they
have their Eye on the Ball on Tucson's sports station, Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
Hey, welcome back to my the bucko Foxworts fourteen fifty. I'm Steve
Rovera. He's Jacob Jawis. We're trying to reach out to Yogi Runt for
our next interview, so we'll get back to you. I hope we didn't
get the time zones mixed up. You know. Yeah, there now an
hour off different from where we are, only three fifteen over there, so
right, but hopefully he'll call here in a couple of minutes. Okay,
So since we're you know, it just came across a. Florida is now
under investigation by the n C double a first of all football for some nil.
Well that's some Ani asked stuff for the recruitment of Jade and Rashata,
remember the kid. Yeah, they allegedly signed a big deal, big nil
deal and then the thirteen card and now he's at ASU. So he wasn't
that impressive as a freshman coming in. I was expecting a little more.
She didn't even play that much. Yeah, I don't know for that money,
I don't know would you get for thirteen million? Not much Okay.
You know, if somebody's gun and says I got ten million bucks for you,
don't you really think, come on, this can have to do Yeah,
this can't. This can't be real. Where you kidnapping me? Uh
yeah, well guess what. The Florida job might be even more open now
than ever. Yeah, exactly, so, I you know, I I
don't know, but uh yeah, Okay, he's at a s U.
So all right, good luck to him. I hope it goes. We'll
see what happens with them. You got to think that there's gonna be a
bunch of ni L investigations, right, Yeah, even when it's legal,
it's not. There's certain things that there's certain intricacies to doing that, right
you know, if in fact Jedfish is over here or his somebody from representing
Washington is over here, you know, telling players they can get X or
they can get that, you know, how do you how do you monitor
that and how do you enforce whatever rules that are because there aren't a lot
of rules. Well, they did say that it's the wild, wild West,
and here we are front and center. Yeah, so I don't know,
I don't know, but yeah, so there and obviously the thing that.
The thing that came up right away was Okay, if if a billion
aper gets fired before the season starts, his Jed go, that's a legitimate
question. That's a legitimate question because who do we have on more? Is
it more? If something happens in the NFL? If Philly the film coach
gets right, what's to prevent him from the money compared to a protein where
the I mean, sure, sure, and you know what you say?
You knew that was a possibility. Yeah, yeah, he tiptoed the question.
He knew that. Funny funny that this conversation would come up, because
I just ran into a tweet that has Jedfish's buyout at at Washington if he
gets hired out before January eighth of twenty twenty five. It's twelve million dollars.
That's all that's between an NFL team's couch cushion, right, yeah,
I mean that that's in the ashtray in the car over there. Do you
know what an astray is? No? Don't holy what do you think?
I asked that was a good chance he was gonna say, summer there used
to be there used to be summer there used to be these little things in
the arm rests of all the cars, or if you're smoking a cigarette,
that's where you dropped your ashes or put your cigarettes, or you can have
them on the coffee table or or no, in the center console of the
car too. Well, but you know what, you plug in your stuff
too in your car. That used to be for cigarette lighters. That's why
I do you have one of those. That's where those came from. Those
are cigarette lighters. So now you win a trivia game some point, go
watch it, Go watch it. Go watch a great scene in this movie
called Man on Fire. But Denzel Washington uses cigarette lighters in a way it's
probably not so yeah, yeah, I remember that interesting stuff. Yeah,
well, well so we'll see. I mean, loyalty is only as good
as yesterday or the day before. Yeah, so he's moved a lot he
used to. But you know what, to tell you the truth we talked
about who called us yesterdya is it? Uh? It was uh Jim Jim.
I thought Jim was correct and both sides could be truthful. But he
came, he did what he wanted to do, He improved the program and
left. Thank you, Thanks ran right, thank you, and let's move
on. Yeah, I'm ready to move on. Yeah, I didn't want
to talk to Yobi Roth about it. I want to talk to him bit
yeah at his future. I mean obviously PAC twelve Networks is no longer.
Yeah. Yeah, see, and he's good. Yeah, so I'm sure
he'll sell somewhere. He's good, he's young, somebody will take him on,
you know. But you know, there's a lot of stuff going on.
We're coming up to the PAC twelve basketball tournament. That's sort of the
I know they do a baseball tournament, softball tournament, but you know,
basketball tournament is the last like major, huge, giant event. Yeah.
You know, I'm thinking that they're probably going to lose a bunch of people
after that, right unless the PAC twelve, of the PAC twelve as it
stands with the PAC two brings in. Well, they did already have the
Mountain West tournament there, right, so yeah, we might have to go
see that too. No, it'll be the same time as there's the Big
twelve five. Well, we just have to save our money to get to
kansasitye to Kansas City. You can't drive there, no, No, I'm
sure we could get it planned away. I like Kansas City yeah, I've
been there once. Well, i've been there. The one thing it was
like forty years ago, but still it was fun. Yeah, great barbecue
there. Yeah, okay, all right, let's go back. Well,
if you guys want to call, we have a still well I don't know,
should we will? No, let's not tie up the fox. We're
waiting for Yoga to call. Must have got tied up with something. So
and if we don't get him today, we'll get him another day. But
we do have Matt Othic coming in at four thirty five because there is a
basketball game tomorrow, basketball game that, under normal circumstances, everybody will be
talking about, right the l and they did beat the issue, They did
the road. Did you see the Bobby Hurley rant after that? How many
texted did they have in that game? Asue five? Five technical falls five?
He was a tony one ten and thought we're the bad guy, the
bad guys. But yeah, but he's he's certainly entertaining, you know.
He see he gets in front of us at the you know, at the
games here Kale and you go, does he converse with you guys? No,
No, no, he doesn't know because the people behind him won't let
him talk about they raged on last year's was classic. Yeah, they rag
on him relentlessly last year. He came back and said he I got you
got it? Did he did? O? Yog? You just uh said,
he'll be calling us here in just a second for a few minutes,
about ten minutes so just about but uh no he uh no, you know
it's it was. It was vintage Bobby Hurley and then he was a lot
like that as a player too. You know, he was always, you
know, very demonstrative on the court. Let me just put it that way,
you know, on the court. So his brother has done a great
job, but he's done very well and they're number one right now. Very
good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know it's uh basically to
see when I SU comes to town this time, because I think Arizona will
be ready for that if they're not. If they're not, Yeah, what's
have you seen a line on the UCLA game for no? In fact,
that's a good question. Yeah, I would assume it's like fifteen sixteen,
given that U s U A didn't cover against you a C and they've been
pretty good at covering teams, especially at home. Yeah, I didn't think
Arizona was going to cover the nineteen too much, too much. I thought
it was too much, and not because I didn't think they're playing well.
I just thought that was too big of a point spread for a PAC twelve
game. Uh, you know, I really, I really didn't think.
I'm gonna check right now. I'm gonna check right now. So anyway,
so yeah, still wait for Yugi Roth here. He should be here any
second. We'll we'll catch him. Just get some some his thoughts on Brent
Brandon. He's very you know, he knows all these guys they run in,
you know, covering West Coast to sports. I think I saw,
you know, like one of the first things he put out was that he
really liked jet Fish and he really likes break. Yeah. Well, these
guys in that their business, they like everybody because they have to. They're
not they're not they're not print journalists. Uh, we'd have to ask you
do you like him? I know I'm talking I'm about I'm asking you did
you like him? At the game? I didn't know. I didn't know
him. I still didn't know him. I told you about my interaction with
him at the dentist because we had the same Dennis, but it was indifferent,
so indifferent, so in different and Jed too. I was just you
know, I didn't ask very many questions. You didn't ask very many questions.
We asked what we asked, and I didn't get attested. And I
think the guys is the star have to because they're the beat guys. But
no, I have to say, I'm I was indifferent. But I mean,
I'm talking about the TV guys because you got a smooth to get the
inside scoop. Yeah, you gotta be able to talk to those guys,
you know, and when you're talking and get what you need to get for
your coverage. Exactly because during the game you said, well, in the
in the team meetings or in the in the coaches meetings, this is what
they told us. No, I hear you, I hear you. Okay,
So all right, I'm gonna try to find that points for okay,
And well, I'm uh, I know what to tell you here with with
Yogi, so he says he said he was gonna call him a moment.
Wait, yeah, because then we have a right out of time if we
have, we got mad Othic coming up, so we can get them.
Why don't you just text him. We will get them on Monday, because
we've got to go to break here in about a minute or so, uh
to get our commercials in and then come back with because it's no rush with
yoga, you know, get them on Monday. Yeah, all types off.
Okay, Okay, you go to the game tour, I assume you
are. Yeah, yeah, I'll be there. I try to go to
most of them, most of the home games here. I have yet to
travel to a game that's on my list though, as well. You better
go to the issue game. You'll get a final ticket. You yeah,
come up with me. Okay, he just he's just right. We'll do
it Monday. Yeah, yeah, all right, that'll be better. Yeah,
we don't we don't want to rush it, right, Okay, I'm
still I'm getting to the point of the game. Maybe not, Okay,
let's go to break. Yeah, okay, well let's let's let's yeah,
let's let's head to the break. We'll come back, we'll have we'll get
to Matt Ethic and Yogi's responding to me here, so we'll get yoga at
four fifteen again on Monday and get you know, maybe some stuff happens over
the weekend, so we'll see it, all right. We'll be right back
Matt othic Uh for your Letterman in Arizona ninety eight, ninety nine, eighty
nine to ninety two. Yeah, eighteen points eighteen. Wow, that's a
lot. All right, We'll be right back with Mattothen. Let's stop.
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the ball on Tucson Sports Big Chef Fox Sports fourteen fifty streaming live. I
mean iHeart radio WAPs. Hey, welcome back to any of the ball here
on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivero. He's Jenkins. Also now
when the fool we have Matt Othic former you wave back pastball players. Matt,
how are you doing? I'm doing great. Good to be with you
guys, and today it seems like you're the motivator guy. Yeah, yeah,
I was. Uh. I got to go to practice today and talk
to the team after. It was great. So what does Matt Othick tell
these guys? Oh, I just talked about that. The team reminds me
of a couple of our teams. They have size, and they have guards.
They they got there, they're the whole package. And you know,
I just talked to him about going after it and staying connected and U you
know, it's it's easy to stay connected when things are good, but when
things get tough, sometimes it's hard to stay connected. I thought that was
really important and and just stuff of that nature, but really just complimented,
you know, the team, and I love I just love the team.
I love this team, I love the coaching staff, and it was it
was a great opportunity for me. How much did you talk about the UCLA
rivalry because you almost feel like, I know, it was kind of huge
last year, but over the years, maybe the last ten years, I
don't know if it's been as intense as it was, you know, during
your time later in the you know, late nineties, early two thousands,
it seems like it's lost some of its intensity, maybe because Oregon has come
along and been better and stuff like that. I don't know. But how
much were you able to, you know, give them about the rivalry.
Yeah, so that's that's how I kind of closed it with the UCLA rivalry
and talked about how Derek Martin hit that last second shot to end the home
win streak and my undefeated at home streak. Right, So that's the only
game I lost in my career was that game. So I asked him to
get one for me. No, that's true. But you know, let's
we've had you on the show a number of times before, but talk about
the circumstances of that game as it pertains to you, because I know,
yeah, I mean, that was a tough one. It was. I
had foul trouble in that game and had four fouls at the end of the
game and ended up not being in the game on the last place. So
that was really tough for me because Derek Martin was a big rival of mine
all through high school and then and and coach actually had Totto Meyer on him
and at that time, Damon was little, you know, he was a
freshman and pretty pretty small, and Martin took him down about twelve feet and
shot right over him and the rest is Historyard. I can still picture Derek
Martin and like just what he looked like when you let the shots go to
the right in front of me, and I'm looking like man, and it
was right right, Yeah, it was in the minute he let it go,
no doubt about that. Yeah, you could see what was going in.
I remember him hopping around the court like a frog, like sticks of
my like a thorn in my side. Keep it keep your So you mentioned
you love this this team. What what do you love about this team?
You know, I think they're really versatile. They have uh, you know,
they've got great quickness and and they also have bigs. They got guys
that can shoot, they can defend. They you know, they really are
they really are a well balanced team. You know, I think people get
a little hung up on on losses in conference on the road. I mean,
it's it's really hard to go on the road and win in conference,
especially you know, they played one one dud game at Stanford and but losing
the game at Washington State was was not a horrible loss. I mean,
Washington State's now playing really well. I think they won three or four in
a row, and so you know you're going to have those moments in conference.
You know, It's just that's why nobody ever goes undefeated, right.
I just think they'll get it together. I think, you know, they
may take one or two more losses, but I really believe in this team,
and I believe that, you know, we can win the Pac twelve
and move on and possibly win a national title. So the coach you mentioned
that, Tommy mentioned that the games will be continue our hopes to continue with
UCLA and the Arizona, but it's been a story career. You must have
been sad when you heard that the PAC twelve is no longer gonna happened,
especially induscible. Yeah, it is. It's it's really sad. It's a
sad I mean, rivalries are what makes sports, and I just I'm not
It's hard to wrap my head around what they're what they've done here, you
know, the centigrating a great conference and it's too bad. You know,
who knows what's going to happen down the road. It wouldn't shock me if
the Fact twelve came back in a few years. Wow. Interesting. Well,
you know, you never know because you know, again whatever the TV,
whatever TV wants to happen, is what will happen. I mean,
put yourself in the Big twelve though, you know, if you're going to
playing you know Kansas and Houston and you know Baylor and Texas Tech and all
the you know these programs that have been you know, at the top of
the at the top of the heap. Uh, you know for quite a
while now, how much fun would that be? Well, I think it's
going to be great, you know, it's just different because they're the rivalries
aren't there. You're you're starting over, you know, like, Okay,
we're playing Houston. They're great, but we've never played them really before.
We've only played them a couple of times in the recent history. So the
games will be great. I mean, they're they're they're great teams in that
in that league. And I still feel it's gonna be difficult for these these
West Coast teams to be traveling all over the place. And uh, I
think it's gonna be hard. It's gonna be hard, you know, more
for some of these other sports than even basketball. It's gonna be crazy for
some of these sports. Yeah. So so we all know the rivalry with
u C. L A. I can't off the top of my head,
I can't remember some of the guys from UCLA who played against you. You
talk about Derek Martin, Uh, there's others. Uh In Tracy Murray,
I can't remember if he was we were talking, Yeah, Tracy Murray,
Don McClain, who was the all time leading scorer in Pact twelve history.
Uh, my senior year. So that was they had great teams at that
time, the great ones before with with Miller and all the other guys got
Zurich. I think it may have been a year time. I can't remember.
But now you you know, you're a southern California businessman, so be
careful what you say here. Are you? Are you still friends? Are
you with friends with any all of them? Are you not friends with any
of them? Or how is that? I am? Yeah, I'm I'm
real friendly with a few of them, very you know, I've known McClain
since high school. Don McClain and Tracy Murray is an unbelievable good guy.
Been friends with him a long time after I left Arizona. I mean I
competed against these guys in high school, so I had prior relationships with them.
But when they were when they were U c. L A. Colors,
I don't like him very much. Well, let me ask you that
because and this goes back. I think even before you got here, you
know, when I was covering the team and the rivalry was huge, you
know then, and I remember I was at I was at Michale, UCLA
was coming in for their shoot around and Arizona was walking on Arizona guys were
walking off the court. So this would have been the I remember, God,
there's a guy I can't think of his name, but smoking. But
you know, they walked on the court and there's some guys are walking off
the court and they're all shaking hands and hugging and saying hey, and you
know, they were all really friendly with each other. I'm thinking, wait
a minute, I thought you guys hated each other and and and they really
didn't talk about those relationships when you're playing against them. Yeah. I was
never that way with I just I'd never I kind of had the Larry Bird
the way he thought like he didn't he didn't make friends with anyone. I
didn't really want to be friendly with anyone until after I was done playing.
Yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense. Who was your Who's your
friendliest guy? Was it Marie Tracy? You know your your friends back then?
I'd say, yeah, probably Tracy Murray. He had a relationship.
He actually played against Wayne Walmack and was really close with him. So I
kind of became friendly with Tracy probably first him and Don McLean. Oh everybody
hated that. Well, he was the he was the villain. If you
remember he he would he talked a lot of maths and uh, but he
could back it up. That guy could back it up. So but we
had some great, great rival great games with those guys over the years because
we I don't think everyone was going to go to UCLA this year and everyone
talks about Paulie and the mystique, but I don't think, I know,
having been there for twenty three years with covering you guys, to me,
it was a mistique. It was just that it was Paulie and it had
all the had all this stuff on the you know, the rafters and all
that. But to me, it was kind of like a stale, stale
situation outside of your game, outside of this game. Yeah, it was.
I never it was nothing like McHale. No, I mean, no
tail was rocking and that place was realiant. You're right, it was pretty
quiet. Some of that could have been we beat him up there most of
the time, so maybe that's why they were quiet. Right. Well,
it's funny because we were having a conversation about, you know, favorite games
in the rivalry, you know, top games in the rivalry. The ninety
two game, you know, the loss was one, the game where Selim
Start hit that eighty foot three pointer was one over a flalow there was the
one in eighty nine in LA where Sean Elliott hit a fallaway jumper at the
buzzer to get it to overtime. Then they won in overtime. Those games
stick out. Which one stuck out for you, even whether you played them
or not. Well, the one that stuck out for me was at UCLA
in ninety one. It was a huge game, and well, yeah,
Brian Williams had a huge game and we were actually down two with five or
six seconds to go. Khalid Reeves drove the length of the floor, tried
to pass it, it got deflected to Chris Mills and he threw it in
at the buzzer and we beat him in overtime. So that one was another
one that was unbelievable, right, with a big win for us that year.
Yeah, you have no question. It's always good to win those huge
games. There's god, there's so many of them, right, yeah,
so many of them, and they won their fair share. Yeah, yeah,
no, they did. I did, but we we got the best
of them through from eighty from when I was there. I think we were
nine and three or eight and three against them. But they did beat my
senior year. They beat us both games. So let me ask you,
because Luke always thought or his his muncha was every game was as important as
the next, nothing was special. But do you really believe that, especially
when it came to this one? You know? Uh yeah, I mean
this game was big. No matter what Lot said or anyone else. When
we played U C. L A. It meant more. You know,
we we did not want to lose to those guys. We wanted to you
know, show them who the boss was in the fact ten at the time.
Yeah, yeah, those less fun. Let me we have some time
here, but I'll be a little selfish. And I know we've talked about
this on the show with you with the book, Uh, you were instrumental
and something that hadn't happened in years was you brought back a Loot and Tarkanian
to be to have a great photo that was in the book and that relationship.
Could you explain how that happened? So I was at the I was
at the Delmar Race track and they just both happened to be there, and
I said, you know, what better time to try and get them together
and see if I can get them to take a picture with me. And
they both agreed and had a nice conversation, so I thought it was a
pretty cool picture. And Cedric Dempsey was there as well, which was was
really cool. Okay, right right, because you know the history there was
three guys, man, it was three huge was you know, they didn't
like each other. They didn't like each other exactly, and you brought them
together. I don't know if they had been friendly up until that point,
but that was a photo after people knowing the history of the two of the
two. Yeah, I think it was pretty cool to be able to bridge
those two together. I respect both of them tremendously, and it was it
was it was a fun, fun day, all right. So so going
into tomorrow, you know, what do you think, what do you want
to see and what do you make of the UCLA program? Now? Yeah,
well I think you know that they're really young and UCLA started slow.
They're starting to play better now, so you know, I just I hope
we I don't think we will overlook Ucla, but I think we're a pretty
pretty big favorite. So I just hope we come out and execute. You
know. I was able to get to watch practice today and I think we're
ready. Yeah. Okay, well that's what people want. It just seems
like it'd been a little sluggish last couple of games. You mentioned the Washington
State game they lost. But you know, I think people kind of expect
that Arizona just runs through the league. And I don't know if the vision
of the league is tainted by the fact that UCLA and USC aren't very good,
but these other teams clearly are better than we think. Yeah, that's
I think that true. I think everyone expected us to walk to the league.
You know, I really didn't as good as we are. I thought
we would stumble in a couple of places. It's just it's just part of
it's part of the game. I mean, it's it's so hard to go
on the road and win every game. It just is. It's it's very
difficult. And you know, they're this this team is still getting better,
and they're they're gonna have some some growing pains, and you know, they
didn't play great in a couple of those games, but I think they're gonna
get it together. They got a great group, and I'm excited about the
future and a big enough game tomorrow to bring you back in town. Seriously,
Yeah, I'm excited to be back in town and yeah, it was
a special day to day to get to talk to the team. No,
cool, cool, Well, thank you very much, Matt, and we'll
see you at the game tomorrow. That sounds great. Guys, have a
great day. Thank you so much. Thanks very much. I appreciate it.
We're still not going to break with come up from a couple of mins
out of here, big game. It just kind of fell on top of
us on this bit. Well again, we've just you know, it's all
been, you know been. But it's a it's a huge game, big
point spread. You he's not very good. I'm if I had to bet
it, I'm not going to take it over under ull. He's gonna come
in fired up that I might go over. Yeah, but likes to slow
it down, you know that. I don't know. They got a score
for you. They got a score. Yeah, I don't know. I
don't know. If you put an ife to my throat whatever, I probably
take the points because that's a lot coming. And as you said, if
you say if if there's not a lot of scoring, it's gonna be harder
to cover the right Let me say we have two minutes here. Tell me
all week we have some good shows where can they find us? Right?
Okay, you can catch us on the podcast. It'll be up there.
Even I'm driving up to Phoenix tonight. I'm going to catch the Eagles at
the Footprint Center. The podcast will get up probably, it'll be up within
the hour after the show. You can catch any of our any of our
shows from this week. We had the nine ten Minutes with Brent Brent Brennan
uh in the first hour today. So go to go to iHeart the iHeart
app I Heeart website, search I on the Ball. Go to Spotify,
go to Apple Podcasts, search I on the Ball and you'll find us.
And you can catch any of the shows that we did this week. And
I would love to hear your thoughts follow us. I have not had were
being every day is a good day. People are listening to every think that
there's a lot of people out there. We even had somebody I had somebody
tech me saying, what's Jake Fisher going to be on Brother? No it
wasn't, but yeah, so you know, any day you can go back
as far back as you want to catch up. Previous shows are just Google
google the name. Can they put a well in the search in the search
on neither of those apps. Search Eye on the Ball and you'll find us
and you see our logo, uh the Iron the Ball logo that is on
there, and you'll we break up the show so you can listen to an
hour at a time. You don't have to put on the whole thing.
U. We we do a little summary of the show in the in the
inext, so you know what's on that in that segment. Well, it's
a good weekend. Thank you for being here. Fun. Yeah, man,
I am hoping by Monday this thing is gone. Yeah. Well well
no, I hope we know something who's going to be coaching a little yeah,
you know, a little piece of me says that, uh T Mac
and Fefida and and and Manu and all the bat football team runs out on
the court and they all say we're staying. Well tomorrow, yeah tomorrow,
we decided to stay. Thanks everybody, Bert, thanks for that catch exactly
throwing dollar bills. Thanks for making a rain on the football players. All
right, we're out here. Have a great weekend, everybody. We hope
you enjoyed the show all week Yogi Roth will be back on Monday, so
we'll get Yogi and we'll get his take on Brent Brandon, uh coming,
uh coming to our ownself. Be back on Monday. Have a great weekend