Steve Rivera and jaygn Salez. They have their eye on the ball on Tucson
Sports Stage Jet Fox Sports fourteen fifty streaming live. I mean, iHeartRadio Wapps.
Hey, welcome back to win the Ball Hero Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
I'm Steve Rivera, He's Javio Moreles. Now we have Kevin breaking news on
the ball, breaking news on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. All right, so
some of our listeners may have heard between the breaks, the Era Wildcats women's
basketball program is going to participate in the twenty twenty four Women's Acrosher Classic.
They're going to join Vanderbilt Cal in Michigan State in the event. All the
games we played in the Akrocher Arena, and that is gonna be the championship
game is gonna be Wednesday, November twenty seventh. Those are like those big
events that you want to see Arizona in. Men are used to doing that,
the women not so much. So that's that's great when we were telling
that they can actually play Cal in the tournament. Let me let me ask
you this because we talk about this for basketball, men's basketball, specifically Big
twelve. Arizona's gonna be in the top three at least that's what we're kind
of predicting. It's gonna be tough. It's gonna be a lot of fun
to be tough. Though. What do the women following in this the Big
twelve? There's some good programs in there also, Baylor, Baylor, you
know, Oklahoma State, Kansas now better, Kansas is better. Kansas State
obviously not as as you know, I highly thought of as the Pac twelve,
but there's still some competitive programs in there. So if they finish top
five possible. I think it's possible. Especially with who they have coming back,
the core of what was that team that made it to the NCAA Tournament,
I think they do have a really good chance to finish top five and
the Big twelve. The Wildcats track and field team is going to wrap up
their season at the outdoor NCAA Championships at Hayward Field, Oregon's campus. Uh
This will be starting to Wednesday, June fifth, and ending Saturday, June
eighth. There are six tickets for the Wildcats that they've punched so far.
It's going to be Sir Jonathan Simms, Jan Vasquez, and Trayveon White,
Austin as well as the men's for by one hundred team that made the championship.
I'm upset with I'm upset with my parents not naming me, sir sir.
Yeah, isn't that like something? There was a football player here,
yeah, right, yeah, his whole name, but I remember and then
I know you guys want to talk about a little bit about the Brian Peabody
basketball camp. It's gonna be going on for the next four four weeks there,
Yeah, four weeks. Peabody of PEMA have your nos all about it.
He's close to that program. Yeah, he he's He's going to have
it four weeks. It started today. There's four sessions. Uh, every
week is Monday through Thursday. So the sessions that's going on now is going
to go through the Thursday, which is a sixth and then you have next
Monday, the tenth of the thirteenth, and the following week seventeenth to the
twentieth, and then twenty fourth to twenty seventh. There is information to register
for it. You have to go to just hoops dot org or email Peabody
at Peabody Hoops at gmail dot com. I coach at Giago or I have
coached at Geya Goo Intermediate. So I coached like fourth and fifth grade players
and I took them to this last year and it's unbelievable how much they learn
and how much they go over and it's like boom boom boom, boom boom.
There's no there's not a lot of breaks. It's like we're going from
one drill the next. And I think a lot a lot of the kids
like that and it helped them out. I think I think if you,
if you're a coach of a youth team or your parent of a youth player,
you should check it out. Because Brian Peabody, he's been a success
there at PEMA with the way his teams. What are the things that Ali
Skagg said that I don't think people know enough about. And it's kind of
like we go well with Richard and all that. How do you become a
better player? Repetitive it's all motion, proper mechanics, bay well, but
going to the motions all repetitive and repetitive, repetitive. You can't get tired
of doing the same thing a number of times. Ground Balls. I know
when I played, my dad was hitting me ground balls constantly. I couldn't
hit it worth a lick, but because he didn't pitch to me, but
his ground balls ground balls, ground balls under different circumstances. And that's how
you become better. The more you play, the better you are. And
that's why games And you know this. I'm sure Candre was this philosophy too.
You get you win games on Saturday, you win them Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday from the stuff you learn and the work you
put in. It's the ten thousand hour O right to give me, explained
Malcolm Gladwell, he has I forget the number of hours too fancy for me.
It's like a said number of hours that he believes if you spend ten
thousand hours doing anything, you'll become a master at that thing. Ten thousand
hours playing makes sense, ten thousand hours knitting. Yeah, shooting a basketball
is one of those things. Do you have to do it properly? Yes,
you know what I'm saying. I believe part of it is doing it
with intent and like you know, yeah, well, let me tell you.
Like Jim Purick. You've seen him hit the ball right, his his
strow, his swing is like horrendous, but it's his swing and he's fantastic.
Does that make sense? So he must have done that ten thousand hours.
Yeah, like Sean Marion the same thing. Yeah, with a shot,
with a shot. Yeah, yeah, you know it's it's uh,
it's like Mike be A. Remember when we covered the team, like sometimes
the late at night I at Michel Center for whatever reason, we were there
outside him and Josh he was just shooting the ball, shooting and who knows
how long they were there. Yeah, that's what it takes. Yeah,
yeah, can't be tired. No, I don't want to do it.
No, you gotta do it. Yeah, well if you want to be
good, yeah, it wan't be great. Yeah, justin Jefferson and the
Vikings, I finally agreed to a contract with the terms being four years.
When one hundred and forty million dollars and yeah it's it's the highest paid non
quarterback contract in NFL history with one hundred and ten million dollars guarantee you.
And then we have a padres infielder by the last name Marcano. I'm not
going to do him a disservice by attempting his first name. They believe that
he is actually facing a lifetime ban from the MLB for potentially placing bets on
the Pittsburgh Pirates, a team that he played for last season when he was
injured with a torn a cl he made some bets and that sportsbook reported to
the MLB, and now they're looking and investigating into that he was with the
team. Correct, he majored on the Pirates, who he was signed for
at the time, and he was on the al kind of like a Pete
Roase thing. He bet on his own team. Correct. These guys are
are told numerous times not to do that, right, I mean, you
have to think every time before the spring training starts out, either a meeting
or manual or it's you know, hit into their brains enough where you don't
do that. And I just don't understand why somebody would take a risk on
their whole career over something like that. It's just I hope, I hope
something happens where he's cleared of it. For the reason it's not it's not
confirmed yet, right still, Yeah, So I just hate to see a
young guy throwing his career over something like that. Yeah. The same thing
with John Taey Porter in the NBA, kind of throwing away what could have
been a seven figure eventual earnings for him. For I believe it was like
two hundred thousand dollars or eighty thousand dollars he would make it on these bets.
So yeah, it's really curious decision making. Yeah. The twenty twenty
four college baseball super Regionals have been set u with Florida just winning their most
recent matchup about an hour ago. I believe, so state one. Yeah,
so of the sixteen seeds, how many events? How about about what?
So we have we have number one Tennessee versus Evansville, number two Kentucky
versus number five teen Oregon State, number three Texas A and M versus Oregon,
number six, Clemson versus Florida number eight Florida State versus Norman Regional winner.
So there's still two games I believe that are that are unresolved, the
Norman Regional and the Chapel Hill Regional. LSU is playing North Carolina? Is
that okay? The North Carolina say three three seats, four seeds, four
seat okay? Because you didn't do the four or the five? Who's the
five seed? Who's the five seed? Because you didn't mention the five?
Yeah, there's I think they're still in competition. This this is just the
list of the matchups for the next round that I'm looking at here. But
yeah, it looks like it looks like there are only one, two,
three, currently three teams that have made it through that are unranked or at
least not numbered by the It's gonna be interesting if L s U beats North
Carolina, then West Virginia play L s U. I think most likely at
L s U right, even though both teams aren't aren't seeded. This has
happened before, I don't know. Yeah, where both teams win and again
and they beat or they come out of regionals where the team is or another
the host was was the seed. So how many do you know? The
sixteen season? Is Arizona the only one that has that? Wake Forest lost
they were a seated team. Okay, they lost the day before Arizona,
the day of Yeah. Yeah, so Vanderbilt was not a seed, no,
because it got to be two. So I'm just curious because Arizona Arizona
obviously needed to get not needed to, but but it was good enough to
get to the next round, and they were seated well enough to get to
the next round. Yeah, it looks like Oregon won the Santa Barbara Regional,
so they weren't They weren't seeded. Evansville won the Greenville Regional, they
weren't seeded, and Florida won't beat Oklahoma State and they were four. Five.
There's five. There's Kansas State in the out of the fayv of THEE
Regional, West Virginia out of here, out of Tucson, Oregon out of
Santa Barbara, Evansville out of Greenville, and Florida out of Stillwater. Yeah,
okay, what else you got? Caitlyn Clark is the w NBA's Rookie
of the Month. Okay, yeah, I don't know. Maybe well Reee
has done fantastically well. So it was a brink, right, is id't
brink? Yeah? Yeah, it's hard not to pick Caitlyn, but Caitly,
I'm calling her by her first name. But did you see the game
of the weekend? You got more stuff? I don't have any that was
okay, So let's go kind of go there if you want. I'm gonna
mention the McAfee. I saw that this morning or heard that this morning.
What did you make in the weekend game? And I saw it out of
curiosity in the w n b A. Yeah, I did not catch it.
It was where she was bumped and I saw the foul. I did
not catch the game. Yeah, what did you think? And how do
you think they're treating her? And you can just be careful what you say
because we don't need anything. I've been I've been talking about this with my
friends all year. I think I think you're saying kind of like a similar
I think it's unfair what some people are saying, where some people are putting
this in a way where it seems like the whole league is again it's Caitlin
Clark. All the players hate her, and you know they're all jealous,
which I don't think is true. I don't think. I don't think that.
I think some people are saying that about the situation, which is not
fair. They're generalizing. I think in reality, we're seeing a situation similar
to when Lebron entered the w A or the NBA. Certain players took it
personally because either he's taking minutes from them or money from them, or that's
how they see it. And so yes, they're going to have a little
bit of envy in that way, but that's probably like a handful of players
throughout the entire league, and so I think that it's a miss it's a
it's a it's a miss communication. I feel like between the media and the
players and well being in the media. A new Javier, we know that's
possible because she's great for the game. I think anyone that loves basketball knows
that, and so I think it'd be a small small number of people that
are envious of her. Can we can we not generalize it to I agree
with you, but let's move it to like real life stuff. You have
this hotshot person coming into your company, and you have people who have been
there a long time, and I've seen it where or the people that have
been there a long time resent the new kid on the block and treat them
like crap, like crap because well, you didn't earn your chop, you
didn't earn the lead. It took me forever to do this. So it's
not just in sp and I see it a lot in sports, but I
see it in real life too, just where. And it's an envy thing,
it's a jealousy thing. Just do your job, I mean, just
do your job and shut up and watch watch them thrive. I mean,
what's the It's not affecting you. It's like a Karen you know, well,
he's pantence to your world before you start worried about other people's worlds.
Yeah. I think she's so much in the public eye, so much of
a person that's like carrying this image and people's like the media and people say,
well, she's she's she's the one that's gonna make the w n B
a great And here you have these players who've been in WNBA the last few
years, some of them like more than ten years, and they see that
and they're like, well, what about us? We sure we had great
calls? Real quick? How you're in the air on the ball. Hey
buddy, it's Rick. How are you. I'm good. How are you
doing. We're doing fine? What you got? What you got for us?
Got about a minute? All right. First of all, I think
all these players that may are being hard on Caitlin they would love to have
her on her team. Number one and number two is you know what you
said it earlier. There's a little bit of newcomer and be coming out.
But what she's done is she's elevated everybody's else's opportunity to have a better play
of living, and she's gonna get knocked around and she's gonna give it back
and by next year all this stuff will be blown over. I totally agree.
I think over time it's gonna go too much out of everything. Yeah,
no, I totally agree with Thank you, Rick. No, I
agree with that in time, and it'll eventually say, and you know what's
gonna happen, Like we see other people in businesses, Oh my bad.
Yeah, sorry for treating you so badly. It was a flake or foul
we're talking about. This is a commotion about it. One flagrant foul.
And I know there's a lot of physical play involving Kaylyn as well. But
the big situation with the Chicago skyplayer, I believe it's it's a hip check.
Yeah, it's a hip check. And so it's Caitlin Clark and that's
the story. And there was video before that of looked like Caitlyn was kind
of clearing her out with her with her elbow. She didn't really elbow,
but she was clearing her out. Here's the other and then she says something
up the court when she was run up to the court. But still,
I mean, you know that doesn't you know it doesn't, doesn't You know,
it shouldn't end up with somebody hip checking you. Sure, it should
just be cooler heads prevailed. But their competitors, No, you're on the
money with that, and that's what they do. They compete. Yeah,
and they want up, you know, mark their territory in terms of don't
mess with me here because this is what I do, right, yeah,
yeah, yeah, we'll talk more about this on the other side. We
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I mean, iHeartRadio Act. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera
and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. Hey, welcome back, joining
the ball hero Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, He's Tabo Moreles
and now on the phone, we have Michael Live from the Arizona Daily Star.
Michael, how are you. I'm doing fine. How are you guys?
Fine? Let me just go straight to the question, what the hell
happened this weekend? Yeah, of course, I mean that's what everybody wants
to know. Regarding Arizona baseball, a very disappointing ending to the season.
Kind of those games kind of felt like those Oregon State games first two of
that series a little bit, where they just didn't go flat. They didn't
do anything very well. I think that, you know, getting off to
a bad start in both games kind of staff their energy and confidence a little
bit, even though I mean they had proved throughout the season that they could
rally from from any deficit. There were some key plays in that first game
that they they had gone the other way. Guys, had you know,
made better decisions out there in the field that might have been a different story,
but it was not. Just wrote a column for publication today talking about
expectations, you know, and at the beginning of the season they were low.
By the end of the season they were high. And I think depending
on how you look at it is how you feel. Yeah, yeah,
it's a good yeah. No. In fact, I guess I'll have to
read the column, and I don't know if this will spoil spoiler alert,
but when you go back and you go on to grade the season overall,
start to finish, how would you do that or what would you give it?
Yeah, I would say maybe like a B plus something like that.
I mean, look, they're picked to finish ninth in the conference. Okay,
I mean take those preseason coaches pulls for what there was, but that's
what people thought of them, right. I think D one Baseball in their
season three view had Arizona finishing ninth in the conference. They won the conference,
you know, I mean, they won the FACT twelve regular season,
they won the FACT twelve tournaments, they earned the right to host the regional
So in that context, I would say great season, right, But they
set a standard during the year. They raised the expectations with their play,
so in the context of kind of how the season ended, where they were
positioned, it is disappointing. Uh. You know, if you just looked
at, you know, like what was expected of them as a host with
the record that they had, you'd probably give them a you know, a
D right or D minus. But I'm trying to look at the big picture
here of the entire season, what was expected them from them from the starts
as well as you know, like, what is this like a positive step
forward type of season for the program? And I would have to say it
was, Yeah, I agree with you on on all those points. One
thing, and then the eight walkoff wins that that kind of rose the well,
the the fan interest level, and yeah, expecting like they're going to
do a walkoff win almost every week. But you look, you look at
that they want eight of them. They could those they could have went the
other way too, right, So that so they they were playing on the
on the on you know, on the edge there and they were able to
win those games. Pitching was a big difference as the whole year with three
guys being first team All Conference selections, and then the pitching kind of just
didn't wasn't there in the in the Tucson Regional. Like you you pointed out
in one of your story about their walk totals. Just why do you think
that? Why do you think that happened in that case where they're the pitching
kind of let them down a little bit or failed them in the Tucson Regional.
Yeah, well, I mean the walk total in the first game was
an absolute outlier. They had not It's like that pretty much the whole season.
The example I gave on social media was Dawson Nests had three walks the
whole season, and he walked the only two battery face the last two battery
season. Well have face. As a collegiate player, someone who's made I
think eighty nine appearances in Arizona uniform, it's a bummer for him to go
out like that. You know what is it? It's probably nerves, it's
pressure, it's facing really good teams that have disciplined hitters who know how to
take a good at that. So it's all of those. And then with
Cam Walky the next day, I mean, he only walked one batter,
which is about part for the course for him, but he also gave up
a home run two home runs, right fact, and you know, like
Arizona really had not given up a lot of long balls. Season hadn't proved
a lot of pitches, you know, right down the middle for hitters to
take out of the park and invade themselves. The Wildcats did not hit a
lot of home runs. Crazy stats where you they lasted a home run Hary
corbet Field on April thirtieth. Eight straight games Yaro home runs in their home
park. If you're not getna hid for hour Bridge, which they didn't really
do this season either. They were under two eighty for the first time since
nineteen ninety four. Got you gotta compensate for that with power or stolen basins
or something, and so there really wasn't a lot of life to that offense
towards the end, right, I think Mason White hit that walk off home
run against UCLA. Was that the last one or close the last one?
I think it was the Grand Camp I think it was Grand Canyon on that
twenty four to eight game. Actually, really Garan Caulfield hit a home run
in that game. That was the last one. I mean, they hit
a lot, you know, they hit a bunch on the Arizona Utah Road
swing. They hit some at the Pactoral Tournament. But you know, they're
not hit any your in your home park for that many games in a row.
I mean that sounds like as much of a statistical anomaly as anything,
but it's also indicative of an offense. That was the way I put it
in the column was like, never great, this even at least by Arizona
Standard. So you know how fans are, You know, they know what
they know, and they follow it at the end when things are going very
well. When you saw that the regional would be these four teams, and
Joe Blow, who doesn't really follow it, Look, okay, West Virginia
and West Virginia, what do they know about baseball? Grand Canyon, we
should be beating them even though we're losing to them. And then Dallas Baptists
a smaller school, but they're a baseball school, and people who don't know,
and then you're thinking, and then you're thinking, if you're just a
normal fan, you're thinking, how did these two teams beat us? Well,
Michael, I think even some of the coaches said that, yeah,
that was the region of death. Yeah right, yeah, if you look
now, RPI, we are not in love with RPI as a metric,
but it is a way of kind of comparing the team side by side right.
If you look at the rpas and heading into the region, Dallas Baptist
was seventeen fourteen spots higher than Arizona, so they easily could have posted a
regional right and West Virginia was thirty seven, so they were only six spots
behind, and they were a three seat, so we had one of the
highest two seats and one of the highest three seats. West Virginia went nineteen
and eleven in the Big Twelve this year, even though they missed were missing
their star player JJ Weatherholt for like a month of the season with a hamstring
injury. And on top of that, Grand Canyon you could argue to be
was like the worst four seed they could have possibly faced them because Grand Canyon
did not care. We was not going to be intimidated by facing Arizona because
they faced them all the time, not going to be affected in any way,
shape or form by the weather. They play in practice in that weather
all the time, and they know the dimension at High Covid Field because they
played down here all the time. So you put all those things together and
it was a very difficult challenge for Arizona that they obviously were not up to.
That mean, uh, you know, I think D one baseball,
right, it is the toughest regional in the in the nation, proved to
be. Yeah, and then Steve has a question for you about some of
the peripheral little stuff. Oh yeah, okay, okay, So so I
don't cover games like you know anymore. You cover them a lot. Levin
and Javier was there your theory. Javier is one of the theories. One
of the things that he came up with that there may have been too much
pressure playing at home. You have your home fans. Uh, you have
your your field. Uh, there's a you know, you've got these teams
coming in, and maybe there was some factor it fixed me upon wrong.
It's just the fact that they you know, they're coming off two weeks in
a row, they win a walk off, huge walk off wins, and
then they're coming home, they hearing about how great there are the family,
their families are all there there. I just felt like, and it's a
huge crowd if they're not used to that. I mean, they're just a
big crowd, but not an eight thousand plus crowd. And I just think
that kind of they laid an egg. If there was a factor to that,
Yeah, I just thought that for some reason they couldn't match that.
That use that word again, that expectation going into that scenario is that do
you think there's something to that? I think that it's a good theory.
They definitely played tight, right, They didn't seem to have their usual like
verve and energy. And again I think a lot of that had to do
with getting off to a slow start. You fall behind in the first inning
in both games. You know, it kind of affects affects your psyche a
little bit. But I would I guess my accounter argument would be this is
this is what they wanted. Yeah, exactly, that's exactly what they wanted.
Like they wanted to be at home. Uh, they love playing at
High Corbett. There. They get to use their weight room, they get
to use their own you know, batting facility, they get to sleep in
their own beds, all of those things. It should have been a huge
advantage for them, and it was not. And again, when you look
back at this season, that's one of the things that you end up being
disappointed about is that they did all this work. The things that they wanted
and then they couldn't take advantage of thee Yeah. No, I totally agree,
totally agree. Look at look at West Virginia that they come from all
the way across the country and they I mean that that's a good team and
they handled their business. They took care of business. I didn't see very
many flaws in that team. You know, they're not playing at home,
they're playing away. They never got a test to play Arizona here this is
this year. Let me let me ask you if I can, because you
guys know Chip and you guys spent a lot of time with him. Was
he in his demeanor? He's a good guy, right, he doesn't really
show his emotions or maybe I'm wrong, I'm thinking too much. How was
he? Was he disappointed? Was he? What was he? And and
you saw the internet, you know all the Twitter and blah blah blah that
people were saying, you know, what the hell I mean, fire fire
trip, which makes no sense, But your thoughts on that, Yeah,
that's a common refrain comes to Chip. But a lot of people just didn't
like to hire from the get go because they thought it was sort of an
easy way out. Just hired an Arizona guy who won't leave Ester J.
Johnson left. Doesn't have any college experience, and there really isn't much he
can do to change those people's minds except go to the College World Series.
Maybe he even has to win the College World Series to completely win them over.
But he, you know, he's pretty steady. His demeanor doesn't change
that much. You guys, gets frustrated at times. There are times in
his post games, well press conferences or interviews where he's a little bit short
and you can tell that he's perturbed and not happy with the team. He's
actually been I think better about that the last two seasons than he was the
first year. I think the first year he wasn't used to how quickly he
would have to talk after the game, like maybe there was a longer runway
when he was in pro ball. But I think Chip has done a great
job and he's proved to be more adaptable then you might have thought for someone
who's, you know, nine fifty nine turning sixty. He he changed the
pitching coach and he's working behind He's been working behind the scenes and getting nil
going for baseball. So I think he's a very open minded and smart guy,
and I really truly think that he will figure it out. His recruiting
class ranks for the next two years are pretty darn good. I think they're
twenty four class's ranked twenty ninth by Perfect Game, so to me, the
ears pointing out Yeah, Like you said, though, postseason is going to
be a big factor with him because they have lost five in a row under
him, right dating back to the Coral Gables, and they haven't been close
losses most of them. So I think he's going to have to go have
a deep run, go to the World Series, and like you said,
even win the World Series, and there has to be multiple trips for people
to actually believe that he's the right higher. I think. Let me ask
you this, Michael, the core fans. You know how you have your
Arizona basketball fans, you have your football fans, and they're rabbit and they're
crazy, whatever. What's the baseball fansom like, Because if you have a
lot of people saying Chip's not the right guy, or is it just a
you know, smattering of fans or is it a big group, It's hard
for me to tell. My followers. Some of them are really smart,
some of them get it. They understand how baseball works. They have some
perspective on like the history of this program, and other people just they just
they wear their hearts on their sleeves and they get mad when they don't win,
and they have certain ideas about effort and things of that nature that I
think are way off face. This is not an issue of the guys aren't
trying hard or that they don't care. Is baseball is hard, and you
know, the deeper you go, the hard quality of opponents your face and
you know sometimes you know you don't have it for a couple of days in
a row, and that's all it takes. Right you drop out of the
postseason. But I agree with you on your overall premise that now established himself.
Now it's all about the NCAA tournament. How far can you get in
the NCAA tournament is how you're going to be judged, right, which is
a sad way to look at it, But that's too sodden. That's kind
of sports everywhere you are. So okay, Michael, thanks to look forward
to your column tomorrow. I guess it's competing tomorrow or will be online today.
It will okay, okay, will please check it out. Good by
to the points that I just made, but some additional ones as well.
Great. Thank you, Michael, appreciate you. Thanks Michael. Thanks.
Let's go to break and come back and talk more about all this on the
other side. 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 Ludelsen
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team security dot Net, breaking down all the excess at alls. It's Steve
Rivera and Jagin Salves. This is I on the ball on Fox Sports fourteenth.
Hey, welcome back to ying Thebaull Hero Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm
Steve Rivera's he's Javier Morales and we got a guy Kevin with us today.
Oh, we're going to take some calls. We've got fifteen minutes five two
oh four, one, six, seventy four forty. Got a good call
from Rick earlier. I thought he hit his points perfectly, But I thought
about Lev's stuff. I'm looking forward to seeing his story because I kind of
agree. I'm kind of in agreement with all you said, and in your
observation you kind of paraphrased it differently, and I like how you said it,
yes the second time where it was just kind of maybe not distractions,
but I mean because it happens, it happens. Yeah. Oh your talking
about in basketball when they play on the the West Coast. Yeah yeah,
yeah, where they have you know, families there and all that stuff.
Yeah, I I'll agree with you to some degree. I didn't at all.
But I kind of agree with you. I just think that it was
just like a perfect storm the expectations, Like Michael lev was talking about playing
at home, crowded, a large crowd. Let me give you this one
great teams or and you can give me a one scale of one ten.
Or maybe they just weren't good enough. I don't think they're I don't think
that was the case, because they they did win the PAC twelve regular season
in conference tournament, so they're they're they're a good team. But I mean
you're talking about not good enough against the other three teams over here. Yeah,
to get through this, Yeah, I can see that where you can
see that Dallas Baptists might have been a better team. West Virginia definitely.
Grand Canyon has their number. I think they went for last six games right
at High Corpet So yeah, in that sense, yeah, they might not.
They might have been the fourth best team out of that field, right
And guess what. Sometimes that happens. Yeah, you know my guy vic
Vic who jokes with me every now and again, but it's sometimes serious.
You know, Uh, these guys should be better or whatever. Sometimes you're
not the best looking guy in the room. Sometimes you get into the room
and you're not the best looking guy. Just how it is. And we're
talking about it. How how many day? Like a three day span?
Yeah, you know I'm much gonna happen in three days that might not be
expected. Let's take this call. You're in the air, eye on the
ball. How's it going? This is Brian, Brian. I was at
the games, all the games this weekend. Give me an explanation. What
did all happen? Our weaknesses finally showed. You know, we weren't a
great hitting team. And you know, this team could not pile up the
runs like the teams that we saw. And we you know, if we
have to play from behind for three four runs, we're in trouble. And
that happened immediately in all the games. You know, we got behind quickly
and we don't have the offensive power or whatever to come back and win a
game. Yeah. Now, if you watched, if you watched a lot
of the at bats, I wouldn't quite call on quality at bats. Swinging
a lot of bad pitches, taking a lot of pitches. I don't know
how many strikeouts that were in the in the Saturday morning game, our Saturday
afternoon game, but there was a lot and a lot of a lot of
looking strikes. Brian, let me ask you, because you follow sports and
you and you're you're well spoken about it in the disappointment category, tell me
about that for you. Well, it's it's it's always disappointing because the team
you want didn't win. You know, we we we we got what we
wanted. We got the home regional. But if you would have watched this
team all year long, I mean you look at our last five or six
home games we played at High Corbett, we got hammered and for of those
losses, the two Oregon State games and the two tournament games, we got
to be bad. And if we couldn't keep the game closed with our pitching
staff, there was no chance we were going to win a game. We're
not outslugging people, right. That was a great point that lev had,
Like the last eight home games and the home run they had some time we
hits, but they didn't have any hits or one thing. Yeah, yeah,
you know what, And if Mason White doesn't hit home run, that's
kind of sad. The smallest guy that one of the smallest guys in the
team is your power guy. Yeah, yeah, he's he's legitimate. I
mean, I mean you watch people some of our supposedly physically bigger guys,
you know, just weren't big power hitters. And one thing too, I
know, like Tommy Splain had a difficult time this year, but one thing
two people have to remember remember last year he was surrounded by a lot of
great hitters on that team last year. Yeah, well, and so it's
it's it's when you don't have that kind of hitters around you, you don't
get those pitchers anymore. Yeah. What I thought was interesting in the very
first day of the press conferences, West Virginia was up there and one of
the players said, they don't have Chase Chase Davis anymore? Do they?
So they even they even know that, like he's not on the team,
that that he's he's the guy that they were thought of last year when they
were here, But he's not there anymore, don't They didn't think about a
player in that category. So did you hear the interview with Dulan lev Or
No? Yes, I okay, So so give me a grade front to
back, front front to Now how was it the season? Oh? You
know what I thought? I thought it was an excellent season. I mean
this if this team was picked to finish ninth in the conference, you know,
we had no idea where we were going to be. We wanted a
new pitching coach. We've run all new pitchers. Basically, our our lineup
turned over with with graduation and people being uh uh going in the draft last
year. So I think, you know, anywhere in the top two or
three would have been great for me. But they wound up winning the conference
and the tournament. I mean, it was a very successful year. Now
the thing that Chip has to do was try to find more pitching because he
lost his three studs, and also try to figure out where am I going
to find some hitting? So you're so now that yeah, and now Steve's
going to open up his wallet this summer for the ni L then get some
players here. I can't even I can't even spell N I L, So
you're not, you're not. And then someone spotted me the N and the
LU. So you're what do you think about Chip? The right guy?
The good you know? Yeah, I mean, you know, to me,
he's fine. I mean he's been to the tournament is three years,
Okay, I know, Jay Johnson got to the World Series twice, but
that first time basically was the players from that Lopez had you know and so,
and then after a few years and built back up. And it's so
hard to judge it now because of this nil that. You know, it's
it's every year is different, you know. It's like I said last week,
every sport is going to be a crap shoot every year. Yeah,
the rosters are going to turn over fifty sixty percent. That's unfortunately the way
sports is now, right right, Well, Bill, thanks for the call.
I appreciate you, thanks for listening. Yeah, so, so you
guys, you guys, and I like it that people, well he had
the previous coaches and I think that we I've heard this before. You know,
he had add these ship had Ship had Johnson's blah blah blah. Don't
you still have to coach? Coaching matters, right, They got to play
hard for you to believe in you. You still got to coach, whether
you have how many teams have you covered where you saw some pretty good talent
but it sucked, Right, It's like Steve. It's like Steve Kerr.
Steve Kerr. And if you guys say, well, I could coach that
team. No, you can't guess what because you have to deal with a
bunch of personalities, and you know how difficult it is to coach a bunch
of personalities. It ain't easy. No, Steve has been at it so
long, Steve Kerr that he knows what to do in certain situations, and
he's a people person. He understands the dynamic of people. So Chip has
to do these things. And you talk about a da bringing in new people,
all of them have to have these people skills and be a pretty good
coach because it's constant turnover. I think that he has learned. Now she's
still what seven eight years now your tenure, so I think she's learned learn
how to handle that situation of coming off to the National Championship appearance, on
how to handle players and how to how to address the exactly because I think
she's learned a lot over the last three or four years, so I think
she knows more what to do. Uh. Chip Hale is like, like
Michael lev point out, he's he's he's this is his first time as a
college coach, so he's he's adapting. He's getting some good assistant coaches,
which any good coach will get a good assistant coaches. One one complaint that
I laugh at is, uh, Chip Hale's lucky he's got a good pitching
coach. Well, guess what. He's the one that hired that pitching coach
and he relies on that pitching coach to do what he has to Do's saying
these things. You you can see it on Twitter all the time, like,
oh, he's he's lucky that they got Kevin Vance. Well, he's
hired Kevin Vance. He put him in a position to get make them successful.
I don't know any thanks for calling. You're on the air is done.
You must have gone to the game too. I saw you on Twitter?
Or did you? Actually no, I didn't make it out this weekend.
I was going to. I think I mentioned last week I said I
called him when I first saw on Twitter that they were sold out game,
which was awesome to season. But you did you did comment on Twitter about
something. I think that Chip is the right guy. You know a lot
of people there, a lot of people are chirping. But Chip has been
making the adjustments year by year. You know, he went on he got
him, he got him a pitching coach. That that I think better suits
the way he wants to do things. It's just a matter of getting the
hitting and getting more pitching now. But I think Chip is the right guy
only because I don't think there's another job that that Chip is gonna want.
He has a house here as long as he wins. And and like,
like you asked, Brian, if this hes In was a success, you
know, I go what Brian says. You know, we don't know what
we were going to have. I think we lost him. We lost him,
call back, we got to We've got some time. So yeah,
yeah, coaching matters. I think he does a great job. He's a
good guy. I think the guys play hard for him. And who would
have thought this right? Who would have thought this to this point? Uh,
he's he's mister U of a baseball too. I mean, let's not
forget that he was. He was Kindle's favorite, you know, favorite player.
A lot of a lot of the former players would acknowledge that that he's
he's mister U of a baseball. He wears he has red and blue in
his blood. He and he's he wants Arizona to be successful. He's very
determined. I was in the press the clubhouse. Last week when they had
the selection show, he was walking around like like expecting father in there.
He knew it was going to be in the in the tournament, but he
was he's so driven to want to have this, this program be successful.
Yeah, and his parents, his players pick up on that. Sure he
was. He talked to the players. They they they they get along with
him. I think I think he's a good hire for Arizona. I think
he's gonna do better as he goes on, just like a deal will do
better as she goes on. Yeah, don you got to cut off.
So if you want to give us a quick call back, we have a
minute or two to take another call. Anybody who wants to call on you
can five to two zero four one six seventy four forty. And to me,
coaching matters. Obviously talent. Talent's a big thing. Obviously you win
with players, but it's not always the case where some of the best teams.
Look look at the NBA right now. The best team out there has
probably been all year is Boston. Minnesota is there. They think they were
a four seat or something like three or four seat And it's not always a
case where talent gets you there, no, and there There is a legitimate
concern about him recruiting because he doesn't have a college recruiting background Chip Hale,
but he's been able to hire coaches that can recruit, like Trip Couch and
like Kevin Vance. Is a young guy, relatable, and I think Chip
knows scouts through his major league background, his extensive major league background. So
I think some people have to just give him some time and don't be so
you know, you know, not giving enough time to prove himself as a
recruiter. He's only this is only his third year. So let me.
It's only to ask you this because I asked have the same thing. So
we know the basketball fans how they are? You know, I love you
until they don't. Football, it's kind of we don't know who they are
loyal, but they're not a baseball A baseball what's the loyalty factor? If
you have ten guys, how many of them really care about you? A
baseball In a sense, I kind of lost to train of thought to ask
you the question. But they're not all they're all loyal. There may be
seven seventy percent percent because it's a it's a different group. I don't know
any I don't know anybody, no one, no one. I don't think
it's ever asked me, just even knowing who I am. How's the baseball
team gonna look? Never? I get that mostly about basketball, basketball,
and to a degree, some women's basketball, but yeah, I don't.
I don't get that for baseball. But who are all these people we saw
we saw Friday? Yeah? Were they familiar faces? I couldn't see.
You know, I don't Lev goes a lot more games than I do.
I can't. I couldn't recognize a lot of the people that were there because
there were so many people there. No, I think I think the people
get on the internet and all that stuffy. They're just kind of fans for
the moment and want to just talk a lot of crap. Right, And
they're there, since they have a keyboard from they know everything that's Arizona should
be doing, which is if they're they're entitled their opinion of sure, sure,
but not you know some of the things that that you hear read,
it's just like, where's it coming from? Give it some time, man,
He's chip Hale's only been here for three years and he's done things like
like was it don Don just mentioned that he's made adjustments year to year so
far in those three years, right, well all the year. And I
said this to my other partner, my real partner. Uh you, you
didn't hear very much tripping about his coaching because what he was winning, right
when they were winning the show. Last couple, they go away until they
don't, right, and show up until they don't. So okay, same
thing with the deal that's your. You hear a lot the last month of
the season season because they were winning, right, yeah, right, winning
the big and the most important part of the season. Yeah, winning cures
a lot of things. Uh you hear. You didn't hear much about Tommy
until he's losing, you know, final game or whatever, Clemson. Uh
but that's the nature of the Beast too. You. I mean, you
get paid a lot of money for for big decisions. Yeah. They can
take it, yes, and I'm sure, oh maybe a couple of them
don't like to deal with it, but it's part of it. Okay,
Thanks guys for coming in, Thank you, hav your for sitting in.
Thank you Kevin. As always, we're gonna have Matt Reynelson back for one
more day before Jay comes back. On Wednesday. Thanks guys,