This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports
fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services and Sure Your Most Prized Possessions kat z
R two SAD and iHeartRadio. Steve Yet be good afternoon, everybody. Welcome
to Eye on the Ball. You're on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve,
He's Jay got e with us today. Welcome to the show. Uh
and I got nothing, no jerk, you get artist show like that.
I'm joking. Hold on, I got a couple. Oh no, though
you missed. You missed some things today. I did, you know,
Steve, you know, it's just there's so much going on and this news
button. I didn't. I was. I mean, I was busy all
morning and then I got here and You're like there was a press conference,
and I'm like, you're right, there was. It was. It was
kind of an eventful US time. You met with us today, about a
half hour after it was scheduled at two o'clock, went about for fifteen minutes
just about the games. I asked some one question just about you know,
back in the day, in the good old days, that we covered the
teams with loot this is how it used to be. Three consecutive games or
a lot of games against the heavyweights or near heavyweights, to see what you
are made of, to get you ready for what's going to happen down the
road. Uh. And and here he is he agreed. I mean this,
this will tell them where he needs to improve on. Well. And
then and that's again as you talk about you know when when lut would do
that, you know when you got to conference play, you know, with
Loot's teams, you felt like you had a pretty good idea. Right,
they're pretty good or they weren't, right, and they were usually pretty good
right. Well, and don't don't forget uh this this not this game,
but the next game. And Loot's time was the disaster game. Yeah,
they lost it every year the game kids just wanted to get the hell out
of town. We don't care. We played with will come back and figure
it out? How right? I just say every every December because they had
to get Remember, they had a certain time. If they didn't get to
get back in time, they were not going to play the next game.
Right, So that was the story as well, but it was it was
a major, major number in the bad side. Right, it was a
big deal. I mean it was I mean it was a thing. You
know, the fans knew, Okay, here comes this game that we always
lose. Then they would lose against anybody. It couldn't be. It didn't
matter who, right, it didn't matter who was the guy. I just
wanted to get the hell out of town and played like it too. Yeah,
but here we are. It's a three it's a huge three games scheduled.
I said, when you made this up, did you have this in
mind where it would have been boom boom boom. Yeah, and not easy
guys, And he said, yeah, you know, kind of get ready
for it. It's it's better off. And Sean didn't do this, that's
for sure. Much less any And who's this tougher them? Looking at Alabama
schedule. A week ago Saturday they played they play Purdue number four at the
time. Then this last Saturday, number eight Crayton got beat and got beat
again, both close games. And then now coming up Wednesday, they got
number four Arizona. Yeah, four and eight and a four. You know,
their stretching games. I love this. I love this because you know
there's gonna be a lot of fans up in PRIs. It's a late night
game, so a lot of fans from here are gonna be traveling up there.
And then the uay alumm base up there is very big. So it
should be a lot of fun and it's gonna be a late late night but
this is what college basketball should be about. Yeah, and again, you
know, you know, you look, you look at the Alabama record,
they're six and four. But this is not a cheap schedule. No.
They opened their you know, they opened the season with an exhibition against wake
Forest, lost ale and go down. Okay, okay, So then they
go Morehead State beat the hell out of them, Indiana State beat the hell
out of them, South Alabama beat the hell out of them, Mercer beat
the hell out of them. Then they played Ohio State, got beat they
were this was a neutral court game. Uh the it was. I guess
it was an event because then they played Oregon. Uh the next day beat
Oregon ninety nine ninety one. Then they went and played Clemson and the acc
SEC Challenge lost that. Arkansas State beat them, then Purdue crighton. Now
Arizona, I mean that's not that's that's a tough go from there, very
much so. But but at least you know what you need to get to
and guess what Arizona. Arizona should be able to win the PAC twelve,
right, at least we think so, you thinkody else. But the PAC
twelve is not what they're guiding for. They're gunning for. It's the Purdues
of the world, the Kansas of the world, the Houston's of the world,
because that's how they're gauged. And about the Bama game, anybody needs
to is there history with Bama. There is a little little bit back in
the day, well the last the last game that I covered as the sports
writer, they lost ballop Bama Long Beach and Luke got mad at me for
ten years. Well Long Beach State. They were in Long Beach there at
Long Beach. Right, it's the game that that Brian Williams did not show
up to play or anybody. Nobody showed up played that day. Robert Ory
just brush their skull. But there is a history with the coach. Yeah,
people need to remember the coach was at Buffalo, yep. And he
after he won that game or game or two, greg Byurn went and got
him. Yeah, and as he should have. So yeah, so you
know, again, like you said, these are fun. Yeah, I'll
tell you what I was just I don't know why this came to my brain,
but what I miss is that game that they would play like this.
But during the conference season they would play as US January. There would be
a game in January February on a Saturday. I remember they played Illinois one
time they played I think it was they played a bunch of teams, you
know, during that they play a su on a Wednesday or Thursday, and
then they used that Saturday to play a game against against somebody, I think
Illinois. They had a home and home with Illinois that during the time that
I was covering the team. Well, they played Kansas, who we remember
the Kansas candy gate, right, and then they played the year before once
they're getting crushed and Salim had that great game in the second half and crushed
me at at at Camp at Kansas. So no, they but the question
was, look, what are you doing. You don't need to do this
in the middle of the country. He would, And I thought it was
a good thing because it really it really raised their level of play. And
again as we you know, as we talked, you know, we talked
to Josh passed. We've talked to players. They get excited for those games
they're not thinking of. You know, I'd rather have the weekend off than
play short North Carolina, you know in the middle of the conference. They'd
rather play those games. You know. Let me ask you something, because
we talk about Ludo, and we talked about Dick Tomy. We had a
call from was it Vic somebody I can't remember. Uh, talked about Dick
about yes yesterday and do you do you and he's a friend of yours.
I covered him. I was in as close as to him as you were.
Uh. Is there a sense of revisionist history with him? They're absolutely
as fans forget how crappy they him that plus how good he and how good
he actually I think they think about it that he did better than what happened.
Well, does that make sense? It makes sense? And it makes
sense. I think from the standpoint that they feel better about what he did
because of what followed, correct right? Correct now that they think, you
know, I wish we would have had this. Yeah, you know,
we we were doing okay, we we kind of messed it up, you
know, and and the problem and look had and somebody had it had not
been John mcavic, and it had been somebody who really who elevated the program
instead of taking it into the toilet. I think people have fell out him.
They you know, if somebody come in and take it what Dick had
done and then improved on that going forward, and we didn't have that those
dark ages of of of uh, of John mcavick and then later Kevin Sumone,
I think people would think of Dick's time differently. It wouldn't be so
romantic to that. Yeah, right, I think that's a great word because
looking back over the last twenty two years or three years, that people miss
those days because of even if because the mediocre came up a lot, he'd
have his years. He had, he had some good you know, seven
and four years where he'd go to a bowl game or whatever, but he
only had two great years. Right right when they said this yesterday to us,
I'm thinking, here we go kind of again, not again, but
you know what I'm saying, here's a guy who who's speaking highly of him.
But you know, he had a great career. People loved him.
Here of those who loved him, but there was a bunch of the people
that wanted to hell, get him, get him out again. They think
about think about when he thought when he spoke to the media on the night
that he quit, right, he resigned. I mean he was going to
get fired, but he resigned, and he said the fans were just too
vicious. He used the word vicious. I remember him using the word vicious
because they were. How do you think he would have how do you think
he would have handled today? Give him the bs it goes on? He
would have hated it. I think I think so too. I think if
he was still coaching in it, he would have managed it and he would
have done it. But I think he would have hated it and probably would
eventually said I don't want to do this anymore, kind of like Andy Lope,
like Mike Ken, I've had enough of this. He was an old
school blue collar I'm going to bring in this guy. And I think he
would have hated having to go recruit a guy who said, well, I'll
come, but you got to give me six figures plus a plus. He
was not a five star guy. He tried that. It didn't work and
and you know the BS on the internet, Well, he's not going after
big guys. He's not going out to the It doesn't work that way.
You gotta get him. And if you don't get him, look uh uh.
And we're gonna find out more about this tomorrow. But Jetfish is getting
those guys right, he's recruiting, he's doing something that happened done right.
How is he doing it? We don't, you know, we don't really
know other than you know, we've talked to recruits. Remember we talked to
North Alfida and he said, it was just the relationship. I just felt,
you know, really close to him and all that stuff. And that's
what you hear from athletes, high school players that he recruits, or anybody
that he recruits. But there's something more right. You know, he's he's
managing all of this, whether it's with nil or opportunities or whatever. You
know, he is. He is managing it better than I think maybe you
know some others. He's certainly more skillful at it. There was Michael V
did a tweet he was talking to some kids today. You made some people
available. You might want to go on his twitter. He talked to uh,
Wiley, I think it was Wiley, and he talked to what's the
different, Oh No, he talked to stukes. You know, what's the
big deal. Well, it's it's more it's it's a little bitbe clich ish,
but it's about the family and they actually really do care about You can
go to any program in the country and why did you go there? It
made me feel like home. Blah blah blah. Two weeks later or two
years later, guests where he's played for somebody else, what happened to the
home? What happened to the home? I mean, yeah, uh here
here. But it's true, it hasn't It hasn't really affected people go leaving
right right, yeah? And I mean and again you look at you look
at some of these guys who have left. They went to places they thought
were better that turned out oftentimes not be you know, so I I you
know, when you ask the question about how would Dick have done this,
I don't know Dick was. I think somebody who would adjusted things. Sure
has needed you have to, but I you know, I could also see
him being the guy that said, nah, it's not for me. You
know, they've done it for a while and then realized this is why I
came into coaching. Here's the Michael I asked. He says, I asked
Arizona dB Trading Stukes, how Jackfish was able to keep the team together in
the portal n I l Era, This is not a fake program, like
like when you come here, it really is a family. I feel like
those guys are my brothers in there, and the coaches, I feel like
they truly care about me as a person and not just as a football player.
Yeah, of course. I mean if you can do that, God
bless you. Sure, and I'm sure that sense happens in a lot of
places. But some people's a lot that it doesn't. A lot doesn't,
no question, because that's a factory. You know, it's a factory,
and people leave even even if they feel at home. I mean, do
you think they have this brotherly family feeling that usc where guys are spilling into
the portal? You know, like crazy Colorado? Colorado is another one.
You know, you know a lot of good players come in in there,
but you go into you're married to marry into a family that says, what
the hell did? I just do? You know? You heard a really
interesting thing last night on the on that College Football Inquired podcast because they were
talking about the the hearing that were the shot where the judge shot down the
preliminary injunction or the temporary junction on the transfer wort. They spoke to aquarterback
from Colorado who wanted to transfer and was denied a transfer. He said the
reason he transferred was when Dion Sanders he testified to this, so this is
under oath. And when Deon Sanders got there, he was he said,
I was sitting in the front row of the whole. I'm here with my
bluggage kind of thing said. Then after that, Deon Sanders held a meeting
with the quarterbacks and Deon Sanders told the quarterbacks other quarterbacks, you are here
to make my kid better. And that's why the kid wanted to leave.
And the NCAA denied his transfer, and and he and now he's you know,
he's he gets transferred because but he said that that happened in a meeting
room with Deonce. Is that a family atmosphere? No, absolutely not,
because you know what what you hear Jed and his coaches talk about it is
we're here to make everybody better, not just certain guys. And here's a
coach who and I'm not here to alibi Ali by him, but he here's
a coach that stood behind a guy who's in the storting quarterback and was steadfast
and standing behind his under all conditions. Right, he was gonna let him
play as soon as he got got healthy enough. And it took too long.
It took so long that it got to a point you could not take
no feet off. And I'm not even referring to that and refer the trouble
that he had come up with the other stuff. Yeah, I mean he
yeah, yeah, no, he's he put his luck his skimu and you
know what, and and players will know that. Ye, yeah, without
question. I think he is then. I think he is that guy.
He's legitimately concerned where we go. All Right, We've got Evan Mayakawa coming
and he's a he's got that uh analytics program that he does. You're gonna
tell us a little bit about you know, who are the best players,
who are the best combos, who are the best teams? Uh with with
this analytics h that he's developed. Uh, So we'll talk to him.
We've had him on the show a couple of times before, a very interesting
uh discussion with lot smarter than us. Well, he did a lot of
math. And then now we're gonna, We're gonna, we're gonna bring in
some holiday chair with George Mortis from Showtime, Cards and nuts. You know
you can go get yourself a Babe Ruth card, you know, one hundred
thousand dollars Baby Ruth card to give to somebody for you left that in the
countrait exactly all right, So stick around. Evan Mikawa coming right out.
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today. This is Eye on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez on
Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. Subscribe now to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app just
searching I on the Ball. Hey, welcome back, joining the ball here
on Fox Sports fourteen. I'm Stieve Rivera. He's Jacob Saws Down on the
phone. We have Evan Mayakawa college basketball analysts who we needed to get you
back on the show before you solve the world's problems. Evan, because you're
such a smart dude. I'm not laughing because I'm disagreeing Evan I. I'm
laughing because he's Yeah, that's why we have a body can tell us what's
gonna happen in the future. How you doing I'm doing good. I mean,
what's more important to the world than figuring out college basketball analytics? Right
outside of the final four for the football team? Yeah, with the football
programs, you're exactly right, and they need you for that. You need
you need to go do that. You get get them, get them the
right four teams into the into the get them straight down into the down.
Sounds too controversial for me, I think, yeah, yeah, well,
you got a great gig. About a week or so ago, I was
watching college basketball somewhere and uh, they're talking about Ken Palmer and they're saying
the Maya Kawa report. I'm thinking, look at our guy, he's kind
of made it already. Only Moly, Well, I didn't even know that
happened. That's great. Yeah, yeah, so you're being quoted out there
in the real world of college basketball. How are things going? Is this
yours third year? Now? Boy? Let's see, I started my website
in twenty twenty, so I guess this would be my four fourth year season
that the website's been running. Yeah, yeah, And let me speak before
we get into it with this year's stuff. I want to ask you because
last year we talked about when we had you on the show, we talk
about Arizona all the time, maybe the year before with Ben Mathrin and the
analytics and some of the players, and Arizona had a good chance and then
they lose in the first round. How has the analytics panned out in terms
of finding the eventual winner or the final four teams? You know, I
think one of the real challenges, which is what makes March Madness so fun,
is that the tournament every year gets overanalyzed to death, and so every
possible trend, every possible deep nugget, people are pretty aware of. You
know this in this sport. You know, one of the common ones,
which I think has been floating up around this time, has been looking at
the correlation between last week's ap pole in week six of the season, right,
and how often one of the teams in the top twelve of that ap
pole has won the tournament almost every year out of the last two decades except
for maybe one year. Yeah, So there's random things like that that people
are, you know, often very aware of. Nowadays, and so I
feel like, even with a website like mine, just because of how deep
people dive into the numbers when it comes to March Madness and trying to figure
out who's going to win it. At the end of the day, there's
still so much noise in the tournament. It's really hard to predict with much
accuracy, you know, who's going to cut down the net. So,
you know, let's let's start to dive into some of this stuff, because
it's really fascinating stuff with the ratings and things that you that you put together,
and you know, I really don't even know where to go. But
let's just say first of all, you know, you in your team rankings,
you've got Arizona at four, which is exactly where they are in the
AP. You've got Houston, Purdue, Connecticut, Arizona, which is sort
of where everybody's at right now. You know, how much do these things
fluctuate? You know, does it take a game for it to fluctuate?
Does it take a series of games? How is the movement when you're talking
about let's say the top ten teams in your in your rankings. Well,
I think one of the interesting things to monitor as the season goes on.
Is when you start the season on a website like mine, I have preseason
projections for each team so that we don't just treat everyone as being you know,
equally skilled as every other team, with no knowledge about how good they're
going to be. Obviously, when we come into a season, we know
that Arizona is more likely to be a better team than say Northern Arizona,
right. But with that said, once the season goes along, as we
start to collect new data and gain new information about each team, we have
to kind of move away from those preseason projections. And so one of the
challenges with an analytic model like mine is how much at this point the season,
or in January and February even into March, do you rely only on
current season data versus our pre season expectations for a team. And so that's
one of the really interesting problems to try and solve. And at this point
in the season, obviously current season success really matters, but there still is
a decent amount of emphasis on preseason expectations for each team because a lot of
times that ends up still being very predictive of how a team ends up doing.
Come you know, March and April, and I don't think we've asked
you this before, or at least I haven't. Is it kind of like
a credit report where some things are weighed twenty ten percent in your categories that
make the top ten, top twenty teams. It's a little more complicated than
that. Part of that's because a lot of things are specific to each team.
So there's not one formula that says, you know, multiply this number
by this amount, because you know, say, for example, as I'm
building preseason rankings, there's different variables that really affect what we have much certainty
or uncertainty we have about a team. So for example, a team like
Kentucky who's bringing in a lot of freshmen, obviously those freshmen are supposed to
be really good, but there's a lot more possible outcomes for how that team
could perform compared to a team like Arizona, for example, where even though
there's some new pieces, it's a very veteran laden team, and so we
can be more certain about the kind of range of outcomes for a team like
Arizona. So because of that, things are individualized to each team. So
some teams are treated differently than others. Okay, So I recall when we
brought I think this was during last season that Azulus to Bellas was consistently ranked,
you know, one of your one of your top players all year long.
We all saw, you know, how things turned out for Azulis and
Arizona by the end of the year. Then I look at your rankings this
year where you feel like Arizona's got all these guys and none of those guys
are in your top ten, and then people will be surprised to hear that
your highest rated Arizona guy is none other than Pelly Larson as opposed to to
Caleb Love Islan Boswell. Yeh uh, you know, Keisha Johnson. All
guys who you know from the eye test look like they're bigger, better,
more important contributors. How does a guy like Pella, uh, you know,
establish a rating where he's seen as sort of the you know, one
of the more indispensable players, or among the Arizona guys, the most indispensable
player. Yeah. So that metric that you're referring to is my player metric
called basing performance rating, and the essential idea behind it is to quantify how
impactful a guy is on the court. On offensive defense kind of whether they're
a high score or a low scorer, regardless of volume, regardless of position,
purely trying to figure out when this guy is on the floor, how
much value is he adding to the team. And so Pella Larson is one
of these players who he's not typically going to be Arizona's main playmaker, main
scorer, but he does a lot of things and is a big connector piece
for this team. And when you look at both his box score efficiency and
just how well Arizona performs when he's on the floor and the effect that he
has on other teammates, the data suggests that he is the most valuable piece
when he's on the floor for Arizona. Now that being said, Arizona has
five or six guys that are all really close together, all inside the top
seventy nationally invasion performance rating, which are the you know, the main six
guys on the team. So even though he's first right now ahead of those
other guys, it's not like he's leaps and downs ahead of everyone else.
You know, a lot of their players are contributing in their own right.
It's funny because you say this and now you're saying it I'm thinking that's maybe
one of the reasons why they lost against Burdue because their main guy, Pella,
didn't have a good game, right, right, and he didn't And
does the do the numbers get kind of skewed in terms of if you have
five or six guys double digit scorers, they're all kind of even in terms
of stats. Yeah, And it's also do if you have, you know,
a lot of the same guys play consistently together, that can make it's
a little more difficult. You know, if you have two guys who are
always on the floor together, it's a little bit harder to separate, you
know, who's having the impact between the two, which is why it's really
helpful to still look at box stats a little bit because if you have,
say, two guys on the floor who are have a plus minus of ten,
but one of them scores thirty points the other scores three points, the
thirty point scorer probably has more of an impact than the three point scorer.
So that's you know, still a definitely important part of the formula in calculating
my player ratings. Well again, looking at your your five man lineups,
the ratings of those you know, Arizona's got. Their starting lineup is the
fifth rated lineup that you have here and again, which goes to what you
were saying, because then I looked at the player ratings and you said they
were bunched. You got three guys bunched together, Caleb Love, Kylan Boswell,
and Jayden Bradley not a starter thirty one, thirty two, and thirty
three in your player ratings. I think that's really interesting. Yeah, And
actually you mentioned that five man lineup of Ballow, Boslow, Kishad Johnson,
Larson, and Love, and they of all lineups in the entire country,
across all teams that have played over two hundred possessions, they are the most
efficient lineup in college basketball so far this season. And I think this is
a trend that I've seen under Tommy Lloyd in his time at Arizona that his
starting lineup is usually really, really good. I'm looking at the data from
last year. Their starting lineup from last year had similar results. So that's
something I feel like is one of Tommy Lloyd's calling cards with Arizona so far,
is really getting that starting five in lockstep with each other and being really
dominant when they're they're on the flour together, Evan and having covered the team
for a long time three decades, and Jay being part of it and watching
it too. It all means nothing. It all means nothing come March,
right, we already talked about that, because you can have these great guys
and these teams and then come March it starts over or you play one bad
game and it all goes away. That's why we love the tournament, don't
we. Well, people at Tuson are kind of still the voats or the
votes out because of what happened last year. So so another one in the
stats, you've got it. You've got a box here on the fastest teams.
Okay, and you got Arizona and then a bunch of teams that you
know, where's Alabama in that miss They're well, they're not in the they're
not in the top they're not in the top ten. You got Kennessas State,
Arizona, U, NBC Long Beach State, Tulane, Samford, not
Stanford, Samford, Tennessee, Martin Bryant, New Mexican, Marshall. So
Arizona's really the only Power five team that that that you see in there.
Tell it, what's the fastest team rating, and how does that what does
that measure? Yeah, so I have a metric that basically says, if
you if you take out information on you know, how fast other teams are
that you're playing, and you basically adjust for the pace of other teams.
If you were playing an average team that ran a average pace, how how
many possessions would be in that game. And so for Arizona, they're second
in the country in true tempo, which basically means, you know, adjusted
for opponent, their games are going to have a lot more possessions, a
lot more down and back than most most games are going to have, and
that definitely plays into their hand. They have a top ten offense in the
country and so not to mention a really good defense as well, and so
especially in most games where they're going to be favored, it's a really good
idea for them to try and get as many possessions in a game as possible
because it just further it further secures their chance of winning that game just by
having more opportunities. Yes, well, so if you're the opponent's coach,
the one thing you don't want them to do is to do that, So
you kind of milk the clock and milk the clock and you know, shut
clock and all that stuff. So and that sometimes most of the time doesn't
work because if Arizona gets a good lead on you, you can't do that.
Yeah exactly. You know, once you're if you have a lead that
Arizona builds, then you're kind of lost because you kind of have to keep
the tempo up in order to have a chance of catching them, which of
course plays right into their hands. Right. Yeah, So looking at your
overall strength roster strength rankings again, Arizona, you know at three, but
and you got you know who you would expect to be up to Connecticut,
Purdue, Arizona, Houston b Uyu who's doing really well, Creighton, Iowa
State, Marquette, Duke Tennessee. When you're talking about roster strength, that
tell us a little bit about that one. Yeah. So roster strength is
as an attempt to kind of separate out a little bit of like historical team
success and coaching ability from the actual pieces talent wise that a roster has.
So roster strength is more focused on like basically adding up a sum of the
individual talent on each team, as opposed to also including other variables that we
also, you know, typically considered when we're talking about how good a team
is, like, you know, has this team of good in previous years?
How good is the coach, et cetera. Yeah, well, all
right, well, when we're thing and so looking at all these numbers that
you have in terms of you know, individual players, rosters, lineups,
you know, all these things. When you think when you think of Arizona
versus everybody else, you know, top five team, top two team,
top nineteen, where where did you know? Where did that? Where do
they sit in your in your eyes when you take in all this all this
information that you have. Yeah, so you know, uh, Arizona,
as you mentioned, I have number four, and that also lines up with
their APE franking as of yesterday. I really do think that there right now
is a kind of consensus, at least according to my computer metrics and some
other ones that are out there, there's a clear top four. It's Houston,
Purdue, Yukon, and Arizona, and I have Houston number one.
But they haven't really been tested in the same way that those other three have,
you know, so we'll see how they hold up as big Big twelve
play goes. But Arizona certainly arguably has the best win in the country right
now, you know, on the road at Duke. You know, I
know Duke has been a little disappointing so far this year, but I still
have them ranked in the top ten in the country, and I think they're
going to be a great team, you know, the rest of the year.
And I really I think Arizona has been one of the most pleasant surprises
in the country because they were expected to be a good team this year,
but especially bringing in a piece like Caleb Love, who everyone was kind of
on the fence about how he was going to translate, that's really clicked for
them. I mean, he's been way more efficient than in previous years,
and I think because of that and the reliability of other pieces they have and
Kylon Boswell running the point, you know, I think, you know,
the sky's limit for them. And when you look at a guy like Umar
Ballo, who I think of all of their main rotation guys, he's probably
been a little below expectations. We saw how dominant he could be in stretches
last year, so you know, if he takes a step like it's expected,
the team only gets better from there. Yeah, before maybe last a
couple core questions before they lost to Purdue. Was Arizona number one? I
think Houston was still number one at that point, Okay, but I'd have
to check, yeah, and I can't remember. I think, don't you
do plusure mine us if they play a Batma tomorrow game predictions? What's what's
tomorrow? Do you have tomorrow? Yeah? You got yeah? Yeah,
go ahead, you tell yeah. Arizona is favored by six in that game.
And I think the fun part about it is the predicted scores ninety one
to eighty five with a you know total of one hundred and seventy six points.
And I was looking at the whole rest of all the game predictions for
all D one games for the rest of the year. This is the second
highest predicted like score total of any game the rest of the season. Because
of how fast TV teams play and how good their offenses are, so this
should be one of the most you know, high paced, high offense games
we're going to see all year hopefully, Yeah, no question, and we're
looking forward to it. Baby, take the over. It depends. It
could be one thirty five. Uh So you just maybe a personal item,
you are you still in the job, you know, nuclear scientists somewhere in
Texas. What are you doing now? I have a day job in sports
analytics for a company that works with professional teams, So I do that during
the day and then I do my college basketball analytics on aside and outside of
that. You're the modern day Josh Bassner. A lot of things going on.
That's it. That's a good thing, Evan. I know Josh has
been fired from a job, but no, he's We think highly of Josh.
He was actually on the show yesterday, so yeah, he doesn't sleep
and he thinks basketball all the time. Do we call you doctor yet?
You have the pH d? Are you still getting it? Yeah? I
had. I got my pH d as of a year ago. All right,
doctor, doctor Mike Cowe. Wow. Nice well doctor, we'll see
you have another appointment and maybe in a couple of months. Yeah sounds good.
Okay, I hope you take our insurance. Evan, thanks a whole
bunch, man, appreciate it. Thank you, Eving. Oh that's fine,
that's right, cool, all right, thank you. No, that's
fine. That's interesting stuff. Go to his website. It's Evan my E
v A N M I y A dot com and you'll see all the stuff
that we just talked about on his website, incredible information analytics. If you're
if you're a day if you're a data junkie for for sports like this,
this is where you want to This is where you want to be, and
he talks about it, does a lot of does a lot of media and
stuff, and you can subscribe to get deeper into a lot of his stuff.
But it's a fascinating stuff that he does. Right right, it's all
college basketball. If you want to know, he was quoted not too long
ago. I saw her as all we got to get him on the show
yet. Yeah, okay, all right, let's take a break. We'll
be back. We'll take your calls. Five two zero, four, one,
six, seventy four, forty We're right back. Change. If you're
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They have their eye on the ball on Tucson Sports Stage yet Fox Sports
fourteen fifty. Hey, welcome back to you. I'm about hero Fox Sports
fourteen fifty. I'm Steve. He's Jay got be with us today. Have
ten minutes and because what a call. Please do. Good to hear from
you as usual, yep. Always always love to hear from you. Yeah,
always going to talk to him. The dude, the smartest. He
he's a phdeve. How would you even you know, cross a te dot
the id crist well carry the one. Well here here's the thing. You
know, uh, you know, people who just have a knack knack for
something like that, they can not only can they do the math and suff
like that, but they can get creative with you know, they're trying to
get to a point. You know, I'm guessing he decided, Okay,
I want to develop a system and a program that will tell me, you
know, all these things that I want to know about you know, college
basketball, and then you use that brain to figure out, you know,
the the numbers and and and that that you need to have to you know,
spit out you know, these uh, these rankings and things that that
he's got so you know, just way above our pay grades no very it's
very cool stuff. Good insight. I do like it. We didn't ask
him when he said it was the second most points scored in the in the
season for the rest of the way, I wonder what the number one would
be, because there's no question this is gonna be a huge, large scoring
Yeah. Yeah, they're you know, they're gonna want They're gonna run up
and down the court. They know it's gonna be on you know, the
national TV. You know they want, you know, everybody wants to show
and you know they get fired up for these games. Plus you know Arizona's
coming off for loss, and I think it's so Bama. Yeah, they're
coming off too, and you know Bama saying we got to get one of
these and we've had three. This is a third opportunity to be the top
ten team. Let's go get this one. So I think you can expect
both teams to be pretty pretty jacked up to you know, to show out
on Tomorrow night. The question is when is the game eventually gonna come on?
Right right? It could be nine, nine thirty, whatever it is.
But to Arizona goes back to Obama next year, they're going to play
in the right place, all right. So it's a home and home kind
of a home and home kind of a home home. But yeah, the
event tomorrow is the Jerry Colangelo twenty twenty three Hall of Fame Series. It's
up in Phoenix at the Footprint Center, which is to those of us who've
been around America West Arena, it was also called Talking Stick more recently.
But there's four games tomorrow up there. First, at noon, you've got
Fresno State against Arizona State Women. Then the Arizona women take on Gonzaga,
who is ranked at about two thirty. Schedule for two thirty, probably closer
to to forty five or or so. Then at six thirty, got Northwestern,
who's beat produced so they're actually a pretty good team taking on a su
who's been struggling lately. And then at the schedule for nine o'clock on ESPN,
you've got Alabama and Arizona. So those four games. If you want
tickets to that, it's the two sessions. The women's session is session one,
of the men's session Session two. It should be a lot of fun.
I don't know. Well, here's a let me click on the tickets.
Nobody are gonna have to take a nap tomorrow. It's be late late
nights. Start about nine to fifteen, nine o'clock whatever time, play two
hours, it gets to even fifteen interviews. Oh man, don't we'll talk
about it. Tickets upper level tickets run about forty five bucks win lower down
low let's say down low center court side. You're probably talking one hundred and
sixty bucks for two games. Yep, yeah, gip, both games.
Get both games, you know, in a session for one of the premier
games of the year. Yeah, it'll be good, you know, and
again close you know us at home. You know, we had the Wisconsin
game here. You know, you'll have you know, you can watch watches
and then you know this, These tend to be games where fans who don't
get to go to michale a lot of times, you know, they they
uh uh, you know, get get tickets and go to these games so
they get a chance to see them. It's like one of the reasons that
you know, Vegas is such a you know, such a big dea Arizona
fans because you get so many fans and go to Vegas because they don't get
to see him here. And of course the debauchery. Well, there is
the debauchery. I know. I don't partake in any of that. No,
no, you're too tony, I don't. I don't have much debauch
left. You don't have no time, no time, walk by a walk
in the hotel at two in the morning, you'll see it. But but
again, it should be a good game. ESPN has it here, so
uh uh you know, if you can step till nine o'clock and watch that
game, be sure, and the women go up two and they're gonna be
on channel thirteen. Yes, that game will be on channel thirteen and you
can watch it. You can watch it here. So it could be a
you know, a nice little, nice little thing for them to look they're
they're playing better, you know, you know, I know, there's just
so much of the conversation has been about players who have gone and stuff like
that and injuries and uh, you know, they got nine players now on
you know, on their bench, with Myanaji deciding she wants to go be
a doctor instead of a basketball player, and which is great for her.
But they beat the hell out a su you know. Yeah, well they
bounce back from that. Kentucky lost and they didn't actually look Texas, Texas.
Well, that's the problem, Jay, in terms of they played a
very very very good team, top five team here, got beat and then
they played a very very not so good team here. So there's someone in
between this and yeah, well they're gonna have plenty of this, the Texas
side of it, coming up with a with all the teams that are ranked
at ranked pretty high in the in the back twelve, did you I want
to put you on the spot. So it's been three four years removed from
the final four, three or four years whatever from the one that was the
Phoenix, No, no, from the women, oh, the women final
four. Yeah, that was twenty twenty one, twenty twenty one. Surprised,
surprised that and they've kind of sustained it, but surprised they didn't sustain
it. And I used that loosely in a sense that it's not what it
was, yeah, because in the sense that you know, what what what
a deal was able to do that she was getting recruits McDonald's all Americans,
you know, yeah, yeah, yeaha all these players and for whatever reason,
you know, weren't working out. And I don't know what the reason
is behind that. Miss evaluated didn't you know, didn't didn't like the program,
didn't get they didn't get their shot right away, so they left because
they could. Sure, you know, all the reasons that those players that
she recruited coming out of that, so many of them have left. I
mean this team, you know, Helena Playo, you know, last is
the last remnant of that team. So yeah, in a sense, surprised
that it didn't. It didn't, it didn't stand. But you still don't
feel that they're that far away either. You know, if this, let's
say, if this core group group holds together, if you don't you know,
there's nine players left on this team, if five of them don't leave,
you know, if they stick around and she adds to this as opposed
to losing three and picking up three new or four new players, then you
think, you know, she just hasn't been able to have any continuity with
with the roster for what for whatever reason, whether it's the kids, whether
it's her, whether whatever, or a combination of ball. Yeah, you
know, and that's you know, that's been an issue. She hasn't been
able to sustain that with with the with the group that the group of players
that she's recruited, you mind not she is McDonald's all American and now you
know, boom, here we are in her, you know, halfway through
her sophomore season and she's gone, yeah, you know. And there's some
other of those. So man, I think it's it's one of the toughest
things to do down in college. And and actually, if you read read
Peterson, go to tweet tweet Twitter, go to the Twitter world, and
uh Lev asked Tommy about the new rule, the double transfer. He he's
not happy, not happy, he went. He was asked twice about it,
and he's not happy because they're not prepared for it. You know.
The rules are yes, no, no, no, no no, and
then all of a sudden you can okay, you can do something, and
you were yeah, where you planning, what are you planning that? No?
No, no no, and here they are not that he said it
would have affected him. He did okay with the guys that he got.
Yeah, yeah, don't cry for Tommy Lloyd exactly. Don't cry for Virginia
or Tommy Lloyd exactly. Well, we'll talking to each other in March.
Yeah, but yeah, but you know, against Steve, you know,
it's just everything I listened to you know, everybody you've talked to, you
just tell us how absolutely nuts it is out there in all of this,
you know, Yeah, you're probably gonna hear more of that from from Jetfish
tomorrow. Is recruiting a press con. You just look at all the stuff
on sports on the ESPN dot com or wherever you go to in the A
l stuff. And did you see what Utah was giving the kids? YEA
trucks. Yeah, everybody got one, the gymnastics and basketball. Where's this
money coming from? I thought we were in a recession from somewhere. Somebody's
got it and they're giving it. And not just one. Everybody got one.
Yeah, a whole bunch of them. Yeah, no, yeah,
I mean you know, and you look at that and you go, okay,
how am I supposed to compete with that? Right? Right? Right?
How do I compete with that? All right? That's it, man,
top of the hour. Here we go. All right, so we're
gonna be back. We do have some breaking news a few things and some
more bad stuff coming out of Las Vegas. But uh, and then in
the say, in the second segment, excuse me, Georgia, mine is
coming in here. We'll talk to them card trading and that kind of stuff.
If maybe give you some Christmas gift ideas, So stick around for all
of those. We'll be right back. Don't believe it is one, don't
believe it is, well, don't believe it is