Speaker 1: Back to Brady on the wing, guarded there by Clay
Speaker 1: Brady close one.
Speaker 2: Up, gets it to go with the fowl how Baucher Brady.
Speaker 1: Spin and Utah gets the win. Here today Finals four,
Speaker 1: Utah ninety nine in Arizona State seventy three.
Speaker 3: Really cool moments over the weekend, as the son of
Speaker 3: Craig Smith was able to get a and one opportunity.
Speaker 3: Brady's a good free throw shooter, so bummer that he
Speaker 3: was unable to convert that free throw. But the voice
Speaker 3: of the Utes, who was on the call as our
Speaker 3: guest on a Monday afternoon, Bill Riley, sir, how.
Speaker 1: Are you Spence. I'm doing well. How's your monday?
Speaker 2: Good man? That was kind of a fun little moment, right.
Speaker 3: I would imagine there were probably a few eyes in
Speaker 3: the crowd that weren't necessarily dry after watching that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. I mean, anytime those guys, you know,
Speaker 1: the bomb squad, the backup guys get in. You know
Speaker 1: you want those guys just chuck it. Man, you've been
Speaker 1: you'll on the floor very much. Put that ball. I
Speaker 1: know that you would have never hesitated, but put that
Speaker 1: ball up. And when Brady got the opportunity, there you know,
Speaker 1: it was just it was really really cool. So I
Speaker 1: was happy for him to get that bucket. Would have
Speaker 1: been cool for him to hit the free throw to
Speaker 1: get him to one hundred, but still a nice moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I bet Craig actually cracked on when he got
Speaker 3: homes that kid, you got to make the free throw.
Speaker 3: But last time we spoke, Bill, you were in Orlando,
Speaker 3: I believe, waiting for the team to fly in and
Speaker 3: it's been one week since the news broke that Craig
Speaker 3: had been let go. So now that you've had a
Speaker 3: chance to spend some time around the team, how do
Speaker 3: you think they're doing, How do you think they're holding up,
Speaker 3: and how do you think the news is landed with them?
Speaker 1: I think surprisingly well, Spence. I mean again, changes are
Speaker 1: never easy, but mid you know, in season changes are
Speaker 1: especially tough. But they didn't get off the great start
Speaker 1: against Arizona, but they competed, played Arizona almost to a
Speaker 1: dead dead even in the second half, and then they
Speaker 1: came out Saturday and it was it was you know,
Speaker 1: it was I don't know, maybe because there was a
Speaker 1: little bit of time between the change in leadership and
Speaker 1: everything else, but they just seemed to play loose, and
Speaker 1: they looked like they were having fun. Now, you know,
Speaker 1: winning is always much more fun than losing and beating
Speaker 1: up on Arizona State because you know they were not
Speaker 1: very good. Saturday is fun too, But there was just
Speaker 1: a looseness of bunch about the group on Saturday and
Speaker 1: a lot of high fighting and smiles and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think they're dealing with it as well
Speaker 1: or better than you could probably expect.
Speaker 3: So I've drawn this parallel coup couple of different times
Speaker 3: when the football team moved on from coach lud and
Speaker 3: Mike Pajakian took over as the play caller. Mike's first
Speaker 3: media availability, he was very honest. He said, look, this
Speaker 3: is Andy system, and you know there's nothing I'm going
Speaker 3: to do at this point in the season to change
Speaker 3: what he's implemented. And so I wondered if coach Eiler
Speaker 3: would change anything as far as what Craig has already
Speaker 3: put in because it's just hard to make changes at
Speaker 3: this point of the season. But one thing we have
Speaker 3: seen is more minutes for Keanu. Kiano does right and
Speaker 3: athletically that kid matches up. So your thoughts on the
Speaker 3: improved or I should say accelerated minutes for Keanu. And
Speaker 3: have you seen anything else that coach Eilitz tried to
Speaker 3: do that's a little bit different than what Craig was
Speaker 3: trying to do.
Speaker 1: I think, And he said this in the first pregame
Speaker 1: chat we did at Arizona and he reiterated it again
Speaker 1: on Saturday, Spence, he was going to reward hard play
Speaker 1: and effort with more minutes, and so maybe that's why
Speaker 1: you saw Kana Dawes getting more minutes. Kano is he
Speaker 1: is a talent Spence. I think he's going to be
Speaker 1: a guy that whoever the new coach is that comes in,
Speaker 1: really puts the full court press on to keep this
Speaker 1: kid around because he is really good and I think
Speaker 1: his upside is there. But you've seen more minutes the
Speaker 1: last couple of games for Mason Madison as well. You know,
Speaker 1: Mason's a guy that's well traveled, he's a senior, but
Speaker 1: he plays really hard and he's given Josh good effort
Speaker 1: and his minutes have gone up a little bit too.
Speaker 1: So I don't know that, you know, philosophically or strategically,
Speaker 1: they've done a whole lot different. You know, when they
Speaker 1: don't throw the ball all over the gym, and they
Speaker 1: valued the basketball, keep those turnovers down. They've been competitive
Speaker 1: all year long and they did that obviously guess Arizona State.
Speaker 1: But I think the one thing that he has done
Speaker 1: is really rewarded guys that have really busted their butts
Speaker 1: and given good effort.
Speaker 2: How big is Josh Eiler.
Speaker 3: He looks like he's just like a big strong He
Speaker 3: looks like a football coach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's about six five sixty six. He played basketball league.
Speaker 1: He was a walk on at Kansas State and that's
Speaker 1: where he connected with Bob Huggins. So that's and he
Speaker 1: was with Huggins for a year at Kansas State as
Speaker 1: a grad assistant and then fifteen or sixteen years at
Speaker 1: West Virginia with it. But he had Josh is a
Speaker 1: big guy. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I couldn't really tell the first time I saw him, like,
Speaker 3: who is that football coach on the sideline?
Speaker 2: That's a big boy.
Speaker 3: But so look, if I you to get weird for
Speaker 3: a moment to expand your imagination, like the Long Beach
Speaker 3: State coach last year was called into the office of
Speaker 3: his boss and told that he was going to be
Speaker 3: relieved of his duties, and they marched on to won
Speaker 3: their conference tournament and went to the NCAA Tournament. No
Speaker 3: part of me is predicting anything like that, but March
Speaker 3: is wild in college hoops. Rest of the way, you know,
Speaker 3: win one for the gift for type approach. How do
Speaker 3: you think the rest of the year and then into
Speaker 3: the Big twelve tournament's going to look for this team.
Speaker 1: I think they're gonna play really hard. I think they've
Speaker 1: got a really good chance tomorrow night in the Senior
Speaker 1: Night game, because they played really hard at West Virginia
Speaker 1: there again downfall Spence. I sound like I'm repeating myself here,
Speaker 1: but they turned the ball over and were really loose
Speaker 1: with the basketball. It's hard to do that against good
Speaker 1: now West Virginia is it's hard to describe them because
Speaker 1: they're eight and ten in conference play, but they've got
Speaker 1: some good wins, Their net records pretty good. They should
Speaker 1: probably be a little better than they are, but they're
Speaker 1: not bad. They're a fringe tournament team, but you can't
Speaker 1: do that on the road anywhere. So if they value
Speaker 1: the basketball tomorrow night, they've got a chance. Because that
Speaker 1: game was a single digit game to West Virginia made
Speaker 1: some free throws late, and then by US rivalry game,
Speaker 1: they've already beaten BYU once. Now BYU is playing really
Speaker 1: good basketball right now. But you and I have both
Speaker 1: been around long enough to know rivalry games are funny
Speaker 1: things and if you make some shots or another team
Speaker 1: isn't making some size So I think they've got a
Speaker 1: really good chance in these next two games, and then
Speaker 1: they're going to be somewhere depending on you know, if
Speaker 1: they go oh to two, one and one two and oh,
Speaker 1: they could be anywhere from a seven seed and get
Speaker 1: a buy which is a long shot because it's other
Speaker 1: teams have to do some stuff to a nine or
Speaker 1: a ten or an eleven seed. So they're likely still
Speaker 1: going to play on that first day of the tournament
Speaker 1: in Kansas City. But if they're in that ten eleven range,
Speaker 1: you know they might be playing a TCU, a team
Speaker 1: they beat on the road this year already, or a
Speaker 1: Baylor team that they played really tough. So again, I
Speaker 1: don't have any hard and fast predictions, but I know
Speaker 1: that this team, when they value the basketball and rebounded
Speaker 1: pretty well, and you've got a lot of seniors that
Speaker 1: I might be playing their last games, they could have
Speaker 1: a chance to win a few games here in the
Speaker 1: next couple of weeks.
Speaker 3: So you're reference Kanto Kunta Does who right now is
Speaker 3: a sophomore, And I would imagine with his kind of
Speaker 3: incremental growth, you'd like to see what it looks like
Speaker 3: when he's actually fully baked as a player. So I
Speaker 3: think you'd like to have him back. Ezra is a junior,
Speaker 3: he's shown growth. I think that's a talent you wouldn't
Speaker 3: mind having in your program. And then I guess the
Speaker 3: other player would be Jay Jake Wally And who's a sophomore.
Speaker 3: You know, Caleb Senior, Losson Senior, Gave Masons, Shrob Jams
Speaker 3: is a junior. Who do you think this program is
Speaker 3: going to make a full core press to try to
Speaker 3: get back on the roster for next season.
Speaker 1: Well, obviously that depends on the higher and how they
Speaker 1: value these guys. But all those guys that you just mentioned,
Speaker 1: I you know, Ezra Sar is averaging almost twenty points
Speaker 1: a game at about seven rebounds in his last five games.
Speaker 1: He's playing at a really high level. He's also beginning
Speaker 1: to hit his free throws. And I'll tell you, Mike Shipe.
Speaker 1: Mike Sharup jobs when he is Like the other day
Speaker 1: he had fourteen points and six assists in that win
Speaker 1: over Arizona State. I like his talent too. While Lean
Speaker 1: and Dawes, if you could keep and again, it's hard
Speaker 1: to say in this day and age of college basketball
Speaker 1: because these guys all you know, have the wandering eye.
Speaker 1: But whoever the coach is that comes in, if he
Speaker 1: could retain those guys you were just talking about, that's
Speaker 1: a really nice base to work with and some good
Speaker 1: young players to build around in what you do in
Speaker 1: recruiting and the portal and high school and transfers and
Speaker 1: everything else. So you know, I think whoever the guy
Speaker 1: is is going to have to evaluate the talent for sure.
Speaker 1: But if you could keep three or four of those
Speaker 1: guys you mentioned, maybe that's a long shot. I don't
Speaker 1: know because I'm not any of those guys. But if
Speaker 1: you could keep three or four of those guys, I
Speaker 1: think you'd be in pretty good shape with a good
Speaker 1: base to start from for whoever the new staff is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And ultimately, you know, if you get two or
Speaker 3: three back, or if you get zero back, it doesn't
Speaker 3: you know, it doesn't change the fact this roster needs
Speaker 3: a massive upgrade. Now, the good news is, in this
Speaker 3: day and age, you can do it within a year
Speaker 3: in an expedited way that you weren't able to prior to.
Speaker 3: And I know a lot of people don't love the
Speaker 3: transfer portal. And we'll see what the house versus NCAA
Speaker 3: settlement brings. If these players are going to be asked
Speaker 3: to sign contracts where you stick around for two years
Speaker 3: with an option for a third or whatever.
Speaker 2: Nobody really fully knows.
Speaker 3: But I wonder if you have any insight on recruits
Speaker 3: that were, you know, ready to play for Craig and
Speaker 3: talent there was ready to play for Craig and whether
Speaker 3: or not this program is you know, and when when
Speaker 3: Mark decided to move on from Larry, they lost a
Speaker 3: grip of good players, a lot of talent. Are we
Speaker 3: expecting the same thing an exodus of talent either on
Speaker 3: the roster or on the way to play here with
Speaker 3: with Craig losing his job.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I don't know either way. Spence the on the
Speaker 1: roster stuff, I don't know. They've got the one kid, Krevin.
Speaker 1: They Frank Jackson's little brother committed. He's a Salt Lake
Speaker 1: Community College player. Everybody remembers Frank Jackson played in the
Speaker 1: NBA and obviously at Loan Peak, and in some of
Speaker 1: my conversations with Craig would he never got specific with
Speaker 1: me about who they were targeting. He just said they
Speaker 1: felt good about some people they were talking to. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if that was, you know, potential transfers,
Speaker 1: or if that was high school kids or what it
Speaker 1: might have been. So I'm a little bit more in
Speaker 1: the dark on the recruiting side of things right now.
Speaker 1: And to be very fair, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people are in that same position. There's a handful of
Speaker 1: programs that go out and you know, sign some of
Speaker 1: these top ten, fifteen, twenty high school kids. But I
Speaker 1: think a lot of these guys are coming in and saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to use the portal to rebuild this thing.
Speaker 1: I used tj Otzelberger as an example at Iowa State
Speaker 1: when he took that job. When he left UNLV and
Speaker 1: took that job, I think Iowa stated at two or
Speaker 1: three wins the year before, and he came in and
Speaker 1: in that first year he lost a ton of talent
Speaker 1: at Iowa State and brought a bunch of transfers. In
Speaker 1: the next year they were competitive, and then the year
Speaker 1: after that they were, you know, competing for the big
Speaker 1: twelve titles. So if you do it right in the
Speaker 1: portal and mix that with some high school or developmental
Speaker 1: kids that are in your program, you know, the right
Speaker 1: person could turn it around pretty quickly.
Speaker 3: I know that you are unable to comment on the
Speaker 3: majority of the stuff surrounding the coaching search, but I
Speaker 3: will ask you, are you aware of any sort of
Speaker 3: time frame that Mark and maybe President Randall have in
Speaker 3: mind before they want to land because you can't slow play,
Speaker 3: you know, you.
Speaker 2: Got to have your guy in play.
Speaker 3: So are you aware of any time frame that is
Speaker 3: preferable for the athletic department?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the perverbial sooner rather than later is always good.
Speaker 1: But I haven't been told any any certain timeline on
Speaker 1: any of that stuff. So I think the one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why the change was made a week ago
Speaker 1: today was to get a jump start on it, get
Speaker 1: head start on it, and really get ahead of the game.
Speaker 1: And so I think they probably again would just assume,
Speaker 1: having done it a week ago, are probably down the
Speaker 1: road at least a little bit on it.
Speaker 3: Tell me what in conversations you have with people around town,
Speaker 3: friends of yours, you know, people that care about Utah Athletics,
Speaker 3: away from your job as the voice and director of broadcasting.
Speaker 3: Because we have a bunch of different options, We have
Speaker 3: a bunch of different avenues, We have a bunch of
Speaker 3: different concepts and theories about how you can go about this.
Speaker 3: What do people say to you about what they hope
Speaker 3: this hire looks like in order for them to support
Speaker 3: this program.
Speaker 1: I think, and maybe I said it with you, or
Speaker 1: I've been on your show and Scott's show and Sean's show.
Speaker 1: But the people I talk to and you and I
Speaker 1: have some common friends, they're older guys. They're not old guys,
Speaker 1: but they're older guys now, and they can remember when
Speaker 1: Utah was really good consistently at basketball in the late eighties,
Speaker 1: in the nineties, the early two thousands, and most of
Speaker 1: the guys that are friends of mine, that are Utah
Speaker 1: grads or ties to the Utah program are just wanting
Speaker 1: to get that glimmer, wanting it to be I just
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of Utah fans Spence that are
Speaker 1: on the precipice. You know, when that guy. When that
Speaker 1: coach gets in there that you really see turns the
Speaker 1: corner a little bit. I think it opens the floodgate
Speaker 1: for support, and I think that people are just are
Speaker 1: itching to get back to the Huntsman Center. And I've
Speaker 1: just had a lot of people that are you know
Speaker 1: that that are really anxious to see who the guy
Speaker 1: is here that is hired, because I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people that really want to get back out.
Speaker 1: It's your point. I think you brought it up with
Speaker 1: me a week ago. There's no reason you can't be
Speaker 1: a football at a basketball school. Lots of schools do
Speaker 1: it well, and I think there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: that are just like, ah, I can't wait to see
Speaker 1: who this is because I really want to be back
Speaker 1: at the Huntsman Center and seeing that great brand of
Speaker 1: basketball that I saw when I was in college or
Speaker 1: in high school.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
Speaker 3: And if there's a coach that's hired that's able to
Speaker 3: build this thing up where they win and they play
Speaker 3: entertaining basketball and it's somewhat consistent, I'm entirely confident this
Speaker 3: community will show up for that. I wondered because I
Speaker 3: hadn't had a chance to ask you this. I believe
Speaker 3: it was Florida States. I think there are three or
Speaker 3: four big programs who have canceled their spring games. Nebraska,
Speaker 3: I think is doing it. They're just not doing spring football.
Speaker 3: They're doing spring football, but they're not doing spring games anymore.
Speaker 3: Do you think this is something that could seep into
Speaker 3: the culture of college football where we just see a
Speaker 3: lot of teams doing away with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do. I think you know Florida State did.
Speaker 1: Nebraska did. I think they use the guys of renovations
Speaker 1: to their stadium for doing it. But that's a big deal.
Speaker 1: Nebraska gets eighty thousand people because there's nothing else to
Speaker 1: do in Nebraska, but they get eighty thousand people for
Speaker 1: their spring game, so they cancel their spring games a
Speaker 1: really really big deal. And there was somebody else. You're
Speaker 1: right there at USC.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: So I think we'll probably see more of it. I
Speaker 1: know that Kyle Whittingham didn't have any plans to do
Speaker 1: it this year. I was talking to some people today
Speaker 1: and he's still good doing that spring game. I think
Speaker 1: we may end up getting to a point spence where
Speaker 1: it's not so much the game that's important, but it's
Speaker 1: a spring gathering to where people feel like they get
Speaker 1: to connect to their football program in the spring, whether
Speaker 1: that's a scrimmage, whether it's a practice, and then you
Speaker 1: get to have kind of a fan fest after practice,
Speaker 1: because to be very fair, most of these spring games
Speaker 1: are just glorified practices. Anyway. They might go for a
Speaker 1: quarter or a quarter and a half and then it's kind
Speaker 1: of like a you know, and they hold a lot
Speaker 1: of guys out. So I think fans like to come
Speaker 1: to the stadium. If they were watching a high end practice,
Speaker 1: I think they'd be okay with that too. But I
Speaker 1: do know at Utah there's no plans at least while
Speaker 1: Kyle Whittingham is coached to cancel it right now, all right,
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: You got to go.
Speaker 3: But before I say, you lose, since we're in the
Speaker 3: football space, spring camp, the utes is Thursday, March twentieth,
Speaker 3: BYU already in action. The twenty two Forever game Saturday,
Speaker 3: April nineteenth. Fifteen practices over the course of five weeks.
Speaker 3: Just give me a couple of things you're hoping to
Speaker 3: learn about a team that's going to look a lot
Speaker 3: different than it did a year ago.
Speaker 1: I think I want to see, first of all, Devin
Speaker 1: Dampier because I, like everybody else, has watched lost of
Speaker 1: lots of New Mexico tape from a year ago, and
Speaker 1: he's he appears to be a really dynamic football player.
Speaker 1: I want to see how quickly and maybe it doesn't
Speaker 1: happen in the spring in fifteen practices, or maybe it does.
Speaker 1: You know, Jason Beck's offense takes with a lot of
Speaker 1: new faces. You know, the offensive line is going to
Speaker 1: be pretty much the same, but the receiver room's going
Speaker 1: to be a lot different, the running back room's going
Speaker 1: to be a lot different, and the quarterback position is
Speaker 1: going to be a lot different, and they're not going
Speaker 1: to play as many tight ends. They've already said that
Speaker 1: his personnel is a lot more eleven personnel instead of
Speaker 1: thirteen personnel. So I'm really curious to see how all
Speaker 1: those moves being pieces on offense work. And you don't
Speaker 1: get to see a lot defensively because they don't do
Speaker 1: a lot of big hitting. But I am just a
Speaker 1: little curious to see how the corner spot looks and
Speaker 1: how they fill in some of the voids on the
Speaker 1: defensive line. Losing some guys to transfer into too graduation.
Speaker 1: So those are a couple of the areas I'm curious with.
Speaker 1: But I think I'm gonna be like a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have my eyes on what the offense looked like.
Speaker 1: And you know, Kyle was really pointed in saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you can't have one of these really super intricate, thick
Speaker 1: playbooks anymore because you don't have two and three and
Speaker 1: four years to you know, integrate guys into that offense
Speaker 1: and learn it. So to that point, let's see how
Speaker 1: quickly Jason Beck's offense allows players to assimilate to it.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of what I'm looking at.
Speaker 3: Well, it's always good to have football to talk about.
Speaker 3: So just a couple of weeks away, Roles, appreciate the time, buddy,
Speaker 3: have a good week.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: By the way, what's the what's the vibe about Utah
Speaker 1: basketball on the Asian Posse group text?
Speaker 3: You know what, let me kick the tires and I'll
Speaker 3: get back to you. That's a very important question I
Speaker 3: had not considered.
Speaker 1: Bill.
Speaker 2: Thank you for reminding me. I'm going to send the
Speaker 2: text now we'll do Thanks Ben, all right, Bill Riley,
Speaker 2: The
Speaker 3: Utah men's basketball Coaches Show will be tonight at six