Speaker 1: Welcome to the Big Blue Insider. Dick Gabriel with you
Speaker 1: in a frigid Thursday. Yeah, we knew we weren't done
Speaker 1: with this weather yet, but it's still a bracing slap
Speaker 1: in the face. And I thought I was done with
Speaker 1: my space heater here in the garage, but no, it's cranking.
Speaker 2: You might hear it in the background, but that's okay.
Speaker 1: We love being here and we love chatting with you.
Speaker 1: We wish that we could tell you what was going
Speaker 1: on in women's basketball with the SEC tournament, but we
Speaker 1: have to pre record. Not my choice, but we have
Speaker 1: to pre record, so I can't tell you who Kentucky's
Speaker 1: going to play tomorrow. We do know the game will
Speaker 1: be at two thirty and you'll hear it right here
Speaker 1: on six thirty Wlap it will be I believe two
Speaker 1: thirty is right. I think that's the first game of
Speaker 1: the session. Anyhow, just keep it right here and you'll
Speaker 1: hear it. We'll chime in after the game's over. Of course,
Speaker 1: we won't know who won, because again pre recording, but Darren,
Speaker 1: we'll have the call for you and pregame will start
Speaker 1: at roughly two fifteen March. Madness is upon us. The
Speaker 1: high school playoffs are happening. It's a great time of year,
Speaker 1: there's no question about that. And overlap time, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got college baseball. Though the Wildcats game last night
Speaker 1: was called because the weather's actually called at ten am,
Speaker 1: so good decision. Man, was it nasty last night? Not
Speaker 1: much better today, but yeah it is. It is a
Speaker 1: great time of year. And Kentucky men's basketball, as you know,
Speaker 1: wraps up on Saturday against Missouri. It's a noon start time.
Speaker 1: Although I'm already hearing people saying, well they're playing at
Speaker 1: eleven am. Well that's Central time. And look, when teams travel,
Speaker 1: their body clocks and it's.
Speaker 2: Same for you.
Speaker 1: Your body clock doesn't change in twenty four hours. The
Speaker 1: team will get there late Friday afternoon, and yeah, they'll
Speaker 1: have to get up local time, earlier than they get
Speaker 1: than they usually get up, but their body clock will
Speaker 1: be where it always is. The problem is, even if
Speaker 1: they were playing here at a noon start, so sometimes
Speaker 1: teams are sluggish in noon, Kentucky cannot afford to be
Speaker 1: sluggish at noon because Missouri is going to be playing
Speaker 1: its butt off. Yeah, they'll have a great crowd. Last
Speaker 1: game of the year. But and whenever you know what
Speaker 1: happens when Kentucky comes to down. But Wildcats need to win.
Speaker 1: They need to try to keep that seating on the rise.
Speaker 1: They got to help last night a little bit from
Speaker 1: Old Miss, which beat Tennessee an incredible finish. And I
Speaker 1: was at our weekly card game, and there was a
Speaker 1: big Tennessee fan with us, and he had already resigned
Speaker 1: himself to the fact that a they weren't going to
Speaker 1: win the game, even though it looked for a while
Speaker 1: like Tennessee would win. And B he said, it's absolutely
Speaker 1: not a Final four team, whereas early in the year
Speaker 1: some thought it might be. But you know, Tennessee just
Speaker 1: says a hard time scoring. And last night, ironically enough,
Speaker 1: you might.
Speaker 2: Have seen it.
Speaker 1: They had about six or seven seconds left and ole
Speaker 1: Miss had taken the lead, advanced the ball in a
Speaker 1: half court called time three seconds left, got a great
Speaker 1: shot from Millisic. He drove the ball into the lane,
Speaker 1: took the ball in the wing and didn't immediately jack
Speaker 1: it up as some kids would have done. Went into
Speaker 1: the lane, but one of the defenders for ole Miss
Speaker 1: swatted at the ball and it popped out of Millisic's hands.
Speaker 1: Momentarily he was able to regain it but not necessarily
Speaker 1: control and kind of lobbed it up at the basket
Speaker 1: and it fell off the side of the rim. It
Speaker 1: was a heck of a finish of a really ugly game.
Speaker 1: But that's where we are right now. So I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go through all the possibilities like if what
Speaker 1: has to happen, then you know, I don't see. Really
Speaker 1: it's mathematically possible for Kentucky to get a five seat.
Speaker 1: It ain't gonna happen because so many things have to
Speaker 1: happen that are very unlikely, but Kentucky could move up
Speaker 1: to a six or seven. So it's just that time
Speaker 1: of year. The key, of course, win more games during
Speaker 1: the season, you don't have to worry about that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. But really, we all thought Kentucky would be
Speaker 1: about five hundred in the conference this year, right, and
Speaker 1: given the injuries and Mark Pope has had to juggle,
Speaker 1: I think it's amazing that they finished that well. But
Speaker 1: of course, before the injury started to pile up, Kentucky
Speaker 1: picked up some really impressive wins, including two over that
Speaker 1: Tennessee team and one over Florida, which last night won
Speaker 1: at Alabama. I didn't believe in Florida for a while.
Speaker 1: I do now that could be a Final four team
Speaker 1: that that was a really good exhibition of basketball, and
Speaker 1: Florida won it.
Speaker 2: Last night.
Speaker 1: While we're talking about the basketball catch, Jackson Robinson is
Speaker 1: on the finals list. And I'm not sure of the
Speaker 1: voting schedule, but the Naseman Hall of Fame conducts the
Speaker 1: voting for various and sundry awards named after the greatest
Speaker 1: players in the history of the game. And the Small
Speaker 1: Forward Award is named after doctor j. It's the Julius
Speaker 1: Irving Award, and Jackson Robinson is on the finals list,
Speaker 1: and even if he were healthy, there's no way he
Speaker 1: wins it. With all due respect, that's going to go
Speaker 1: to Cooper Flag, but also Chad Baker Mazara from Auburn,
Speaker 1: Ace Bailey of Rutgers. Rutgers has two really good draft
Speaker 1: pick players.
Speaker 2: Everybody else's mediocre. And then R J.
Speaker 1: Lewis junior at Saint John's and if you watch that
Speaker 1: Red Storm Rising documentary series, you know he's become a
Speaker 1: heck of a player under Rick Bettino. So yeah, Unfortunately
Speaker 1: for Jackson, his time as a Wildcat is over.
Speaker 2: But impressive that he's on the finals list for the
Speaker 2: Irving Award.
Speaker 1: Some people are now chiming in quietly or loudly ken Pomeroy,
Speaker 1: who of course rates the offense and defense of all
Speaker 1: the teams. Maybe he's just looking at analytics. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but he believes the SEC is overrated, and he tweeted
Speaker 1: at and Danny Knell of course picked it up. He's
Speaker 1: a sportscaster for Serious XM, and I kind of like
Speaker 1: Canal because he's not afraid to speak his mind. I
Speaker 1: think obviously there's many times I believe he goes for
Speaker 1: clickbait listeners just to try to stir.
Speaker 2: Things up and be different.
Speaker 1: That's okay, I mean Skip Bayless got rich doing that.
Speaker 1: But obviously I don't agree with him, and I know
Speaker 1: I'm biased, but it was really interesting that none other
Speaker 1: than Greg sank clapped back at him. And this was
Speaker 1: before Florida beat Alabama on the road. But SANKI tweeted
Speaker 1: back at Canel and Pomeroy by way of Canal, and
Speaker 1: I know he has a staff of people helping him
Speaker 1: with it. But Saki tweeted the fact that there are
Speaker 1: thirty wins against four losses against the ACC, and then
Speaker 1: he put wow, fourteen wins against two losses against the
Speaker 1: Big twelve, oh my ten and nine against the Big ten,
Speaker 1: and a thumbs up emoji, and then one hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty five wins against twenty three losses in non conference games,
Speaker 1: and then the emoji with the smiley face with the sunglasses,
Speaker 1: and then he goes with the stat that people threw
Speaker 1: out there, and since then they've had a lot of
Speaker 1: fun with it.
Speaker 2: He said.
Speaker 1: I confess SEC teams have a five hundred record in
Speaker 1: games after January fourth, laughing emoji, he said. But then
Speaker 1: he said, sure, let's go with overrated. This is after
Speaker 1: Knell had tweeted following Kim Pomeroy's tweet, the smartest man
Speaker 1: in basketball is saying out loud what I have been
Speaker 1: thinking for the past three months. Thank you, Ken Pomeroy. Well,
Speaker 1: if you're going with heads up competition, they are wrong.
Speaker 1: And yes I cover an SEC team. I'm sitting here
Speaker 1: in SEC country.
Speaker 2: But what more do you need. It's all about heads
Speaker 2: up competition, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Speaking of competition, the ACC man, it ain't much but
Speaker 1: tip of the cap to U of L. They just
Speaker 1: keep on winning. They keep taking care of business. Eighty
Speaker 1: five sixty eight winner over Cal last night needed a
Speaker 1: spurt at the end of the first half and then
Speaker 1: they pulled away in the second half. They're going to
Speaker 1: be trouble in the NCA tournament. They're playing really well
Speaker 1: and obviously they have Chucky Hubbard and they're a team
Speaker 1: that has completely bought in to their coach the way
Speaker 1: Kentucky has here, so got fun to watch too. Again,
Speaker 1: that's a quality win, and I know you hate it
Speaker 1: UK fans, but every time Louisville wins, that helps your
Speaker 1: cause when it comes to seating and things like that.
Speaker 2: So when we come back, we're going to share the comment.
Speaker 2: You may have heard it.
Speaker 1: Already, but I just really think it's great. The story
Speaker 1: Mark Pope told about the walk on who got in
Speaker 1: for half a second against LSU, the backstory on that,
Speaker 1: plus Jay billis on rule changes that need to be made,
Speaker 1: and I know you agree.
Speaker 2: With at least one of them.
Speaker 1: That more coming up at the bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1: We're here from Maggie Davis from BBN Tonight Hour number two.
Speaker 1: Darryl Bird of the Cats Pause wrote a great story
Speaker 1: about the anniversary fifty years since the Kentucky Colonels won
Speaker 1: the ABA Championship. And my man Brian Milin from WKYT
Speaker 1: and Hour number two as well here on six thirty
Speaker 1: WLAP Welcome back to the Big One Cider Dick Abriell
Speaker 1: with you coming up in just a few minutes. Maggie
Speaker 1: Davis of BBN mentioned before the break the zach Taus story.
Speaker 1: That's the walk on who got in one of three
Speaker 1: at the end of the game, and I mean less
Speaker 1: than half a second left. And I hate it when
Speaker 1: coaches do this. John Caliperry used to do this as well.
Speaker 1: Mark Pope should have put those guys in. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: he had to do it again. He would have just
Speaker 1: to know the thrill, you know, and give them just
Speaker 1: something for the hard work they put in. That game
Speaker 1: was decided, you know, the midway point of the second half. Anyhow,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying put him in then, But zach Taw
Speaker 1: was the kid.
Speaker 2: Who joined the team.
Speaker 1: Really it was kind of a surprise, people like, who's
Speaker 1: this guy, But because we knew about the other two
Speaker 1: walk ons, they had a tryout and he's the one
Speaker 1: guy who survived it.
Speaker 2: And this is the only game he got in and
Speaker 2: Mark Pope told the story after the game, and it
Speaker 2: was great.
Speaker 3: We randomly held walk on tryouts especially night, so a
Speaker 3: name that most people don't know is Zach Town and
Speaker 3: Zach Taw actually came to walk on tryouts. We randomly
Speaker 3: held tryouts, and he showed up and fought through sixty
Speaker 3: guys in a bunch of workouts and then earned the
Speaker 3: right to come to practice and be on a one
Speaker 3: day contract throughout the entire course of the season.
Speaker 4: And he came and.
Speaker 3: Battled every single day, never said a word, never missed
Speaker 3: a rep, never missed a practice, never was an issue,
Speaker 3: never asked for anything, just came fought every single day.
Speaker 3: And one of the highlights of the night was you know,
Speaker 3: I had some of the guys come to me about
Speaker 3: a month in fact. Lamon Butther came in about a
Speaker 3: month ago. He's like, man, I think Zach deserves a jersey.
Speaker 3: He hadn't got a jersey all year. He was on
Speaker 3: a one day contract. And so in our pregame speech,
Speaker 3: Lamont had the pregame speech before the game today and
Speaker 3: he presented Zach with a jersey. The guys lost their mind.
Speaker 3: Zach was in stunned wonderment and that it's like I'm
Speaker 3: telling that story is a long way around your question
Speaker 3: about you spent spend one day in this jersey and
Speaker 3: BBN embraces you for life.
Speaker 2: So now that kid has a story to tell.
Speaker 1: But it won't be that he'll think about it in
Speaker 1: years to come, but we'll think most of all is
Speaker 1: any trips he was able to make, the practice sessions,
Speaker 1: the locker room, and the spent time he spent with
Speaker 1: his teammates. But I do love that story that guy
Speaker 1: you talk about defining the odds and getting into the game.
Speaker 1: So I just wish he'd had a little bit more,
Speaker 1: you know, and the opportunity to hear fans yell shoot
Speaker 1: when he got the ball. Jay Billis had it again
Speaker 1: last night he worked the Tennessee Alabama game.
Speaker 2: We mentioned to you last night that he and.
Speaker 1: Shulman will work the SEC tournament the entire tournament, so
Speaker 1: for the first time he usually worked the ACC But
Speaker 1: at one point, after another insufferable replay, he and Shulman
Speaker 1: were talking about rule changes that need to be made
Speaker 1: and I agree with all of it.
Speaker 5: And a time out called by nadeoats.
Speaker 2: One point seven seconds left.
Speaker 5: Would you like to see them eventually change the rule
Speaker 5: where when you have timeouts in college basketball, you make
Speaker 5: it like the NBA and you could advance it to
Speaker 5: have fot same time. I would absolutely like to see that,
Speaker 5: but that's one where there's a lot of resistance to
Speaker 5: that among the college basketball traditionalists. They think you have
Speaker 5: to earn that real estate. I'm not one of those,
Speaker 5: but I'm in the reasonable minds can differ on that,
Speaker 5: but I don't think it's going to be changed anytime soon.
Speaker 5: That the rules that need to change.
Speaker 6: We need to go to quarters.
Speaker 5: And where the only game of basketball played in the
Speaker 5: world that doesn't have quarters men's college basketball. And the
Speaker 5: reason I like it is if you can reset team
Speaker 5: files at the end of the first and third quarters,
Speaker 5: it's just a smart thing to do. And we have
Speaker 5: to change the replay rule, make it like the NBA.
Speaker 5: Give each team one challenge. If they get their first
Speaker 5: one right, they keep it for one more, and then
Speaker 5: that's a pit because we're the referees and it's not
Speaker 5: their fault, it's the rule. They spend more time watching
Speaker 5: TV than they do officiating the game.
Speaker 1: I have to admit I'm torn on the advance to
Speaker 1: the ball with a timeout rule. They do that women's basketball,
Speaker 1: they do in the NBA. It adds to the game, yes,
Speaker 1: but I am torn about having this billis said that
Speaker 1: earned that real estate. I could go either way on that,
Speaker 1: but replays, Yeah, we all agree. It's ruining the game
Speaker 1: right now. But as he said, the referees, they're not
Speaker 1: in charge of this. They follow the rules set up
Speaker 1: by the universities at the direction of their coaches. If
Speaker 1: the coaches could get together somehow at their convention and
Speaker 1: figure it out, it would be best for everybody. But
Speaker 1: they've got to accept the fact, and so do the
Speaker 1: schools and the fans, that if you do away with
Speaker 1: all the reviews, there are going to be some calls
Speaker 1: that are not reversed and cost teams games. And as
Speaker 1: a friend of mine said last night, well there's going
Speaker 1: to be some of that where you actually win games too,
Speaker 1: And he's looking at it from a fans perspective. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: but coaches don't get fired for winning games. There will
Speaker 1: be games that they lose that ultimately could maybe not
Speaker 1: directly lead to them losing their jobs.
Speaker 2: But they head.
Speaker 1: Up, don't they If you can accept that we can
Speaker 1: move forward because now you're going back to human error
Speaker 1: in the human element in the.
Speaker 2: Game if you do that.
Speaker 7: So I'd be in favor of that, if everybody would agree.
Speaker 1: Hey, Sometimes, like the Kentucky LSU game four or five
Speaker 1: years ago, LSU won on a tip and it was
Speaker 1: clearly basket interference and.
Speaker 2: They couldn't review it. That's not part of the that's
Speaker 2: not on the list anymore now. It is.
Speaker 1: That's a Kentucky rule. Not that they had anything against
Speaker 1: Kentucky or for Kentucky. It just so happened to kill
Speaker 1: Kentucky in that game. That's the kind of thing that happens.
Speaker 1: And as for quarters, yes, I tweet that every year
Speaker 1: at the first women's game. I attend over UK every year.
Speaker 1: I've done that since they went the quarters in the
Speaker 1: women's game. It makes zero sense, no sense none to
Speaker 1: stay with halves. It's so much better with quarters, simply because,
Speaker 1: as Bill said, you reset the foul situation.
Speaker 7: What coach wouldn't want that? And you shoot fewer free throws?
Speaker 7: What coach, what fan, what official wouldn't want that? It
Speaker 7: makes too much sense. I don't know if there's one
Speaker 7: person or a committee or whatever in standing in a.
Speaker 2: Way of this.
Speaker 1: But it's stupid not to do that. Not the first
Speaker 1: time somebody in college athletics has decided.
Speaker 2: To do something stupid. But why they don't I don't know.
Speaker 2: And he's right, billis is right.
Speaker 1: Everywhere in the world they play like that except for
Speaker 1: men's college basketball. All right, A couple other notes before
Speaker 1: we hit the break. There's going to be a Happy
Speaker 1: Gilmore two. It comes out this summer, So congrats for
Speaker 1: all you happy Gilmore fans. I am happy about this.
Speaker 1: Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan are teaming up again. They're
Speaker 1: the brilliant minds behind thirty Rock, which I just finished
Speaker 1: binging for the third time. If you haven't seen it,
Speaker 1: get it, find it, watch it. It is literally laugh
Speaker 1: out loud funny, not an LOL thing. I mean, I
Speaker 1: told my wife, did you hear me laughing in the
Speaker 1: other room because I was watching Tina face.
Speaker 2: Show thirty Rock?
Speaker 1: Apparently it's going to be a sports related kind of
Speaker 1: Eastbound and Down Show, a football version. Tracy Morgan will
Speaker 1: play a disgraced former football player, and Tina Fey is
Speaker 1: the brains behind it. And I'm thankful for that because
Speaker 1: she is brilliant. Michael Jordan's race team being sued by NASCAR,
Speaker 1: which calls it part of an illegal cartel, accusing his
Speaker 1: longtime business partner Curtis Polk, of threatening teams that consider
Speaker 1: leaving the conspiracy. Wow, that is a big headline when
Speaker 1: it comes to the sport of Nascar. I mean, getting
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan involved was huge, But if he's part of something.
Speaker 2: Like that, that's rough.
Speaker 1: The Bengals are losing a veteran defensive end. Sam Hubbard
Speaker 1: is retiring at only aged twenty nine, but he's had
Speaker 1: a bunch of injuries and his season ended when he
Speaker 1: suffered a torn pcl against the Titans. And he did
Speaker 1: it when he made his first career reception. He caught
Speaker 1: a two yard touchdown pass in a win over the Titans,
Speaker 1: but on the play tore a ligament. He had other injuries,
Speaker 1: so he said, I'm done. You might have seen his
Speaker 1: story last night that Jay Lucas is going to be
Speaker 1: the next head coach of Miami is Apparently he's already
Speaker 1: signed the deal, leaving Duke and leaving before the tournament.
Speaker 1: But you got nil and portal deadline's coming up, so
Speaker 1: you got to get.
Speaker 2: On it right away.
Speaker 1: He can't wait till postseason is over. That's just where
Speaker 1: we are right now in college athletics. Up next, Maggie
Speaker 1: Davis of BBN Tonight. A little bit later on, Darryl
Speaker 1: Bird of The Cash Boss talks about the Colonel's anniversary
Speaker 1: on six point thirty WLAP Welcome back to the Big Bluonsider.
Speaker 1: Joining us now is miss Maggie Davis from LAX eighteen
Speaker 1: BBN Tonight. You know, and I'm watching the coverage Maggie
Speaker 1: of Senior Night, and.
Speaker 2: It's always special.
Speaker 1: Of course, this one was unlike any that we've ever seen,
Speaker 1: we've ever covered, And when you think about it this season,
Speaker 1: and I know how much you've enjoyed covering it and
Speaker 1: covering these guys, and you all have done some really
Speaker 1: interesting feature stories. But we I don't believe will ever
Speaker 1: cover another season like this. In Kentucky basketball, when you
Speaker 1: think about the coach they hired, the former player, the reception,
Speaker 1: how he had to put this team together, the way
Speaker 1: came together. It's really, you know, for a sports cliche,
Speaker 1: Lightning in a bottle, isn't it it is.
Speaker 8: I'm just sitting here letting the wait of all of
Speaker 8: those words kind of sit on me because it is
Speaker 8: incredible when you think about it like that. And I
Speaker 8: had somebody tweet me during the game the other night
Speaker 8: and say, you know, just thank you to these seniors.
Speaker 8: This year has been like a religious experience for me.
Speaker 8: And obviously that's kind of an extreme example, but you know,
Speaker 8: I understand what that person is saying because of everything
Speaker 8: you've just said right there. I mean, it really is
Speaker 8: that lightning in a bottle season, the culmination of so
Speaker 8: much that's happened over the last decade plus. Really, you
Speaker 8: could take it back two or three decades. So when
Speaker 8: Mark Pope was a player here, his rise to become
Speaker 8: a coach fit for a position like this, this program
Speaker 8: being in a position where it desperately needed that breast
Speaker 8: of fresh air. The fan base needed to feel that
Speaker 8: connection to the players. They wanted to feel that connection
Speaker 8: from the players to the state, the name on the
Speaker 8: front of the jersey.
Speaker 2: I mean, all of.
Speaker 8: That has just been building and building and building, and
Speaker 8: then the clash of the transfer portal, and when Mark
Speaker 8: Pope gets hired and now all of this is allowed
Speaker 8: you can pay players now, So all of this has
Speaker 8: happened and it results in seven seniors all deciding to
Speaker 8: come to one program to play for a brand new
Speaker 8: head coach, but probably the best known, widest brand program
Speaker 8: in the entire country, the absolute most established fan base,
Speaker 8: and all of this is this fascinating, Just the position
Speaker 8: to me of deciding, hey, we only have one year.
Speaker 8: All of us could be the star at our particular school,
Speaker 8: but instead we're going to spend this last year together
Speaker 8: to put it all in one place under one guy,
Speaker 8: and we're just gonna see what happens. And that's It's
Speaker 8: just been amazing to watch. And I'm not normally a
Speaker 8: dramatic person, but I am a sentimental person. So I've
Speaker 8: been a cry baby on senior Night since i was
Speaker 8: like eight years old at Rubberina, crying about just, oh
Speaker 8: my gosh, the gravity of playing your last game. I
Speaker 8: can't fathom it as you know, a little eight year old,
Speaker 8: and so for me, you know, I'm a little older
Speaker 8: than eight now, but it still really gets me every year.
Speaker 8: I don't pretend that it was unique, that it kind
Speaker 8: of sat a lump in my throat the other night
Speaker 8: when they played my old Kentucky home. Marlena Van, who's
Speaker 8: saying that at the game, which she's always fantastic, but
Speaker 8: to hear it in that way for these seniors on
Speaker 8: that night with this coach, I mean, it's just it's
Speaker 8: incredibly emotional, and I don't judge anybody who was emotional
Speaker 8: about it. Hopefully they don't judge me for that either.
Speaker 1: Now, be honest, when when Pope handed to Mike and
Speaker 1: said to seniors they want to say something, do you
Speaker 1: think that they went to him and said, hey, coach,
Speaker 1: we like to say or d you say, fellas, why
Speaker 1: don't you talk to the crowd.
Speaker 8: That's a good question. I say good question because I
Speaker 8: asked this question after the game, so putting myself on
Speaker 8: the back a little bit, but uh yeah, I had
Speaker 8: the chance to talk to otega O way after the
Speaker 8: game as part of the media scrum that everybody goes to,
Speaker 8: and we got to talking about his perspective of watching it.
Speaker 8: He actually didn't get to see it. He said he
Speaker 8: was doing other media, so I don't know if he's
Speaker 8: gotten pulled off to a radio broadcaster or the TV
Speaker 8: broadcaster or what it was, but he actually was not
Speaker 8: in there on the court, so he didn't hear exactly
Speaker 8: what every senior said, but he did tell me that
Speaker 8: Mark Pope told them in the huddle when there was
Speaker 8: about a minute left the game, obviously far far far
Speaker 8: out of reach at this point, like hey, guys, as
Speaker 8: soon as this is over, we're going to talk to
Speaker 8: BB and I'm giving the mic to you. You know,
Speaker 8: come up with what you're going to say. So Otega
Speaker 8: was just impressed that they all came up with some
Speaker 8: sort of coherent, motivational, short and sweet thing to say
Speaker 8: to twenty thousand people, because you know, I was joking
Speaker 8: about this with some of the guys after the game, like, man,
Speaker 8: you play in front of all these people all the time,
Speaker 8: but it's a little different talking to that many people.
Speaker 4: Right, And they all kind of laughed and nodded like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I was a little nervous. I was, of course a
Speaker 4: little nervous, but I thought they did great. I love
Speaker 4: that they kept it short. You know, you just you
Speaker 4: need about twenty five thirty seconds.
Speaker 2: That plenty of time.
Speaker 8: And Mark Pope set them up perfectly with the comment
Speaker 8: of like we beat Lobull or sorry he started with Duke,
Speaker 8: We beat Duke. It was great. We came back against Gonzaga.
Speaker 8: It was special. And obviously we beat Los bull we
Speaker 8: all knew that was going to happen, and all the
Speaker 8: l's down. I mean, it was just it was such
Speaker 8: a great senior night. You couldn't have written it any better.
Speaker 1: You know what else impressed me is the comments that
Speaker 1: the kids made after the games, the seniors and you know,
Speaker 1: we were all there when when they introduced themselves to
Speaker 1: us back in the summer, and we were all given access,
Speaker 1: which was so great.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 1: So we get a chance to just meet them, get
Speaker 1: a feel for them, and and you know we all
Speaker 1: asked the same or similar questions, why did you decide
Speaker 1: to do this?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: And all they did after this game last night or
Speaker 1: Wednesday night is reiterate, you know what they said, just
Speaker 1: the chance to to where the jersey, just a chance
Speaker 1: to be a part of this program, which they all,
Speaker 1: in one way or another said they had admired from
Speaker 1: Afar for so long. And and you know, none of
Speaker 1: them use the word, but you could tell they envied
Speaker 1: the kids who were part of it. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm guarantee you that that some of them, for lack
Speaker 1: of a better term, maybe even fantasize. But what must
Speaker 1: it be like to be a part of that basketball.
Speaker 1: Here I am at a mid major program, or even
Speaker 1: Lamon Butler. Here I am at this really cool campus.
Speaker 1: I've been to San Diego, SA. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you have. That would be a great place to go
Speaker 1: to school. And he goes to the final four, you know,
Speaker 1: and yet, golly, what if I could play for Kentucky
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, as one of the players said,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, here I am, you know. And
Speaker 1: it was the same sentiment in August that it was
Speaker 1: Wednesday night, wasn't.
Speaker 4: It It was?
Speaker 8: And I love that point. I think it reminds all
Speaker 8: of us why it was so emotional offt sight. I mean,
Speaker 8: it's easy to say, oh, it's the last time, right,
Speaker 8: the last time anything is tough, right, the last day
Speaker 8: at your job, the last day of school, any last
Speaker 8: is tough. If you're moving if you're just moving on,
Speaker 8: it doesn't matter. Everyone experience is that, in one way
Speaker 8: or another, that's very common. That's a very understood experience.
Speaker 8: What's not a very commonly understood experience? And exactly what
Speaker 8: you're just describing guys who dreamed at their whole life.
Speaker 8: I mean, I remember talking to some of the guy
Speaker 8: you brought it up over the summer about specific players
Speaker 8: they'd watched, and I remember Ansley alma Are rattling off
Speaker 8: all these players from New York that he loved, the
Speaker 8: New Jersey area, Otega, It's the same thing. And you know,
Speaker 8: Laman Butler's like, man, I just love John Wall and
Speaker 8: he was the point guard here and now I'm the
Speaker 8: point guard here, Like that's crazy. And I actually I
Speaker 8: talked to Kobe Breyer this week about just this, and
Speaker 8: he kind of shook his head. He might have said
Speaker 8: this previously, I'm not sure, but he told me this
Speaker 8: insane story that you know, he was at high school
Speaker 8: trying to get recruited, trying to figure it all out,
Speaker 8: and his high school coach was basically asking him, you know,
Speaker 8: where would you like to go? And Kobe says, well,
Speaker 8: I'd like to play at Kentucky and his high school
Speaker 8: coach just looked at him and said, man, you're never
Speaker 8: going to do that. We're going to try to get
Speaker 8: you a D one offer that's as good as we
Speaker 8: can do. You need to be realistic, you need to
Speaker 8: lower the bar. And may we all say thank you
Speaker 8: to Kobe Brea and everyone involved that he has never
Speaker 8: lowered that bar for himself because you know, it wasn't
Speaker 8: possible for him as a freshman. It didn't work out
Speaker 8: right out of high school. As coach was right about that,
Speaker 8: but his coach was absolutely wrong that he wasn't going
Speaker 8: to be a good enough player to eventually earn a
Speaker 8: spot on this team and be a real contributor, not
Speaker 8: just in a game or two here or there, but
Speaker 8: consistently all year. And they're going to need him in
Speaker 8: this postseason two. So to hear that story in this
Speaker 8: context right ahead of Senior Night, I think made Kobe
Speaker 8: really emotional to kind of reflect, I'm like, man, like
Speaker 8: I knew he was wrong, but now everybody can know
Speaker 8: he was wrong, and I just I love that story.
Speaker 8: We got to tell some really great stories this week
Speaker 8: on BBN tonight about all these seniors, and obviously, Big
Speaker 8: Blue Nation has just fallen in love with these guys.
Speaker 8: I mean, you and I could just sit here and
Speaker 8: talk about it all night, and they're great. There's so
Speaker 8: many stories like this because they've been so open and
Speaker 8: transparent and personable really all year long, and I think
Speaker 8: that's part of the reason why this fan base has
Speaker 8: just fallen in love with these guys. But what we
Speaker 8: wanted to really showcase that spirit. Right, it's easy to
Speaker 8: sit down with the players and talk about it, and
Speaker 8: we hear from them so much, and we're grateful for that,
Speaker 8: but I wanted to kind of put spaces and names
Speaker 8: with some of the fans who admired these seniors so much.
Speaker 8: So that's what we were able to do on VbN tonight.
Speaker 8: We found one senior or excuse me, one fan or
Speaker 8: one family that really had been impacted by each senior
Speaker 8: that was honored the other night, plus Kirkrease that we
Speaker 8: included him too, even though we didn't go to the festivities,
Speaker 8: but included all seven of the seniors who are technically
Speaker 8: listed as seniors on the roster, and it was just
Speaker 8: incredible to see all the different ways, big ways and
Speaker 8: small ways that these guys have really made a very
Speaker 8: lasting impact even though we only got him here in
Speaker 8: the Bluegrass for one year.
Speaker 1: Talking to Maggie Davis of BBN tonight, we'll come back
Speaker 1: and talk a little more basketball and some football with
Speaker 1: Maggie in just a minute here on six thirty WLAP
Speaker 1: Welcome back. We're talking with Maggie Davis, the ghost co anchor,
Speaker 1: co producer, just a little bit of everything for BBN tonight.
Speaker 1: You see it on LAX eighteen and BBN Game Day,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering, we all got a big kick out
Speaker 1: of the LSU game. That is not a very good
Speaker 1: team we know, I don't know if it will be
Speaker 1: again in the near future, but we know Auburn's pretty
Speaker 1: damn good and we saw that the other day. I've
Speaker 1: got to admit I was doing baseball. I come home,
Speaker 1: I watched the game, the recording of it, and I
Speaker 1: remember thinking, Man, these guys look rattled. These guys look
Speaker 1: a little intimidated. Did it look that way to you?
Speaker 1: You know it did.
Speaker 8: I'm glad you said it like that, because I had
Speaker 8: the same feeling. I was in reperrena for that game,
Speaker 8: and it didn't necessarily feel like that from the jump.
Speaker 8: I've seen a lot of people sort of, I guess,
Speaker 8: speculate that they felt like the players came in with
Speaker 8: that feeling. I didn't think that was the case. The
Speaker 8: first five minutes, six minutes or so, I really felt
Speaker 8: like KA touched right there. Auburn obviously scored the first
Speaker 8: points of the night. But it was back and forth
Speaker 8: for the first half of the first half, but it
Speaker 8: just got out of hand toward halftime. But even with
Speaker 8: that halftime deficit, you said, all right, it's not looking good.
Speaker 8: Aubert is clearly a very good team, like Kentucky's going
Speaker 8: to have to make some major moves if they want
Speaker 8: to come back in this one. But anytime we've said
Speaker 8: that this year, the obvious but is that's exactly what
Speaker 8: happened against Condega. And so there's a real concrete example
Speaker 8: we point to every single time Kentuck's staff at half times,
Speaker 8: and it's really easy for everybody to say, well, they
Speaker 8: were down eighteen in Seattle, and what's what happened there.
Speaker 8: So I think even though there was that deficit at
Speaker 8: the half, there was sort of this consensus of Auburn's
Speaker 8: a better team, but you never know, we've seen it
Speaker 8: happen before. And then the first five minutes of the
Speaker 8: second half were just an actress and there was there
Speaker 8: was certainly no coming back from that. So to me,
Speaker 8: it was that was the part of the game where
Speaker 8: to meet the cat boots rattled because and Mark Pope
Speaker 8: said this himself right after the games, or maybe the
Speaker 8: day or two later when he did media sort of
Speaker 8: follow up media that it was because of Auburn's pressure.
Speaker 8: It wasn't takeaways. There weren't steals. It wasn't something that
Speaker 8: Auburn was doing defensively. That Kentucky turned the ball over
Speaker 8: six times before their first made field goal in the
Speaker 8: second half. It was just mistakes that you don't typically
Speaker 8: see guys at this level making more than one in
Speaker 8: a blue moon, and Kentucky was dribbling out of bounds,
Speaker 8: throwing it where there was nobody positioned. I mean, it
Speaker 8: was just mistake after a mistake at a mistake, and
Speaker 8: so to me, that is emblematic in my opinion, of
Speaker 8: a team that was in fact rattled. And now in hindsight,
Speaker 8: we know that they had just found out that Jackson
Speaker 8: Robinson was likely out for the entire year. I think
Speaker 8: you know that's maybe was on their minds a little bit,
Speaker 8: But at the same time, it was disappointing to me
Speaker 8: to not see them respond better, specifically after halftime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me shift over to football, because I don't
Speaker 1: think you were there when Mark Stoops spoke and I'm
Speaker 1: sure you looked at the video that was manner from
Speaker 1: heaven for you guys to fill your show. But what
Speaker 1: did you think of Stoop's mood, his attitude, the vibe
Speaker 1: that he gave off at that news conference, at his
Speaker 1: first news conference.
Speaker 2: Of the spring.
Speaker 8: I think he did what he's supposed to do. I
Speaker 8: think that's the attitude you bring into a new season.
Speaker 8: You have to be uplifting, you have to be excited
Speaker 8: about your team. There is a little bit of raw
Speaker 8: raw that's always necessary. I think that's especially going to
Speaker 8: be the case this season. There's no doubt about the
Speaker 8: fact that the fan base down. I mean, he won
Speaker 8: four games last year. They didn't win a single SEC
Speaker 8: game at home. And that's disappointing, not just for the
Speaker 8: season ticket holders who sat there and supported them every week,
Speaker 8: but for the fans who tune in from home, or
Speaker 8: who listened to you on the radio, or who watched
Speaker 8: bb in tonight week night to seven thirty. Shape of
Speaker 8: plug as you like to say, but it's the whole
Speaker 8: fan base was disappointed by last season. And I think
Speaker 8: that it's good that Mark Stoops is acknowledging that because
Speaker 8: you can't hide from it. So I think it's fair
Speaker 8: to say, yes, we were disappointed in this. I also
Speaker 8: think it's fair that now, as we do look ahead
Speaker 8: to the next season, you eventually have to make a
Speaker 8: concerted effort to turn the page. And that is easier
Speaker 8: said than done, because there is always holdover. There's always
Speaker 8: what about this? What about this? I don't want to
Speaker 8: hear about the new quarterback because I heard that about
Speaker 8: the last one. Or I don't care what Mark Stops
Speaker 8: says about the schedule being tough, because the schedule was
Speaker 8: hard last year and it will be hard the year
Speaker 8: after that. Absolutely, all that's fair, All that's valid, and
Speaker 8: I can't take that away from fans who feel that way,
Speaker 8: coaches who feel that way, media who feel that way,
Speaker 8: et cetera. But I do think that in order to
Speaker 8: truly fairly cover a new season from our perspective, and
Speaker 8: for March Stoops to fairly discuss it as the head coach,
Speaker 8: there's an element that's needed of just truly saying, okay,
Speaker 8: let's talk about what we have this year, what's on
Speaker 8: the schedule, who's on the roster, what do we need
Speaker 8: to see from the spring specifically, and then we look
Speaker 8: ahead to the fall springs. Football is so tough in general,
Speaker 8: I think because we don't see them that much. There
Speaker 8: are no games. We do get a little bit of
Speaker 8: a view at the team and some sort of if
Speaker 8: there's an open practice or some sort of spring game,
Speaker 8: but we all know that that's pretty watered down. If
Speaker 8: the public is viewing it or the cameras are coming in,
Speaker 8: you don't have a really good look at what is here. Yeah,
Speaker 8: you hear a lot, but you take that with a
Speaker 8: grade of thought regardless. I think people are going to
Speaker 8: take it maybe with two grains this year. So that's
Speaker 8: going to be interesting to follow just how the fan
Speaker 8: base reacts to the spring season as a whole, when
Speaker 8: it really has always been about talking about the team,
Speaker 8: talking up the team, pushing you know, these freshmen are
Speaker 8: going to be great coming in. The new transfers have
Speaker 8: been awesome. He's gonna say all that again because he
Speaker 8: has to. What else is he supposed to do? And
Speaker 8: we have to cover what the coach says. You know,
Speaker 8: we don't have to agree with everything that happens. We
Speaker 8: have to bring that information to fans to do with
Speaker 8: it what they will. That's what I'll be interested in
Speaker 8: the reaction that springs specifically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, even if there were a spring game,
Speaker 1: you're not going to get an accurate, like you said,
Speaker 1: not an accurate depiction of what the team's going to
Speaker 1: be like. But I always like to say the one
Speaker 1: thing I can tell and I'm still waiting for the
Speaker 1: chance to play and coach Division on college football.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you are too.
Speaker 1: Uh, but when you go to practice or a spring
Speaker 1: game or whatever, you can see who's throwing the ball
Speaker 1: well and who's.
Speaker 2: Catching the ball without dropping it?
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, and that's a lot, that's a lot,
Speaker 1: but just it's another it's another restart, you know. Although
Speaker 1: the bright news is you've got a year under your belt,
Speaker 1: year plus with bush ham Dan with the OC. He's
Speaker 1: not rushing in here learning people, and they're not, you know,
Speaker 1: scrambling to learn his offense.
Speaker 6: That's big, it has to be.
Speaker 8: And honestly, like they all need to have a good
Speaker 8: season on the offense. And we can talk I just
Speaker 8: this and I'm just going to counterdict myself right here.
Speaker 8: But it is a tough schedule and yet you still
Speaker 8: have to find ways to take advantage of it because
Speaker 8: another year with four wins is it going to be acceptable? Really?
Speaker 8: Top to bottom, especially when you've just I mean, you've
Speaker 8: said it perfectly. You don't have that. Oh well, the
Speaker 8: offensive coordinators knew again, and we didn't know that we
Speaker 8: were going to have to replace Liam Cohen, or we
Speaker 8: didn't know that this was going to happen, or this
Speaker 8: is going to happen. Like you fully know who's on
Speaker 8: the staff, who you got out of the portal, who
Speaker 8: you have coming back. The freshman you have coming in
Speaker 8: is an enormous class again. So it's just going to
Speaker 8: be interesting to see how it all plays out once
Speaker 8: all of that kind of settles, and I think what
Speaker 8: the offense specifically needs because the defense has been settled
Speaker 8: for a long time. That's a whole different conversation. But
Speaker 8: for the offense to settle and really just be what
Speaker 8: it is, we're not going to get that in the spring,
Speaker 8: and so it's just going to be starting to put
Speaker 8: the pieces together in whatever way we can. And I
Speaker 8: hope that Bush Hammon is open and honest and transparent
Speaker 8: about how it is going and how it is looking,
Speaker 8: so that there's not another year of let's talk about
Speaker 8: how much better the offensive line's got, how great all
Speaker 8: the wide receivers are the quarterback is the next well
Speaker 8: Levis you know, there is an element of excitement and
Speaker 8: being positive and motivational without just setting up these expectations
Speaker 8: if that's not going to be how it shaped out.
Speaker 8: Of course, injuries happened, change has happened, whatever. But I
Speaker 8: do think there's going to be a balance to this spring,
Speaker 8: specifically on offense of building some excitement while also being
Speaker 8: realistic and finding somewhere in the middle for the fans
Speaker 8: to really settle.
Speaker 1: Well, and you mentioned it, I mean when you look
Speaker 1: back on it at how close Kentucky came. Seriously it
Speaker 1: was last year to having a decent season, not ten wins,
Speaker 1: but a decent season. Those two seven wins seasons should
Speaker 1: have been more and they were closed. But and I'm
Speaker 1: not pointing fingers with anybody specifically, but it all goes
Speaker 1: back to the old line in my opinion, and there
Speaker 1: are other areas you can point at, but it starts
Speaker 1: with the old line. I thought we expected too much
Speaker 1: this past year, maybe the last two years from them,
Speaker 1: and now it's.
Speaker 2: Going to be probably four out of five new starters.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think so too, And I think that was
Speaker 8: the major focus. If you want to look at it
Speaker 8: this way in the transfer port walk, and that's where
Speaker 8: they've got the bulk of this transferportal roster. I don't
Speaker 8: know that for sure. I would assume Chunk, Stubby and
Speaker 8: il budget went just fixing that room and buffing up
Speaker 8: not just the starters, but adding some depths that was
Speaker 8: really lacking the past couple of years. And again it
Speaker 8: goes back to consistency. Having the same offensive line coach,
Speaker 8: Eric Woolford is expected back this year. She'll be working
Speaker 8: under the same offensive coordinator once again, and even though
Speaker 8: we have so many different pieces in theory, they're operating
Speaker 8: under the same offense, the same system, the same big picture,
Speaker 8: and it's just helping develop guys into the big picture,
Speaker 8: regardless of whether they're a freshman that you want to
Speaker 8: start building that depth with from the beginning, or they're
Speaker 8: a tradesfer that's coming in maybe with just one or
Speaker 8: two years left. How do you make them most of
Speaker 8: the time that you do have with that guy? All
Speaker 8: that's going to be important this year. Big Blue Wall
Speaker 8: absolutely a huge piece of that.
Speaker 2: She is Maggie Davis.
Speaker 1: She is the co host and producer and just does
Speaker 1: everything along with Keith Farmer. And all the gang overy
Speaker 1: X eighteen for BB and tonight BBN game Day. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, ma'am. And we will see you at
Speaker 1: a ball game somewhere.
Speaker 8: Absolutely Nashville, here we come. Will I see you down
Speaker 8: there now?
Speaker 2: I'm here doing baseball.
Speaker 9: Well, what's support man?
Speaker 8: I love the overlapt weick. Thank you so much for having.
Speaker 1: Me all right, see you up next to nowur number
Speaker 1: two Darryl Bird of the Cat's Pause on his great
Speaker 1: story about the Kentucky Colonels of nineteen seventy five fifty
Speaker 1: years ago, AB eight champs and Brian Milem of WKYT
Speaker 1: that's all I had on six thirty Wlapata.
Speaker 10: Tact tact showing then backed OUTSI.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Big Blue and Sider and joining
Speaker 1: us now in our celebrity hotline is a guy who
Speaker 1: it seems like every time I talk to Darryl Bird,
Speaker 1: it's about something cool that you've written again.
Speaker 2: You know, you wrote the book Onlon County.
Speaker 1: You wrote the book on the seventy five season anniversary
Speaker 1: a few years ago. You and I talked about that
Speaker 1: great Mike Pratt, Dan Issel, Mike Casey team that might
Speaker 1: have been and now you take aim at the fiftieth
Speaker 1: anniversary of the Kentucky Colonel's ABA title. It's the only
Speaker 1: essentially major league championship in the history of the state
Speaker 1: of Kentucky. And I, you know, I grew up in Louisville,
Speaker 1: as you know, and what the Colonel's games. Love seeing
Speaker 1: that team play showing my age. But I like how
Speaker 1: and the piece ahead of it. You mentioned the fact
Speaker 1: that it takes more than nine thousand words to tell
Speaker 1: the story, but that's.
Speaker 2: Worth it is.
Speaker 6: Oh, it was.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 9: It took easily north of nine thousand and for those listening,
Speaker 9: a typical game story might be four or five hundred.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and it was easily north of nine thousand and
Speaker 9: gave Kenny you can appreciate this. It was two things.
Speaker 9: As a reporter, I was scared to death. Someone else
Speaker 9: is going to figure it out and write about it
Speaker 9: and beat me to the punch. I was terrified the
Speaker 9: whole time because I did the interview with dan Is
Speaker 9: on in October and I was sitting on it, waiting
Speaker 9: at it. And number two, you know, I realized said, Okay,
Speaker 9: it's a fifty the anniversary's really cool. I remember when
Speaker 9: I was a kid in high school. So I called
Speaker 9: Dan Infel and I said, this is the deal. I
Speaker 9: want to do it. He said, come on, So I
Speaker 9: loaded up. I went to Denver and spent three over
Speaker 9: three hours in his house at his kitchen table, and
Speaker 9: I had a copy of the book that Gary West
Speaker 9: wrote I think early two thousands, Kentucky Colonels took it
Speaker 9: with me. He hadn't seen it, or he hadn't seen
Speaker 9: it in a very very long time, and that's basically
Speaker 9: how the story unfolded. He's flipping through the book and
Speaker 9: every photo he's like, oh my gosh, I remember, and
Speaker 9: just story after story after story kept coming up from that,
Speaker 9: and that's and I had to At the time, I
Speaker 9: didn't have a copy book. I borrought my friends here
Speaker 9: and love now and Dan had asked about getting coffee,
Speaker 9: so I was texting him and I'm texting so surreal.
Speaker 9: I'm sitting at Daniszel's kitchen table, and he was so
Speaker 9: gracious with his time, and just the stories were great
Speaker 9: and the best part of me. You ever had those
Speaker 9: one where you're doing the interview and you're like, there's
Speaker 9: my lead, no doubt. It happens a lot if You're
Speaker 9: lucky it happened. He's slipping through the pages pretty early on.
Speaker 9: Look at it. There's a lot of photos in there.
Speaker 9: He goes, oh, my god, my sword and my refrigerator.
Speaker 9: What he said, my sword and my refrigerator. I said, okay,
Speaker 9: that's what I got for being MVP of the ABA
Speaker 9: All Star Game. It was a four foot warrior sword
Speaker 9: and a refrigerator.
Speaker 2: I never knew that.
Speaker 9: And I was like, okay, there's my lead. We're gone
Speaker 9: from here. And that's how it just ripped off from there.
Speaker 9: And it was so much fun and hard. But you know,
Speaker 9: the ones that are really really hard to write always
Speaker 9: ended up being the best ones.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't think of another team, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure there may be one or more out there that
Speaker 1: were more perfectly constructed or suited for the state of
Speaker 1: Kentucky and the city of Louisville.
Speaker 2: When you've got and they were smart. The ABA was
Speaker 2: really smart about this, uh.
Speaker 1: And you know the NBA used to do it, but basically,
Speaker 1: if there was a really great player in your area,
Speaker 1: they did everything they could to make sure you got
Speaker 1: them draft or no draft, and you know, you got
Speaker 1: Louis Dampier Darryl Carrier.
Speaker 2: Uh, you know, and and dan Issel, I mean, who's
Speaker 2: not going to go watch that team? It was great.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Danissel made sure he went to the Colonels. Yeah,
Speaker 9: because he said And when he was at UK, he
Speaker 9: got a call from Cliff Hagen, of all people, another
Speaker 9: Kentucky connection, who was player coach of the Dallas Chaparral.
Speaker 9: He called Danny, said Dan, just want to let you
Speaker 9: know we have your draft right. And he said, well,
Speaker 9: I appreciate that, but I'm only playing for one team
Speaker 9: in the AVA and said two weeks later, I get
Speaker 9: to call him. The colonel said, congres Dan, we have
Speaker 9: your draft right.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: And you know, of course Hagen was was part of
Speaker 1: a similar situation, you know, when he was in Saint
Speaker 1: Louis round the Boston at his draft rights and but
Speaker 1: he's part of that trade for Bill Russell. You know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't exactly by the book, but he worked out
Speaker 1: for Saint Louis, they won a championship and clearly worked
Speaker 1: out for the Celtics. So, uh that that's one of
Speaker 1: the great side notes to pro basketball back.
Speaker 2: Then and beyond.
Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, I'm so envious that you got a
Speaker 1: chance to do that with Dan. He's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite people. He was my first childhood college basketball hero.
Speaker 2: He and West Sumship, you know who was a little
Speaker 2: prejeting him a little bit.
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I met danil So. He
Speaker 1: was talking to Ralph Hacker and a couple other people
Speaker 1: at Memorial Coliseum and I went walking past him and
Speaker 1: he reached that big arm out and grabbed me and
Speaker 1: up my hand, and you know how strong his handshake is,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yes, and he says hello, mister Gabriel. And
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, Dan Issel knows my name and it's just
Speaker 1: and has turned into a bit of a pal through
Speaker 1: the years. So I envyew that that opportunity. But what
Speaker 1: else did you pull out of that interview. I know
Speaker 1: we've only got X amount of minutes, but people.
Speaker 9: Needed the thing that was little. I was making sure
Speaker 9: I had a University of Kentucky connection, and you dig
Speaker 9: into it, and yes, he had Dampier and Mike Pratt
Speaker 9: was with him for a while and so forth. And
Speaker 9: I didn't realize at the time the original Kentucky Curls
Speaker 9: their uniform color was Shartreu's green. Yes, and when they
Speaker 9: got Issel. When they got to Isle, they changed to
Speaker 9: blue and white. They're idiots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were no.
Speaker 9: Idiots at all, and there almost wasn't was no Kentucky
Speaker 9: Curls that year because they sold the team to a
Speaker 9: group in Cincinnati. And that and the next day he
Speaker 9: told me that the next morning, John Y Brown comes
Speaker 9: down for Brett, he's one of the five alerts. Came
Speaker 9: down for breakfast and his son is crying that He says,
Speaker 9: he's got the morning paper. And the son was distraught
Speaker 9: that the colonels were leaving and John why. He said,
Speaker 9: John White looks it and he went and bought him back,
Speaker 9: got it back just because of that.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 9: And that's kind of how I ended that. He realized.
Speaker 9: You know, the more you go through it, you think, well,
Speaker 9: that was fifty years ago, but it touched a lot
Speaker 9: of people and still does to this day. I see
Speaker 9: a lot of people can relate to that. It was
Speaker 9: really cool story.
Speaker 1: I seem to recall a story that his son suggested
Speaker 1: that they go get ted McClain ted the hound McLain
Speaker 1: right here at Tennessee State. It was like the final
Speaker 1: piece of the puzzle for the Colonel's championship team because
Speaker 1: he was such a great defender.
Speaker 9: M Yeah, there had a couple of lockdown defenders.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you're right.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1: And more recently it was a bad boy kind of guy.
Speaker 1: But now with the Colonels, you know, I mean, he
Speaker 1: was an enforcer, but a general giant. So many great names.
Speaker 9: Yeah, no, kid, and got that. Asked, I did take
Speaker 9: the opportunity, I said, okay, I said, was the ab
Speaker 9: Aba really as crazy as as everyone led? He said
Speaker 9: it had tame down a little by the time that
Speaker 9: I got there. He said, but yes, I said, I said,
Speaker 9: the Miami Floridians, the cheerleaders were in bikinis. He said, absolutely,
Speaker 9: that is true. My worst shooting Knights were we're at Miami,
Speaker 9: let's put the ballgirl directly under the basket with the
Speaker 9: opponents were shooting free thrower. Yeah, it was crazy. And
Speaker 9: I said, okay, there's a Will Falls movie semi pro yes,
Speaker 9: about two that crazy wrestling bears and all this stuff.
Speaker 9: I said, factor fiction. He said, that's the whole lot,
Speaker 9: closer to a documentary than it is entertainment. He said, Yeah,
Speaker 9: there was bear wrestling in Indianapolis. There was there was
Speaker 9: all these crazy things, and I didn't realize or maybe
Speaker 9: I wasn't paying attention that there were so many fights
Speaker 9: like every he said, it was more like a hockey match.
Speaker 9: Every every team. I said, you're kidding, Dan, He said, no,
Speaker 9: every team had an enforcer and it was their job
Speaker 9: when a fight broke out to come out and help.
Speaker 9: And if they were on the bench or on the floor,
Speaker 9: there was their job. Ron Thomas, Louisville player was was
Speaker 9: the Colonel's enforcer. And Dan told me that he got
Speaker 9: into a fight one night during the season with Linder Ladder,
Speaker 9: of course, and he said he punched it, hit him
Speaker 9: flush on the jaw. Sid. I don't know if I
Speaker 9: hurt him, but I hit him hard. He swung by
Speaker 9: kim me in it put like three or four cut
Speaker 9: that made the three or four stitches in Dan's jaw. Wow,
Speaker 9: and said, And after it's over, he came over to
Speaker 9: Ron Thomas. He basically, quote unquote, what the hell were
Speaker 9: you when the fight broke out? And he said, didn't
Speaker 9: you hear the ABA is going to find us twenty
Speaker 9: five dollars for leaving the bench?
Speaker 2: He said.
Speaker 9: He said, the next time there's a fight, you get
Speaker 9: your ass out there and I will pay you one
Speaker 9: hundred dollars.
Speaker 7: Ironically enough, Ladder ended up a Kentucky colonel for a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and it's great and just there's so many stories
Speaker 9: like that. And Ellie Brown was when they bought the team,
Speaker 9: was thirty three and the owner, first female owner, her
Speaker 9: entire board, of her entire board, all women, and they
Speaker 9: offer up was actually an advisor to that, to that group.
Speaker 9: And yeah, it's just so many, so many really cool
Speaker 9: stories in the games themselves were We're insane. The one
Speaker 9: my favorite one was they met. It was like the
Speaker 9: it's like a uk U of l the Colonels and
Speaker 9: the Pacer. Yeah, huge rivalry. And say he said, some
Speaker 9: of the games we would play in San Antonio or
Speaker 9: Dallas and me and Louis Drew would count the crowd
Speaker 9: during the national anthem when to pay the Colonels. It
Speaker 9: was usually a packed house. They rival tenth. I don't
Speaker 9: know if you remember, but Colonels won Game one of
Speaker 9: the championship. In Game two, Billy Keller hit a shot
Speaker 9: from half court at the buzzer to win it for
Speaker 9: the Pacers, but the referee waved it off too late
Speaker 9: and they of course there's no video review. You can't
Speaker 9: go to review the monitor. So they protested, paid the
Speaker 9: two hundred dollars fee of protest, and four days later
Speaker 9: they determined after the already played Game three played Game four,
Speaker 9: they determined that the original call was correct. Because what
Speaker 9: they had to do. They sent Bill Olsen to the
Speaker 9: WLKYTV studio the morning after and they started watching tape.
Speaker 9: And they did have tape of the final shot. They
Speaker 9: did not have a frame showing the clock and the
Speaker 9: shot at the same time, so they used math. They calculated,
Speaker 9: at twenty four frames per second, it took forty eight
Speaker 9: second forty eight frames for two seconds, sixty six frames
Speaker 9: for the shot to happen, so they calculated it was
Speaker 9: too eight wow, and I don't know. And then they
Speaker 9: presented to Dave de Busher, who was the commissioner, all
Speaker 9: in one week and he finally ruled, and by then
Speaker 9: the colonels were, you know, you go into it all
Speaker 9: way up? Two oh? Is it one to one?
Speaker 6: We don't know?
Speaker 9: When they went a hitad and played to me, there's
Speaker 9: so many crazy stories here that it just goes on
Speaker 9: and on and on. So that's really cool stuff.
Speaker 2: Daryl Berta The Cat's Pause.
Speaker 1: Mike, guess we're talking about his story on the fiftieth
Speaker 1: anniversary of the Kentucky Colonel's ABA title Back with more
Speaker 1: in a minute, Herond six thirty WLAP Welcome back. Daryl
Speaker 1: Berta is my guess. He is the editor of The
Speaker 1: Cat's Pause and has a great story. It actually just
Speaker 1: published late February, but you can find it if you
Speaker 1: are a subscriber in the VIP section on the Kentucky
Speaker 1: Colonel's fiftieth anniversary of their ABA champion ship. Daryl flew
Speaker 1: to Denver, where Dannisill lives now, and sat with Dan,
Speaker 1: who told me, and I'm sure he told you that
Speaker 1: the nostalgia, I don't know what it is. Dan believes
Speaker 1: the ABA is more popular now than it was when
Speaker 1: they were actually playing, you know what I mean?
Speaker 9: Yes, absolutely right, and he's he's, well, probably it isn't
Speaker 9: a nostalgia. And as those of us who followed it
Speaker 9: back there and get older, we tend to brighten things
Speaker 9: up a bit. And but the game's more ntaining. Oh yeah,
Speaker 9: he said they did.
Speaker 6: They didn't.
Speaker 9: They knew they were onto something because the NBA was
Speaker 9: really boring. Yeah, yeah, and he said it was pain
Speaker 9: was walking down the floor, throw it to a big
Speaker 9: man and get your two points. There was a three
Speaker 9: point shot in the NBA, like there was an ABA,
Speaker 9: and said we we When they took the four teams
Speaker 9: into the NBA, they took almost.
Speaker 2: Every ABA rule with them except the ball.
Speaker 9: Three point three pointer up temple, all except the ball
Speaker 9: read our back. So experience then say that he hated
Speaker 9: the A B A and said that that basketball red white,
Speaker 9: blue basketball had no place in the game that belonged
Speaker 9: on a seals nose.
Speaker 1: Yep, I remember that. I'll tell you what I went
Speaker 1: growing up in Louisville. I went to the occasional college
Speaker 1: basketball game. I either went to Bellerman college games or
Speaker 1: I went to U of L games in Freedom Hall
Speaker 1: when we could get a ticket for a dollar at
Speaker 1: Conveyed Food Mark.
Speaker 2: And set up in the end zone seats.
Speaker 1: Going to a colonel's game was I mean, it was
Speaker 1: so fast, you know, and you know we were sitting
Speaker 1: closer to the court, so you know that the house
Speaker 1: lights were down, so it looked like the court was
Speaker 1: bathed in a spotlight. And those guys there were flying.
Speaker 2: Through the air. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
Speaker 1: It was like Century overload and it was, as you said,
Speaker 1: really great basketball. And then artist Gilmour joins the colonels
Speaker 1: for crying out.
Speaker 9: Like Dan's contends to stay jelie the It is the
Speaker 9: best that's ever played.
Speaker 2: I don't doubt it.
Speaker 9: And he thinks and he thinks his glory days were
Speaker 9: spending the ABA before the merger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said.
Speaker 9: He would say. I would find myself playing against him
Speaker 9: and he would do something and I would think, did
Speaker 9: I really just see what I think I just saw?
Speaker 9: He said it was ridiculous. And there's a great story
Speaker 9: in the book that Gary West wrote that there's one
Speaker 9: game where Doctor J went off for forty and Huge Brown,
Speaker 9: who was the first year coach, believed it or not.
Speaker 9: That's another great at right for Huge Brown. It was
Speaker 9: his first head coaching of his first year led him
Speaker 9: to the title. He told the team. Pinky Gardner heard it,
Speaker 9: told z went the next time he has a wide
Speaker 9: open breakaway layup, you grab him around the waist. You
Speaker 9: don't hurt him, don't do anything delicious, but you've got
Speaker 9: to stop him because he's turning our own fans against us.
Speaker 9: He's so good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll tell you that's crazy.
Speaker 1: The Colonels as a team in Kentucky Athletic Call of
Speaker 1: Fame while I was still a part of it. So
Speaker 1: I got a chance to be around Hubey Brown and
Speaker 1: listen to some interviews and things and.
Speaker 2: Uh and as we all know, he just retired.
Speaker 1: But you can tell because you know, as people did
Speaker 1: retrospectives on his career, that was one of the greatest
Speaker 1: moments of his life, leading the Colonels to a championship.
Speaker 1: And I know how much the Colonels respected him.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Dan said, you check it to the I mean
Speaker 9: English ninety one still calling in. He said, you watch closely.
Speaker 9: He still wears the ABA champions to bring that's right,
Speaker 9: always has it on as as always for the last
Speaker 9: fifty years, always has it. Yeah, yeah, I thought, that's
Speaker 9: really that's really cool. And I didn't realize I'm dealing
Speaker 9: researching it and always I said, that can't be right.
Speaker 9: And it was the Spirit of Saint Louis was a
Speaker 9: big rival that year, a lot of heating games. And
Speaker 9: I'm reading it and their broadcaster play by play is
Speaker 9: a twenty three year old Bob Costa.
Speaker 2: That's correct.
Speaker 9: I'm like, you'd kind of be kidding me.
Speaker 2: He was a year out of Syracuse.
Speaker 1: Yes, and he had famously said he took his audition
Speaker 1: tape and sweetened it, you know, and put a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of basins.
Speaker 2: His voice sounded bigger so he wouldn't sound more like
Speaker 2: a kid. And yeah, there he is doing ABA games.
Speaker 9: Isn't that amazing? Man?
Speaker 2: So envious the.
Speaker 1: Colonel's games, And uh, you know, I said, ah, you
Speaker 1: know pro basketball. He said, hey, these are the best
Speaker 1: athletes in the world. An he wasn't wrong.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, the Colonels were. It's so many. It was
Speaker 9: the first, at least in the Louisville market. It was
Speaker 9: the first basketball game broadcast live was in that seventy
Speaker 9: five seasons, the road trip to the Pace. Until then
Speaker 9: it was just HS radio and AHS TV went with
Speaker 9: them the Indian They kind of simulcast first one. Yeah,
Speaker 9: dance dancit. You won't believe this. Of course, Dan was
Speaker 9: Biggin's motioning said you won't believe this. But back then,
Speaker 9: it's in a lot of markets. The NBA Championship Series
Speaker 9: was tape delayed at ten after the ten o'clartment on
Speaker 9: tea Yeah, absolutely, So that's why they knew they weren't
Speaker 9: that formidable. We knew we had something instead of had
Speaker 9: they not been they relegated to all small markets and
Speaker 9: had that not you know, they had no TV. The
Speaker 9: AB All Star Game was it to at his fonded
Speaker 9: you started buck hasting like game just did it on
Speaker 9: their own to do it, and I didn't wanze. They played, Yes,
Speaker 9: they played it for you all. They played a handful
Speaker 9: of games and memorial that year they did played a
Speaker 9: handful of games, Bowling Greene Delireen and Bowling Green. They
Speaker 9: played a few games, played a few in Cincinnati, So
Speaker 9: it was it.
Speaker 1: Was crazy, yeah, trying to you know, we'll we'll bring
Speaker 1: it to you if you don't want to come to
Speaker 1: and you know, I was disappointed the game in the
Speaker 1: Coliseum was not a sellout. And now to this day
Speaker 1: people tell me about it. I was there and there
Speaker 1: was people hanging from the raptor know they want you
Speaker 1: doctor It was against doctor j but you know, and
Speaker 1: then finally they're all just a shamed that they couldn't
Speaker 1: say that because they were the best team in ball.
Speaker 1: To you, they were easily better, well maybe not easily
Speaker 1: than the Golden State Warriors who won the NBA, and
Speaker 1: of course they played an exhibition, but by then they
Speaker 1: weren't the same Colonels the following fall.
Speaker 2: But as I was gone and John White and he
Speaker 2: was right.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a great deal immediately, but down the road
Speaker 1: it would have been, you know, incredible if they had
Speaker 1: stayed in the league, and they've tried to bring it back.
Speaker 1: I don't know if Louisville'll ever get the NBA, but man,
Speaker 1: if they just could have held that team together, what
Speaker 1: might have been. Right.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Dan told me that John Wat told him before
Speaker 9: he passed. He made two mistakes. Warren was not paying
Speaker 9: the four million to put the Colonels in the NBA,
Speaker 9: and the other was trading him. Because once he ross
Speaker 9: he wasn't going to go, he started selling off his
Speaker 9: pieces and he sold traded Dan sold Dan to the
Speaker 9: Baltimore claus And that's how I started laughing, and he
Speaker 9: said what I said, you guys, you're the only person
Speaker 9: in humanity has ever traded to the Baltimore Clause. And
Speaker 9: they never played, well, they never been played a couple
Speaker 9: exhibitions and that was it.
Speaker 6: That was good.
Speaker 9: So you know, that's why Why I have one more story?
Speaker 9: Even though John Why traded dan Is and fans went nuts. Oh,
Speaker 9: they turned on John Brown fiercely, and Dan hated going
Speaker 9: to Baltimore, but the league was falling. The parts he
Speaker 9: just he did. He said, I have to find the quote.
Speaker 9: He said, I'm in a hotel in Baltimore. It's me, Sherry, Sheridan,
Speaker 9: a parakeet, and a cat. We're all living in a
Speaker 9: hotel room. And he said, Cherry's coming home every night
Speaker 9: looking houses, coming home crying because they can't find him.
Speaker 9: Draw me and he gets said, I get a call
Speaker 9: in the hotel room from said Jehan Role. Brown said, Dan,
Speaker 9: if I can get you out of Baltimore, would you
Speaker 9: please say something nice to the media. And Lord, they're
Speaker 9: killing me, he said. He said, John, you get me
Speaker 9: out of here, I'll say anything you want. And John
Speaker 9: Walls says, good, I'm gonna ring two Let two eleven,
Speaker 9: come on down.
Speaker 3: Guy.
Speaker 9: He blone to Baltimore, determined to get him and make
Speaker 9: that deal happen.
Speaker 1: You need to subscribe to The Catch Balls if you
Speaker 1: haven't already, to read this great story about the Colonel's
Speaker 1: written by Daryl Brod Darryl, thank you so much, and
Speaker 1: I'll see us somewhere down the road. Man Jonnal twenty
Speaker 1: seven is Brian Milem next on six thirty WLAP joining
Speaker 1: us on the Celebrity Hotline. Now is a guy I
Speaker 1: like to call Tuesdays mister Baseball and mister Softy, And
Speaker 1: it's Brian Milem And sir, you are a guy who
Speaker 1: loves a good, sympathetic kind of sports story. How are
Speaker 1: you on UKSE Senior Night? You've seen enough of them?
Speaker 1: Does it tug at you?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 8: It has to.
Speaker 6: And I even mentioned in my one of my live shots,
Speaker 6: when you hear my old Kentucky Home, if you are
Speaker 6: a Kentuckyan, I think it you should kind of pause
Speaker 6: for a moment and reflect and just think that's our song. Yeah,
Speaker 6: And it just hit different in two places, Churchill Downs
Speaker 6: on Derby Day and rup Arena on Senior Night. And
Speaker 6: I remember the late great Jim McKay on ABC Sports
Speaker 6: doing the Derby decades ago, and he said, if it
Speaker 6: doesn't tug at your heartstrings a little bit when you
Speaker 6: hear that song on this day, meaning Derby Day, you
Speaker 6: need to get yourself checked because it does something to
Speaker 6: you emotionally when you hear that song on those two occasions.
Speaker 1: I actually had the privilege of working stats once in
Speaker 1: a while at UK games when NBC had college basketball,
Speaker 1: So I was standing there when dick Enberg was doing
Speaker 1: Senior Night for the seventy eight team and his you know,
Speaker 1: tearing up. I mean he was mister softye as well
Speaker 1: as you know, and it got to him. So there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that obviously. And on the show last night,
Speaker 1: I played I guess it was two nights ago, I played, No,
Speaker 1: it was last night. I played the Happy Chandler version,
Speaker 1: which I think was his last go around with Miles
Speaker 1: Kentucky Olmans for the eighty eight team.
Speaker 2: I don't know why that one gets to me.
Speaker 7: Maybe it's the bow at the end, all the way
Speaker 7: to his waist.
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, I think it's something.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it's that. And the fact you also
Speaker 6: see rob Lock and the shed a tear.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And because Happy Chandler was in his upper eighties, however
Speaker 6: old he was, he hit that broken note on a
Speaker 6: couple of occasions, which is kind of reminiscent of the
Speaker 6: JFK when they performed taps, and there's the broken note
Speaker 6: at his.
Speaker 1: At his.
Speaker 6: Procession when he was killed, and but yeah, when Happy
Speaker 6: Chandler had that rendition, it was it took you back
Speaker 6: to a different era. And we used that as the
Speaker 6: close to the job Hall special when he asked away
Speaker 6: a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you sure did. That was great, man, that was
Speaker 2: great coverage.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 1: I've talked to a couple of people about this. I
Speaker 1: just find it really interesting. I tried it and you
Speaker 1: do too, to take note of historic moments or situations
Speaker 1: or whatever. And this season is literally one for the
Speaker 1: books in that in the way the coach was hired,
Speaker 1: in the way the fans reacted, in the way they.
Speaker 2: Alarm going off started and stuff.
Speaker 1: That okay, in a way the coach was hired, in
Speaker 1: the way he pulled the team together, in a way
Speaker 1: they've played. And it's been up and down, great quad
Speaker 1: one wins, puzzling losses. But man, this is one season
Speaker 1: I'll never forget.
Speaker 6: Same for you, Oh absolutely, it was. You know, our
Speaker 6: job in the media, and I think fans forget this.
Speaker 6: We would, we want you k to win, but our
Speaker 6: job is not to be a fan of what we do.
Speaker 6: Now there are a lot of media people who call
Speaker 6: themselves they're fans. They're not fans. Yeah they are, and
Speaker 6: that's okay, but we must still be critical and we're
Speaker 6: not supposed to show quote unquote fandom. I have been
Speaker 6: a fan this year, and I will say that on
Speaker 6: the record because the last since COVID, I got tired
Speaker 6: of the message, you know, no tournament in twenty twenty,
Speaker 6: and Cal said, well, this team was poised for an
Speaker 6: actual championship. Well, a lot of people could say that
Speaker 6: that's right, And it always.
Speaker 2: Felt as if.
Speaker 6: Cal was buying time. You know, we're built for March.
Speaker 6: It's December, we're built for and then March comes and nothing.
Speaker 2: What happened?
Speaker 6: And the thing with Hope and these players, what's so
Speaker 6: refreshing is it is just straight up honesty. They're not
Speaker 6: buying time. We played like crap tonight. We played great tonight.
Speaker 4: We did this tonight.
Speaker 6: You got answers from mature kids. Yeah, we could think kids.
Speaker 9: Because we're of the agent.
Speaker 6: But Amari Williams and Otaga and Braya and Andrew just
Speaker 6: all of the guys are so easy to talk to
Speaker 6: and have a conversation with, and they're so self deprecating. Yes,
Speaker 6: we were not good here. You didn't You don't hear
Speaker 6: those canned answers, Yeah, that we hear so often from athletes,
Speaker 6: and and that part just reinvigorated me. And and also
Speaker 6: the fact that this is an older team. I mean,
Speaker 6: this has got six seniors and if Kerkkrisa had walked
Speaker 6: through the senior ceremony, that would have been seven. We've
Speaker 6: not had seven seniors on one UK team since nineteen
Speaker 6: sixty two. Wow. And it just takes you back to
Speaker 6: an era of Man, these guys want to play. They don't.
Speaker 6: They're not going to be first round draft picks. Yeah,
Speaker 6: maybe maybe a late first round of something weird happened.
Speaker 6: These are ballplayers, They're not corvettes that have been bought
Speaker 6: for a years.
Speaker 1: And the level of appreciation that they have for being here,
Speaker 1: and I'm not knocking the kids who were here before them,
Speaker 1: but it's just an interesting take on, you know, what
Speaker 1: it's like to be here, because they all admired Kentucky
Speaker 1: from various parts of the country, from Philadelphia, from San Diego,
Speaker 1: from North Carolina, you know, and hey, what must it
Speaker 1: be like to be a part of that. Then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, Hey, would you like to play yes please,
Speaker 1: you know, I just think it's it's just been so
Speaker 1: much fun to cover. And now I do wonder about
Speaker 1: the NCA tournament. That's a huge stepping stone for Mark
Speaker 1: Pope and it's going to depend on, as you know,
Speaker 1: the bracketing, the seating, who they play.
Speaker 6: So it's a new season, it always is, it is,
Speaker 6: And I'm not asked several of the players. Over the
Speaker 6: last you know, a week or so, we've seen what
Speaker 6: the injuries can do to this team. Yeah, now you
Speaker 6: don't have Jackson Robinson. And it's so important for UK
Speaker 6: to get that number eight seed because if they want
Speaker 6: to win an SEC championship, you do not want to
Speaker 6: play on the opening day. And I've asked them, does
Speaker 6: this team have enough to play four days in a
Speaker 6: row and try to win this thing, or even five
Speaker 6: days if they had to play on Wednesday, And you
Speaker 6: know that answer has a tough answer. Of course, the
Speaker 6: kids are going to say, yeah, we can do it.
Speaker 6: That would be almost Yukon esque from twenty eleven. If
Speaker 6: this UK team could run the table with the limited
Speaker 6: roster they have.
Speaker 1: I hate to say this, I just don't think they
Speaker 1: have enough, you know, because and look they're good enough
Speaker 1: on a given night, I think even at least compete
Speaker 1: with all and we saw that for fifteen minutes, you know,
Speaker 1: and then they led Gola Rope for whatever reason. But man,
Speaker 1: and I go back, I remember that that team in
Speaker 1: seventy nine, it took Tennessee to double overtime, you know,
Speaker 1: the year after given to them and graduated right. Trying
Speaker 1: to win that many games in that many days, that's brutal.
Speaker 1: It's only been done what once.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, it's it's just the perfect storm that
Speaker 6: you don't want. And if Kentucky can get that eight seed,
Speaker 6: that's why if they were to beat Missouri, oh my gosh,
Speaker 6: or even get the help they need from old Miss
Speaker 6: Tennessee game and all the other scenarios, and then there's
Speaker 6: also a moment where they could be the five seed
Speaker 6: if weird things happen over the next over this weekend.
Speaker 6: So but it has been a great ride, and I
Speaker 6: think the NCAA Tournament, I just hope for their sake
Speaker 6: they are in a mental fit situation, and I think
Speaker 6: they will be because they are so old by college standards,
Speaker 6: they will embrace the fact. And we have to remember
Speaker 6: all of these guys also have played in the NCAA
Speaker 6: tournament somewhere along the way or most of them have, Yeah,
Speaker 6: and so they understand the pressure of what's about.
Speaker 2: To get well. Look at lamon Butler's experience in the NCAA.
Speaker 9: Yeah, he didn't do bad.
Speaker 1: If you can't lean on him, who Kenny Lena, We're
Speaker 1: talking to Brian Milam of WKYT. We're gonna switch to
Speaker 1: women's basketball as he is either already in or on
Speaker 1: his way to Greenville as we speak around six point
Speaker 1: thirty WLAP Welcome back. We're talking with WKYT sports director
Speaker 1: Brian Mylam, who is covering not just the men but
Speaker 1: the UK women's basketball team. And you know, what a
Speaker 1: joy to cover this men's team in the way it's
Speaker 1: come together. I so enjoy covering Kenny Brooksty, watching them play,
Speaker 1: hearing him speak, you know.
Speaker 2: Just his take on how he does his job. Brian,
Speaker 2: to me, has been fascinating.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many of the news conferences you've
Speaker 1: been at, but I know you handle all the video
Speaker 1: for your newscasts.
Speaker 2: That guy, he knows what he's doing.
Speaker 6: He does and the demeanor he has is so almost
Speaker 6: stoic at a press conference. But it is again what
Speaker 6: you see with the mend what you see with the women.
Speaker 6: They are interchangeable here in the fact that they have
Speaker 6: an older team, they have some some and some young
Speaker 6: some young blood also that can that can play. But
Speaker 6: to see the demeanor of Kenny Brooks, I even asked
Speaker 6: a couple of people, I said, does he ever blow up?
Speaker 6: You know, like in practice? Does they go not? You know,
Speaker 6: you kind of wonder as someone who is so calm
Speaker 6: and reserved and uh in public. But you know what,
Speaker 6: every team I think needs a coach like a Kenny Brooks,
Speaker 6: even if it's not a head coach. You need assistance
Speaker 6: that can counterbalance the head coach. But Kenny Brooks has
Speaker 6: the pulse of this team since day one when we
Speaker 6: got to speak with him, and you kind of just
Speaker 6: listen to him throughout the year. I don't know, he's
Speaker 6: just one of my favorite coaches and we don't really
Speaker 6: know him know him, but I just love his demeanor.
Speaker 6: I love the way he handles the team. And again
Speaker 6: he expects so much, and he has Georgia Amore with him,
Speaker 6: who he says is my mini me, which is great.
Speaker 6: And he's got coaches on the floor with her, he
Speaker 6: handles the sideline. It is just a perfect recipe for
Speaker 6: continued success for UK women and a time when they
Speaker 6: desperately needed it.
Speaker 1: And her presence when she got to Kentucky instantly jumped there.
Speaker 1: Not just their credibility but their ability because without her,
Speaker 1: I don't know where they are. But with her, men
Speaker 1: and I know their thing them win in the SEC
Speaker 1: tournament what you're covering in Greenville, South Carolina, and we
Speaker 1: talked about the men. I think it's even a bigger
Speaker 1: challenge for the women given their lack of depth because
Speaker 1: they got those two key players out injured.
Speaker 2: You know they've been out all year.
Speaker 1: But we also know how good this team is if
Speaker 1: and when they hit shots, especially Aymoors hitting like she
Speaker 1: did at Oklahoma.
Speaker 6: Right, if she hits if she is the key. I mean,
Speaker 6: let's be honest, she is the key to the ignition.
Speaker 6: She's the gas in the tank, she's the radios on
Speaker 6: the wheels. I mean, she runs this ball club and
Speaker 6: as Kentucky goes, she goes. As she goes, Kentucky goes,
Speaker 6: she is the chief in charge. And when you think
Speaker 6: about what she has done at the point guard spot,
Speaker 6: and to be, you know, a finalist for the Nancy
Speaker 6: Lieberman Award. If you figure that Kentucky can will play,
Speaker 6: you would think at least two games in the tournament
Speaker 6: in the SEC tournament, they can make a run in
Speaker 6: the NCAA. I don't know how many UK women's players
Speaker 6: or UK players in general have scored six hundred points.
Speaker 9: In the season, but she can do that this year.
Speaker 6: I think she's at five twenty five somewhere in there
Speaker 6: right now, and with a few games of twenty points
Speaker 6: the way she can fill it up. I mean at
Speaker 6: a six hundred point scorer who also hands out assists
Speaker 6: all of the time and plays defense, and she's just
Speaker 6: a complete player that at the guard spot, especially with
Speaker 6: the point guard spot we I don't know if we've
Speaker 6: seen ever or certainly in a long time.
Speaker 1: I keep trying to compare her to Patty Joe Hedges
Speaker 1: a different time, different era, shot clock, three pointer. Both
Speaker 1: just incredibly great ballhandlers. PJ used to go to the
Speaker 1: blue courts and you know where those are on the
Speaker 1: UK campus, Yeah, and compete against the guys and it
Speaker 1: was great before they knew who she was, and she
Speaker 1: would just destroy them. There's no way Georgia Amore is
Speaker 1: going to be able to go to a pickup game
Speaker 1: now because everybody knows who she is. But oh man,
Speaker 1: then when you factor in Kentucky has the defensive player
Speaker 1: of the year, oh in, Kentucky's dal the way Kenny
Speaker 1: Brooks teaches defense that puts them in the picture in
Speaker 1: any game they're playing. To come up with them, I
Speaker 1: don't care who they're playing. I know Texas handled them
Speaker 1: pretty well, but man, they had LSU down. They had
Speaker 1: South Carolina on the ropes for a little while, so
Speaker 1: I kind of like their chances.
Speaker 6: Well, I think, yeah, when you have clearistract blocking every
Speaker 6: shot that comes their way. I remember thinking when we
Speaker 6: got a chance in the late summer to or maybe
Speaker 6: even early fall to speak with the women, and the
Speaker 6: first thing immediately which jumps out at you as wow,
Speaker 6: she's six five, she's six seven, she's six five. Wow,
Speaker 6: that guard six three, that guard six to two. The
Speaker 6: height immediately knocked you over. And yeah, you're going to
Speaker 6: be defensively minded. If you're not quick, well guess what
Speaker 6: your height and linked can make up for it. And
Speaker 6: Strack has been awesome and I'm so happy for coach Brooks,
Speaker 6: and I know he is that. Hey, Clara, you want
Speaker 6: to come on over to Kentucky. It's the great place
Speaker 6: from Virginia Tech. Sure, coach, I'm on my way. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you know, it's the new world of the portal and
Speaker 6: Mark Pope and Kenny Brooks have crushed it in year one.
Speaker 1: Well, and that is how much those kids love playing, absolutely,
Speaker 1: you know, and obviously vice versa. But you know his success,
Speaker 1: I mean taking Virginia Tech to the final four, and
Speaker 1: as we all know, Kentucky flirted with it but kept
Speaker 1: running any Yukon, you know, and now he's got a
Speaker 1: couple of kids, if not more, who could play for Yukon.
Speaker 2: That's how I judge teams.
Speaker 6: Right, that's a good point. I hadn't thought about that.
Speaker 6: But yeah, you know, the the in the conference for decades,
Speaker 6: and you know this Tennessee was the standard. Yeah, can
Speaker 6: Kentucky play with the standard? And they even get close
Speaker 6: to the standard in the early eighties, Yeah, they did,
Speaker 6: And then there was a drought of two decades when
Speaker 6: you just really weren't close to winning at all until
Speaker 6: the mid two thousands when Mickey DeMoss said, hey, yeah,
Speaker 6: we can win, we can do something and it took
Speaker 6: a Tennessee assistant to show Kentucky out to beat Tennessee.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 6: But now Kentucky, along with South Carolina and now Texas
Speaker 6: coming into the fold, they are the new standards. And Kentucky,
Speaker 6: I really believe, with Kenny Brooks, can't help be that
Speaker 6: upper tier of that standard for a long time.
Speaker 1: And speaking of Tennessee, I mean I was courtsied. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you were in the studio or what,
Speaker 1: but man, when they destroyed Tennessee, oh my god.
Speaker 2: That was surreal. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
Speaker 1: And they clearly learned from that was prior to South Carolina,
Speaker 1: right after LSU.
Speaker 2: They clearly were stinging from that LSU game getting away
Speaker 2: and they made it. What didn't they? They did?
Speaker 6: And you know when with the exception of the SEC
Speaker 6: Tournament run a couple of years ago, when Kentucky completely
Speaker 6: stunned the basketball world while winning the SEC Tournament, but
Speaker 6: to be in the game with LSU the whole way,
Speaker 6: to be in the game with South Carolina the whole way,
Speaker 6: and to completely annihilate Tennessee in a way they have
Speaker 6: never I mean, they took the Orange right out of
Speaker 6: the school Colors of Tennessee. And that just shows you
Speaker 6: in one year what the right coach, the right schemes,
Speaker 6: the right kids, the right everything can do. And you know,
Speaker 6: neutral court I was told a long time ago, coach
Speaker 6: told me, when you're at home, it's worth ten points. Well,
Speaker 6: if you take ten points away from South Carolina, that's
Speaker 6: the sixty eight to sixty six game. And if you
Speaker 6: take certain other close law us as the Cats have
Speaker 6: had this year, this has been one one of the
Speaker 6: darndish years for men's and women's basketball at the same
Speaker 6: time because of the unexpected nature of everything colliding at once.
Speaker 2: Ran WK with you.
Speaker 1: Watch for his coverage out of Greenville, probably already has
Speaker 1: started as we speak.
Speaker 2: But safe travels, movam.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Dick, Thanks to Brian, thanks to
Speaker 1: Daryl Board and Maggie Davis.
Speaker 3: That's you.
Speaker 2: A good night from the garage in Lexington.
Speaker 9: Wait, let me let me explain something to you.
Speaker 8: I am not mister Lebowski.
Speaker 3: You're mister Lebowski.
Speaker 2: I'm the dude.
Speaker 10: Tact the ship doing then.
Speaker 6: Thing to.
Speaker 10: Take that stinks from time to time in contacting too