Speaker 1: All right, let's get a drive time right afternoon, eight
Speaker 1: minutes past the hour, two o'clock. What a gorgeous day
Speaker 1: to cap off a gorgeous week. We've had spring light
Speaker 1: conditions all week long, and as it is every single day,
Speaker 1: it's going to have you along for the ride. It's
Speaker 1: Bence check, it's behind the mic. We are out and
Speaker 1: about today at Tim Dolly Nissan, Tim Dalliotto Group are
Speaker 1: good friends. The address is forty five twenty eight South
Speaker 1: State Street. Really easy to find, just put that address
Speaker 1: in your GPS. ESPN seven hundred van is right out front.
Speaker 1: Happy Friday to you. Congratulations, you made weekend time. What
Speaker 1: a beautiful week we've had and we have a jam
Speaker 1: packed Friday show for you guys right now. Now get
Speaker 1: a new ride from Tim Dalliato Group. Tim Dolly is
Speaker 1: making room for the twenty twenty five models, so all
Speaker 1: twenty four models must go during their year end clearance event.
Speaker 1: You can get behind the wheel of your dream car
Speaker 1: or truck or suv. They've got EV's and stock as well.
Speaker 1: Great deals going on. He starting the new year with
Speaker 1: a big win and with Tim Dolly's forever warranty. It's
Speaker 1: a real thing. It's a forever warranty. It doesn't happen
Speaker 1: in very many places, if any at all here at
Speaker 1: Tim dally So it is a forever warranty. It's a
Speaker 1: win win. You can thank Tim dally Ford Infinity three
Speaker 1: niss On two Maza location. Think Tim Daliato group, come
Speaker 1: on by and say what's up jam packed Friday Show?
Speaker 1: Good have you with us on this Friday afternoon. The
Speaker 1: Utah Jazz welcome in a couple of old friends tonight
Speaker 1: as the Minnesota Timberwolves roll into town. The Jazz were
Speaker 1: off last night, but a fun, fun out of NBA
Speaker 1: basketball last night. Stephen Wardale Curry. How about fifty six
Speaker 1: points for steph last night? Incredible performance. Golden State Warriors
Speaker 1: are seven and one after acquiring Jimmy Butler and the
Speaker 1: LA Lakers are eight and two since acquiring. Now that's
Speaker 1: not right. It says that it doesn't feel like he's
Speaker 1: played ten games. But anyway, Lake Chris beat the Timberwolves
Speaker 1: last night, so the te Wolves roll in on the
Speaker 1: second out of a back to back. The Phoenix Suns
Speaker 1: continue to spiral in the wrong direction and it really
Speaker 1: really on game in Milwaukee saw the Bucks getting the Nuggets.
Speaker 1: So a fun night of NBA basketball last night, and
Speaker 1: we've got a good night of NBA hoops tonight featuring
Speaker 1: the Timberwolves and the Jazz here in downtown Salt Lake City,
Speaker 1: Utah at the Delta Center for a seven thirty tip.
Speaker 1: College hoops will dominate the weekend landscape both locally and nationally.
Speaker 1: BYU looks to continue their winning ways. They've won five
Speaker 1: straight Big twelve games, and that is the longest Big
Speaker 1: Twelve winning streak that they have had. Even though it's
Speaker 1: only been two years. BYU's already won twenty games. There
Speaker 1: are eleven and six in conference play, and they welcome
Speaker 1: in the team to the Marriot Center. Who they beat
Speaker 1: to start this winning streak. West Virginia is in town
Speaker 1: coming up tomorrow night at eight o'clock on ESPN two.
Speaker 1: University of Utah will get back at it as well.
Speaker 1: Only a few games left for the Utes. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: storyline this week has been the news that Craig Smith
Speaker 1: was relieved of his duties as Utah's head coach. We'll
Speaker 1: get to some of the latest thoughts and the latest
Speaker 1: rumors about who could take that job next. Arizona State
Speaker 1: rolls into the Huntsman Center. It's a five o'clock tip
Speaker 1: coming up tomorrow night. I would encourage you, if you
Speaker 1: have some free time tomorrow to head on up to
Speaker 1: the Huntsman Center and give these young men your support.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's been an emotional week for them. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it's been a difficult stretch for them. Then on
Speaker 1: the fourth, March fourth, coming up next week, it'll be
Speaker 1: West Virginia in town and Utah finishes off their regular
Speaker 1: season schedule. I'm not sure if any post season plans
Speaker 1: are going to be possible, but BYU will be the
Speaker 1: final game down on Provo, down in Provo on March
Speaker 1: the eighth, and it's gonna be a tough one for you.
Speaker 1: It's man Kevin Young, Bringham Young. They have been on fire,
Speaker 1: and the Utah Women welcome in bringing Young coming up
Speaker 1: tomorrow at one thirty. So a jam packed the day
Speaker 1: of college hoops tomorrow. The women have lost two of
Speaker 1: their last three to two really good teams, Oklahoma State
Speaker 1: and West Virginia. Try to get back at it coming
Speaker 1: up against BYU tomorrow, so a lot to do. Some
Speaker 1: local players showing out at the NFL Draft combine. We
Speaker 1: have some NFL offseason news. Stafford has agreed to a
Speaker 1: restructured deal with the Rams, and could Aaron Rodgers simply
Speaker 1: not move and play football next year in New York,
Speaker 1: but for the Giants instead of the Jets. So a
Speaker 1: lot to do, a lot to do on the program today.
Speaker 1: Great to have you with us where Ilse Salt Lake
Speaker 1: will try somehow some way to get on track, coming
Speaker 1: up to Marrogan. It's a really good Seattle Sounders team.
Speaker 1: Seattle made a lot of offseason additions. Craig Wibel is
Speaker 1: the general manager in Seattle. He spent a ton of
Speaker 1: time down here in saw Lake. He's the man that's
Speaker 1: credited with finding Demir cry Lock and others. So it's
Speaker 1: going to be a tough test as RSL is waiting
Speaker 1: for reinforcements. So we'll do a little RSL on the
Speaker 1: program today as well. Good guest list on this Friday
Speaker 1: afternoon Live from Tim Dolly Tim Dolly Nissan at forty
Speaker 1: five to twenty eight South State Street. It's their year
Speaker 1: end clearance, so come on by and say what's up.
Speaker 1: Get a great deal on a vehicle, price to move.
Speaker 1: Our first guest right out of the gates will be
Speaker 1: the man who I think is going to be wearing
Speaker 1: the captain's arm band for all OSL this year. Mecca
Speaker 1: and Nelly will be our first guest. Right out of
Speaker 1: the gate. Shout out in eight bench that we're gonna
Speaker 1: move over to Howard Beck Hippis, rider around, NBA rider
Speaker 1: around at three o'clock, our friend from the Ringer, and
Speaker 1: then we'll welcome in Paul Pugmyer for a little bit
Speaker 1: of golf as a golf season. PGA Tour they're in
Speaker 1: the midst of their Florida swing and as of now
Speaker 1: it looks like it's the Cognistant Classic in the Palm Beaches. Oh,
Speaker 1: Jake Knapp is not in the league man. He had
Speaker 1: a fifty nine yesterday Jake Knapp did, so we'll do
Speaker 1: a little little golf. But the leader board is jam
Speaker 1: packed with big names down in Florida as the PGA
Speaker 1: Tour makes their Florida swing. They'll be at Bayhill next
Speaker 1: weekend and I will be at that tournament. Very excited
Speaker 1: to attend at PGA event. It's something I've never had
Speaker 1: an opportunity of doing. So after Pug stops, I will
Speaker 1: welcome in Spencer Linton, our friend from BYU TV, do
Speaker 1: a little BYU hoops, some Big twelve hoops, maybe some
Speaker 1: college football, some Big twelve football. BYU has actually started
Speaker 1: their spring practice on the football side of things as well.
Speaker 1: And then my guy, im my former radio partner, longtime
Speaker 1: columnist at the Salt Lake Tribune, Gordon Montson stops by
Speaker 1: on a Friday afternoon. So a Mecca and Nellie Howard Beck,
Speaker 1: Paul Pugmyer, Spencer Linton, Gordon mottson me Spence Jackets live
Speaker 1: at Tim dally Nissan forty five to twenty eight South
Speaker 1: State Street, and back in the studio on this beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful Friday afternoon is where we find the producer of
Speaker 1: this program, Porter Larson, on a Friday. Is it Is
Speaker 1: it safe to say that Steph Curry might be the
Speaker 1: greatest point guard in the history of the NBA.
Speaker 2: Man, that's a it's a good question. He's He's on
Speaker 2: the very, very short list. I whenever this argument comes up,
Speaker 2: I say Lebron Magic, those guys are point guards. They're
Speaker 2: in the discussion.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: But I mean it's Chris Paul, it's it's John Stockton,
Speaker 2: it's Steph Curry and it's maybe those guys if you
Speaker 2: want to, if you want to have that that discussion.
Speaker 2: And man, he's still doing it, still doing it at
Speaker 2: this age and and still plenty of fun to watch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, watching that lie last night was wild. I mean,
Speaker 1: when he gets going, there's a very few players I'd
Speaker 1: rather watch than Steph. When Steph starts doing Seth things.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Magic are a really good defensive team.
Speaker 1: Steph Curry scored fifty six points on twenty five shots.
Speaker 1: That is just nuts. He went twelve to nineteen from three.
Speaker 1: So jazz back in action tonight. Some good NBA, some
Speaker 1: good college hoops coming up this weekend. Our first guest
Speaker 1: today will be a Mecca Annelly RSL midfielder. But before
Speaker 1: we get to a mecca on this Friday afternoon, courtesy
Speaker 1: of our good friends at Prize Picks, it is time
Speaker 1: now for your opening tip.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Drive with Spence Check its on Utah's
Speaker 4: number one Sports talk. Now into the studios of ESPN
Speaker 4: seven hundred to set the scene for the show. The
Speaker 4: opening tip of the Drive is brought to you by
Speaker 4: Prize Picks. Use the code ESPN seven hundred and run
Speaker 4: your game with Prize Picks.
Speaker 1: Download the Prize Picks app today, use the promo code
Speaker 1: ESPN seven hundred, and you get fifty dollars instantly after
Speaker 1: you play your first five dollars. Line up Prize Picks,
Speaker 1: run your game all season and long. All right, the
Speaker 1: big news of the week this week certainly has been
Speaker 1: that the University of Utah are in the market right
Speaker 1: now for a new head basketball coach for the men's team.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've covered this from several different angles,
Speaker 1: but let's review the latest kind of where we're at
Speaker 1: right now, and then we'll go from there. So obviously
Speaker 1: it's been a difficult, you know, kind of topic to
Speaker 1: cover for a number of different reasons. As I've talked
Speaker 1: about all week long, and as Tommy Lloyd outline the
Speaker 1: head coach of Arizona after the Utes were down to Michale,
Speaker 1: there certainly is a personal side to these things that
Speaker 1: I think oftentimes we ignore. And you know, even though
Speaker 1: there are these massive, massive buyouts and massive, massive you know,
Speaker 1: wind falls and essentially golden parachutes, it doesn't make it
Speaker 1: any easier for a family when a person loses their job.
Speaker 1: You got to figure at some point you're going to relocate.
Speaker 1: Craig is still very young, He's got a lot of
Speaker 1: coaching ahead of him. And I've said this all week,
Speaker 1: I'll continue to reiterate it. I don't view this as
Speaker 1: a Craigsmith issue entirely, but it is a bottom line,
Speaker 1: resultory oriented business, and Craig knows that as much as anybody.
Speaker 1: He even said it on the record last year. There
Speaker 1: are some cases I think to be made that there
Speaker 1: are actually signs of improvement here or there, and things
Speaker 1: getting a little bit better here or there. But you know, ultimately,
Speaker 1: when you have very powerful people in the ears of
Speaker 1: the president of the university and the athletic director, which
Speaker 1: I've been told is definitely the case, it's hard to
Speaker 1: continue to move in the direction of allowing somebody to
Speaker 1: build if there are a lot of people behind the
Speaker 1: scenes that aren't on board with that decision, and namely
Speaker 1: people around you know the program that are capable of
Speaker 1: writing big checks and they help your bottom line economically,
Speaker 1: because in this day and age of college athletics, powerbrokers
Speaker 1: with deep pockets, they carry a differ than they used to.
Speaker 1: They've always been important. You've always needed boner excuse me.
Speaker 1: You've always needed donors and you've always needed boosters to
Speaker 1: make sure that you have everything that you need to
Speaker 1: keep up with facilities and pay your coaches and pay
Speaker 1: your administrators and all that stuff. But now with the
Speaker 1: ability and the necessity to actually pay your players, your
Speaker 1: pockets have to be deeper and you have to be
Speaker 1: prepared in a way that around the market. Right now,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how many people know if Utah Basketball
Speaker 1: is in a position economically to support whoever the new
Speaker 1: head coaches, and we don't know who it's going to be,
Speaker 1: but I can promise you whether it's Alex Jensen or
Speaker 1: Eric Spolstra or if you resurrect Rick Majeris, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter who it is. Any candidate will ask Mark Harland
Speaker 1: and Taylor Randall the same question that is am I
Speaker 1: supported financially? Am I supported economically? And if the answer
Speaker 1: is we're working on it, They're not going to get
Speaker 1: their first choice. They might not get their first three
Speaker 1: or four choices. I mean, I don't know what the
Speaker 1: issue was. When John Calipari left the University of Kentucky.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people were just kind of
Speaker 1: over the whole, like we have a ton of talent,
Speaker 1: but we can't get a dun com tournament time. But
Speaker 1: Mark Pope, by all reports, was like their fifth or
Speaker 1: sixth choice. And I can't imagine any of that had
Speaker 1: to do with Nil. I'm sure Kentucky is just fine
Speaker 1: with it. But if Alex Jensen is going to leave
Speaker 1: the pros, he has to know that he is set
Speaker 1: up to succeed wherever he goes, whether it's Utah or
Speaker 1: anywhere else. I mean, you know, I reported this earlier,
Speaker 1: and I don't tweet much anymore for a number of
Speaker 1: different reasons, but I had two different sources tell me
Speaker 1: that this is the final year of Alex's contract with
Speaker 1: the Dallas Mavericks. And you know, after essentially being a
Speaker 1: lifelong assistant coach in the NBA, and Alex of course
Speaker 1: was a G League coach. She was the G League
Speaker 1: Coach of the Year. I thought Smitty gave us some
Speaker 1: really good context this week on just how difficult it
Speaker 1: is to coach in the G League and just how
Speaker 1: difficult it is to win in the G League, because ultimately,
Speaker 1: everybody in the G League does not want to be
Speaker 1: in the G League. That includes players, that includes coaches,
Speaker 1: it includes administrators, it includes pr staff. Everybody in the
Speaker 1: G League is in the G League for an opportunity
Speaker 1: to at some point to get called up to the
Speaker 1: big leagues, right, And so as a head coach, if
Speaker 1: you're Alex Jensen, you're dealing with a group of players,
Speaker 1: a group of young men more often than not that
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily thrilled to be playing for you. They're playing
Speaker 1: for you for an opportunity at some point to be
Speaker 1: called up to the pros, right. And so ultimately Alex's
Speaker 1: you know his path. He played overseas as a player
Speaker 1: for about seven years, made some money in Turkey and
Speaker 1: in other places as well. Started as a coach in
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven when he joined Rick Majeris's bench
Speaker 1: in Saint Louis and then went over to the Canton
Speaker 1: Charges a reference. He was the G League Coach of
Speaker 1: the Year, won a G League championship, and then spent
Speaker 1: an entire decade with the Jazz, starting I believe with
Speaker 1: Ty Corbin and then and Quinn Snyder took the job.
Speaker 1: And I think this says a lot about Alex because
Speaker 1: Quinn could have probably not probably, but Quinn could have
Speaker 1: filled his bench with anybody who he wanted to, and
Speaker 1: he could have named any coach as his lead assistant,
Speaker 1: but he named Alex as his lead assistant. And in
Speaker 1: ten years with the Utah Jazz, Alex made a name
Speaker 1: for himself with really working with big men and the
Speaker 1: Rudy go Bears of the world, the Derek Favors of
Speaker 1: the world, and the Rudy story certainly is a massive success,
Speaker 1: and most of that credit goes to go Beart, for sure,
Speaker 1: But if you talk to anybody down in that organization,
Speaker 1: if you talk to anybody around the league, they talk
Speaker 1: about Alex as the conduit to tremendous growth for Gobert,
Speaker 1: who as a rookie looked like a baby giraffe and
Speaker 1: could barely get up and down the floor. Then after
Speaker 1: working with Alex for a couple of years, we're talking
Speaker 1: Defensive Player of the Year multiple times, All Stars multiple times.
Speaker 1: Rudy Gobert is a Hall of Famer. And again most
Speaker 1: of the credit goes to go Bear, but Alex deserves
Speaker 1: a lot of that as well. And then after will
Speaker 1: Hardy to go over, Alex was in the last year
Speaker 1: of his contract, and I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: out of respect. I don't know if it was just like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's just let him finish out the final year. He
Speaker 1: spent one year with Will, and in that year with Will,
Speaker 1: Alex was tasked with working with Walker Kessler. Walker a
Speaker 1: late pick in the first round, and his rookie year,
Speaker 1: he ended up finishing second in Rookie of the Year voting,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people, again around the league and
Speaker 1: around the organization, believe Alex had a big hand in that.
Speaker 1: And then lands on his feet with the Dallas Mavericks.
Speaker 1: Dennis Lindsay, who's now with Detroit, you know, spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time here at roster constructing with the Utah
Speaker 1: Jazz and he is the one that decided to allow
Speaker 1: Will not allow, but encourage Dallas to look at Alex Jensen.
Speaker 1: And that's where Alex has been now for the past
Speaker 1: two years. This is his third year, I believe, on
Speaker 1: the bench in Dallas. So there you go. I do
Speaker 1: feel like all of the rumors I've heard and all
Speaker 1: the things I've read and the things I've heard is
Speaker 1: that Alex appears to be at the top of the
Speaker 1: list as far as the candidates to coach the University
Speaker 1: of Utah basketball program. We've talked about some of the
Speaker 1: other you know candidates as far as the avenue of
Speaker 1: looking at some of the young coaches in younger in
Speaker 1: smaller schools, smaller programs that have done a really good
Speaker 1: job with not a lot of resources, and oftentimes that's
Speaker 1: the route you go to when it comes to a
Speaker 1: big program in the big twelve a P four program
Speaker 1: to find your next head coach, right and so you know,
Speaker 1: we've already seen Mark Carlan go that route. He went
Speaker 1: that route with Craig and there are a lot of
Speaker 1: examples of coaches right now who people that cover the
Speaker 1: sport believe that it's kind of their turn, right, I
Speaker 1: guess that's how I'll put that kind of their turn.
Speaker 1: After coaching a smaller school with not a lot of resources,
Speaker 1: they've shown that they can coach, and so does a
Speaker 1: big program look to make their pockets a little bit
Speaker 1: deeper and ultimately land on them to coach their program.
Speaker 1: So that is one route. The other route, of course,
Speaker 1: is finding a big name coach he's been on the
Speaker 1: sidelines for quite some time. That worked for Saint John
Speaker 1: to Rick Patino. And then the last route that we've
Speaker 1: been talking about quite a bit on this show is
Speaker 1: do you go the former ute route? Do you try
Speaker 1: to restore a past glory? Does that do anything for
Speaker 1: the community for a program that is badly in need
Speaker 1: of a shot of life, a shot of adrenaline? Does
Speaker 1: that do anything for you as a member of this
Speaker 1: community who cares about Utah basketball. If you're not a
Speaker 1: season ticket holder right now, and you get an email
Speaker 1: or you get an alert on your phone that Utah
Speaker 1: has decided that their next head coach is going to
Speaker 1: be Alex Jensen, and Alex's bench will be filled with
Speaker 1: former utes, namely Andre Miller, who's a G League coach
Speaker 1: right now sitting next to him. If you're not a
Speaker 1: season ticket holder now, my question for you is will
Speaker 1: you be motivated to call the basketball office and put
Speaker 1: a deposit down for tickets next year? Because while that's
Speaker 1: not the most important thing for a program that has
Speaker 1: not had a building full consistently for a number of years,
Speaker 1: that is a very important The fact that there are
Speaker 1: banners right up top, you know, covering the top of
Speaker 1: the Huntsman Center ever at all, is just a pathetic
Speaker 1: thing that is embarrassing. Quite frankly, I'm not blaming fans
Speaker 1: for not showing up. You gotta have a product that
Speaker 1: consistently is winning. You got to have a product that
Speaker 1: is consistently entertaining and in this day and age again,
Speaker 1: I'll finish with this before you catch a break. The
Speaker 1: bottom line to me is this, It does not matter
Speaker 1: if it's Alex Jensen, if it's Andre Miller, if it's
Speaker 1: Richard Patino, it doesn't matter who it is. Every coach
Speaker 1: is going to ask Mark and he's going to ask
Speaker 1: Taylor Randall, Look, do you have what it takes economically
Speaker 1: and are you set up financially with an infrastructure that
Speaker 1: will allow me to succeed. If the answer is not
Speaker 1: an emphatic yes, even if it's a hey, we're kind
Speaker 1: of growing in that direction, that's not going to be
Speaker 1: good enough. And there's a lot of ambiguity around whether
Speaker 1: or not Utah basketball has the money to keep up
Speaker 1: with the programs in the Big twelve. And I'm not
Speaker 1: even saying keep up with what BYU's doing. I mean,
Speaker 1: the reports are bru just wrote a seven million dollar
Speaker 1: check daj Debonsa for five months of basketball next year.
Speaker 1: He's only playing one year. He'll be in provo five months,
Speaker 1: he's walked away with seven MILI and that's a level
Speaker 1: that I'm not even saying Utash should, you know, try
Speaker 1: to strive to right away, But ultimately you've got to
Speaker 1: be able to keep the players that you like. And
Speaker 1: Davon Smith going to Saint John's, I mean, Davon would
Speaker 1: have made a big difference for this team this year. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm told the Utah maker made a competitive offer and
Speaker 1: Utah can't offer Madison Square Garden, they can't offer New
Speaker 1: York City. But ultimately, in order to get the talent
Speaker 1: that you need, Because I will land on this once again,
Speaker 1: I don't think this was a coaching issue. I think
Speaker 1: this was a talent issue on the roster, not just
Speaker 1: this year but pretty much ever since Craig has taken over. Now,
Speaker 1: the hard part is is the head coach You've got
Speaker 1: to wear that too. How much of that is Craig's
Speaker 1: inability to recruit, how much of that is Utah's inability
Speaker 1: to pay players, I honestly don't know. But whatever the
Speaker 1: head coach brings to the table as far as his pedigree,
Speaker 1: it asked to be matched equally by the program economically
Speaker 1: in order to support him with the infrastructure in place,
Speaker 1: So no news. I don't think we're gonna hear any
Speaker 1: news as of right now, and you'd still have some
Speaker 1: games to play, and I will repeat Arizona State coming
Speaker 1: up tomorrow, five o'clock Huntsman Center. Let's do what we
Speaker 1: can to get up there and show these show these
Speaker 1: young men that we appreciate their efforts during a very
Speaker 1: very emotional week in a very very emotional situation. All right,
Speaker 1: we're live today at Tim Daly Nissan. They're opening until
Speaker 1: eight o'clock tonight, so if you can't get here during
Speaker 1: the show, we'll take it out about six. You can
Speaker 1: get here after work about eight o'clock. It's forty five
Speaker 1: to twenty eight South State Street, so come on by
Speaker 1: and say hi. All right, we're live today at Tim
Speaker 1: Dally Nissan. It's forty five to twenty eight South State Street.
Speaker 1: Got off to a little weird start to the show,
Speaker 1: got a little loose, was trying to say donors and
Speaker 1: boosters and landed on a word right in between. But
Speaker 1: we're gonna move on because it's Friday, and it's beautiful
Speaker 1: outside and RSL is in action tomorrow. Our next guest
Speaker 1: midfielder for Rayl saw Lake. It's always a pleasure to
Speaker 1: catch up with a Mecca and Nelly on a Friday afternoon.
Speaker 1: A meta, Happy Friday, buddy, are we.
Speaker 5: Doing I'm doing well. I'll be Friday to you as well.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the time. Man. First of all, tell me
Speaker 1: about your off season experience. And you know, no big
Speaker 1: deal of Mecca. You had your first call up for
Speaker 1: the US men's national team, So tell us about it, man,
Speaker 1: how was it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was fantastic. I mean I got the the
Speaker 5: email I guess that I was going to be called
Speaker 5: into camp. I think just a little bit before Christmas,
Speaker 5: so it was a nice a nice little Christmas gift
Speaker 5: and then obviously the camp early January for two weeks.
Speaker 6: It was.
Speaker 5: It was a great experience, you know, to meet some
Speaker 5: of the players, some of the best domestic players in
Speaker 5: the MLS, some of the best coaches you know on
Speaker 5: the coach that you know, Chelseaps, the other top places Spurs,
Speaker 5: and just to be coached by them for for two weeks.
Speaker 5: It was. It was a great experience.
Speaker 1: I've got to know, what is it like in that
Speaker 1: moment when that email spills in, Like what goes because
Speaker 1: I know that you and anybody that has grown up
Speaker 1: playing at a high level, this is like the ultimate dream, right,
Speaker 1: Like the ultimate goal is to represent your country. And
Speaker 1: obviously I know you have World Cup aspirations and we're
Speaker 1: all pulling for you to make that squad. But when
Speaker 1: that email spills in and you realize that that dream
Speaker 1: is coming true and Mecca, what's that like?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's hard to put it into words, honestly, you know,
Speaker 5: like you get it and you Yeah, I had to
Speaker 5: double check the email to make sure, you know, it
Speaker 5: wasn't like it wasn't vague or anything like that, because
Speaker 5: I was just, you know, so excited and yeah, just
Speaker 5: like it's a real moment, you know, it was. It
Speaker 5: was fantastic.
Speaker 1: Well, we're very happy for you. Let me ask you
Speaker 1: what playing against you know, because we've had a lot
Speaker 1: of players here in our market, you know, Kyle and
Speaker 1: Nicki and guys went they went to the World Cup
Speaker 1: and even prior to that, it was Clint Mathis and
Speaker 1: Eddie Pope and they always would talk about how playing
Speaker 1: for the national team on that level helped them when
Speaker 1: they came back to play in MLS. How can these
Speaker 1: experiences help you be a better player for your club.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I think whenever you're playing with top
Speaker 5: level players, you just kind of take some experience from
Speaker 5: them and bring it back to the club level. And
Speaker 5: I think it also just gives you, you know, an
Speaker 5: added sense of confidence when you come back to the
Speaker 5: club level after playing with you know, some of the
Speaker 5: players at the national team who have been dominating it
Speaker 5: and the MLS for for many many years. Some that
Speaker 5: came from Europe came back like Tim Mariem I'm playing
Speaker 5: with them and then obviously coming back to here ourself.
Speaker 5: It just gives you a sense of confidence when you're
Speaker 5: on the field, and when you have that, you really
Speaker 5: just play with a sense of freedom and can really
Speaker 5: really show your true talent. So I felt that since
Speaker 5: I've been back for the past you know, two or
Speaker 5: three weeks, I've just felt more confident on the ball,
Speaker 5: more competent in my decisions, and just more confident and
Speaker 5: everything that I'm doing here at RSL.
Speaker 1: So ameca, You've been asked to do a lot of
Speaker 1: things in just a couple of years here with RSL,
Speaker 1: playing a couple of different positions and you know, carry
Speaker 1: a few different roles. Can you play striker? Do you
Speaker 1: have that in your back pocket?
Speaker 5: I actually did play striker in college. I probably could well.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously tongue in chet because I know Pablo
Speaker 1: likes you where you're at. But I got to know
Speaker 1: from a player's perspective, you know, the front office decided
Speaker 1: to jettison players that represented forty two goals in twenty
Speaker 1: nine assists last year, and as of now, I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to be disrespectful to anybody who's on the roster now,
Speaker 1: but as of now, fans and RSL supporters just waiting
Speaker 1: for reinforcements to come along after guys like Chie Scho
Speaker 1: and Andres and Crooks and Anderson were moved on. Is
Speaker 1: there frustrating? Is there frustration mounting among the group that
Speaker 1: the front office decided to get rid of the bulk
Speaker 1: of your attacking options and hasn't necessarily brought in a
Speaker 1: ton of reinforcements yet, I.
Speaker 5: Don't think necessarily. I think I think it's still super
Speaker 5: early in the season. You know, we've only played we've
Speaker 5: only played three games, really, and I think we're most
Speaker 5: focused on the process and creating those chances because I
Speaker 5: antually think in the three games that we've had, we've
Speaker 5: created a decent amount of chances. You know, in the
Speaker 5: first game in Costa Rica, we missed three or four
Speaker 5: big chances. In San Jose, I think we had a
Speaker 5: next year of almost two, but we oftenly didn't put
Speaker 5: any in the back of the net. And then on
Speaker 5: Wednesday at home against the Coast Weakan team, again we
Speaker 5: have thirty shots, eighteen shots inside the box, and we
Speaker 5: only were able to put one goal in. So I
Speaker 5: don't I don't think it's a personal problem. I think
Speaker 5: it's a bit of you know, hasn't really been on
Speaker 5: our side these these last couple of games. But I
Speaker 5: think we're getting into really good areas and the shots
Speaker 5: just aren't hitting the back of the net at this
Speaker 5: point in time. But I do feel like, you know,
Speaker 5: if we continue to do these things correctly, come Saturday,
Speaker 5: we'll score plenty of goals. The next Saturday, we'll score
Speaker 5: plenty of goals, and we'll just continue just to work
Speaker 5: on our craft to you know, continue to create these
Speaker 5: chances and then just be more clinical in the box
Speaker 5: when we have these chances.
Speaker 1: So and well said there. So instead of maybe speaking
Speaker 1: for you laced in my question. I wasn't trying to
Speaker 1: lead you. I'll just ask you, from your standpoint, as
Speaker 1: one of the better players on the roster and one
Speaker 1: of the leaders with the potential of wearing that captain's
Speaker 1: armband from time to time, what was your reaction to
Speaker 1: the moves that the front office decided to make getting
Speaker 1: rid of the bulk of the production up top, Like,
Speaker 1: just tell me how you feel about that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, obviously, when it happens, like in the moment,
Speaker 5: it's a little bit shocking, just because you don't expect
Speaker 5: it at that time, you know, but you also understand
Speaker 5: that things like this kind of happen in the football world,
Speaker 5: you know, where transfers have been, things happened during the
Speaker 5: season that people don't see eye to eye on and
Speaker 5: you know, they maybe feel like certain players are a
Speaker 5: better fit at a different club, or I don't fit
Speaker 5: at this club currently. So like when it first happened,
Speaker 5: obviously a little bit of shock. I think everybody had
Speaker 5: a little bit of shock when when when it happened.
Speaker 5: But then you know, kind of just a couple of
Speaker 5: days after a week after it kind of got past it,
Speaker 5: we're kind of just focused on how can we now
Speaker 5: as a as a group, as a collective, focus on,
Speaker 5: focus on the future, focus on this new season, because
Speaker 5: you know these players aren't going to come back. So
Speaker 5: it's kind of done in dustin now and just kind
Speaker 5: of move on with it.
Speaker 1: Tell me, you know, and I guess what I'll say
Speaker 1: is during training where a lot of us don't get
Speaker 1: to see what you guys are doing. So you know,
Speaker 1: we've seen the games and you point out the chances
Speaker 1: that have been created. But of course, as you know,
Speaker 1: chances that are created don't do much unless they're capitalized on.
Speaker 1: And one goal in three games, as you know, is
Speaker 1: not going to get it done. So tell me what
Speaker 1: you're seeing a mecca in training from this attacking group
Speaker 1: and whether or not you believe that you guys do
Speaker 1: have the personnel in that area of the field to
Speaker 1: start going to start scoring goals and getting better results.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know, one hundred percent we have it. I mean,
Speaker 5: I think obviously with both competitions going on, there was
Speaker 5: a lot of rotation in the squads and the attacking players,
Speaker 5: maybe maybe a little bit of a lack of chemistry
Speaker 5: and that in that department. But I think in training.
Speaker 5: You know, the chances we've created in changing they've been
Speaker 5: finished off. In preseason, I mean we scored two goals
Speaker 5: in the game, three goals, another three goals. Everything was
Speaker 5: falling that and then we come to the real season
Speaker 5: and the chances are missed, you know. So I don't
Speaker 5: so I think as long as we just you know,
Speaker 5: continue to really focus on the little details and training,
Speaker 5: you know, finishing off every single attack. If we continuously
Speaker 5: do that, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday comes Saturday,
Speaker 5: the goals will start to flow in. As long as
Speaker 5: each day training, you know, we're content continuously hitting on
Speaker 5: what we need to focus on and continuously focusing on
Speaker 5: those little details of finishing every single attack. So I
Speaker 5: do think it's just, you know, a matter of time
Speaker 5: for the goals start start flying in. And like I
Speaker 5: said earlier, I mean we played three games, we'll probably
Speaker 5: have another with Leagues Cup, another forty games left in
Speaker 5: the season. So I think it's just it's just a
Speaker 5: matter of time.
Speaker 1: Is there any silver lining? And I know the answers
Speaker 1: probably know because the Conky CAF Champions Cup tournament is
Speaker 1: a lot of fun and something that a lot of
Speaker 1: RSL supporters were excited to witness. It's been a number
Speaker 1: of years since RSL was in this tournament, and once
Speaker 1: upon a time nearly won the thing. Now Seattle is
Speaker 1: the only MLS team to win it. But because you
Speaker 1: guys did lose in the first round of MECA, what
Speaker 1: it means is you do not have these midweek games.
Speaker 1: As I'm looking at the schedule for like a month
Speaker 1: and maybe even a little bit more than your reference
Speaker 1: league's cop that will come at some point, But is
Speaker 1: there any silver lining to not having such a crowded
Speaker 1: schedule As you enter at MLS play to try to
Speaker 1: understand how this new group is going to manifest itself,
Speaker 1: I think yeah.
Speaker 5: I think others outside might say, like it could be
Speaker 5: a positive that we don't have these big week games,
Speaker 5: But I know me personally and the whole team is very,
Speaker 5: very frustrated with how we with how we went out
Speaker 5: of of Concrete Champions Cup, because I mean I could
Speaker 5: speak for it myself. I love playing midweek games, you know,
Speaker 5: I mean, we play, we play for the games. We
Speaker 5: don't maybe we don't we don't we don't like training
Speaker 5: as much as we like the games. Obviously, like to
Speaker 5: play for the game, So if we have a game
Speaker 5: Wednesday Saturday, Wednesday Saturday, it's better for me, it's better
Speaker 5: for the team. Everybody likes to compete in that aspect.
Speaker 5: So I mean, not really a silver lining. I'm really disappointed,
Speaker 5: and yeah, nothing we can do about it now, but
Speaker 5: I just wish we took our chances better on Wednesday. Hopefully,
Speaker 5: just something that we can learn from and continue to
Speaker 5: grow on throughout this season.
Speaker 1: What was Pablo's message to you guys after that, because
Speaker 1: I mean it was it was gutting you guys were
Speaker 1: on your way, and to your point about the chances,
Speaker 1: I felt like, you know, another couple of goals were
Speaker 1: coming and then boom, just a rough turnover. Nelson had
Speaker 1: a rough turnover. Boom, they score, and then there's a
Speaker 1: counter and I'm watching that game a mecan. I'm just stunned.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine how you guys felt. What was the
Speaker 1: message from your head coach after that match?
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was pretty disappointed as well, because I mean,
Speaker 5: it was there for the taking and we just didn't.
Speaker 5: We just didn't grasp the moment. So I think you're
Speaker 5: just reiterating, you know, the points on just to we
Speaker 5: have to just show up every single day, you know,
Speaker 5: before the match and training and just put our best
Speaker 5: foot forward and every single effort that we're doing so
Speaker 5: that you know, little lapses of you know, judgment or
Speaker 5: focus don't happen on Wednesdays and we have games are
Speaker 5: on Saturday, only have games. And he made it very
Speaker 5: clear and very apparent that things like that cannot happen.
Speaker 5: I'm going forward in the future. So it's again, I
Speaker 5: hate to say a learning moment because it's something that
Speaker 5: really frustrates me losing that game, but it's just something
Speaker 5: that with how long the season is, with how many
Speaker 5: games we have, it is something that we just have
Speaker 5: to learn and grow from and you know, just go
Speaker 5: with that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So ultimately, when it comes to the strikers on the
Speaker 1: roster and we're still getting to know, you know, Forrester
Speaker 1: and the pold kid, it seems like, you know, there
Speaker 1: are rumors that additions are kind of on the way
Speaker 1: in that space. But one of the things, and you know,
Speaker 1: we have Curt On, we have Jason On, we have
Speaker 1: pablem On. A lot of people are talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: where will the goals come from? Well, not all the
Speaker 1: time it has to come from the striker, right, it
Speaker 1: can come from the group. So if we remove because
Speaker 1: all the attention now in Mecca is a lack of goals,
Speaker 1: So what's going on with the number nine spot? But
Speaker 1: if we remove that, which of course you can't entirely
Speaker 1: because it's such an important spot, is there enough support
Speaker 1: with the midfield, with Mark Zuke and Diego and Diego
Speaker 1: that you guys maybe can overcome the lack of a
Speaker 1: season striker to get goals from other places if that
Speaker 1: makes sense?
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely. I mean you obviously saw what Diego can
Speaker 5: produce last year. I mean you had plenty of goals,
Speaker 5: plenty of assists. Obviously, Diogo and Dominick came in halfway
Speaker 5: through the season and we're finding their legs. And then
Speaker 5: this preseason they've been been amazing, scoring goals, assisting goals.
Speaker 5: So they all have the quality, you know, and I
Speaker 5: think without you know, like a season nine, you know
Speaker 5: it's going to be a group effort, you know, with
Speaker 5: with goals and assists and all of them, you know, Diego, Diogo, Dominic, Lachland, Wolfe,
Speaker 5: I mean, they can all provide it. And I've seen
Speaker 5: them all provide it and in some of the preseason
Speaker 5: games we had in training, you know, so very confident
Speaker 5: in their ability to to definitely keep up the goal contributions.
Speaker 1: Do you guys follow because every time I fire up,
Speaker 1: you know, one of these websites with transfers, there are
Speaker 1: rumors that are SL's in the mix to either make
Speaker 1: a move to get an MLS striker, bring somebody in
Speaker 1: from overseas. Do you guys in the locker room follow
Speaker 1: this or is it just like you got to focus
Speaker 1: on what's in what's in front of you.
Speaker 5: I'm kind of focused on what's in front of you.
Speaker 5: But obviously, you know, if you're on social media, you'll
Speaker 5: probably come across it, you know, but it's not something
Speaker 5: that we really like linger on or react to because
Speaker 5: you know, it's it's so normal and and in soccer,
Speaker 5: you know, for things like that to happen, for transfers
Speaker 5: to happen, so like we'll see it, but it's not
Speaker 5: anything like, oh no, nobody really makes a big deal
Speaker 5: about it or anything. It's kind of just okay, we
Speaker 5: see it and then kind of just get on with
Speaker 5: our day, get on with the train, and focus for
Speaker 5: focus on the task at hand to hopefully, you know,
Speaker 5: win on the weekend.
Speaker 1: This might be an odd question, but do you want
Speaker 1: to see reinforcements added? Are you guys anxious to have
Speaker 1: more experience in season players in that spot up top
Speaker 1: and number nine?
Speaker 5: You know, it's not really my place to answer, you know, uh,
Speaker 5: but I think it's just you know, you always want
Speaker 5: to want to have top level players on your team,
Speaker 5: you know, in whatever position that is. So like, wherever
Speaker 5: we can get players to just strengthen our team overall,
Speaker 5: I'm on for it, you know, because that not only
Speaker 5: raises our team, you know when we play on the weekend,
Speaker 5: but then competitively, competitively in trainings. You know, we're trying
Speaker 5: to push each other to be better. So it's always
Speaker 5: good when you know you have when any type of
Speaker 5: player is added to tow a squad, because it just raises
Speaker 5: the level, you know, and the competitive competitiveness within the squad.
Speaker 1: You young man, are good at this. That is a
Speaker 1: season season that for an answer at the ripe old
Speaker 1: age of twenty five, That's exactly the way you should
Speaker 1: handle that question. I'm very impressed, which leads me to
Speaker 1: this next question, which is it feels like Pablo and
Speaker 1: Kurt and Tony and I could keep going. It seems
Speaker 1: like you're viewed as a leader on this group, on
Speaker 1: this roster with this group, even though you're only twenty
Speaker 1: five years old. So I don't know who's gonna wear
Speaker 1: the captain's arm band. All year we had Pablo on
Speaker 1: and he said, you're certainly a candidate. Have you been
Speaker 1: told whether or not that armband is yours? And what
Speaker 1: sort of leadership role are you asked to take even
Speaker 1: though you are twenty five and year three in MLS.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I'll be wearing it. But I think it's
Speaker 5: you know, it's only my third year. But I think
Speaker 5: I've learned a lot in these three years. And you know,
Speaker 5: I think leadership is just a you know, an evolving
Speaker 5: and a growing thing that you have to take with it,
Speaker 5: you know. So I think previously, I think my first year,
Speaker 5: my second year, I think I led very well by example,
Speaker 5: you know, my actions on the field, my actions off
Speaker 5: the field. I think I set a great example for
Speaker 5: everyone at the club, you know. But I think especially
Speaker 5: in year one, I didn't really have as much as
Speaker 5: a much of a voice. In year two definitely grew
Speaker 5: in that in that department and even now continuously trying
Speaker 5: to grow to lead with my voice, you know, because
Speaker 5: I think there's there's many different ways to lead, you know,
Speaker 5: with your voice by example, you know, personal relationships. So
Speaker 5: it's just you know, there's not one one tool that
Speaker 5: can lead everybody. So it's just continuously to build my
Speaker 5: toolbox in this leadership role to help the team in
Speaker 5: whatever way succeed, you know. And I also want to
Speaker 5: say that it's it's not just it's not just me.
Speaker 5: You know, we have other fantastic leaders on the team,
Speaker 5: you know, Jay glad Ratha, fill up yoga. Who are
Speaker 5: you know all leading as well? You know, I think
Speaker 5: the best teams are the ones where everyone on the
Speaker 5: team as a leader. You know, you can turn to
Speaker 5: your left, you can turn to your right, and everyone
Speaker 5: there is trying to lead each other and holding each
Speaker 5: other accountable. And I think that's what we we We
Speaker 5: set that culture so far, so I think it's something
Speaker 5: that's been going pretty well and it's just something that
Speaker 5: you know, we want to continue with and grow with
Speaker 5: throughout the season.
Speaker 1: What are your personal goals aspirations, soccer dreams? You know,
Speaker 1: I had diego on last year, I straight up asked
Speaker 1: him the same question and he wasn't shy, said, I
Speaker 1: want to play in Europe. And you know, at the
Speaker 1: age of twenty five, I Meka, You've got a lot
Speaker 1: of soccer in front of you, and I know you're
Speaker 1: focused on where your feet are at now with RSL.
Speaker 1: But when you dream as big as you can dream
Speaker 1: for your soccer life, what does that look like.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I would love to play in Europe.
Speaker 5: You know. Obviously people always look at the age thing
Speaker 5: because I'm a little bit older, and you know, if
Speaker 5: the timing's right, but you know, I would love to
Speaker 5: play in Europe if the stars aligned the right way,
Speaker 5: the cards fold the right way, you know, and things
Speaker 5: go well. I I've definitely it's definitely been a dream
Speaker 5: of mine. You know, I always love watching European soccer.
Speaker 5: But you know, really just focused on what I'm doing
Speaker 5: today and tomorrow hopefully get me to that point, you know,
Speaker 5: So just really focus on the ins and outs week
Speaker 5: in and week out, you know, and then if a
Speaker 5: conversation has to be had of you know, me going
Speaker 5: elsewhere things like that, then it will be had when
Speaker 5: it's when it's the right time.
Speaker 1: You know, I mecha. Please do not refer to twenty
Speaker 1: five years old as old. Okay, I sprained my ankle
Speaker 1: in the shower at my age show. You're you're not old,
Speaker 1: young fella. You got a lot of good soccer. How
Speaker 1: do you last thing? Before I said you lose tell
Speaker 1: us going into tomorrow and look, as you referenced, it
Speaker 1: is early, nobody's panicking. Well, I shouldn't say that. Your
Speaker 1: your fans are a little concerned after you know, getting
Speaker 1: stopped by San Jose and losing in the cocky CAF
Speaker 1: Champions Cup first round. So while it is early, tomorrow
Speaker 1: does feel like there's a little bit of weight and
Speaker 1: a little bit of pressure from your fan base to
Speaker 1: show that the first three games aren't who you are
Speaker 1: and to back up your point about chances created to
Speaker 1: get them finished in order to have a good showing.
Speaker 1: So what's the mentality as you welcome in a Seattle
Speaker 1: team that made a lot of big time acquisitions during
Speaker 1: this offseason.
Speaker 5: Yeah, cheat, Tea's always be a really early good team.
Speaker 5: You know, a lot of attacking pieces. But I think
Speaker 5: it's just more of the same from us. You know,
Speaker 5: we're always going to have that fight and the determination
Speaker 5: every single match, and then you know, especially at home.
Speaker 5: I think last year at home, we we played pretty
Speaker 5: well most of the time. I think we got a
Speaker 5: lot of results. I don't think we I think we
Speaker 5: maybe only last once or twice. So it's just trying
Speaker 5: to uphold that standard of never to lose a home,
Speaker 5: you know. So I think we've prevared the right way.
Speaker 5: We've had the right mentality and trainings, and now it's
Speaker 5: just time to you know, go out there on Saturday
Speaker 5: at two thirty and show what we've been doing. And
Speaker 5: obvious here. I know some of the fans have been
Speaker 5: disappointed with the results that we've had the last three games,
Speaker 5: but we pushed those to the pass. We're just focused
Speaker 5: on on the task at hand on Saturday, and it
Speaker 5: will be better, you know than the last three games
Speaker 5: that we've had.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Oh, Mecca, you're the man. Congratulations on the
Speaker 1: call up, Congratulations on the captain's arm band, and best
Speaker 1: of uck tomorrow.
Speaker 5: Okay, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you Mecca and Elly RSL's captain. There you go.
Speaker 1: We were wondering who was going to be and a
Speaker 1: Mecca announces that it is him. He's gonna be wearing it.
Speaker 1: So RSL Seattle tomorrow. Kind of an underrated robbery game.
Speaker 1: Craig Wible former RSL GM is up there. Albert Russknach,
Speaker 1: former RSL Star is up there. Two thirty kick. If
Speaker 1: you're looking for something new on what should be a
Speaker 1: pretty beautiful Saturday afternoon, head over to RSL dot com
Speaker 1: for tickets and let's pack that place and hopefully the
Speaker 1: lads we're here for the lads play a little bit better.
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Speaker 1: Street here in Salt Lake City. Our next guest knows
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City is a small town called a small town.
Speaker 1: Last week, let's welcome him in, Howard Beck on a
Speaker 1: Friday afternoon. Howard, Happy Friday. Which large city do we
Speaker 1: find you in on this Friday afternoon.
Speaker 7: I am happily ensconced in the borough of Brooklyn in
Speaker 7: traffic on my way to the arena, where I will
Speaker 7: see the Barnburger between the Nets and Portland trailblazers who
Speaker 7: also hail from a small city.
Speaker 1: By the way, Okay, if Portland's it was the town
Speaker 1: thing that got me, the small town. If Portland's a
Speaker 1: small town, I think that's fine with us out here
Speaker 1: in Salt Lake.
Speaker 7: I love all the small towns equally easy.
Speaker 1: You know, I know you do.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 1: If you're in traffic in Brooklyn, we get you for
Speaker 1: what forty five minutes to an hour today on a Friday.
Speaker 7: According to the lift driver's mapping, we're six minutes out,
Speaker 7: which means it'll actually be fifteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough. Well let's get into it then, because
Speaker 1: obviously time is of the essence. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: get your take on some comments Lebron made about you know,
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards said doesn't really care to be the face
Speaker 1: of the league, and Lebron, I'm paraphrasing, said, well, who
Speaker 1: would want to be the face of the league When
Speaker 1: everybody talks about the league just takes a bleep on it.
Speaker 1: On a daily basis. So I think this is an
Speaker 1: interesting topic for somebody like you because you'll be good
Speaker 1: with it. I think there are a lot of things
Speaker 1: to criticize right now with the modern day and age
Speaker 1: of the way that the business of basketball is being run.
Speaker 1: I get feedback and I have a sense, and it's
Speaker 1: a league I love. It's a game that I love
Speaker 1: that most people feel like the modern day NBA has
Speaker 1: run like a Fortune five hundred company that only cares
Speaker 1: about creating value for shareholders. Now, look, I'm a grown up.
Speaker 1: I know this is a front facing, revenue generating entertainment product.
Speaker 1: But does Lebron have a point or is reacting a
Speaker 1: little bit in a soft way as it pertains to
Speaker 1: a league that sometimes deserves to be criticized.
Speaker 7: There's a lot of different pieces of this that are
Speaker 7: worth talking about in a lot of different paths we
Speaker 7: can go down. So I'll give you my first reaction
Speaker 7: to what he said, and then we can hit the
Speaker 7: other parts of it if you want. But let me
Speaker 7: start with this. I'm glad you asked because one of
Speaker 7: the things Lebron said, the thing that struck me most
Speaker 7: is the thing about why would you want to be
Speaker 7: facing the league when everybody's always basically crapping on it
Speaker 7: and all this, and just feeling like, if you're the
Speaker 7: face of the league, as he has been, you put
Speaker 7: yourself in a position where you are just in the
Speaker 7: crossfire every day. I get that part of it, but
Speaker 7: to me, what it speaks to is something that has
Speaker 7: been a growing concern of mind for a very long time,
Speaker 7: going back years, which is that players today feel that
Speaker 7: kind of criticism and feel that kind of siege from
Speaker 7: what they believe to be the Capital M media because
Speaker 7: they are flooded every day with whether it's TV debate
Speaker 7: shows or maybe some podcasts, radio, Instagram commenters, Twitter commenters, anybody.
Speaker 7: They are constantly feeling like everybody's just kind of criticizing
Speaker 7: them all the time, and then they put this on
Speaker 7: the Capital M media and then lump everybody together. The
Speaker 7: reason I view it that way, or I'm concerned about
Speaker 7: it from that standpoint is there are a lot of
Speaker 7: us who cover the league, and Lebron actually used that
Speaker 7: phrase those people who cover the league are the ones,
Speaker 7: you know, crapping on us every day. The vast majority
Speaker 7: of us who are cover them league, especially as reporters,
Speaker 7: beat writers are not the ones he's actually talking about.
Speaker 7: It's the TV debate shows. It's people on Instagram, it's
Speaker 7: aggregation accounts that just take things out of context and
Speaker 7: then use it to tee off on people. It's all
Speaker 7: this other stuff. The people who are dedicating the most
Speaker 7: time and effort to reporting and writing and actually going
Speaker 7: into the gym, actually going to and shoot arounds and games,
Speaker 7: doing the job that I used to do for sixteen years,
Speaker 7: which is, you know, be a beat writer covering a
Speaker 7: team from start to finish, all eighty two games plus playoffs.
Speaker 6: Those are other people who are.
Speaker 7: Firing off takes and living on the hot take economy.
Speaker 7: And my concern as a twenty eight year writer covering
Speaker 7: this league, my concern as presidents of the Pro Basketball
Speaker 7: Writers Association, is that we have a growing problem where
Speaker 7: players view just this big noise machine as one big
Speaker 7: conglomerate and it's not. It's hundreds, maybe thousands of voices.
Speaker 7: But we are taking the brunt of this because what's
Speaker 7: happened is it makes it harder to cover the league
Speaker 7: when players are always on the defensive, or cutoff, or
Speaker 7: or too reticent to give their time and their thoughts
Speaker 7: because they fear being in the next spin cycle, and
Speaker 7: that is a problem, and that is a massive concern
Speaker 7: of mine.
Speaker 1: So is what's fair to be critical of in your opinion?
Speaker 1: You know? Because yes, to your point, when these players
Speaker 1: are hearing a million different voices and they're on social media,
Speaker 1: they're on Instagram, they're on Twitter or Blue Sky or whatever,
Speaker 1: and they are in their echo chamber, and the algorithm
Speaker 1: feeds them, you know, whatever it does, and suddenly, you know,
Speaker 1: a very small group of people in their mind represents
Speaker 1: all of us right that cover the league, and then
Speaker 1: suddenly we're all thrown in the same category. But as
Speaker 1: I referenced, I do believe there are things that are
Speaker 1: very fair to criticize, and I think there are things
Speaker 1: that are fair to criticize with the way Lebron at
Speaker 1: times handles himself or all of us brilliant. So your
Speaker 1: points are well taken, But I will ask you what
Speaker 1: is fair to criticize in your opinion about the modern
Speaker 1: day approach of NBA players and the way the league
Speaker 1: is run.
Speaker 7: Now, I'm not trying to be here at Spence. I
Speaker 7: don't know how to answer that, because everybody has their
Speaker 7: own view of what might be wrong with the league,
Speaker 7: or what needs to be improved, or what they think
Speaker 7: is broken or whatever it may be. I've got my
Speaker 7: views of it. You and I have had various discussions
Speaker 7: over you know, the months and even years about how
Speaker 7: we viewed certain aspects of the league and the state
Speaker 7: of the game's I mean, everything's fair. It's not that
Speaker 7: anything is off limits to criticize, although you know, times
Speaker 7: people get a little too personal or a little bean
Speaker 7: spirited or so hot taking that they lose track of
Speaker 7: the fact that these are human beings playing this game.
Speaker 7: But also I would separate cover, you know, the criticism
Speaker 7: of you know, the game writ large that the league
Speaker 7: and what the league is doing at a given time
Speaker 7: changes it's making or the quality of the product. That's
Speaker 7: a different case or a different issue than how the
Speaker 7: players are feeling about being ripped apart on a maybe
Speaker 7: sometimes daily basis by some people who again have no
Speaker 7: interest in it other than their ability to market their takes.
Speaker 1: Do you think any of this has to do directly
Speaker 1: with the way that some of the inside guys handle it,
Speaker 1: The inside, you know, the inside of the NBA on TNT,
Speaker 1: which is still in my opinion the most entertaining studio
Speaker 1: show out for any sport, not just pro basketball. But
Speaker 1: it seems like there's a lot of players now that
Speaker 1: don't necessarily appreciate some of the the guff they get
Speaker 1: on that show. Do you think any of it's deeped
Speaker 1: with the inside stuff?
Speaker 7: I don't know. I mean, I think it's everything. I
Speaker 7: don't think it's anyone thing, and I don't want to, like,
Speaker 7: you know, get into names of various on air personalities
Speaker 7: on any of the networks. But there are people who
Speaker 7: obviously have made a living off of just you know,
Speaker 7: firing off takes on players and test sometimes taking it
Speaker 7: to illogical or unfair extremes, and you know, that's that
Speaker 7: is the unfortunately the media landscape we live in right now.
Speaker 7: I don't know, like you do have to ask to
Speaker 7: ask the ron. I don't know whether he's referring to
Speaker 7: Turner inside the NBA, whether referring to ESPN, whether it's
Speaker 7: referring to Fox Debate shows what I don't I don't know.
Speaker 7: I think this is more about this is less about
Speaker 7: how the game is being talked about in terms of
Speaker 7: what he said, than than the way he's been talked
Speaker 7: about I think he was referring to his own experience
Speaker 7: as the face of the league.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that makes sense. Hey, porter, will you effort Lebron.
Speaker 1: Let's get Lebron on to kind of ask him. We'll
Speaker 1: get him on to cast him directly, obviously tongue in cheek. Now, look,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, Howard, Not everybody covers a league
Speaker 1: through the prism of negativity. And the last couple of
Speaker 1: weeks I have turned on basketball and I have watched
Speaker 1: basketball players seem to care about playing basketball, and it
Speaker 1: is a reminder, Look, maybe this is just the world
Speaker 1: of basketball now that we all should just say, Look,
Speaker 1: we'll tach you after the All Star break, we'll hit
Speaker 1: you up in late February, early March. But the past
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, when these guys have been locked in,
Speaker 1: it is a reminder of what this league looks like
Speaker 1: and what this sport looks like when the best players
Speaker 1: are playing hard with a purpose.
Speaker 7: I mean, there were great games in October, November, December too,
Speaker 7: So I don't know, like I do think that there
Speaker 7: is such a thing as the dog days of the season,
Speaker 7: especially January. I do think that when we get back
Speaker 7: from the All Star break, and there's it's not even
Speaker 7: the midway point, it's it's beyond the midway point. There's
Speaker 7: usually like thirty thirty five games left, and when when
Speaker 7: the teams that especially know they're they're locking in for
Speaker 7: the postseason and have you know, the spring to look
Speaker 7: ahead to, and it's getting closer. It certainly brings a
Speaker 7: different level of focus and intensity.
Speaker 6: But like we were all raving about.
Speaker 7: Certain games back and I'm trying to remember, like there
Speaker 7: was a bunch involving the Warriors, involving the Thunder, like
Speaker 7: there were good games earlier in the season.
Speaker 5: Like it.
Speaker 7: I'm not I'm not sold on the idea that that
Speaker 7: suddenly the whole landscape changes the second we get back
Speaker 7: from the All Star Game. But you know, the problem is,
Speaker 7: in the context of the bigger conversation here, people's complaints
Speaker 7: about the league might be that, oh, we don't think
Speaker 7: guys play hard on the given night, or maybe because
Speaker 7: they didn't play hard in the All Star Game, or
Speaker 7: it's guys are load managing too much, or whatever. Like
Speaker 7: there's bits and pieces of all of this, and everybody's
Speaker 7: got a little bit different version of what's bothering them
Speaker 7: about the league at any given time, and so I
Speaker 7: just I don't know which part of that is the
Speaker 7: one that needs to.
Speaker 5: Be focused on.
Speaker 7: All right, I'm getting out of the car.
Speaker 5: Here real quick.
Speaker 1: Hold, I'm saying all good. Howard Beck is our guest,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite riders. He's joined my show for
Speaker 1: a number of years. You can get him on Blue
Speaker 1: Sky mostly. He is technically on Twitter, but he has
Speaker 1: been at a number of different places. He always does
Speaker 1: his job at a high level, and he does his
Speaker 1: job so well that he's going to see Brooklyn and
Speaker 1: Portland play tonight in person, which is very impressive. So
Speaker 1: let me just ask you point playing your opinion then
Speaker 1: instead of dancing around it, do you feel like from
Speaker 1: your dvantage point, uh, you know that the league is
Speaker 1: in a healthy place, you know, as opposed to what
Speaker 1: anyone else has to say about what does what does
Speaker 1: Howard Beck have to say about the current state of
Speaker 1: the NBA.
Speaker 5: I think it's.
Speaker 7: Fine, honestly, I really do. The game has changed, and
Speaker 7: some people don't like the way the game has changed stylistically.
Speaker 7: The load management part of it is an absolutely legitimate
Speaker 7: issue and concern, especially for fans who pay a lot
Speaker 7: of money go to a game. I'm bringing my daughter
Speaker 7: to a game soon and I don't want to say
Speaker 7: which game am I gonna do, But I'm I'm sitting
Speaker 7: there going like, are the players that I'm hoping are
Speaker 7: going to play that night going to be there? Because
Speaker 7: I don't worry about it the same way as anybody
Speaker 7: else does. Right, I've bought tickets that that's a serious concern,
Speaker 7: and the NBA they've tried to deal with it. We
Speaker 7: know that, you know, it was a you know, starting
Speaker 7: last season when they instituted all these rules to try
Speaker 7: to make sure that players were playing more often than
Speaker 7: not and not abusing the latitude that teams have.
Speaker 5: To rest guys. So those are issues.
Speaker 7: But the state of the game, honestly, it's fine. Like it.
Speaker 7: I think it's mostly depends on who you're rooting for.
Speaker 7: But thunder fans are thrilled with the state of the game,
Speaker 7: Sixer fans.
Speaker 6: Probably not so much.
Speaker 7: Suns fans probably a bit depressed right now. The Nets
Speaker 7: fans that I'll see in here tonight, you know, they
Speaker 7: they're just happy that their team is playing their butts
Speaker 7: off despite not having any stars. And you know they're
Speaker 7: hoping for a lottery balls Like I don't. I don't
Speaker 7: think the game is in crisis. I think that has
Speaker 7: been wildly overstated based on some early ratings data earlier
Speaker 7: in the season, a lot of which has kind of
Speaker 7: evened out. It's still down, but it's not down dramatically,
Speaker 7: and the league locked in a seventy billion dollar media
Speaker 7: right seal Like you know, that goes back to your
Speaker 7: your view of like the like the cynical take of like, yeah,
Speaker 7: it's just a business and they're just accruing value. And
Speaker 7: I think there's something to that, But I don't know
Speaker 7: where where are the crisis is here?
Speaker 1: All right? I will ask you because I often ask
Speaker 1: you these philosophical questions on how to fix certain issues,
Speaker 1: because I was talking to and your point about who
Speaker 1: you cheer for and where you're at currently as it
Speaker 1: pertains to your opinion of the state of the league
Speaker 1: is really good. And obviously out here there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people that are frustrated that we're in year
Speaker 1: three of this rebuild, and we focus on the good
Speaker 1: stories when they manifest. Walker Kessler had a great game
Speaker 1: the other night against THELMLSA Bonus, And there's some stuff
Speaker 1: with Isaiah Collier and Keyante George that are pretty exciting,
Speaker 1: but it does feel like every year about a third
Speaker 1: of the teams are just unseerious about winning. And I
Speaker 1: get it, and certainly out here I get it, and
Speaker 1: I think the Josh should have done this two years ago,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about. But is there is there any
Speaker 1: fix to this scenario where and John Hollinger wrote a
Speaker 1: good piece for The Athletic about this where you're either
Speaker 1: in the halves or the have nots, And it seems
Speaker 1: like every year about a third of the league as this,
Speaker 1: you know, this situation where they're not serious about winning,
Speaker 1: they're trying to develop young players and then a rebuild
Speaker 1: is hope that some young players pop, acquire assets, and
Speaker 1: then hope you get lucky in the lottery. Is this
Speaker 1: just the NBA where about a third of the teams
Speaker 1: every year are just not going to be able to
Speaker 1: compete with the top shelf team, so they go young,
Speaker 1: try to develop, and try to get lucky in the lottery.
Speaker 7: I wrote a very long piece last week during the
Speaker 7: Ringers NBA expansion week, as we called it. We'd a
Speaker 7: whole packs of stories about it. The idea of expansions
Speaker 7: been talked about so much, and it seems to be
Speaker 7: on the horizon, although as I reported, I think it's
Speaker 7: actually three to five years out still if it happened.
Speaker 7: But the piece I wrote was about kind of this,
Speaker 7: which is that there still aren't enough stars to go around,
Speaker 7: especially when you know stars like to join up with
Speaker 7: each other on ungiven teams, where teams you know, are
Speaker 7: able to get them on their own. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 7: stars are a finite come out of This is a
Speaker 7: zero sum game. So we can look at the Jazz
Speaker 7: or the Nets and the Blazers, two teams I will
Speaker 7: see either tonight or the Wizards and say, well, they're rebuilding,
Speaker 7: they don't have enough talent whatever, They're in the have
Speaker 7: nuts category. They're hoping for lottery balls, they're hoping for something.
Speaker 7: The fact is, whether you're doing it intentionally or just
Speaker 7: because that's just where in the life cycle your team is,
Speaker 7: naturally you're trying to pursue stars that aren't there because
Speaker 7: they're on somebody else's team. It's a zero sum game.
Speaker 7: And we can talk about the fact that there's more
Speaker 7: talent than ever around the league today than ten fifteen
Speaker 7: twenty years ago, and there is, but it's not franchise
Speaker 7: star level talent. Like the Jazz have Lowry Markinen, who's
Speaker 7: a really good player, all NBA caliber, but that's not
Speaker 7: enough for them to win enough games to be in
Speaker 7: the playoff hunt. And you know, the Nets and the
Speaker 7: Wizards certainly traded away players to do their rebuilds. But
Speaker 7: the fact is there's so few true superstars or stars
Speaker 7: that you can do that and have. There still be
Speaker 7: a bunch of other teams that are still searching for
Speaker 7: talent as well, Like this is just the state of things.
Speaker 7: You can't possibly have thirty teams competitive at the same time,
Speaker 7: no matter how much Adam Silver has tried to engineer parody,
Speaker 7: and there is more parody now than there has been in.
Speaker 5: The history of the league.
Speaker 7: But it doesn't ensure that every team is going to
Speaker 7: have a chance every season to be a five hundred
Speaker 7: team or a playoff team.
Speaker 1: All right, I know you got to go. So let's
Speaker 1: get a couple of things that are actually going on
Speaker 1: in the league. Joel Embiid is going to miss the
Speaker 1: remainder of the season due to a knee injury, and
Speaker 1: it feels like This was the only course of action
Speaker 1: for a Philadelphia team that was just spiraling out of control.
Speaker 1: What's next for Philly? What's next for MB?
Speaker 5: Who knows what's next for MB?
Speaker 7: Because I don't think we really know the true extent
Speaker 7: of his knee problems, and he is notoriously private about
Speaker 7: his health and about whatever's going on at a given time.
Speaker 7: So the Sixers are not very forthcoming on these things
Speaker 7: and haven't been because MB doesn't want them to be,
Speaker 7: which is his prerogative. But it's frustrating if you're a
Speaker 7: Philly fan and you have no idea whether he's ever
Speaker 7: going to be himself again. So we don't know the
Speaker 7: answer to that, and if he's never himself again, and
Speaker 7: he just signed a massive extension last summer, they are
Speaker 7: screwed for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 5: On that alone.
Speaker 7: On top of that, they signed Paul George to a
Speaker 7: max four year deal, and you know he's on the
Speaker 7: downhill slide too, So they're shutting down EMBIID is the
Speaker 7: practical thing to do from a health standpoint, probably, but
Speaker 7: it's also the practical thing to do from a draft standpoint,
Speaker 7: because they owe a pick to Oklahoma that is top
Speaker 7: six protected. So if the Sixers pick lands in the
Speaker 7: top six, the Sixers get to keep it. If it's
Speaker 7: seventh or later, it's going to Oklahoma. So the the
Speaker 7: insult to injury here for Philadelphia is that their seasons
Speaker 7: already toast embiid is on the shelf, and if the
Speaker 7: pick is seventh or lower, it's going to Oklahoma instead
Speaker 7: of them getting the benefit in Philly. So there it is.
Speaker 7: There is in their best interests to shut down everybody
Speaker 7: at this stage. Do whatever you have to do, take
Speaker 7: the fines from the league, but do everything possible to
Speaker 7: have the worst record possible. And even that doesn't guarantee anything,
Speaker 7: because the lottery balls could bounce the wrong way and
Speaker 7: it could drop the Sixers to seven or eight or
Speaker 7: nine or whatever, and they could still lose the pick.
Speaker 7: So they do need to increase their odds of having
Speaker 7: a top six pick.
Speaker 1: All right, before I set you loose, We'll let you
Speaker 1: get to the game. Uh, who keeps Mark dagnalled up
Speaker 1: that night? The most? Is it Denver? Is it La
Speaker 1: with those two? Is it Golden State with Jimmy? I mean,
Speaker 1: Oklahoma State clearly is entrenched themselves as the favorite. But
Speaker 1: who keeps Mark up that night the most, in your opinion.
Speaker 7: Probably Denver because they've got the best player on the
Speaker 7: planet in Jokic, and that the team that won a
Speaker 7: championship within the last couple of years. I think, you know, look,
Speaker 7: i'd be the first to say I don't want to
Speaker 7: face a Loop Lebron tandem at any time, but supporting
Speaker 7: cast is a little questionable. They don't have any size
Speaker 7: and you know, Lucas still trying to get his legs
Speaker 7: back under him. He's not shooting well yet. They'll probably
Speaker 7: come around. They look pretty good so far, but you know,
Speaker 7: let's check back in a few weeks or you know,
Speaker 7: a month or so. I don't I don't know that
Speaker 7: the Lakers as constructed have enough to make a run
Speaker 7: this year. They didn't make that trade for this year.
Speaker 7: They made that trade for the next ten years. And
Speaker 7: you know, with the Warriors, that one's interesting, like they're
Speaker 7: playing their butts off. They look really good. Steph goes
Speaker 7: for fifty six last night, and Butler's fit in perfectly.
Speaker 7: They have a little bit better depth in roster balance
Speaker 7: the Warriors than the Lakers do, So I'll put the
Speaker 7: manach ahead, but probably it's Denver Howard.
Speaker 1: Thank you, my friend. It's always fun. And enjoy that
Speaker 1: game that I had. I know you will and we'll
Speaker 1: chat soon. Thanks buddy, I'll try.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Pett great. Howard Beck now with the Ringers, spent some
Speaker 1: time with the New York Times, LA Times and was
Speaker 1: a nick beat writer for a number of years. He's
Speaker 1: a very talented NBA writer. He's worth your time to
Speaker 1: listen to and read. We appreciate his time. He technically
Speaker 1: is on Twitter, which is just his name at Howard
Speaker 1: Beck and from there you can get the link to
Speaker 1: Blue Sky, where I think he's posting more now, or
Speaker 1: just go to The Ringer dot com and search Howard Beck.
Speaker 1: Appreciate Howard's time, Yeah, if you missed it. Lebron James
Speaker 1: was asked about Anthony Davis. Anthony Davis said he's not
Speaker 1: really trying to be the face of the league, and
Speaker 1: Lebron said, quote, why do you want to be the
Speaker 1: face of the league when all the people that cover
Speaker 1: our game and talk about our game on a day
Speaker 1: to day basis bleep on everybody. Obviously I didn't ask
Speaker 1: to be the face of the league. I feel and
Speaker 1: I understand this is weird energy when it comes to that,
Speaker 1: and there's been a lot of reaction about it. And
Speaker 1: as I reference to Howard, you know, I'm one that
Speaker 1: has spent my entire life around pro basketball, and I've
Speaker 1: always enjoyed it. I enjoyed playing as much as I
Speaker 1: could before, you know, I had to find something else
Speaker 1: to do because I couldn't keep up with pros. And
Speaker 1: I enjoy covering it. I enjoy watching it, and it
Speaker 1: is a different league than was back in the day,
Speaker 1: and certainly there's an argument to be made that it's
Speaker 1: time just to shut up and embrace it. It is
Speaker 1: what it is, and it is overstated a little bit
Speaker 1: as far as players not going hard all the time,
Speaker 1: but it's not entirely overstated. I watch this league a lot,
Speaker 1: and there are plenty of nights when I'm watching games
Speaker 1: I'm excited to watch where those guys are nailing it
Speaker 1: in man. Then there are plenty of games I sit
Speaker 1: down and watch it are awesome. And ever since this
Speaker 1: league came back from the All Star Break, there have
Speaker 1: been a lot of games that have been worth watching.
Speaker 1: Players are showing up and they're playing hard. But we
Speaker 1: shouldn't have to wait for that to be consistent for
Speaker 1: like four months, Like, show up and do your job. Man,
Speaker 1: You're getting paid a lot of money. The fans show
Speaker 1: up and they watch, and I do think players have
Speaker 1: an obligation of fans, even though players don't seem to
Speaker 1: think that they do. And sometimes they say the quiet
Speaker 1: heart out loud, like Kevin Durant did when he said,
Speaker 1: we don't ever really take any consideration what the fans
Speaker 1: have to say. And if that's the attitude, you are
Speaker 1: going to turn a lot of people off. And quite frankly,
Speaker 1: I think pro basketball has That's just my opinion. But
Speaker 1: the Warriors game was awesome last night. The Bucks and
Speaker 1: the Nuggets played a really good game. Lakers and the
Speaker 1: Timberwolves played a really good game. And tonight we've got
Speaker 1: Jazz basketball as Rudy Gobert, Mike Conley, in addition to
Speaker 1: Joe Ingles and Nikhil Alexander Walker are back in town
Speaker 1: with the Minnesota Timberwolves, and it'll be fun to kind
Speaker 1: of see those guys and hopefully they get a good
Speaker 1: rowd of applause and ovation. I imagine they would. Timberwolves
Speaker 1: good team, not a great team. Just about five hundred
Speaker 1: Jazz on that first round pick. So maybe the Jazz
Speaker 1: try to get a win. Tonight seven thirty is your
Speaker 1: tip time. As the NBA is kind of on the stretch.
Speaker 1: Run now got Nuggets Pistons, which I wouldn't have said
Speaker 1: is a good game. A couple of weeks ago. The
Speaker 1: Pistons run off eight straight games, and I try to
Speaker 1: you oftentimes cover the league and talk about teams that
Speaker 1: were in the position the Jazz are just a few
Speaker 1: years ago. Detroit won eight games last year. They've won
Speaker 1: eight straight games right now, and they've got Kate Cunningham. Obviously.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like Orlando WITHO. You know some of
Speaker 1: these teams that were rebuilding and now looking a little
Speaker 1: bit better. Well, they've got cornerstones in the way in
Speaker 1: a way, the Jazz is don't. The Calves are at
Speaker 1: the Celtics tonight to TD Garden, so that should be
Speaker 1: a fun one. Clippers Lakers late night game at Crypto
Speaker 1: dot Com Arena. All right, we are live today out
Speaker 1: here at Tim Dally Nissan. It's forty five to twenty
Speaker 1: eight South State Street. They're opening till eight o'clock. So
Speaker 1: if you can't get here while we're here until about
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Speaker 1: a week that feels like spring, and I do believe
Speaker 1: Paul Pugmyer, we actually have some local tracks open for
Speaker 1: business this weekend. Yes, sir, is that right?
Speaker 8: There are a few yep down in the bottom part
Speaker 8: of the valley and actually up in Davis County Valley
Speaker 8: View who has opened nine holes to walking only, So
Speaker 8: there's that.
Speaker 1: Don't tease me. Are you playing?
Speaker 5: Are you?
Speaker 1: Are you gonna get it? Are you gonna get out
Speaker 1: of the swinger club? This this this weekend?
Speaker 8: Planning on it?
Speaker 5: Yet?
Speaker 1: Can you tell me where one more good for you?
Speaker 1: How's How's? How's the game? How's the game? Right now?
Speaker 8: It's pretty rusty and uh, pretty rickety. I need some work.
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to get out to Nibley play
Speaker 1: nine tomorrow and nine and sun. I have not swung
Speaker 1: a club since November. Paul, So what are the what
Speaker 1: are the main challenges of getting back into it after
Speaker 1: a number of months off because I'm planning on not
Speaker 1: playing well, but I'm going to try to not get frustrated.
Speaker 8: The short game will go first, and it's it's takes
Speaker 8: a little longer to come back. So if you hit
Speaker 8: some skanky chips, give yourself some grace. It's kind of
Speaker 8: the way it's going to go.
Speaker 1: Did you say skanky chips?
Speaker 5: I did.
Speaker 1: I did not know that was a term. I'm going
Speaker 1: to use that here now. Yeah, put a little Paul Pugmyer,
Speaker 1: our guests, heos our golf radio show every Saturday morning.
Speaker 1: Put a little context on Jake Knapp going low with
Speaker 1: a fifty nine round one at the Cognizant Classic in
Speaker 1: the Palm Beaches.
Speaker 8: Well, that was great stuff. I was able to catch
Speaker 8: the last or tail end of it, and he was
Speaker 8: very calm about it all, which you got to be
Speaker 8: in a situation like that in order to get over
Speaker 8: the finish line. But he it was really funny. This
Speaker 8: is Jack Nicholas's course, referred to both lovingly and derisively
Speaker 8: as the bear Trap, and it has a tradition and
Speaker 8: a reputation of being very, very hard. But a combination
Speaker 8: of some overseating that they did on the grass that
Speaker 8: made the fairways softer, which makes them play effectively wider,
Speaker 8: combined with an odd situation of zero wind, the course
Speaker 8: was playing easy. It was gettable, and by and large
Speaker 8: people were complaining about it. And then a nap comes
Speaker 8: in with the fifty nine and they say, see told
Speaker 8: you so, And my reaction was, well, what'd you shoot?
Speaker 8: And nobody got anywhere near him, and so it was
Speaker 8: the fifteenth sub sixty round shot in PGA tour history.
Speaker 8: The first goes back to nineteen seventy seven when al
Speaker 8: Geiberger did it in Memphis and then there was like
Speaker 8: like ten or twelve years before anybody did it again below.
Speaker 8: The sub sixty rounds are coming more quickly now, and
Speaker 8: there's been fifteen of them. It was a great round
Speaker 8: at twelve birdies, no bogies, fifty nine really really great.
Speaker 1: Follows it up with a seventy round two because golf
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. Tell me about this young man. I don't
Speaker 1: know much about Jake dot Tell me about him.
Speaker 8: Well, he is a winner. He won down in next
Speaker 8: school last year, and he's also got a really interesting backstory.
Speaker 8: I appreciate you asking about it. He is a bomber.
Speaker 8: He generates stupid club hit speed hits it a long ways,
Speaker 8: and he lost his corn Ferry tour card a couple
Speaker 8: of years. He had no status and so to pay rent,
Speaker 8: he was working as a bouncer at a bar. And
Speaker 8: the reason he took that job was so he could
Speaker 8: work at night and practice during the daylight hours. And he's,
Speaker 8: you know, he's a stout young man and uh filled
Speaker 8: the role of the bouncer pretty well. But he did
Speaker 8: that until he got his game back, got his status back,
Speaker 8: and he made real good use at that time, and
Speaker 8: he got got through the PiZZ Corn Ferry tour, got
Speaker 8: a card and on tour he's got a win to
Speaker 8: his credit. And now he's done this and he seems
Speaker 8: like a really good guy. Everybody who knows him says
Speaker 8: that they like him. He's, you know, the good guy.
Speaker 8: So got that.
Speaker 1: So we talked to you last week while the Mexico
Speaker 1: opened at Verdonta. World was going on and you know, Paul,
Speaker 1: uh Full Swing Season three is out and I'm not
Speaker 1: through it, but I watched I watched one last night
Speaker 1: did feature Rory and uh, you know they and I
Speaker 1: want to talk to you about the US Open last year.
Speaker 1: He missed those two short putts two of the final
Speaker 1: three holes and when you see when you when you
Speaker 1: see the way Full Swing covered it, it just was
Speaker 1: even more gutting for him. But he dropped the line.
Speaker 1: He said, if you only and I'm paraphrasing, but it
Speaker 1: was something along the lines of if you only analyze
Speaker 1: your golf when it comes to winning and losing, you're
Speaker 1: in for a career of misery, right, And I was like,
Speaker 1: oh man, what a line. And that leads me to
Speaker 1: asking you about Brian Campbell, because my man has one
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty eight starts in the Corn Ferry Tour
Speaker 1: and the PGA Tour, and he broke through with a win,
Speaker 1: and it just it makes golf so unique this way.
Speaker 1: You know, there's not another sport like if you went,
Speaker 1: oh to one eighty eight in basketball, you're not keeping
Speaker 1: your job. And he he had one hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: eight starts before he got his first win. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I love about watching the end of
Speaker 1: these tournaments when it's a guy like Brian Campbell, who
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about, is you see him instantly
Speaker 1: change his life in a moment, and it really is
Speaker 1: what makes golf unique. What was it like for you
Speaker 1: to watch this guy? And when he was interviewed afterwards,
Speaker 1: he just said, it's about my grind and there were
Speaker 1: times where I wanted to quit. It's my girlfriend, it's
Speaker 1: my family, they encourage me to keep going. But Brian
Speaker 1: Campbell's life instantly changed last week in Mexico after playing
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighty eight tournaments. Give me your thoughts
Speaker 1: on that, well, you.
Speaker 8: Are so right. Look his obituary's opening paragraph got written.
Speaker 8: It'll start off saying PGA Tour winner Brian Campbell, and
Speaker 8: you're right. Everything changes from there, and the nature of golf,
Speaker 8: where the individual has to do everything, really puts the
Speaker 8: emphasis on winning, just like you just did. You know,
Speaker 8: a guy can be the twelfth player on an NBA
Speaker 8: team and can contribute and can be there when they
Speaker 8: win the championship, even if he's not in the headline.
Speaker 8: But that kind of thing doesn't happen in golf. You've
Speaker 8: got to do it all. You got to do it
Speaker 8: all yourself, and you've got to to do it all
Speaker 8: at the right time in order to get the win
Speaker 8: the win. And I love Campbell's story. It was grind
Speaker 8: he is, he's never been a big hitter, and he's
Speaker 8: in the field at down at Vidanta. He was the
Speaker 8: shortest hitter statistically in the field, and yet what do
Speaker 8: you do he won. Another thing was, you know, he
Speaker 8: got just an unreasonably incredibly good bounce off to the
Speaker 8: tree on the final hole, and he took advantage of it.
Speaker 8: He paid it off. Now, good bounce has happened. Bad
Speaker 8: bounces happened ones on Thursday, we forget about. But this
Speaker 8: happened on Sunday, Sunday afternoon, with the cameras rolling when
Speaker 8: everything mattered and he paid it off. He made it work.
Speaker 8: And people will remember the bounce, but I hope they
Speaker 8: also remember the wedge he hit the six feet after
Speaker 8: he got the bounce. That was a great shot and
Speaker 8: he made that happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah it was. And that's ultimately what I've learned, you know,
Speaker 1: the past five years or so, really getting into this
Speaker 1: and wanting to get better at it is you have
Speaker 1: to have that goldfish memory. Man. You have to put
Speaker 1: the last shot behind you. Because when I saw that bounce,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, they're not too different than we are.
Speaker 1: That looked like me on for ad Bonneville that I've
Speaker 1: hooked it in the trees several times and pray that
Speaker 1: it bounces back out. But what about the Aldrich pot
Speaker 1: Guid kid. I don't know much about him. You pointed
Speaker 1: him out, and you know, it was pretty fascinating when
Speaker 1: they went to the playoff. It wasn't just Campbell who
Speaker 1: needed some luck pot Guid. You know, he was just
Speaker 1: roping everything all tournament long, and down the stretch. The
Speaker 1: moment got a little too big for him, didn't it.
Speaker 8: It did get too big for him. Now, One thing
Speaker 8: to keep in mind about him is that he's only twenty.
Speaker 8: He has not yet experienced any grind. He is the
Speaker 8: youngest PGA Tour cardholder. Yeah, he's one of these guys
Speaker 8: who chose to forego college went straight to the pro game.
Speaker 8: He's only twenty years old. He can't go in and
Speaker 8: buy a beer, and he's out there competing for these
Speaker 8: PGA Tour titles. This is a kid who is the
Speaker 8: antithesis of Campbell. He just drips talent. He is incredibly
Speaker 8: strong and fast. He hits the ball a ton. He
Speaker 8: will make a lot of noise. There's a lot of
Speaker 8: trophies waiting with his name on it, but he hasn't
Speaker 8: yet learned how to handle the moment. And I say
Speaker 8: that with no condemnation good Land. At twenty, I was
Speaker 8: still trying to figure out how to burp the alphabet.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 8: He just hasn't had a chance to figure it out yet.
Speaker 1: And it showed, Paul, most of us stopped trying to
Speaker 1: burp the alphabet at ten. Why were you trying to
Speaker 1: do that at twenty? Oh?
Speaker 8: I had bricks for brains. What can I say?
Speaker 5: Fair enough?
Speaker 1: Fair enough? Okay, let me move over to because again
Speaker 1: it's top of mind. I watched the event or the
Speaker 1: doc last night, and you know, I had forgotten that
Speaker 1: Tony finished tied for third. We can't lay at the
Speaker 1: US Open last year at pine He still a great,
Speaker 1: great tournament for him. But what was your reaction, and
Speaker 1: now that it's been you know a number of months
Speaker 1: to the way that Rory just and I want, I
Speaker 1: don't want to say fell apart. He just missed two
Speaker 1: what looked like gimme's short putts at the end of
Speaker 1: you know, two of the final three holes, Rory had
Speaker 1: like three foot putts, and I didn't realize he had
Speaker 1: hit four hundred and eighty three of the four hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty three chances he had from three feet prior
Speaker 1: to sixteen and eighteen. I mean, I don't know how
Speaker 1: you digest that. Now, Rory's been great this year, but
Speaker 1: let's go back a little bit. What are your memories
Speaker 1: of watching Rory kind of really just blow it down
Speaker 1: the stretch there?
Speaker 8: Well, you know, the pet on eighteen will live forever,
Speaker 8: which is unfortunate, but it will. And I actually had
Speaker 8: had the unusual good fortune to be at Pinehurst a
Speaker 8: few months later, and I went out there on eighteen
Speaker 8: and stood over where that pet was. I didn't play
Speaker 8: number two, but I played one of the other courses
Speaker 8: and had a caddy show me exactly where Rory was.
Speaker 8: And that putt is one the good players are going
Speaker 8: to miss half the time. It was a brutal putt. Yeah,
Speaker 8: and Rory missed it in the worst possible moment. But
Speaker 8: part of the story also, it isn't just that Rory
Speaker 8: missed that putt. It's that Dave Chambeau. He was hitting
Speaker 8: his driver all over the county and he kept getting
Speaker 8: decent brakes where he could have a shot and hack
Speaker 8: it back down into play. And if you roll the
Speaker 8: tape backward ten minutes, you'll see that he did exactly that.
Speaker 8: Hit it way left on eighteen seventy second hole on
Speaker 8: Sunday and just had to bump it up the fair
Speaker 8: way and to have set up an attempt to make
Speaker 8: part by getting up and down. He hit it a
Speaker 8: little bit too far and hit it into a bunker.
Speaker 8: And then he hit one of the greatest shots ever
Speaker 8: hit in the history of the game. And the shot
Speaker 8: two yard shot that he hit out of the bunker
Speaker 8: to four feet that will live forever too. You can
Speaker 8: take great players and drop them in that same spot
Speaker 8: and give him one hundred balls and half of them
Speaker 8: will never get it within four feet. But Dey Chambeau
Speaker 8: did it in that moment. So it was the combination
Speaker 8: of all those things coming together. And what can I say,
Speaker 8: that's the US Open, that's Pinehurst number two, That's that's
Speaker 8: why we pay money to watch and play.
Speaker 1: Doesn't feel like too long ago where Bryson and you
Speaker 1: know what, in my opinion, it was his own faults.
Speaker 1: Was like villain number one in the world of pro golf.
Speaker 1: I mean, and look, every time he would hold a
Speaker 1: press conference, he would just come up with some sort
Speaker 1: of algorithm, algorithmic mathematic explanation about why he's better and
Speaker 1: smarter than everybody else. And I just think at some
Speaker 1: point people are like, dude, we get it, just shut up.
Speaker 1: But he's he's really found a way to turn his
Speaker 1: personal narrative around.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 1: I'm not a huge fan, but I learned a lot
Speaker 1: watching the documentary. Look like he lost his father, certainly
Speaker 1: at a very young age, and that I think kind
Speaker 1: of I don't know if humbled him or you know,
Speaker 1: decided to change his focus on what he wanted to do.
Speaker 1: I don't watch his YouTube channel, but I know millions
Speaker 1: of people do. But he seems to have gone from
Speaker 1: this dude that nobody could stand to one of the
Speaker 1: biggest stars in golf, even though he plays for Live.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on his ability to change that
Speaker 1: narrative and how do you think he's been able to
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 8: It's remarkable and I think that he's been able to
Speaker 8: do it because he is a guy who absolutely goes
Speaker 8: off the data. Now what I mean here in this
Speaker 8: case is when people are talking to him and saying
Speaker 8: exactly what you just said, he listened, and he viewed
Speaker 8: it as as data input to be used for analysis
Speaker 8: and action. And he made changes and that's a hard thing.
Speaker 8: A lot of people don't and they're not they're not
Speaker 8: willing to or they can't, and he changed the way
Speaker 8: he approached things. I am a big fan. I have
Speaker 8: been since he was at SMU, and I've had a
Speaker 8: couple of opportunities personally to spend a little time with
Speaker 8: him and interact with him, and he has been just
Speaker 8: absolutely golden to me. He's been nothing but really really
Speaker 8: good to me. Plus Tony Fenale's former caddy caddie Greg
Speaker 8: Boudine is now caddying for Bryson, and I think that's
Speaker 8: a cool connection for us here in Utah. But he
Speaker 8: listened to what people were saying and he realized he
Speaker 8: needed to make some changes. He used his YouTube channel
Speaker 8: and his Instagram account to communicate directly with people and
Speaker 8: to show a different side of himself. And the turnaround
Speaker 8: in his public persona has been remarkable. I admire him
Speaker 8: for it, and he's figured out a way to have
Speaker 8: fun and to convey fun on his social media. That
Speaker 8: thing he did hitting the ball over his house trying
Speaker 8: to make a hole in run, that that was a
Speaker 8: gas and I applaud him for it.
Speaker 1: Interesting you reference Caddies episode four, Full Swing. They entitled
Speaker 1: it Carrying the Burden, and they followed Scotty Scheffler and
Speaker 1: so he Tagala and it was really all about uh,
Speaker 1: their their caddies, and you know, ultimately it was interesting
Speaker 1: to learn, Like I didn't know much about Ted Scott,
Speaker 1: but he was on Bubba's bag when Bubba won a
Speaker 1: couple of green jackets, and uh, you know, ultimately, just
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was the live stuff. He
Speaker 1: just decided to uh, go his his his separate way
Speaker 1: to do his own thing, and then received a phone
Speaker 1: call that changed his life from a young man named
Speaker 1: Scotty Scheffler. Uh And obviously when Ted first started working
Speaker 1: with Scotty, Scotty wasn't the full bake Scotty that we
Speaker 1: see now as the best player in the world. But
Speaker 1: just your experience, your knowledge of how important the right
Speaker 1: partnership is and the roles that caddies play. Because one
Speaker 1: of the coolest things I can't remember Scotty won like
Speaker 1: seventy times. I don't remember which tournament he was where
Speaker 1: he had you know, it was the Masters where he
Speaker 1: had Ted just make the walk with him after Ted
Speaker 1: grabbed the flag. But what makes this partnership so rock
Speaker 1: solid and what is the secret Sauce Paul between a
Speaker 1: great player and a great caddy.
Speaker 8: Trust communication, willingness to be candid in a tense moment,
Speaker 8: willingness to disagree when that needs to happen as well.
Speaker 8: It is a central relationship and a central function to
Speaker 8: the success of a player. Interestingly, it didn't used to
Speaker 8: be a couple of generations ago. Players used to really
Speaker 8: treat their caddies as second class citizens. Just you know,
Speaker 8: show up, keep up, and shut up with the mantra.
Speaker 8: And interestingly, the players who changed that are players whose
Speaker 8: names we know and it contributed to their success. And
Speaker 8: it was Jack Nicholas with Angelo Dundee. It was Tom
Speaker 8: Watson with Bruce Edwards, and it was Johnny Miller with
Speaker 8: Andy Martinez. And those three players really built relationships with
Speaker 8: their caddies, made their caddies trusted collaborators on the execution
Speaker 8: of the round, and their record showed it, and then
Speaker 8: everybody else, oh there's something there, and it's become the norm.
Speaker 8: But it took great players to make the change, and
Speaker 8: it's been a very pots that have changed for the game.
Speaker 8: A caddy now plays a role that coaches do in
Speaker 8: other sports. To think about it, they're right out there
Speaker 8: on the field of play, thinking through and discussing and
Speaker 8: helping to execute on the field of play. It's it's
Speaker 8: a really important relationship.
Speaker 1: I got a kick out, excuse me, I got a
Speaker 1: kick out of Ted saying he wasn't sure if he
Speaker 1: wanted to work with Scotty because Scotty had a little
Speaker 1: fire in him, and you know, there was there were
Speaker 1: clips of Scotty he threw a putter at one point,
Speaker 1: and Scotty himself said he would get really frustrated, and
Speaker 1: and you know, ultimately, I can't imagine how Ted would
Speaker 1: feel if he said no to that gig at this point,
Speaker 1: which obviously has made him a really rich man. But
Speaker 1: it's interesting, after watching the full swing up on Scotty
Speaker 1: to witness what he's doing today because he is the
Speaker 1: exact opposite of a hothead. He is measured. When he
Speaker 1: hits a bad shot, he's on to the next. Does
Speaker 1: Ted deserve some credit for this? What? What? What have
Speaker 1: you seen as far as the evolution of simply the
Speaker 1: controlling of emotions from the world number one right now,
Speaker 1: Scott Scheffler.
Speaker 8: Yes, Ted Scott gets credit for that, not all of it.
Speaker 8: I think that Scheffler's family, his father in particular, and
Speaker 8: I think Scheffler getting married and his wife Meredith has
Speaker 8: given him a foundation and a footing that he didn't
Speaker 8: have before. And you know, if that applies to how
Speaker 8: many of the rest of us as well?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 4: And uh it?
Speaker 8: But yes, Ted Scott deserves most of the credit because
Speaker 8: again he is there on the field of play in
Speaker 8: the moment, dealing with the play at hand in the moment,
Speaker 8: and he deserves a great amount of credit for that.
Speaker 8: It is and it is interesting to when you say
Speaker 8: he's become wealthy doing it. He has his his share,
Speaker 8: his his percentage. With what Sheffler did last year would
Speaker 8: have put him in the top twenty of players on
Speaker 8: the money list on the PGA Tour. It's great.
Speaker 1: The other duo they focused on was Carl Smith and
Speaker 1: Saheita Gala. Really cool story. Carl recruited Saheath when he
Speaker 1: was younger to play college golf, and then Carl left
Speaker 1: the program to caddy, and so Heath still went to
Speaker 1: the schools escaping me, but he still went to the school,
Speaker 1: played well, and then ultimately decided he wanted Carl to
Speaker 1: caddy for him and sa Heath Paul is one of
Speaker 1: those guys that at times I watch, I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: he can be a beast, you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on his game and how he's evolving.
Speaker 8: So I appreciate you asking. There's a little local connection
Speaker 8: with Saheith. The college in question is Pepperdine and you
Speaker 8: used to be in the conference with BYU and so
Speaker 8: Sahtha would come to provo sometimes twice a year during
Speaker 8: those years, and so I've been down to Riverside and
Speaker 8: followed him in the Cougar Classic, and then when BYU
Speaker 8: hosted the conference championship, and it was pretty clear, this
Speaker 8: kid's gonna make some noise. It was, it was obvious. Now,
Speaker 8: what's interesting there is when he was in college, he
Speaker 8: was a lot more rough edged, and he what you
Speaker 8: see out of him as an adult, a full adult
Speaker 8: at this point, and a professional with a professional caddy.
Speaker 8: He's much more refined and much more polished now than
Speaker 8: he was when he was twenty. But again, you know,
Speaker 8: aren't we all, but but it was it was really
Speaker 8: clear when he was in college that he was going
Speaker 8: to be very good. But it's been fun to watch
Speaker 8: him grow up and fun to watch him mature and
Speaker 8: become a player who is legitimately appropriately a crowd favorite.
Speaker 8: I am a big sit. He's Taghla fan, and I
Speaker 8: want to see him do really well.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the leaderboard here, Cogs is in Classic
Speaker 1: and it seems like Joel Damon while we're just leaning
Speaker 1: into the next Netflix Netflix stuff, he's not as prominently featured.
Speaker 1: At least I've only watched four episodes, but Joel's tied
Speaker 1: for fifteenth. He is now I think this year there's
Speaker 1: something different about his approach. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: That Netflix season two certainly outlined some difficult personal issues
Speaker 1: he seemed to be going through. Do you have any
Speaker 1: insight as to why Joel Damon seems to be, you know,
Speaker 1: at least in the hunt with most tournaments he's played
Speaker 1: so far this year.
Speaker 8: I wish I did, because he's the kind of player.
Speaker 8: He's got a lot of talent, But I don't think
Speaker 8: he has ever fully believed that he deserves to be
Speaker 8: one of the top hundred players in the world. But
Speaker 8: he is, and maybe he's just coming to an acceptance of,
Speaker 8: oh hey, I actually am this good. There's an interesting
Speaker 8: backstory on Joel here. Just this last year, he was
Speaker 8: the last one to he snuck in getting a tour card,
Speaker 8: getting his full status in the last couple of holes
Speaker 8: of the last tournament, the last chance to get it
Speaker 8: here the last fall, and he is one actually who
Speaker 8: knocked Zach Blair, our local kid, knocked him out of
Speaker 8: having a card. And Joel is making full use of
Speaker 8: this opportunity. He's doing pretty well, this year he's in
Speaker 8: the mid fifties somewhere on his ranking on the FedEx
Speaker 8: Tour or the FedEx Points list, and so he's making
Speaker 8: use of the opportunity he gave himself. And that's pretty cool.
Speaker 8: I respect him for.
Speaker 1: That is Tony in this tournament. I'm looking at the Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have Patrick fishburn right, Fishburne's time.
Speaker 8: Yet playing fish fish makes the weekend, he goes sixty seven,
Speaker 8: seventy and he's, uh, he was like T forty five
Speaker 8: an hour ago, but that's going to jump all over
Speaker 8: over the next hour or so.
Speaker 5: But but but he'll he'll play.
Speaker 8: The weekend, and which is a bit of a bounce
Speaker 8: back he had. He had Fishburne had one of the
Speaker 8: most brutal kick in the head experiences, and golf loves
Speaker 8: to give us those.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 8: He was T five after the first round down in
Speaker 8: Mexico last week and ended up missing the cut because
Speaker 8: his second round was just so brutal, and Patrick said, look,
Speaker 8: I just clan played that. There's no reason for it.
Speaker 8: I played that, And that happens. It happens in every sport,
Speaker 8: but golf. It's it's pretty, it's pretty bare, it's pretty
Speaker 8: naked and out there for everybody to see when it
Speaker 8: happens like that.
Speaker 1: All right, Paul, Before I say you lose a big show,
Speaker 1: cut up tomorrow.
Speaker 8: What do we got, Well, we're gonna do some fun
Speaker 8: things tomorrow. We're gonna touch base with John cool Bob,
Speaker 8: the tournament director for both the Black Desert PGA event
Speaker 8: and the upcoming Black Desert LPGA event. They're on this
Speaker 8: six month cycle, which is really tough. We're going to
Speaker 8: catch up with cool Bond, see how things go in
Speaker 8: preparing for the LPGA coming to town in May, coming
Speaker 8: to Saint George in May. And we're also going to
Speaker 8: touch base with some people who are in back of
Speaker 8: a new economics impact study on what golf means to
Speaker 8: the economy of Utah. That's going to be really interesting.
Speaker 8: I'm looking forward to that conversation.
Speaker 1: Good stuff, my friend. Well, I appreciate the time, have
Speaker 1: a great show, and we'll get you on Sue.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 1: All right, Paul Pogmyer. Time now for our PGA to
Speaker 1: Leaderboard update. It's brought to you by you went to
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Speaker 1: the new Callaway shaping materials and the AI ten times
Speaker 1: smart face delivering up to eight yards longer with even
Speaker 1: more forgiveness. You went to golf, as we reference right
Speaker 1: now the PGA Tours in the midst of its Florida swing,
Speaker 1: and it's the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches right
Speaker 1: now being played at the PGA National Resort and SPA
Speaker 1: the Champion Course, and right now after fifty nine yesterday,
Speaker 1: Jake Knapp followed it up with a seventy, but still
Speaker 1: good enough to have the lead. Jake is in the
Speaker 1: clubhouse at thirteen under. Then it's Matthew Pavone at twelve
Speaker 1: under parr, Doug Gim and Michael Kim in addition at
Speaker 1: Daniel Berger and yes pruspencent are at eleven under par.
Speaker 1: Then it's Taylor Montgomery, Zach Johnson and Ricky Fowler at
Speaker 1: ten under parr. As we referenced, our local representation is
Speaker 1: Patrick Fishburne, who will make the cut. He's tied for
Speaker 1: forty eight at five under PARR. A lot of big
Speaker 1: time names in this tournament. Jordan Speith is playing well
Speaker 1: in addition to Shane lowry, but no Tony final in
Speaker 1: this event. All right, two hours down, two hour to go.
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Speaker 1: the market for a vehicle, come on buy at forty
Speaker 1: five twenty eight South Stage Street here in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 1: I thought my wallet had been stolen during the break.
Speaker 1: It was not. It was in my car, but a
Speaker 1: moment of panic and we'll welcome in our next guest,
Speaker 1: Spencer Lynton. Spencer, have you ever had your wallet stolen
Speaker 1: or have you ever lost your wallet?
Speaker 9: Funny you asked that, Spence, because yes, and it happened
Speaker 9: in Miami and a five star hotel. No less, I
Speaker 9: was hanging out ten feet away from my wallet and
Speaker 9: my phone at the pool, turned my back for probably
Speaker 9: fifteen seconds, and came back. Both gone done. It was
Speaker 9: not easy getting home. Not a great trip to Miami.
Speaker 1: Would you rather lose your wallet or your phone?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 9: Man? Probably my phone because obtaining all of the government
Speaker 9: issued IDs and things that go along with licenses and
Speaker 9: being able to get on a plane and go home,
Speaker 9: like that's harder to replace. Like a phone. Right now,
Speaker 9: with the technology we have, you can just straight wipe
Speaker 9: it like you can wipe it and as soon as
Speaker 9: it turns back on, like there are some safety protocols
Speaker 9: put in place. So for me, it's a phone.
Speaker 1: Do you feel differently, No, I think that's probably the
Speaker 1: right call. I mean answer is, see neither, because it
Speaker 1: will ruin your weekend and cause a lot of anxiety.
Speaker 1: But I'm good, got my wallet. We're locked in. Man.
Speaker 1: How you been, Spencer Litton b YU TV on the
Speaker 1: program on a Friday, How you doing, Man? Everything good?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 9: Doing well? Interesting time of the year, no doubt. Was
Speaker 9: spring football kicking off for the local teams here in
Speaker 9: the b High State and then the home stretch as
Speaker 9: we push toward March maddness. It's a little chaotic, but yeah,
Speaker 9: really really entertaining time of year, no doubt about.
Speaker 1: It, for sure. And it's been pretty remarkable to watch
Speaker 1: the evolution of this basketball team after a pretty rough start,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was easy to see early on
Speaker 1: even in some of the losses, like there's juice on
Speaker 1: that roster, there's offensive talent on that roster. If Kevin
Speaker 1: figures out his rotation and if they start to gel,
Speaker 1: you know, they could be a dangerous team. So let's
Speaker 1: just start with your overall thoughts. Now, five straight wins,
Speaker 1: which is the most in BYU's Big twelve adventure, started
Speaker 1: in Morgantown and then you guys have West Virginia tomorrow.
Speaker 1: What stands out most about the past five games for
Speaker 1: BYU Spencer, Yeah, I think.
Speaker 9: You have to start with BYU finding out how to
Speaker 9: handle the rotation and everybody truly buying into what Kevin
Speaker 9: Young is trying to do. And there was some resistance
Speaker 9: at first, and I understand why there was resistance when
Speaker 9: you look at a guy like Doallen Hall and him
Speaker 9: going from starter last year on a team that was
Speaker 9: a six seed in the NCAA tournament and finished tied
Speaker 9: for fifth in the Big twelve, and everything they did
Speaker 9: in Mark Pope's final year at BYU. Like to be relegated,
Speaker 9: that's a tough pill to swallow. And then to have
Speaker 9: to kind of reinvent yourself with what Kevin Young wants
Speaker 9: you to do and how do you mesh with this
Speaker 9: lottery freshman phenom in yegor demi and how do you
Speaker 9: split minutes? It just it just took time. And I
Speaker 9: think I shared it with you when you called me
Speaker 9: a little over a month ago when BYU was struggling
Speaker 9: a little bit, and I shared an analogy and correct
Speaker 9: me if I'm wrong. But I used getting a new
Speaker 9: set of clubs and then being given a professional swing coach.
Speaker 9: And you have all the nicest equipment and incredible swing coach,
Speaker 9: and you have access to all these courses. But just
Speaker 9: because you get a new set of golf clubs doesn't
Speaker 9: mean automatically you're gonna show up with the course and
Speaker 9: just beat immediately better, Like, oh, I'm better, I have
Speaker 9: new clubs, I'm better, I have a swing coach, I'm better.
Speaker 9: It just takes time to work with said coach and
Speaker 9: your new equipment, figure out what you got to do
Speaker 9: with it to then go out and play your game
Speaker 9: at the highest level possible. And so it's just taken time.
Speaker 9: And now he has locked in that rotation and it
Speaker 9: is a deep rotation. They can go less and deep
Speaker 9: on the bench and are doing so regularly with a
Speaker 9: couple of guys playing, you know, sparse minutes here and
Speaker 9: there between Trey Stewart and Mihailo Boskovic. Those guys would
Speaker 9: come in and give you why you would change of
Speaker 9: pace to go along with the nine regulars. And it's
Speaker 9: just been really really interesting and entertaining to watch him
Speaker 9: and his staff hone in on what is working best.
Speaker 9: And obviously during this five game win streak they've been
Speaker 9: able to flex a little bit and taking a little
Speaker 9: bit of luck for sure down in Arizona. But I
Speaker 9: mean outside of that, they've just been playing really really
Speaker 9: high level basketball. And we're talking about a team that
Speaker 9: is starting to shoot it well. Eleven mad threes per
Speaker 9: game almost that's an insane number for a college team.
Speaker 9: But this is what by you brought Kevin Young in
Speaker 9: to do as one of the most brilliant offensive minds
Speaker 9: in the game.
Speaker 1: Since you brought up Arizona, my guy, I'm gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna lean into it for a second year. Okay. So
Speaker 1: so look, there are a few things that are true. Okay,
Speaker 1: there are a few things that are true, and we're
Speaker 1: not great at that in this country at acknowledging a
Speaker 1: few different sides. The officiating wasn't awesome, and BYU was
Speaker 1: on the wrong side of some calls. But I listened
Speaker 1: to you, and I've listened to Shep and Greg and Spencer.
Speaker 1: My man, that was not a foul at the end
Speaker 1: of the game. It just it just wasn't. Look credit
Speaker 1: Richie steps out, knockdown the free throws, and there was
Speaker 1: inconsistent officiating. BYU was on the wrong side of some calls.
Speaker 1: But the final play, my man, my man, you got
Speaker 1: to help me out here. That just wasn't a foul.
Speaker 1: It just wasn't.
Speaker 9: It's tough to make that call in that scenario, No question,
Speaker 9: like it benefited BYU. I'm not shying away from that.
Speaker 9: I guess my point was, and maybe I didn't portray
Speaker 9: it the right way and how I said it on
Speaker 9: the show, but it feels like Richie was very, very
Speaker 9: aware of how that game had been officiated, and so
Speaker 9: he chose to try and initiate something in a game
Speaker 9: that was poorly officiated. And he's a really smart player
Speaker 9: to try and take advantage of how that game had
Speaker 9: been called in ninety nine out of one hundred games
Speaker 9: and scenarios, You're right, that is not a foul call.
Speaker 9: But because it was so poorly officiated, I thought from
Speaker 9: start to finish and Arizona getting calls and Boa getting
Speaker 9: questionable calls, it kind of didn't surprise me. But Richie's
Speaker 9: a really good player. He sold it. It wasn't a foul,
Speaker 9: but he did his part. Still had to step up
Speaker 9: and make some really really high pressure free throws and
Speaker 9: BYU was lucky to get out of there, but sometimes
Speaker 9: you need a lucky break like that. And so yeah,
Speaker 9: not dodging that. I know that the alternate angles came out,
Speaker 9: and that kind of gave me pause where it's like, okay,
Speaker 9: well they kind of knocked me these a little bit,
Speaker 9: and there's a little bit of a hip slide there,
Speaker 9: but it's in slow motion and like the officials got
Speaker 9: one chance to look at it, and I know Tony
Speaker 9: Fadiaz had his history with uton By for Bethan worse,
Speaker 9: but yeah, I'm not going to shy away from it. Man, Like,
Speaker 9: you're right, it's not a foul, but given the way
Speaker 9: that game was officiated, I was not surprised that it
Speaker 9: was called a foul.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you hang ninety six and Michale you deserve to
Speaker 1: at least be in the mix. And I'm not taking
Speaker 1: anything away from the wind because I'm never one to
Speaker 1: believe that one call is enough to explain away a result,
Speaker 1: even if it's that call at that time. Let me
Speaker 1: ask you this, and I don't know if you guys
Speaker 1: have addressed it on the show, but yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: like you know my background and whatever, there's this story
Speaker 1: about another chant about bleep the Mormons or whatever it is, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't shy away from the conversation. Some people do,
Speaker 1: and I do believe this is such a double standard
Speaker 1: in so many different ways. And I'm not a big
Speaker 1: fan of what Aboutism's but if this was bleep the
Speaker 1: insert religion here or bleep the insert ethnicity here, this
Speaker 1: would be a national story. And I just and look,
Speaker 1: I talked about this on the show. I have a
Speaker 1: pretty unique prism and experience of being. You know, an
Speaker 1: LDS kid from Salt Lake City, Utah, suddenly planted in
Speaker 1: the northeast at the age of eleven, and this was
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety and I was treated like a total outcast.
Speaker 1: This was far before the church had a footprint back
Speaker 1: there that it does now. And I know what it's
Speaker 1: like to be around people that simply don't know culturally
Speaker 1: what else Yes people are about. And I was there
Speaker 1: were kids that were clearly getting information from their parents,
Speaker 1: asking me questions like I would go to school and
Speaker 1: be like, I'm pretty sure my dad has only the
Speaker 1: one wife and it's my mom. That's been the deal
Speaker 1: the entire time. I know, you guys are asking me
Speaker 1: like And so I understand that there is a large
Speaker 1: portion of our country, even in the year of Our
Speaker 1: Lord twenty twenty five, that view the prism of LDS
Speaker 1: culture as odd and unfamiliar. But it just it can't.
Speaker 1: It can't mean the chants like that are okay, and
Speaker 1: it shouldn't dissuade people like us that have a microphone
Speaker 1: from talking about I just wonder how those things land
Speaker 1: down there with you when your fellow BYU media members
Speaker 1: and people down in Provo.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I appreciate you bringing this up, And truthfully, I
Speaker 9: think I have been conditioned over the years to just
Speaker 9: kind of let it roll off your back and love
Speaker 9: them back and turn the other cheek and don't worry
Speaker 9: about it. But at some point you have to say, Okay,
Speaker 9: now that's just craft and cheap and lazy, Like, can
Speaker 9: we have a conversation about this, because just because the
Speaker 9: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints and how
Speaker 9: they're called obviously referred to still as the Mormons are
Speaker 9: just an easy target. I hate that excuse. Well, it's
Speaker 9: just an easy target because you're weird, So just deal
Speaker 9: with it. It's just part of the deal. Like, at
Speaker 9: what point do we say, well, maybe we don't like it,
Speaker 9: maybe it's it's hurtful and it's annoying. But for a
Speaker 9: long time, and even still now today, I kind of
Speaker 9: have come from a standpoint of, well, you know, they
Speaker 9: hate what they don't understand, and let's just go ahead
Speaker 9: and turn the other cheek and love them and hope
Speaker 9: for something better. But again, at some point you have
Speaker 9: to stand up and say, hey, we don't like that,
Speaker 9: We would appreciate having a conversation about it so that
Speaker 9: it doesn't happen again, And so I was happy to
Speaker 9: see some of the conversation that came from this, and
Speaker 9: I super appreciate Tommy Lloyd and think he is an
Speaker 9: absolute class act as Arizona's head coach. Not only one
Speaker 9: did he address the bigger concern with the game after
Speaker 9: a terrible foul call hurt his team and cost his
Speaker 9: team the game in some ways, but he pointed to
Speaker 9: the bigger picture of my team's got bigger issues. And
Speaker 9: then later on down the week, as he's preparing for
Speaker 9: another game, he talked about how his fans need to
Speaker 9: be better and you need to not take those shots.
Speaker 9: And so it was just kind of this cool galvanizing
Speaker 9: moment between the staffs at Arizona and DYU and for
Speaker 9: some of Arizona fans to come out and say, you
Speaker 9: know what, it's not okay, and we will be better. So, yeah,
Speaker 9: we're making a little bit of progress, but it is
Speaker 9: an unfortunate banner that so many fan bases have joined
Speaker 9: in recent years, and you would think that in twenty
Speaker 9: forty five, as you pointed out, we would be better
Speaker 9: than that.
Speaker 5: But here we are yet again.
Speaker 1: One more thing on this and I'll ask you the
Speaker 1: question that you asked my guys Shep today. I want
Speaker 1: you to dish on a little tea. You ready for it?
Speaker 1: It was a perfect question to ask Shep, who's such
Speaker 1: a tmz honk. But I wonder if part of this
Speaker 1: and we're just talking about louder because honestly, I don't
Speaker 1: know if there's anything here. But you know, the LDS
Speaker 1: exposure through pop culture over the past three four years,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's done the church a lot of
Speaker 1: good things. I just don't And you know, whether it's
Speaker 1: Real Housewives stuff or the Hulu show or the junk stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, the Sister Wives show. I wonder how much
Speaker 1: of that that people are digesting gives them a completely
Speaker 1: inaccurate idea of the way the culture is actually, you know,
Speaker 1: in reality when you experience it, do you think there's
Speaker 1: anything there? Spencer?
Speaker 9: Yes, And you know what people like the strange and
Speaker 9: abnormal and weird this is they gravitate too. These are
Speaker 9: why these are the most stream shows, unfortunately in broadcast media,
Speaker 9: because the real story, Spence is probably a little boring.
Speaker 9: How often do we hear. Yeah, I grew up with
Speaker 9: some Mormon neighbors and they were super nice and they
Speaker 9: always respected the laws of the land, and they were cool,
Speaker 9: and they didn't drink and they were responsible, and I
Speaker 9: never had an issue with our families interacting. It just
Speaker 9: seems kind of boring, like, yeah, it's good, I choose
Speaker 9: that all the time, but it's not worthy of what
Speaker 9: the world perceived as entertainment value. No one's signing up
Speaker 9: to watch the show when it's just, oh, yeah, those
Speaker 9: people are nice, and they helped me do my yard work,
Speaker 9: and they shovel my walk when I can't do it,
Speaker 9: and they went down into some yardwork for this elderly
Speaker 9: grandma on our yard in our neighborhood life. We don't
Speaker 9: hear enough about that stuff. I wish we could cast
Speaker 9: more of a light on that. But I truly believe
Speaker 9: that it just comes down to, well, what's weird and
Speaker 9: what's kind of that landish, how do we build a
Speaker 9: show in it so that we can make money and
Speaker 9: sell advertising and we can all get rich. And so
Speaker 9: it is uncomfortably becoming more and more common to see
Speaker 9: the things that you are pointing out, and those shows
Speaker 9: because people.
Speaker 8: Just want extremes.
Speaker 9: They want extremes, and they want to talk about it,
Speaker 9: and they want a gossip about it. And it's kind
Speaker 9: of an unfortunate diet tribe on what our society is
Speaker 9: becoming in broadcast consumption.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well said you referenced Tommy Lloyd. And you know
Speaker 1: Tommy after you know, after the BYU game. Now he
Speaker 1: handled that and you know, Utah, we've had a change
Speaker 1: up here, as you know, Craig has been relieved of
Speaker 1: his duties and two of Craig's sons are with the
Speaker 1: program once the director of ops. The others is a
Speaker 1: walk on. And unfortunately josh Isilc's first task was to
Speaker 1: take Utah and to McHale and there's no way that
Speaker 1: was going to go well. But after the game, I
Speaker 1: thought Tommy Lloyd handled it again just perfectly where he
Speaker 1: pointed out the two sons and how they showed up
Speaker 1: for work, and that would be I mean, look, my
Speaker 1: dad wasn't a coach, but he was an executive. I
Speaker 1: mean we had to uproot our family four or five
Speaker 1: different times for his career. There's a personal side of
Speaker 1: this that we don't do a very good job covering
Speaker 1: because fans want to know what happened and what's next.
Speaker 1: But I wonder from Afar down there, your take on
Speaker 1: what we've had going on up here with Craig losing
Speaker 1: his job. Wow.
Speaker 9: Well, let me say this, all of my interactions with
Speaker 9: Craig Smith, and they've been limited, have been super positive.
Speaker 9: I really really enjoy that guy. I think he is
Speaker 9: an outstanding basketball coach. It won't take him long to
Speaker 9: find a good landing spot. Whether that's as a head
Speaker 9: coach somewhere else so or as a high level assistant.
Speaker 9: I don't know, but he's going to find a good
Speaker 9: landing spot because I think he's a fantastic human and
Speaker 9: a fantastic basketball coach. I was a little shock Spence
Speaker 9: because I thought that he was finally starting to get
Speaker 9: some grounding. Like when Utah beat Kansas State or at
Speaker 9: Kansas and Kansas State back to back and they're middle
Speaker 9: of the pack in the Big Club, I thought, Okay,
Speaker 9: there may be on the cusp of something.
Speaker 10: Maybe they gave them one more year to try and build,
Speaker 10: and I thought, maybe Utah is going to be a
Speaker 10: tournament team next year if he can build the core
Speaker 10: and keep his people and use this momentum in the
Speaker 10: Big twelve with those two big wins against the Sunflower State, I.
Speaker 9: Thought, cool, good for Craig. They're figuring some things out,
Speaker 9: and then they lose at UCF and then all of
Speaker 9: a sudden he's out of a job, and so I
Speaker 9: was stunned. I hate it for the Smith family, especially
Speaker 9: when I thought that he had finally started to figure
Speaker 9: some things out, and I think he was getting a
Speaker 9: lot out of the talent that he had up there,
Speaker 9: and if you had given him some real nil support
Speaker 9: and true support from an athletics standpoint, that he go
Speaker 9: out and do some damage and recruit that they were
Speaker 9: on the cusp of being an NCAA tournament team.
Speaker 5: Again.
Speaker 9: Well, reading the teavs, I'm guessing Utah absolutely has one
Speaker 9: or two clear candidates in mind, maybe three, and they
Speaker 9: want to return to who I believe some of those
Speaker 9: legacy guys that will bring in immediate injection of enthusiasm
Speaker 9: and support and booster donations into it. So obviously, if
Speaker 9: they can hire a guy like Alex Jenson, it would
Speaker 9: be the best case scenario. Trust me, from a guy
Speaker 9: who's watched what Kevin Young has done as an NBA
Speaker 9: assistant with his connections and ability to develop NBA players
Speaker 9: and recruit those guys. I think Alex Jansen would be
Speaker 9: a home run higher. Hate that it comes at a
Speaker 9: time when I felt like Craig had started to in
Speaker 9: some ways turn a corner. But hopefully Utah makes the
Speaker 9: right higher, and I hope that it's Alex Jenson. I
Speaker 9: think he is dynamite. I don't know what the true
Speaker 9: interest level is there, but he's going to pick a
Speaker 9: time to leave Dallas and the NBA as an assistant
Speaker 9: this and take this job at Utah. Man of a
Speaker 9: huge get for the you and returning to them to
Speaker 9: their basketball glory. Man, you and I we grew up.
Speaker 9: Utah basketball was everything just there, Jerif Sweater, the files forward.
Speaker 5: It was so fun.
Speaker 9: And I don't care any yu fanas kidding themselves. They
Speaker 9: didn't think that that wasn't fun to watch those guys
Speaker 9: Andre Miller and Alex Jensen and the Johnson brothers do
Speaker 9: their thing, and before that, Keith van Horn. Those were
Speaker 9: glorious years for Utah basketball. And this rivalry is better
Speaker 9: when they are good at basketball.
Speaker 1: Well said, all right, I'll have a football question, but
Speaker 1: before we get there, what do you think? So you know,
Speaker 1: last year's team I thought was playing pretty well entering
Speaker 1: the NCAA tournament, and I thought if they could knock
Speaker 1: down some shots and get the right matchup, they could
Speaker 1: win a couple of games. And it was the day
Speaker 1: day grand Kid in Ducane last year that Ouse did
Speaker 1: Yu in the first round. And I think it's been
Speaker 1: what since Jimmer byus not want to take a game
Speaker 1: inside the round of sixty four they won a first
Speaker 1: four in game or whatever. But when I watched this
Speaker 1: team this year and when they are at their peak,
Speaker 1: they feel more dangerous and more complete than the team
Speaker 1: a year ago. And they're deeper as well. So if
Speaker 1: you expand your imagination, what's the ceiling for Kevin's team
Speaker 1: this year NCAA tournament style?
Speaker 9: Yeah, fantastic question, with a lot of layers there. I
Speaker 9: agree with you this team. Do they not have a
Speaker 9: little bit of the twenty twenty vibe before we sadly
Speaker 9: were shut down by that whole COVID pandemic, Like I
Speaker 9: get some vibes from this BUA team that I had
Speaker 9: with that team, they shoot the three incredibly well, their
Speaker 9: offense is super efficient, so fun, engaging, they're defending enough,
Speaker 9: like they're not a bad defensive team. They rebound the
Speaker 9: ball well. All of these things that I heard about
Speaker 9: the twenty twenty team and how UI is dangerous nobody
Speaker 9: wants to see BYU in March, I'm starting to hear
Speaker 9: a lot of the same things about this team, which
Speaker 9: is exciting and so, yes, this team is better prepared
Speaker 9: to go and win an NCAA tournament game. I don't
Speaker 9: know if the UI is going to be granted the
Speaker 9: consideration by the tournament selection committee that they had last year,
Speaker 9: even though I think they're a better team this year
Speaker 9: because of the non conference slate, and Kevin knows that
Speaker 9: they didn't beat anybody in non conference play relatively speaking,
Speaker 9: they have since caught fire and have added plenty of
Speaker 9: meat to the resume in the Big twelve. But I
Speaker 9: don't know. Pardony just believes it that the selection commans
Speaker 9: can be like, yeah, but By's non conference, Like we
Speaker 9: need to punish them a little bit for that. So
Speaker 9: I wouldn't be surprised to see BYU if they win
Speaker 9: two of the final three. I'm not going to ask
Speaker 9: the team or expect this team to go to Ames
Speaker 9: and win against Siawa State, especially if Bio State gets
Speaker 9: some of their scores back and courage Jones specifically, Like,
Speaker 9: that's a tough ask. But if you win two of
Speaker 9: the final three and you beat West Virginia, Sam and
Speaker 9: I and then handle Youthah on Senior Night, and you
Speaker 9: go to Kansas City and you win a game there,
Speaker 9: then I think DYU has absolutely done enough to be
Speaker 9: given real consideration at worst as a seven seed. And
Speaker 9: what ten seed or what team in the NCAA tournament
Speaker 9: wants to face seven seed BYU who recently just won
Speaker 9: at Arizona and just humiliated Kansas and had won as
Speaker 9: many as six games in a row and are playing
Speaker 9: their best basketball this season. I think they could be
Speaker 9: a very very dangerous seven. You said ceiling, so I'm
Speaker 9: gonna give you to I think the ceiling for the
Speaker 9: PA team because of the non conference plane, because of
Speaker 9: no Sunday play and how the seeding principles work, probably
Speaker 9: a six seed at best, all.
Speaker 1: Right, But before I say you lose, The Solid Tribune
Speaker 1: did some reporting this week on the Royal Blue Collective
Speaker 1: and some changes that were made, and I just want
Speaker 1: your take on it. You know, crue Wakely obviously left
Speaker 1: the program with a little bit of an extra grind, right,
Speaker 1: and I always make sure to keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: And there was another starter who claimed that there were
Speaker 1: some cuts and some changes made to the collective, and
Speaker 1: obviously some players not thrilled about it. The trip did
Speaker 1: a follow up where they were able to talk to
Speaker 1: some people from the Royal Blue Collective who are saying
Speaker 1: that there will be some changes this year, you know,
Speaker 1: coming off the heels of a very successful season. I
Speaker 1: just need to know your understanding of this story and
Speaker 1: kind of where we're at with collective down in Provo.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Again, I mean to be frank with you, like I
Speaker 9: don't know Crewe on a close enough level to understand
Speaker 9: everything that he said and why he said it.
Speaker 5: I still like Crew.
Speaker 9: I think he was a good player for buy and
Speaker 9: he did some nice things. But you're right, he had
Speaker 9: an ax to grind. So whenever something like that begins,
Speaker 9: you as well as I know that as a member
Speaker 9: of the media, you have to take it with the
Speaker 9: proverbial grain of salt, like, Okay, something happened, he didn't
Speaker 9: like it, Let me see what I can find out.
Speaker 9: And so when I went down that route, to kind
Speaker 9: of figure out what was going on in the Weake
Speaker 9: we camp. I was largely shut out and said, you
Speaker 9: know what, we'll kind of keeping it for ourselves. It's
Speaker 9: what's in the paper is out there, but like we're
Speaker 9: not going to add any additional comment. So I thought, Okay, well,
Speaker 9: I'm not going to get anything from cruise people. That's fine.
Speaker 9: Let me reach out to the Royal Blue Collective. And
Speaker 9: what I was told was we're processing everything. We're figuring
Speaker 9: out where there were some discrepancies and some misunderstandings. And
Speaker 9: I was assured that they are trying to do everything
Speaker 9: with as much integrity and clarity and transparency as possible
Speaker 9: while still working with an institution that is private. It's
Speaker 9: like an impossible balance at BYU. I'm not saying it's perfect,
Speaker 9: it's not. So clearly there was something that happened and
Speaker 9: I'm misunderstanding. And I'll say this, everybody needs to get
Speaker 9: everything in writing and put in contracts and stop giving
Speaker 9: these handshake agreements. Like handshakes are not going to cut
Speaker 9: it anymore. Like everything needs to be documented. We've gone
Speaker 9: from amateurism to like minor league professional sports, with many
Speaker 9: college athletes get everything in writing, get everything in a contract,
Speaker 9: but that you can guarantee it, and there's legal ram
Speaker 9: pitations if you don't uphold your end of the bargain.
Speaker 9: But I wish I had more for you. I reached
Speaker 9: out to both sides and was given a very political
Speaker 9: answer from the Royal Blue Collective and then we'll kind
Speaker 9: of shut down on the other side. So I wish
Speaker 9: I had more than that to add. But I'm adamant
Speaker 9: that that there will be an effort to have things
Speaker 9: laid out that are legally solid, that are on paper
Speaker 9: guaranteed contracts, because I believe, truly believe to be why
Speaker 9: he wants to do it the right way, and they
Speaker 9: don't ever want to put anybody in a uncomfortab position
Speaker 9: like they did or was reported allegedly they did from
Speaker 9: crewe Wakely and then this other you know athlete or
Speaker 9: these other athletes that are now coming forward.
Speaker 1: All right, buddy, always appreciate the time. Please, as I
Speaker 1: always say, give sheep a wet willie and a purple
Speaker 1: nurple for me and we'll get you back on soon. Okay,
Speaker 1: you got a brother.
Speaker 9: Hey, I'm glad you found you all. But if you
Speaker 9: don't listen if you didn't. All it takes is a
Speaker 9: simple text message to be on your phone. Bro, I
Speaker 9: got you. I'll carry you for a little bit.
Speaker 1: No, I appreciate that. I might just send you my
Speaker 1: Venmo now if I know that's the deal. Thanks buddy,
Speaker 1: I have a good weekend. Okay? All right? Spencer Lynton
Speaker 1: from BYU TV, I always appreciate his time. We're live
Speaker 1: today at Tim Dolly Nissan at forty five twenty eight
Speaker 1: South State Street. It's their special year end clearance sale
Speaker 1: and special financing is low a zero percent. They're offering
Speaker 1: cars for zero money down and no payments for two months.
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Speaker 1: you're a child, or your spouse, forty five twenty eight
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Speaker 1: we are live today Tim Dolly Nissan at forty five
Speaker 1: twenty eight South State Street. Come on buy and say hi.
Speaker 1: It is their end of the year close out special.
Speaker 1: Even though it's the beginning of the year, they're still
Speaker 1: having it. Special financing is low a zero percent, zero
Speaker 1: money down, no payments for two months. My next guest
Speaker 1: back in the day would be sitting next to me
Speaker 1: on these remotes often Gordon monson, Happy Friday, sir, how
Speaker 1: are you?
Speaker 6: I'm just fines man, how are you doing? Those were
Speaker 6: good old times, you know, you look back. I have
Speaker 6: fond memories.
Speaker 9: I'll say it that way.
Speaker 1: The first memory I have of a remote we did together,
Speaker 1: I believe, was out in Bountiful or Centerville and we
Speaker 1: showed up to I think a target and they didn't
Speaker 1: know we were coming, so we had to set up
Speaker 1: outside and it was snowing, and you went inside target,
Speaker 1: and if I remember correctly, bought a sweatshirt that did
Speaker 1: not fit you very well. Is that right?
Speaker 6: You know the saddest part of that whole story is
Speaker 6: that it didn't fit me very well, but it fits
Speaker 6: me now.
Speaker 1: Oh so you still have the sweatshirt.
Speaker 6: I still haven't. I I decided I'll try this, see
Speaker 6: it is, you know, and it was like, you know,
Speaker 6: it's like that bride that tries on a weddings twenty
Speaker 6: years later or whatever. But uh it it's me pretty
Speaker 6: nice now. But it was too big back then.
Speaker 1: Oh well, it was very cold from what I recall.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of other remote stories. You know,
Speaker 1: we did all those Papa John's for years, where we'd
Speaker 1: be like right next to the oven and leave spelling
Speaker 1: like pizza and freezing cold.
Speaker 6: So not one you bring up, though, I mean, I've
Speaker 6: never experienced that before where we're loading into the store
Speaker 6: and essentially the store manager is pushing us back out
Speaker 6: the door. Oh yeah, we're out on the curb in
Speaker 6: like minus twenty degree weather. Right, you know we made
Speaker 6: we powered through though, man, because we could have walked away.
Speaker 8: But no, no, we don't.
Speaker 6: We don't walk away.
Speaker 1: We're men of the people, Gordon, we don't walk away.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, you know we're here. We're here
Speaker 1: to serve. We're here to serve.
Speaker 6: So tell me, well, I wish Smith that we could
Speaker 6: pull back the curtain on everything that ever happened, either
Speaker 6: in the studio or out of the We could write
Speaker 6: a book.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah, behind the scenes. Look at the
Speaker 1: old radio days. I'm not sure how many people anymore
Speaker 1: would be all that interested, but the old school listeners, Gordon,
Speaker 1: I don't know how many of them are still around,
Speaker 1: but the old school listeners would be interested, that's for sure.
Speaker 6: Well, all I know is fun, So I'm glad you're
Speaker 6: still doing it.
Speaker 1: Man for sure. Now I appreciate your time. I always
Speaker 1: missed having you, you know, you and Craig in Hopefully
Speaker 1: we can get that going back soon. But there's a
Speaker 1: lot going on, Gordo, and you've been writing about a
Speaker 1: lot of it. So let's start with the news that
Speaker 1: has dominated the headlines up this way, and that's Craig
Speaker 1: Smith losing his job year four six year contract. And
Speaker 1: so now you toss some dead money to Craig after
Speaker 1: paying some dead money to Larry. And there's a lot
Speaker 1: to this, and you know, ultimately there's a human side
Speaker 1: of it. Feel bad for Craig and his family. A
Speaker 1: little five million dollar golden parachute doesn't hurt. But what's
Speaker 1: your reaction to the news, and then we'll move into
Speaker 1: what you think comes next.
Speaker 6: Well, one thing that comes to mind on a personal
Speaker 6: level is some especially basketball coaches, I don't know, it's
Speaker 6: football coaches too. They're kind of power guys and they
Speaker 6: some of them just aren't the nicest guys in the world.
Speaker 8: I'll say it that way, but Crank Smith was.
Speaker 6: I mean, he was a nice dude. I mean, you
Speaker 6: wish the best for him and his family, And on
Speaker 6: a personal level, on the professional level. You know, things
Speaker 6: weren't getting slowly better, but I just you know, it
Speaker 6: just wasn't I guess good enough for the proud history
Speaker 6: of the University of Utah basketball program. And you know,
Speaker 6: I mean they were picked, they picked last in the
Speaker 6: conference and they were seven and nine when he got
Speaker 6: the acts. The timing of it was a little suspicious
Speaker 6: to me because I wondered if Mark Harland had it
Speaker 6: in for him from from the start of the season
Speaker 6: and he I don't know. I don't know this for
Speaker 6: a fact, but it seems like they were better than
Speaker 6: maybe what they were thought to be, and Craig Smith
Speaker 6: was a big part of that. And then all of
Speaker 6: a sudden he's given the acts after the loss, and
Speaker 6: they had won some games and people didn't expect them
Speaker 6: to win. And who knows what would have happened if
Speaker 6: he had finished strong with that team, Spence, I don't
Speaker 6: know what happened if they went down to Provo and
Speaker 6: beat the Cougars, I mean, and then you're going to
Speaker 6: fire him after that. That would have been a more
Speaker 6: difficult situation. But that's all speculation on my part. I
Speaker 6: have no idea what Mark Carlett was thinking other than
Speaker 6: the fact that what the youths were doing on the
Speaker 6: basketball floor and what they were drawing in as far
Speaker 6: as fans just wasn't good enough for him.
Speaker 1: All right. So, and like you, I'm not entirely sure
Speaker 1: what all the reasons were. I did hear from two boosters,
Speaker 1: one of whom you know, that this was in I
Speaker 1: don't know what percentage, but in some part this was
Speaker 1: booster driven. And by booster driven, I mean some of
Speaker 1: the biggest of the big dogs. You know, they just
Speaker 1: weren't necessarily happy with the direction and Gordon. While I
Speaker 1: certainly met the news with sympathy for Craig and his family,
Speaker 1: there was part of me that said, okay, you know what,
Speaker 1: finally somebody who stood up and said this is not
Speaker 1: good enough. They have not made the tournament in almost
Speaker 1: ten years, and for a program once upon a time
Speaker 1: that made the tournament every year and nearly won a
Speaker 1: national championship, but just ran out of gasagainst Kentucky. Part
Speaker 1: of me likes the fact that whatever the reason was,
Speaker 1: like this standard should not do for a basketball community
Speaker 1: that's used to greatness.
Speaker 6: Yeah and yeah, I I well said Spence, And you know,
Speaker 6: some schools you'd say, Okay, this is good enough, kind
Speaker 6: of getting better each year, but that's that's good enough.
Speaker 6: We're not going to do anything about it. And that's
Speaker 6: frustrating for fans to be put in that situation because
Speaker 6: they want the results yesterday and it was it was
Speaker 6: too slow. And I know some of the boosters. I figure,
Speaker 6: I know some of the boosters of which you speak,
Speaker 6: and I know for a fact that they weren't happy.
Speaker 6: They think, they think the University of Utah is a
Speaker 6: better basketball program than was being exhibited on the court
Speaker 6: and in a day and age where just like Craigstmis,
Speaker 6: it's a bottom line business man, you got to win,
Speaker 6: and you got to win at a certain level or
Speaker 6: else you're gone. And he's gone. But it's hard to
Speaker 6: feel sorry for arm considering the five million dollar parachute
Speaker 6: that you mentioned.
Speaker 1: So now we move over to what's next, and it's
Speaker 1: interesting and consider a few different avenues here. So you know,
Speaker 1: one of the avenues that athletic directors and school presidents
Speaker 1: take when you're a P four school and a Big
Speaker 1: twelve school as you look at the smaller conferences and
Speaker 1: the smaller schools and you try to figure out which
Speaker 1: coaches are doing a good job and they've kind of
Speaker 1: earned their way to figure out what's next as far
Speaker 1: as the bigger level, and sometimes that doesn't happen until
Speaker 1: the tournament. You know, a small school gets an automatic qualification,
Speaker 1: they win a couple of games, and a bigger school
Speaker 1: poaches their coach. Jeff Borzello put together a list that
Speaker 1: he thinks Utah should look at. It's UC San Diego's
Speaker 1: Eric Olson, It's Nico Medved from Colorado State, It's Eric
Speaker 1: Henderson from South Dakota State, Leon Rice Boise State. They
Speaker 1: just be Utah State, Russell Turner from UC Irvine. So
Speaker 1: that's one avenue. And the other avenue that seems to
Speaker 1: be getting a lot of traction is the former ute pile,
Speaker 1: which includes Johnny Bryant, Alex Jensen seems to be the
Speaker 1: front runner from what I can understand, and then Andre
Speaker 1: Miller's coaching in the G League. So I want your
Speaker 1: thoughts on what you think Mark should do. And then ultimately,
Speaker 1: one of the things I've tried to consider is I'm
Speaker 1: not usually a win the press conference guy. I don't
Speaker 1: think it matters. The long game of building a culture
Speaker 1: is what matters and finding your way back to winning.
Speaker 1: But this basketball community, Gordon needs such a shot of life.
Speaker 1: The part of me feels like, go all in and
Speaker 1: get Alex and put Andre next to him on the bench.
Speaker 1: And I would imagine if that's the announcement, a lot
Speaker 1: of phone calls would be made to the basketball building
Speaker 1: to put deposits down for season tickets. But what do
Speaker 1: you think Mark should do next? As far as the
Speaker 1: avenue we should look at.
Speaker 6: Well, the first option that you talked about, well, that's
Speaker 6: how Craig Smith got there, right yep. I mean he
Speaker 6: was he was winning games, and you saw we needed
Speaker 6: a Utah state and he was winning before that. He
Speaker 6: build a program and they bring him into Utah and
Speaker 6: it didn't really light the fire you're talking about. And
Speaker 6: so I really liked those last three games you mentioned,
Speaker 6: and I think that would be the way I would
Speaker 6: go if I were Mark Carlett. Now Harlan seems to
Speaker 6: like to sort of put on a national search, but
Speaker 6: I mean he hired Craig Smith, I.
Speaker 5: Would go for.
Speaker 6: I would go for one of those three. I really
Speaker 6: would Alex Smith or Jensen. You know you and I
Speaker 6: know him well, and he's He's a fine man, and
Speaker 6: he's a really good basketball mind with that NBA experience,
Speaker 6: And it makes me wonder sometimes that when you look
Speaker 6: at what happened to BYU and Kevin Young's success going
Speaker 6: in there and having that NBA experience and that being
Speaker 6: a big draw for certain athletes who definitely that's their goal.
Speaker 6: They want to go to the NBA. Right, So why
Speaker 6: wouldn't you talk to a guy like Alex Sinton. Why
Speaker 6: wouldn't you talk to a guy like Johnny Bryant or
Speaker 6: Andre Miller. I mean, those are exciting names, and I
Speaker 6: think that's the way I would go.
Speaker 1: So I want to get your take on the pressure
Speaker 1: that Mark Harlan finds himself in with his hire and
Speaker 1: you know, to juxtapose it a little bit, when Tom
Speaker 1: Homo announced that he was stepping down after twenty years
Speaker 1: down in Provo, one of the main things that Tom
Speaker 1: can hang his hat on is the hires he made
Speaker 1: for his basketball and his football program, Bronco, Dave rose Colte,
Speaker 1: in addition to Mark Pope and Kevin Jung. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's an argument to be made that Tom went five
Speaker 1: for five for five. Now, I know there are other
Speaker 1: sports I'm not diminishing them and the importance of them
Speaker 1: and the other hires, but Mark in his tenure has
Speaker 1: made one higher on the football on the basketball side,
Speaker 1: and it was Craig and obviously didn't work. The succession
Speaker 1: plan for more than a takeover I believe was in
Speaker 1: place before Mark got here. And you know, it hasn't
Speaker 1: been the greatest year for Mark Carlin, who I like
Speaker 1: and respect and he's been nice to me. But that
Speaker 1: postgame die tribe after the BYU Utah football game didn't
Speaker 1: land very well. He was reprimanded, he was fined, and
Speaker 1: I wonder how you would articulate this feels like a
Speaker 1: very big decision for the athletic director of Utah. What
Speaker 1: are your thoughts scoredon?
Speaker 6: I couldn't agree more with everything that's going on in
Speaker 6: college words right now and with the changes that are
Speaker 6: afoot and the importance are still these RULs are angling
Speaker 6: for that what twenty thirty thirty one time when the
Speaker 6: TV deals are up and people are positioning themselves for
Speaker 6: the most advantageous situation they can find. So, yeah, this
Speaker 6: is big. I don't know what's going to happen when
Speaker 6: Kyle Whittingham retires, Is Morgan Scaley going to pick up
Speaker 6: the football and just take it from there? You and
Speaker 6: I know Morgan, he's a smart guy. You think he
Speaker 6: would be able to do that again with a football
Speaker 6: program that has a proud history, so you'd think he'd
Speaker 6: be able to do it. In basketball, the utes have
Speaker 6: been struggling, like you said, for quite some time. It's
Speaker 6: a basketball school. It used to be a basketball school, right,
Speaker 6: and so I think he does need to nail that.
Speaker 6: He'd never get this one right. He embarrassed the university
Speaker 6: during football season, and I think from the reaction that
Speaker 6: I've gotten from fans know when they found out that
Speaker 6: Craig Smith was being fired, a lot of them thought
Speaker 6: that Craig Smith was doing okay, not great, but pretty good,
Speaker 6: and there was a lot of vitriol I thought toward
Speaker 6: Mark Harlan, which is interesting that the athletic director would
Speaker 6: get that kind of heat. So yeah, I would say
Speaker 6: get this one right, especially at this point in time.
Speaker 1: Since excuse me, since I have not been able to
Speaker 1: catch up in the past couple of weeks, I wonder
Speaker 1: what your thoughts are on the announcement that after twenty years,
Speaker 1: Tom Homo is exiting stage left as byus AD and
Speaker 1: your thoughts on potentially what's next down there. You know,
Speaker 1: Shane Reese, the president of the university, was present at
Speaker 1: the press conference they held and he outlined his criteria
Speaker 1: for whether BYU athletic director needs to meet. Plenty of
Speaker 1: good candidates out there. So your thoughts on the twenty
Speaker 1: years with Tom in charge down there and where do
Speaker 1: you think BYU goes next.
Speaker 6: Tom just did a fantastic job and he's a good guy.
Speaker 6: I know some people in the media got a little
Speaker 6: angry because the access to him was a little difficult
Speaker 6: for some folks. I had a cell phone on my phone.
Speaker 7: I felt like I.
Speaker 6: Could call him whenever, but that wasn't the way it was.
Speaker 6: In every direction, I liked him. I liked the job
Speaker 6: he did. You mentioned the success that they made the
Speaker 6: transition into the Big twelve. The optimism in Provo right
Speaker 6: now is, if not off the charts, it's really high
Speaker 6: and Tom deserves credit for that. He made that happen.
Speaker 6: I remember sitting in a Peacha joint in Prova with
Speaker 6: Tom and we were talking about what his vision was
Speaker 6: for BYE Sports, and it's pretty much exactly where they
Speaker 6: are right now. I mean, nobody's perfect, and it can
Speaker 6: get better, I suppose, But I think he pretty much
Speaker 6: did exactly what he set out to do, which is
Speaker 6: we're lofty goals, and he got him there. As far
Speaker 6: as what they're going to do move it forward, this
Speaker 6: is kind of an interesting thing you mentioned Shane Ree.
Speaker 6: I believe he worked for a time advising the Philadelphia Eagles, didn't.
Speaker 6: I mean, he's got a sports background, and sports we've
Speaker 6: seen that boosters down there are willing to shell out
Speaker 6: big money and the university is allowing that to happen now,
Speaker 6: and so BYU I have heard BYU mentioned more in
Speaker 6: the last month or two on a national level then
Speaker 6: I think I had maybe since nineteen eighty four, And
Speaker 6: so I mean, I think they're they're making this a priority,
Speaker 6: and they could go in house, you know, they'd go
Speaker 6: to Santiago or it'd be interesting though if they went
Speaker 6: outside and got somebody who was from a different realm.
Speaker 6: Whether they'll do that or not, I don't know. I
Speaker 6: do know that Santiago had been given more and more
Speaker 6: responsibility by Tom over the past couple of years, and
Speaker 6: so you know, if I were a betman that's the
Speaker 6: way I would lean. But there's big money. I talked
Speaker 6: to a big booster them there recently and he said,
Speaker 6: they're swimming in money. They're swimming in money. And when
Speaker 6: you have that advantage, who knows who you might draw in?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean look, and that allows us to transition
Speaker 1: over to some good reporting by Kevin Reynolds over at
Speaker 1: your spot of the Trib. And you know, Gordon, I
Speaker 1: talked to you about this when I started to hear
Speaker 1: the details of Kevin Young's contract and I started to
Speaker 1: hear the details of his staff, and then the rumors
Speaker 1: are the Yegor Demon and Cannon Catchings are both seven
Speaker 1: figure players. And then on first take aj Debounts and
Speaker 1: his father dropped that they're going to BYU and then
Speaker 1: the information comes out that it's like seven million bucks
Speaker 1: for five months of basketball. My first reaction was, well,
Speaker 1: what are you doing for Kwane? What are you doing
Speaker 1: for the football program? And and look, this is this
Speaker 1: is interesting because according to the good reporting of Kevin
Speaker 1: and everyone over the Trib, there was a meeting last
Speaker 1: year right to the start of the season that was
Speaker 1: held by someone named men Kim. I don't know who
Speaker 1: he is, but he is one of the guys in
Speaker 1: charge of the Royal Blue Collective, and it's Isaiah Bagna
Speaker 1: as well as Crue, Wakely and Crewe left in his wake.
Speaker 1: No pun intended a lot as he left. You see
Speaker 1: what I did there. He obviously was not happy with
Speaker 1: any of this. But none of this information looks good
Speaker 1: for the collective and none of it looks good for
Speaker 1: the football program. The Trip Today actually released a follow
Speaker 1: up where the Royal Blue Collective is going to make
Speaker 1: some changes for the better when it comes to the
Speaker 1: football program. My first reaction when I read this, Gordon
Speaker 1: is man, Colonie did a great job with a roster
Speaker 1: full of players that weren't getting paid as much as
Speaker 1: their competitors. But ultimately this lands in the space of
Speaker 1: the college football landscape, providing no guardrails and therefore everybody's
Speaker 1: flying blind. Man, I'm not here to cast stones at all,
Speaker 1: but I wonder what your reaction was to these stories.
Speaker 6: Well, first of all, would you say what you said
Speaker 6: about Kilanie? He were wondering if they were going to
Speaker 6: get taken care of Klanie was under in the state,
Speaker 6: you know, I mean the success he's had, he deserves
Speaker 6: more money and if there is more money there to
Speaker 6: be given out, and yeah, he's earned that. As far
Speaker 6: as the collective goes, I think they are correcting that because,
Speaker 6: like I said, I talked, that's why he was talking
Speaker 6: to this booster and he said, there's money available down here.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 6: So if there's money available, then share it with your
Speaker 6: football team. And you got to get that job done
Speaker 6: in this day and age now with revenue sharing, who
Speaker 6: knows how what shape that's going to take and will
Speaker 6: that limit will there be like a limitation on how
Speaker 6: much he's given out or will it be shared and
Speaker 6: then you can pile on top of that. I don't
Speaker 6: know how that's going to go. But it comes down
Speaker 6: to money. I mean, it really does. That is the
Speaker 6: college game. And there's a lot of people who don't
Speaker 6: like that. It bothers them the old school loving the amateurism.
Speaker 6: But that's just gone. That genie's out of the bottle
Speaker 6: now and it'll never go back. And so yeah, you've
Speaker 6: got to have the money to make it happen. I mean,
Speaker 6: it's funny you mentioned the Bonsa BYU. I mean that's shocked.
Speaker 6: That literally shocked some people, even though BYU was on
Speaker 6: their list. But think about how that happened. Think about
Speaker 6: h You know, there were all kinds of things that
Speaker 6: came in to play there. He was down at Utah Prep,
Speaker 6: he happened to be his favorite player, happened to play
Speaker 6: for the Phoenix Suns, and Kevin Young happened to be
Speaker 6: a coach who that particular player Kadie loved. And then
Speaker 6: on top of that, Danny Ainge, who's a b yu
Speaker 6: Wi love he debonsa grew up a huge Celtics fan,
Speaker 6: and he's connect me with Day of the Ames. And
Speaker 6: this thing is all coming together to BYU's advantage. But
Speaker 6: look at some of the other players that are considering
Speaker 6: going to BYU now and already have committed to them,
Speaker 6: players that BYU in the past never would have gotten.
Speaker 6: And so there's some money there. It just depends on
Speaker 6: how it's going to be distributed.
Speaker 1: It's a new day, man. I'll tell you what, Gordon,
Speaker 1: I appreciate the time, buddy, have a great weekend and
Speaker 1: let's get you let's get you back on.
Speaker 6: Soon, you too, Okay, svet'z have a good one.
Speaker 1: Thanks Gordon Monson, My old radio partner, longtime columnists from
Speaker 1: the Salt Lake Tribune. I always appreciate his time. All right,
Speaker 1: before we wrap up the four o'clock hour of the show.
Speaker 1: Launching into the five o'clock hour of the program, we
Speaker 1: are live today at Tim Dolly Nissan forty five, twenty
Speaker 1: eight South State Street. You guys don't want to hear
Speaker 1: the deals from me, You want to hear it from
Speaker 1: Rich sales manager here. What's up, Rich? How are you?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Ten years in the business, but he's here at
Speaker 3: this store. And what a great time to buy a car.
Speaker 1: Okay, So tell us this is like your year end
Speaker 1: clearance event that you've extended through the new year. Is
Speaker 1: that fair to say?
Speaker 3: That's fair to say. And you know in Japan the
Speaker 3: year ends in March, so we want to get as
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Speaker 3: as low as zero percent. Most of our clients like
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Speaker 3: that they don't have to make a payment for two
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Speaker 3: you know, end of the month, end of the month, this
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Speaker 3: matter what you hurt from anybody else, We're under the
Speaker 3: gun to get as many cars in tonight as we can.
Speaker 3: So if folks, if you're listening and you want to
Speaker 3: get a car, come down here.
Speaker 1: Tonight, open until eight o'clock tonight. Well we close a
Speaker 1: ten okay, great so special financing as a reference, zero percent,
Speaker 1: no money down, no payments, two months. Do you guys
Speaker 1: do the lifetime warranty over here as well? Yeah, we
Speaker 1: do forever warranty.
Speaker 3: Ever warranty, As crazy as that sounds, as long as
Speaker 3: you own that car, you've got a warranty on that
Speaker 3: transmission that costs five thousand dollars to replace, on that
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Speaker 3: the turbos on these cars. We have a lot of
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Speaker 1: It sounds honestly rich, too good to be true. We
Speaker 1: were here last month across the street and Coup the
Speaker 1: GM said, it's this is not a money maker for us,
Speaker 1: Like he said, they were having a meeting, should we
Speaker 1: still do this because we're losing money and you guys
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Speaker 1: but it's actually a real thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've been doing it for five years. Yeah, we
Speaker 3: were the first ones to do this in this marketplace.
Speaker 3: When we did it, we expected every dealership in the state.
Speaker 1: To join in and none of them. None of them
Speaker 1: have no.
Speaker 3: But we've grown our customer base with it, and that's
Speaker 3: what we're all about. We've been here for fifty five years.
Speaker 3: You can't get a better place to buy a car at.
Speaker 3: Tim Dally is a fantastic individual and it flows right
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Speaker 3: right here on State Street forty five to twenty eight
Speaker 3: South State.
Speaker 1: This is the original store.
Speaker 3: It's best place out of all of Tim's places to
Speaker 3: get a car.
Speaker 1: Got to love it. Hit me with some specific deals,
Speaker 1: like which cars do you want to highlight before I
Speaker 1: set you loose right, Well, I'll tell you why.
Speaker 3: We want to highlight the new Kicks, which is a
Speaker 3: brand new model all Will Drive. We never had that before.
Speaker 3: And if you're looking for an all Will drive that's affordable.
Speaker 3: This is your bad boy right here under thirty K
Speaker 3: all the goodies on it and the latest styling, especially
Speaker 3: for our younger crowd. But we also have the Rogue,
Speaker 3: the Pathfinder, the Morano, the Armadas are brand new. We
Speaker 3: sell more of those than anything else. But we still
Speaker 3: have our vintage, the Verse of the Center of the
Speaker 3: Ultimate n They've been around forever and are all all
Speaker 3: will drive now. The Frontier truck, we've been moving those
Speaker 3: like it's nobody's business because it's the last of the
Speaker 3: six cylinder trucks. You go buy my competition. They're all
Speaker 3: four cylinder turbos now. Then of course we have the
Speaker 3: GTR and I actually have one for you guys out
Speaker 3: there that are listening. You want a GTR. This is
Speaker 3: the last year for them.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's.
Speaker 3: It right there won't be anymore at least for a
Speaker 3: few years, and so you're going to get one right now.
Speaker 3: That's part of that whole group of GTRs that came out,
Speaker 3: and we're improved over the years. We have one. It'll
Speaker 3: probably be the last one we get, so comeing to
Speaker 3: see it. I got three z's here, and not to
Speaker 3: mention the electrics. Okay, I got the Aria, I got
Speaker 3: the leaf. We made the leaf back in twenty twelve.
Speaker 3: We're one of the original manufacturers to make an electric vehicle.
Speaker 3: We know them better than anybody else. And God bless
Speaker 3: if you want to used one and you want to Tesla,
Speaker 3: you want this, you want that, you want the keys,
Speaker 3: you want the Hyundais. I have probably an inventory forty
Speaker 3: to fifty evs here that qualify for the forever warranty.
Speaker 1: I got to say before I say loose my northeast boy.
Speaker 1: Radar is going up. Where are you from, Oh, Buffalo,
Speaker 1: New York. There you go. I know it. Yeah, I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is a salt lake. I could hear it. I
Speaker 1: I just couldn't land on it. Rich, great to me,
Speaker 1: each man, Thanks for having us out.
Speaker 8: Pleasure.
Speaker 1: All right, come on out. Rich just outlined the deal.
Speaker 1: It's forty five to twenty eight South stage treet bunch
Speaker 1: of vehicles priced to move. Final segment of the day,
Speaker 1: Final segment of the week. Happy Friday, Congratulations, it's weekend
Speaker 1: time special. Thank you to Tim Dolly Nissan for hosting
Speaker 1: us today at forty five twenty eight South State Street.
Speaker 1: Great spot to you at a vehicle. They're opened and
Speaker 1: tell eight but Rich, their sales manner manager Buffalo Strong
Speaker 1: Rich said they might not close until ten because they're
Speaker 1: moving a bunch of vehicles. They've got to clear out
Speaker 1: the deck to make space for their new inventory. And
Speaker 1: they're offering zero percent financing, zero money down, and no
Speaker 1: payments for two months. It's real, and their lifetime warranty
Speaker 1: is all excuse me, yeah, therefore, ever warranty is what
Speaker 1: they call. It is a real thing. When I first
Speaker 1: heard about it, I'm like, that's a sales tactic. That's
Speaker 1: not true. But it is. If you buy a new
Speaker 1: or used car from Tim Dolly, you have a warranty
Speaker 1: on that vehicle forever for the life of it, doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how many miles you drive. So definitely come out,
Speaker 1: coming out and check it out, all right. Some sad news.
Speaker 1: Gene Hackman has passed away, and according to reports, he
Speaker 1: had passed for quite some time before they found him.
Speaker 1: Why is that sports related? Well, I still believe Hoosiers
Speaker 1: is an incredibly entertaining basketball movie, and of course Gene
Speaker 1: Hackman played the great coach Norman Dale. Four passes before
Speaker 1: you take a shot port or four passes, So rest
Speaker 1: in peace to the great Gene Hackman on this Friday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually forgot that was him in that movie.
Speaker 2: I was, I know Gene Hackman, but what what movies
Speaker 2: from It's that that's like the main one that came out.
Speaker 2: But earlier today I was kind of racking my brain
Speaker 2: trying to figure that out.
Speaker 1: Why do you strike me as the type of player
Speaker 1: that ignored the four pass rule before he took a shot? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you were a black hole. I knew it. You were
Speaker 1: not a good teammate. Were you nice to your teammates?
Speaker 3: Actually?
Speaker 2: I led the league and assists in the two.
Speaker 1: You're a mellow You're a mellow fan. I don't believe
Speaker 1: that for a second. You were a black hole. You
Speaker 1: were a chucker. As Kramer, I.
Speaker 2: Weirdly kind of went through some phases because I really
Speaker 2: did lead the Dimpledell rec League and assist one year.
Speaker 2: But I did kind of turn into a kind of
Speaker 2: a microwave shoot it when I got it, get to
Speaker 2: the rim, do that stuff. Yeah, no four passes for me.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to make something happen pretty quick. There's a
Speaker 2: shot clock spence.
Speaker 1: Okay, now that's fine. I just believe in playing ball
Speaker 1: the right way, but I'm old school, all right. Reminder Tomorrow,
Speaker 1: busy day on the station eight o'clock Utah Golf Radio
Speaker 1: one fifteen Utah Women's basketball versus b y U, four
Speaker 1: thirty Utah Men's basketball against ASU. Then on Sunday we've
Speaker 1: got the Celtics Nuggets game, which could be an NBA
Speaker 1: founalist preview at ten thirty am here on ESPN seven hundred.
Speaker 1: Jazz in Action. Tonight, busy weekend of local and national
Speaker 1: sports porter. What comes our way on a Monday edition
Speaker 1: of the radio.
Speaker 2: Enjoy the weekend, have a good one, and join us
Speaker 2: back on a Monday. Tom haberstrow for the NBA Daily Assist,
Speaker 2: as he does each and every Monday. We'll catch up
Speaker 2: with our guy Brian Done, Seth Dunny on a Monday
Speaker 2: reacting to RSL obviously, the Conker Calf elimination and more.
Speaker 2: Bill Riley will stop by to talk some utes over
Speaker 2: the weekend, and then we'll recap the NFL combine with
Speaker 2: one Sam Monson. And as you requested, I'm out to
Speaker 2: both Lebron James and Jordan Schultz.
Speaker 1: Great great, so hopefully we'll get both Lebron James, and
Speaker 1: Jordan Schultz next week. I was caught off guard when
Speaker 1: Howard was like, well, you need to ask Lebron. I'm like, dude,
Speaker 1: I don't really have the lifeline to Lebron right now,
Speaker 1: but thank you Howard.
Speaker 2: If we got Dave mcmanhamon, yeah, we got one text
Speaker 2: away from Lebron James.
Speaker 1: Really, that's that's a good point. So we're out to
Speaker 1: Dave Chappelle, Ricky Gervais, Louis c K, Lebron James. I
Speaker 1: guess I'll put Jordan Schultz in that category. That feels weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jordan's been on the show before.
Speaker 1: He's texting me back.
Speaker 2: But yeah, well we'll see if we can get him on.
Speaker 1: All right, So we'll see if we can get big
Speaker 1: name guests next week. Try to do a better job
Speaker 1: with that. Will say good night, special thank you Today,
Speaker 1: Mecca and Nellie, Howard Beck, Paul Pugbyer, Spencer Lynn and
Speaker 1: Gordon monson jam Pack Show for any of the sound
Speaker 1: you may have missed. ESPN seven hundred Sports dot Com
Speaker 1: download the app. ESPN seven hundred one hundred app is
Speaker 1: available for free in the App Store in the Google
Speaker 1: Play Store, and then for what we do in our space.
Speaker 1: Podcast page is called The Drive with spence Check its
Speaker 1: It's available wherever you get your show. Subscriber in reviews,
Speaker 1: say nice things, give us all the stars. It helps
Speaker 1: for Porter and Cynthia. You can see it at the
Speaker 1: RSL game tomorrow. R sale taken on Seattle. My name
Speaker 1: is Spence Check and Saga Night, Happy Swiping. We'll talk
Speaker 1: to you on Monday right here on ESPN seven hundred