Speaker 1: Welcome to the Big Blue in Sider. Dick Gabriel with
Speaker 1: you on a Friday, A frigid Friday. It's supposedly warmed
Speaker 1: up a little bit yesterday, but that's that's a relative term,
Speaker 1: isn't it. We're still it's kind of chilly down here
Speaker 1: in the garage. I can tell you that got the
Speaker 1: space theater going. I'm bundled up, but you know, this
Speaker 1: is the best acoustics in the house here in the garage,
Speaker 1: So we're gonna we're gonna stick it out. Coming up tonight,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk, of course, Kentucky basketball, the Wildcats taking
Speaker 1: on Vanderbilt tomorrow at two thirty down in Nashville. You'll
Speaker 1: hear that game right here on six thirty WLAP. We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about the UK women last night. Oh, just
Speaker 1: a bad shooting night at Texas A and M. They
Speaker 1: hung on, they hung on, but just couldn't hold off
Speaker 1: the Aggies, who did make just enough shots to hand
Speaker 1: Kentucky its first conference loss and only his second loss
Speaker 1: of the season. So we'll hear from Kenny Brook's coming
Speaker 1: up in just a few minutes. Maggie Davis of BBN
Speaker 1: tonight will join us, and we'll talk with her about
Speaker 1: Kentucky basketball and other things. And in our second hour,
Speaker 1: James McCoy a, the UK baseball team will be alongside.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about what it was like going to the
Speaker 1: World Series, looking ahead with a brand new it seems
Speaker 1: like at least half of the roster this year, but
Speaker 1: a lot of talent back from last year. And James,
Speaker 1: of course a veteran outfielder and a pitcher, so we'll
Speaker 1: talk to him about playing two roles. A lot of
Speaker 1: that goes on in college baseball. We're also going to
Speaker 1: shamelessly plug the documentary The Team that will air on Sunday.
Speaker 1: I had Cameron on the other night and worked on
Speaker 1: Tom Leach's show This Morning Talk with Tom a little bit.
Speaker 1: Cameron was on with Tom yesterday, but that, of course
Speaker 1: is the show that we produced man eight years ago.
Speaker 1: I think it was when the team got together for
Speaker 1: a reunion down in Miami. Cameron got permission for us
Speaker 1: to go down with a Cameron camera crew, Jason Epperson
Speaker 1: and his guys, and we gathered a lot of great stuff,
Speaker 1: set up a suite, set up our cameras and lights
Speaker 1: in a suite. We had rented and interviewed almost every player.
Speaker 1: A couple guys didn't make it to the room, but
Speaker 1: we eventually got up with him and put together a
Speaker 1: one hour documentary that airs once again on WKYT Channel
Speaker 1: twenty seven on Sunday at five o'clock in and around
Speaker 1: the NFL games. And if you're going to just stay
Speaker 1: on football, just record it. But I guarantee you, if
Speaker 1: you haven't seen it, you will enjoy it. If for
Speaker 1: no other reason, Mark Pope. He was such a great
Speaker 1: part as you might expect of that documentary and was
Speaker 1: I'm telling you because I did the editing. He was
Speaker 1: the toughest guy to add it because he said so
Speaker 1: much good stuff. He's a really good storyteller, as you've
Speaker 1: learned by now, and was just really, really entertaining. But
Speaker 1: they were all great, and at one point we kept
Speaker 1: trying to round everybody up and we could not get
Speaker 1: individually Walter McCarty, Derek Anderson, Ron Mercer, and so finally
Speaker 1: Cameron was like, guys, this is the last chance we
Speaker 1: have to talk to you guys. The way that the
Speaker 1: schedule worked out that weekend, so all three of them
Speaker 1: came in and sat together and it turned out to
Speaker 1: be great. We had multiple cameras because they fed off
Speaker 1: each other and they reminded each other of different stories,
Speaker 1: and so Mercer, Anderson and McCarty did their interviews together
Speaker 1: and that was entertaining as well. So we'll have some
Speaker 1: clips from that coming up and our number two. But
Speaker 1: I urge you to watch it if you haven't seen it,
Speaker 1: and if you can't, you can get it on vimeo.
Speaker 1: Go to Cameron Mills's Twitter page and he's got information
Speaker 1: there on how to get the link. I think he's
Speaker 1: only charging like four ninety five or something like that
Speaker 1: for it, but you're gonna want that, and obviously you
Speaker 1: can keep it forever. But the team comes up Sunday
Speaker 1: at five on WKYT. Pope and his Wildcats down in
Speaker 1: Nashville tomorrow and Mark talked to the media as he
Speaker 1: always does on Thursday, and of course he has talked
Speaker 1: in the past about working on fouling, on what are
Speaker 1: we doing? How can we not do it? When does
Speaker 1: it pop up? Is it more prevalent in this situation
Speaker 1: as compared to that situation. You know, they break everything down,
Speaker 1: But as he said yesterday, that's only one element of
Speaker 1: the Kentucky game that they've had a chance to work
Speaker 1: on this week because there was no midweek game.
Speaker 2: Two point field goal percentage is a real problem for US.
Speaker 2: Rim Shot percentage are a real problem for US. Rim
Speaker 2: Shot selection is actually pretty good for us, but it's
Speaker 2: an offset because because we're fouling right and and so
Speaker 2: you know, you have those numbers of base and then
Speaker 2: it's figure out how to do it a little bit better.
Speaker 2: And so certainly our guys focus will be good and
Speaker 2: it'll be up. You know, this is not you wave
Speaker 2: a magic wand and all of a sudden fix some
Speaker 2: of this. But we're gonna make progress. We'll make progress
Speaker 2: throughout the season.
Speaker 1: So yeah, pull all that together and you're gonna have
Speaker 1: a pretty good looking team. You already have one. But
Speaker 1: that's a lot to work on. But we'll see. We'll
Speaker 1: get a chance to see tomorrow just how well the
Speaker 1: Wildcats have improved. And again you'll hear it right here
Speaker 1: network beginning at one o'clock local covers beginning at noon
Speaker 1: here on six thirty WLAP two Kentucky Wildcats named starters
Speaker 1: for the NBA All Star Game. Shay Gildis, Alexander Carl
Speaker 1: Anthony Towns announced last night as starters for the upcoming game,
Speaker 1: the All Star Game February sixteenth at the Chase Center,
Speaker 1: the home of the Golden State Warriors. And what a
Speaker 1: season gildess Alexander is having his third All Star selection overall,
Speaker 1: second consecutive starting nod. He is one of the great
Speaker 1: players now in the NBA, averaging thirty two points a game,
Speaker 1: leads the league, and also six assists, five and a
Speaker 1: half rebounds, two steals per game. Just incredible. He played
Speaker 1: here the one season in twenty seventeen eighteen, and you
Speaker 1: might call he wasn't even a starter when the year began,
Speaker 1: but Caliperi worked him into the starting lineup and it
Speaker 1: was magic from that point on. Unfortunately, that was the
Speaker 1: season that ended up in the South Regional semifinals with
Speaker 1: that lost to Kansas State when the Wildcats lost sixty
Speaker 1: one to fifty eight and hit only twelve of twenty
Speaker 1: three free throws. Now Shay went eleven to twelve, not
Speaker 1: to be pointing fingers, but PJ. Washington missed twelve out
Speaker 1: of twenty. Otherwise, the Wildcats had an open path that
Speaker 1: seemed to the final four. You might remember that but
Speaker 1: Gilgius Alexander is having a great career and Karl Anthony
Speaker 1: Towns having a huge season in New York. Is first
Speaker 1: with the Knicks after being traded after ten years or
Speaker 1: nine years in Minnesota. Twenty five points a game, a
Speaker 1: career high fourteen rebounds, and three and a half assists
Speaker 1: per game. He's hitting a career best fifty four point
Speaker 1: five percent from the field. From the arc, Karl Anthony
Speaker 1: Towns is hitting forty three percent. That's a career high.
Speaker 1: So he's making New York Knicks fans very very happy.
Speaker 1: No word yet on the reserves for the All Star Game.
Speaker 1: I got to think at least a couple of former
Speaker 1: Cats we'll hear their names called as well, including Tyler Hero.
Speaker 1: That word, as we said, came down last night. So
Speaker 1: did the word that Kayla Wilson will be a North
Speaker 1: Carolina tar Heel. We kind of knew that going in,
Speaker 1: but he made the announcement on Inside or rather the
Speaker 1: NBA on TNT with Charles Barkley, Saquille O'Neill, Ernie Johnson,
Speaker 1: and former tarhel himself, Kenny the Jet Smith.
Speaker 3: What's going into your decision and how'd you even get there.
Speaker 4: I just looked at who the coach was, you know,
Speaker 4: I was able to put a good relationship with him,
Speaker 4: you know, looking at the roster and also just seeing
Speaker 4: how much the coach believed in me over the time
Speaker 4: he knew me.
Speaker 1: So what I looked at. You got how many people here?
Speaker 3: About thirty people here and it's in here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thirty people.
Speaker 1: Man, excited times are you?
Speaker 5: Are you ready? I'm ready, I'm ready. I'm excited.
Speaker 1: So wait waiting to see man. I'm hoping.
Speaker 6: Oh, I got two figures crossed, but I'm.
Speaker 5: Gonna let it go.
Speaker 6: I'm hoping that you go awhere, I think you're going,
Speaker 6: but we're gonna let it go.
Speaker 5: It's all you, but floors all yours.
Speaker 4: I just I want to thank God. I want to
Speaker 4: thank my family for sure, all the people that supported me,
Speaker 4: my coaches, Coach key Ky, coach Swaying, coach Pack, everybody
Speaker 4: that's really supporting me and helped me make this decision
Speaker 4: and get to love on met today and I'll be
Speaker 4: taking my chant to Chapel Hill.
Speaker 3: Man, you can't just say it.
Speaker 5: You gotta guarantee it got you. Gotta hit the button, Chuck,
Speaker 5: you got a guy, how you.
Speaker 4: Have to say that my man Caleb is going to
Speaker 4: you n see and that is ga run.
Speaker 1: And if you haven't seen that show, when Charles Bark,
Speaker 1: they guarantees something.
Speaker 7: He smacks a button that they put up to prop
Speaker 7: that they put up on the desk and then the
Speaker 7: confetti falls and all kinds of special effects. And last
Speaker 7: night it was you know, the tar heel blue confetti,
Speaker 7: blue and white and then the North Carolina mascot runs
Speaker 7: out and hugs everybody.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's a big deal. But again not a
Speaker 1: surprise that this kid goes to North Carolina. But you know,
Speaker 1: Mark Pope still has a pretty good recruiting class going
Speaker 1: and there are other guys out there. I can tell
Speaker 1: you this. If you've been following along, you know North
Speaker 1: Carolina needs help right now. This is not a team
Speaker 1: that will be a factor in the postseason at all,
Speaker 1: lest they turn things around dramatically. One other note before
Speaker 1: we get to the break, and we'll talk about this
Speaker 1: more in our number two, but Liam Cohen will be
Speaker 1: the new head coach in Jacksonville, and this comes after
Speaker 1: he turned down a huge offer from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Speaker 1: Billy Rutledge's team he would have been the highest paid
Speaker 1: offensive coordinator in the NFL. Is a three year deal,
Speaker 1: which is almost unheard of as I understand it for
Speaker 1: OC's in the National Football League. But he had turned
Speaker 1: down an opportunity to talk for a second time with Jacksonville.
Speaker 1: But then Jacksonville turned around and fired its general manager.
Speaker 1: Went back to Liam Cohen. I said, would you talk
Speaker 1: to us again? And he said yes, And then the
Speaker 1: next thing you know, he's the head coach of the
Speaker 1: Jags and he'll be coaching I assume if he stays there,
Speaker 1: among other people Josh Allen, the former Kentucky Wildcat, and
Speaker 1: Luke Fortner, who is now a backup old lineman for Jacksonville.
Speaker 1: So we'll tell it was a weird timeline. We'll tell
Speaker 1: you more about that in our number two. Up next
Speaker 1: women's basketball, we'll talk about that on six thirty. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the Big Moonsider. Coming up in a few minutes,
Speaker 1: Maggie Davis of BBN. Tonight, we'll talk Kentucky basketball, and
Speaker 1: in our number two we will once again talk more
Speaker 1: about out the Team, the documentary that we put together
Speaker 1: a few years ago about Mark Pope and his teammates
Speaker 1: who won the ninety six National Championship. We're also going
Speaker 1: to hear from James McCoy of the UK baseball team,
Speaker 1: an outfielder who was actually pressed into service as a
Speaker 1: pitcher last year and he's going to pitch some this
Speaker 1: year as well, part of the team who went to
Speaker 1: the World Series. So we'll get started with baseball covers
Speaker 1: with James coming up in our number two. As we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, the UK women you probably know this, last night,
Speaker 1: lost down to Texas A and M. And that is
Speaker 1: not a great Texas A and M team, but Kentucky
Speaker 1: just could not hit a shot. Wildcasts lost at sixty
Speaker 1: one fifty five. They had a double digit lead on
Speaker 1: more than one occasion, but they couldn't extend it. They
Speaker 1: couldn't go on those extended runs and really put away
Speaker 1: A and M. Because the Aggie said just enough shots
Speaker 1: to keep fighting back, and Kentucky just could not buy one.
Speaker 1: I think they missed their first twelve three pointers or whatever,
Speaker 1: but they went one from eighteen from beyond the arc
Speaker 1: and Georgia amore just a nightmare of a game, zero
Speaker 1: for eight from three point land, five of eighteen from
Speaker 1: the floor and played thirty eight and a half minutes,
Speaker 1: and you got to tip your cap to A and M.
Speaker 1: They were relentless. They face guarded her all night. They
Speaker 1: put I think they switched people off on a couple
Speaker 1: of occasions and just made sure she could never get comfortable.
Speaker 1: She's gonna have to get used to that in the SEC.
Speaker 1: But yeah, she couldn't hit. Nobody could really. Clara Strack
Speaker 1: two for twelve had great looks two for twelve. Really.
Speaker 1: The only person who had a nice game statistically was
Speaker 1: Tony Key, which probably isn't a surprise. She went eight
Speaker 1: for sixteen and pulled in nine rebounds, hit one three pointer,
Speaker 1: the only one of the game for the wildcast, so
Speaker 1: she finished with twenty and Yet and once again, if
Speaker 1: you believe in plus minus, you know, sometimes they do,
Speaker 1: sometimes they don't. Hers was minus ten. She leads the
Speaker 1: team in scoring and rebounding, but she also leads the
Speaker 1: team in negative plus minus numbers. One person had positive
Speaker 1: plus minus. It was Clara Silva, who played sixteen minutes,
Speaker 1: and I'm not belittling her at all, but she had
Speaker 1: four points and four rebounds. But plus minus is basically
Speaker 1: about how does the team fare while you're on the floor.
Speaker 1: And I think when Clara was in is when Kentucky
Speaker 1: made a couple of mini runs. But otherwise it was
Speaker 1: just a nightmare of an evening. And A and M
Speaker 1: hit thirty three percent in the first half, forty percent
Speaker 1: in the second half. So it's not like Kentucky was
Speaker 1: playing bad defense. But something else that hurt Kentucky was
Speaker 1: twelve offensive rebounds. Now A and M only got six,
Speaker 1: but the Cats weren't getting much done in the department
Speaker 1: of putbacks. So it was just a bad, bad night.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's the first conference loss for the
Speaker 1: Wildcats five and one, sixteen to two overall. But as
Speaker 1: Kenny Brooks said after the game, that's life in the
Speaker 1: Southeastern Conference.
Speaker 8: This league's tough.
Speaker 5: You know, you can't hang your head. You know, we got,
Speaker 5: we got. We're fortunate.
Speaker 8: This was our fourth game on the road out of
Speaker 8: five and so we're gonna be happy to be back
Speaker 8: home and get an opportunity to play in front of
Speaker 8: our home fans. And but this Leak's tough, and this
Speaker 8: is a tough place to play, and they play really.
Speaker 1: Hard, yeah, he said, A and M. Well, they played hard.
Speaker 1: The Wildcats didn't up and down the line up and
Speaker 1: down the roster, he said, didn't exactly give it their
Speaker 1: best effort. He said he felt like some of the
Speaker 1: players were not exactly giving it there all. So it's
Speaker 1: something that cannot happen, especially when your shots aren't going down,
Speaker 1: because that just compounds the problem.
Speaker 8: Yeah, we had, we had some good looks early, you
Speaker 8: know that I thought we didn't capitalize on. I think
Speaker 8: it really changed our attitude. I thought they you know,
Speaker 8: as you mentioned, you know, one way of staying it
Speaker 8: is pressing. I thought we were aiming some shots and
Speaker 8: you give them credit, you know, they did contest some
Speaker 8: murber shots, but we had some that could have fallen.
Speaker 8: And then that's a big part of our offense is
Speaker 8: to step up and knock down those shots.
Speaker 5: And we didn't.
Speaker 8: And I thought we still gave ourselves a chance to win.
Speaker 8: We played well in other areas other than shooting the basketball.
Speaker 5: We wanted to win the rebounding battle.
Speaker 8: We did and we just didn't do some of the
Speaker 8: little things to overcome the bad shooting.
Speaker 5: But that's something we got to learn.
Speaker 1: Just like Mark Pope's ball club, you know, the book
Speaker 1: on this UK women's team is run them off. The
Speaker 1: three point line, and why not they average making nine
Speaker 1: per game. They've got really good shooters. But Texas A
Speaker 1: and M fully sold out to taking away good three
Speaker 1: point looks for the Wildcats. They tried Kentucky moved to basketball,
Speaker 1: but A and M did a great job. So what's
Speaker 1: left for you? Well, shots inside generally, that's where Clara
Speaker 1: Strack just cleans up. And I'm not placing a lot
Speaker 1: of blame on her whatever. She worked hard and she
Speaker 1: got good shots. They just weren't falling, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people, you know, they're cutting to the basket and
Speaker 1: things like that. But it just didn't work last night.
Speaker 1: It was just one of those games in the Southeastern Conference.
Speaker 1: So now the Wildcats get to come home back to
Speaker 1: back games. They play host to Arkansas Sunday at noon
Speaker 1: on January twenty sixth, and then on Thursday they play
Speaker 1: host to Alabama. We'll have that one for you as
Speaker 1: well with Darren Heddrick. That's a seven o'clock game. So
Speaker 1: Sunday noon, Arkansas Thursday at seven pm they take on
Speaker 1: the Alabama Crimson Tide. As the Cats now four and
Speaker 1: two in road games. They other loss at North Carolina,
Speaker 1: first road loss in Conference play for Kenny Brooks. It
Speaker 1: was UK's first loss as a ranked opponent against an
Speaker 1: unranked opponent on the road since twenty twenty one, when
Speaker 1: the Wildcats lost at Ole Miss, back when they were
Speaker 1: ranked number fifteen in the country, And of course, at
Speaker 1: broke Kentucky's nine game winning streak overall and a five
Speaker 1: game streak in the SEC. The Wildcats had started off
Speaker 1: the league at five and zero. And this is tough
Speaker 1: because Kentucky, as I said, I blew a couple of
Speaker 1: double digit leads, had a halftime lead of about five points.
Speaker 1: But Kentucky's got a score because when the Wildcats are
Speaker 1: held to less than sixty, they're zwe and two. So
Speaker 1: it's not that they have to outscore their opponent. I mean,
Speaker 1: technically they do, but of course this team is much
Speaker 1: better off when it's throwing in threes, getting up and
Speaker 1: down the floor, and getting offense out of transition. All right,
Speaker 1: Coming up next, Maggie Davis of BBN Tonight here on
Speaker 1: six point thirty WLAP welcome back to the Big Moon.
Speaker 1: Sider joining us now. Someone who knows UK basketball inside
Speaker 1: announced she is the co host producer. I was called
Speaker 1: him the chief cook and bottle washer for BB and
Speaker 1: Tonight Yankee Farmer pop up on your TV set every night,
Speaker 1: Miss Maggie Davis and Maggie first of all, congratulates this
Speaker 1: Kentucky sportscaster the year.
Speaker 9: Thank you so much, Thank you so much.
Speaker 10: It has been like just the coolest thing in the
Speaker 10: world to be recognized in that way one, but more importantly.
Speaker 9: To hear from people like you and people in our industry.
Speaker 10: Who have won the award in the past, who are
Speaker 10: part of it and who are people that I look
Speaker 10: up to and admire and try to emulate in my
Speaker 10: own work. So to get to hear some of that
Speaker 10: from the people that I idolized in that way has
Speaker 10: been really cool, and I really appreciate all the kind
Speaker 10: things you've had to say over the past couple of
Speaker 10: weeks since the news came out. I'm really excited, but
Speaker 10: mostly just honored.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, it's nice and hard work pays off,
Speaker 1: but the work itself, I know, is reward and if
Speaker 1: nothing else, one of the bonuses, one of the real
Speaker 1: pluses from our job, as you know, is it can
Speaker 1: be fun. And how much fun have you all had
Speaker 1: you and your crew covering this basketball team, because obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, we kind of hoped we would have something
Speaker 1: fun to cover this year. We didn't know, and man,
Speaker 1: it's been a lot of fun, hasn't it.
Speaker 10: Well, it has been, and I think back. I talked
Speaker 10: to a journalism one oh one class earlier this week
Speaker 10: at UK my alma mater. Jen Smith is the professor there.
Speaker 10: Worked for The Herald Leader as a writer for years
Speaker 10: and years. I adore her work. She's a great professor now.
Speaker 10: So I love going back every semester and talking with
Speaker 10: some of her classes. And I have somebody ask me
Speaker 10: about a student maybe along the lines of what my
Speaker 10: best interview moment was, or something that was really cool
Speaker 10: that I've done recently, or something like that. You know, like,
Speaker 10: you know how it is. You're getting into journalism one
Speaker 10: oh one and just kind of getting a taste, and
Speaker 10: you and I have been doing it, you know, this
Speaker 10: all season long, and you kind of get used to
Speaker 10: Mark Pope and the players and the fans of this season.
Speaker 10: And obviously you can buy in and kind of get
Speaker 10: stuck in a little bit, but it's different when you
Speaker 10: take yourself out of it and look at it like
Speaker 10: an outsider who is a student at UK just getting
Speaker 10: into journalism and can't imagine getting access that we're able
Speaker 10: to get in our job. That is very fun, like
Speaker 10: you said, So I had to kind of think about it,
Speaker 10: and I was like, you know, at the end of
Speaker 10: the day, when you realize that the Kentucky men's basketball
Speaker 10: program is hiring a men's basketball coach and it's something
Speaker 10: that they've really only done eight times in the modern
Speaker 10: era of college basketball, it's crazy and it's groundbreaking and
Speaker 10: it's historic and it is the big story in the
Speaker 10: sport and we get to be at the center of it.
Speaker 10: And like you said, sometimes you kind of go into
Speaker 10: that season and just that as the overarching story might
Speaker 10: have been enough. You have the new coach, the new staff,
Speaker 10: the new roster, a new culture.
Speaker 9: A new environment.
Speaker 10: Everything over there is completely different with the program, and
Speaker 10: so there is a big picture story to it that
Speaker 10: has been fun in and of itself. Then you throw
Speaker 10: in the fact that we've seen this team play a
Speaker 10: style that I think Kentucky fans have been hungry for
Speaker 10: for quite some time.
Speaker 9: You see them.
Speaker 10: Scoring a lot, shooting a lot, fast paced offense. Guys
Speaker 10: that are in their fourth, fifth, sixth year of college basketball,
Speaker 10: who are experienced, who come in, who know the game,
Speaker 10: who are so appreciative.
Speaker 9: I mean, you think.
Speaker 10: About some of the comments these guys have made over
Speaker 10: the course of the year about wearing a jersey and
Speaker 10: just wanting to do anything for this team, and it
Speaker 10: just sort of brites itself. But at the end of
Speaker 10: the day, we get to be the one to help
Speaker 10: write it, which is definitely not something I ever ever
Speaker 10: take for granted. So I think, just earlier this week,
Speaker 10: kind of putting that in perspective for myself based on
Speaker 10: this journalism one oh one question, reminded me of just
Speaker 10: how special this season has been, not just because of
Speaker 10: all of the newness, but the combination of that with
Speaker 10: what we're actually seeing in these games.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and each season obviously is unique, and each game
Speaker 1: represents basically a new page or a new chapter. And
Speaker 1: what I think has been really fascinating about this season is,
Speaker 1: for the most part, it seems like every game has
Speaker 1: been a different kind of story simply because it's not
Speaker 1: you know, player A's going to score the majority of
Speaker 1: the points. Everybody else helps out. There are just different
Speaker 1: plot lines for each game, and there will be this
Speaker 1: weekend obviously and moving on. But I think that's been
Speaker 1: part of the fun, you.
Speaker 10: Know, oh absolutely, And that's true, you know, in a
Speaker 10: sort of more general sense of every season.
Speaker 9: And I think.
Speaker 10: Sometimes the disappointment of last year in the NCAA Tournament,
Speaker 10: the SEC tournament, it kind of muddles a little bit
Speaker 10: of the fun we did have in the regular season,
Speaker 10: and so I don't want it to get lost in
Speaker 10: the shuffle. That Read and Rob and Reeves and they
Speaker 10: had some great wins and some big moments, and that
Speaker 10: UK North Carolina game in Atlanta was one of the
Speaker 10: best games I've ever seen in person in my life.
Speaker 10: And you know that there were some great moments. But
Speaker 10: there is certainly something to be said about a new start,
Speaker 10: a fresh page, and I think it's something that everybody
Speaker 10: ultimately seemed ready for.
Speaker 9: And if you had any.
Speaker 10: Doubts, Marts popa that has done everything in its power
Speaker 10: to erase those doubts with the way that he's handled
Speaker 10: himself and this job and this season so far.
Speaker 1: We're talking to Maggie Davis. She is the co host
Speaker 1: and a producer for BBN. Tonight covers the Wildcats and
Speaker 1: really they cover every sport on campus, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the women's basketball and baseball
Speaker 1: coming up. Well, right now, we're talking about that. You
Speaker 1: came in tomorrow night or tomorrow afternoon. Actually they take
Speaker 1: on Vanderbilt, and you got a piece that's coming up
Speaker 1: shortly on your show tonight about Andrew Carr, really beyond
Speaker 1: Andrew Carr. Right. Car. The car's plural, Yes, the car's plural.
Speaker 10: And this is one of those stories that kind of
Speaker 10: evolved over time. It's my favorite kind of story because
Speaker 10: you don't necessarily go into it thinking, well, this is
Speaker 10: exactly how it's going to go. I can pre write
Speaker 10: the questions, I can see the script in my head already,
Speaker 10: and I haven't even done the interview yet.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 9: It wasn't necessarily like that.
Speaker 10: It started all the way back in the fall semester
Speaker 10: when I realized that Andrew's younger sister, Lizzie was playing
Speaker 10: volleyball at Purdue. Early on in the season, Purdue and
Speaker 10: Kentucky actually played against each other. I believe in Texas.
Speaker 10: It was not here in Lexington, or maybe I would
Speaker 10: have put the pieces together a little sooner. But I
Speaker 10: remember after that volleyball game, looking at the box score,
Speaker 10: you know, the next day or the next Monday, so
Speaker 10: bb and tonight and seeing the name car and looking
Speaker 10: her up and oh, she's from Westchester, Pennsylvania. Like I
Speaker 10: feel like there's a relation there, right, So putting those
Speaker 10: pieces together and sort of coming up with this story
Speaker 10: idea along with Deb Moore, the men's basketball sports information director,
Speaker 10: kind of helps talk through it with me of like,
Speaker 10: what's the story, how can we get to it? And
Speaker 10: I came up with this idea of car trips, right,
Speaker 10: like kind of a dad joke, but car trips ar
Speaker 10: are because their younger brother is also at Virginia Tech
Speaker 10: playing basketball. He's a freshman at Virginia Tech. So there's
Speaker 10: three of them at this point in three different states,
Speaker 10: playing three different sports, you know, and there's only two
Speaker 10: parents to go around. So how are they getting to
Speaker 10: these games?
Speaker 9: What are their travels? Like, how are they managing to.
Speaker 10: Follow all of the the seasons that are really overlapping
Speaker 10: quite a bit. So that's how the story started. That's
Speaker 10: sort of how it began. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 10: pretty volleyball just gets hot at the right time, starts
Speaker 10: to make a run of the and c DOUAA Tournament.
Speaker 10: They end up in the Louisville Region. They're playing against
Speaker 10: the Cardinals the same week that Kentucky Basketball's playing against Louisville.
Speaker 10: So we do a whole series of stories that week, Right,
Speaker 10: We talked to Andrew, we talked to the parents at
Speaker 10: the Young Center, we talked to him again at rapp Aerina,
Speaker 10: and it's sort of coming full picture of here's their
Speaker 10: semester and review. And then all of a sudden that weekend,
Speaker 10: it comes out that Lizzie's entering the transfer portal and
Speaker 10: one of the coaches she's talking to will be Craig
Speaker 10: Skinner at Kentucky. So obviously that changes everything again. Right,
Speaker 10: so we evolved the story a little bit farther, and now,
Speaker 10: all of a sudden, these siblings who they say they
Speaker 10: fought and hated each other the most growing up. Out
Speaker 10: of the four brothers and sisters, Lizzie is the only girl.
Speaker 9: Andrew and Lizzie where the two in the.
Speaker 10: Middle, and they just fought and fought and fought. But
Speaker 10: as they've gotten older, they are the two that are
Speaker 10: the closest. And this is the first time since he
Speaker 10: was in high school that they have lived in the
Speaker 10: same town, and so for them to be back together again, they're.
Speaker 9: So excited about.
Speaker 10: Obviously the parents are thrilled to be making fewer trips
Speaker 10: at least this semester while they're still in the same city,
Speaker 10: and so it's awesome. They were kind enough Andrew and
Speaker 10: Lizzie to invite us over a little bit earlier this
Speaker 10: week hang out with them, spend like a couple hours
Speaker 10: after class after practice, just see what a normal night
Speaker 10: in the life of Andrew and Lizzie carn't looks like.
Speaker 10: And so appreciative of their time and hospitality and hosting
Speaker 10: a camera crew to come into their home lives. But
Speaker 10: it's cool you kind of see their relationship of all
Speaker 10: you see kind of their parents talk about it over
Speaker 10: the course of its semester, and then it culminates in
Speaker 10: them ending up in the same place again, so excited
Speaker 10: to keep cheering each other on. So it goes in
Speaker 10: a lot of different directions, which wasn't necessarily how we
Speaker 10: knew it was going to go, but it turned into
Speaker 10: a great story and I'm really excited for the fans
Speaker 10: to see how it all came together behind the scenes
Speaker 10: and how it's impacting them now that they're actually in
Speaker 10: Lexington together.
Speaker 1: Well, and as you know covering volleyball as I do,
Speaker 1: I've watched as a couple of really good players, more
Speaker 1: than a couple have used the portal and left Kentucky
Speaker 1: and gone to help other programs, and the door swings
Speaker 1: both ways. And now she'll come in and you'd think
Speaker 1: help Craig Skinner's program, which was one win from the
Speaker 1: final four last year.
Speaker 10: Oh absolutely. I mean, if I didn't say it already,
Speaker 10: I know I just gave you like a ten thousand
Speaker 10: words on this story. But maybe all I need to
Speaker 10: say is Lizzie Carr. It's six foot six, So she's
Speaker 10: going to bring a lot to this team, playing that
Speaker 10: middle position in a way that they haven't really seen
Speaker 10: the last couple of years. Skinner's gone with an undersized
Speaker 10: middle the last few years. Johnnie Teeler was an incredible athlete,
Speaker 10: but she was, you know, certainly on the undersized scale
Speaker 10: of that position. Yeah, just see it though a little
Speaker 10: bit shorter than your typical as you've seen middle. I mean,
Speaker 10: you think about some of the other women we've seen
Speaker 10: play that position across the league, and that's been a
Speaker 10: match up issue for Kentucky, So certainly excited to see
Speaker 10: what she can do next semester once volleyball season.
Speaker 9: Is really in full swing.
Speaker 10: But you know she's getting into it this semester. They
Speaker 10: do some spring games, spring practice, getting to know the
Speaker 10: new teammates and all that stuff. She brought Eva Hudson
Speaker 10: with her from Purdue. They're coming together and Eva a
Speaker 10: phenomenal player as well. So really excited to see how
Speaker 10: that changes Kentucky volleyball next year.
Speaker 1: Maggie Davis is my guest from BBN Tonight. We'll talk
Speaker 1: more with Maggie on the other side of the break
Speaker 1: here on six thirty back. We're talking with Maggie Davis
Speaker 1: of BBN tonight. We talked about the men's team, the
Speaker 1: basketball Wildcats, and that's been fun, but so is Kenny
Speaker 1: Brooks team. I mean, and he had basically the same assignment,
Speaker 1: a little bit of talent coming back, but he had
Speaker 1: to rebuild the UK women's program and that's been one
Speaker 1: of the headlines in nationally in women's basketball, hasn't it.
Speaker 10: Oh, it has been. And I think I saw a
Speaker 10: could the other day. I don't know if it was
Speaker 10: from esp IN or Fox Sports or something.
Speaker 1: Like that.
Speaker 10: But they kind of called Kentucky the best team that
Speaker 10: no one is talking about. And I think you see
Speaker 10: that at first and you're kind of like, what we
Speaker 10: are talking about them? What do you mean? But you
Speaker 10: kind of take yourself out of it and you're like, Okay, fine,
Speaker 10: I get you know, in the national sense, it's not
Speaker 10: a team that's necessarily getting the headlines of a powerhouse
Speaker 10: like Stuth, Carolina, LSU some of these top teams that
Speaker 10: have been in the national conversation for years and years
Speaker 10: and years. But when you think about what Kentucky is
Speaker 10: putting on paper this year, resume wise, statistically, just the
Speaker 10: players that they are putting up and the numbers of
Speaker 10: these players are putting up puts them in that conversation.
Speaker 10: And the jump between where this program has been in
Speaker 10: the past five plus years to where Kenny has turned
Speaker 10: it around to and this very first season is very, very,
Speaker 10: very impressive, and just starting to get involved in that conversation,
Speaker 10: I think is really what you have to be asking
Speaker 10: for at this point, and then you see how he
Speaker 10: continues to grow it from here. I mean, this is
Speaker 10: very similar to Mark Pope's men's team, a roster that
Speaker 10: was put together in a span of weeks, not months,
Speaker 10: and the staff that was really assembled the same way.
Speaker 10: He had a few more pieces come with him from
Speaker 10: Virginia Tech, and Hope necessarily had right off the bat
Speaker 10: from his days at BYU. But to the same extent,
Speaker 10: there's so many changes and he runs a very different
Speaker 10: system than what Kentucky was running before and from what
Speaker 10: we see most other SEC programs run. So for all
Speaker 10: of these players to come together and play this well,
Speaker 10: especially with two preseason injuries who took out two players
Speaker 10: we thought were going to be contributors, I think this
Speaker 10: has been a very, very impressive rookie campaign for Kenny Brooks.
Speaker 10: If you want to call it that. He should certainly
Speaker 10: be in conversation for Coach of the Year.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine how much better they'd be it with
Speaker 1: those two kids in the lineup. But it's fun. We
Speaker 1: keep talking about fun. But watching Georgia Aymoor, she's one
Speaker 1: of those kids, Maggie, I like to talk about kids.
Speaker 1: I would pay to see you, and I get to
Speaker 1: go to these for free, we're blessed, but I would
Speaker 1: pay to see her play. She's phenomenal.
Speaker 10: Oh my gosh, it's We have Christy Thomas on our
Speaker 10: show every Saturday morning on d in Game Day, and she.
Speaker 9: Always says this.
Speaker 10: She always goes, Georgia A. Moore is worth the price
Speaker 10: of admission, And every time she says that, I just
Speaker 10: get this big smile on my face because it's like,
Speaker 10: what else do you have to say? Once you see
Speaker 10: this girl play, you see the rest of the team
Speaker 10: around her, the way these pieces fit together. This is
Speaker 10: not a roster you look at on paper and you're like, Wow,
Speaker 10: you got a really short point guard, you got a
Speaker 10: really short two guard, and then you've got all these
Speaker 10: big trees in the middle, like how are they going
Speaker 10: to play? But then you really watch them and you
Speaker 10: realize that Kenny Brooks is running a system where a
Speaker 10: six foot five or George not George Amore, Clara Strack
Speaker 10: or kianni Key, even the North Carolina transfer. I mean,
Speaker 10: these girls are over six three six four sixty five.
Speaker 10: They're bringing the ball up the court like there's a
Speaker 10: point guard, and they are fast, they're sharing the ball.
Speaker 10: They have some of the best A sist numbers in
Speaker 10: the entire country. And so yes, all preseason we talked
Speaker 10: about the hype and how powerful that was going to
Speaker 10: be in an SEC that really values that and that physicality.
Speaker 10: And yeah, this is not a Kentucky team that's hanging
Speaker 10: their hat only on that. They are playing a style
Speaker 10: that you would imagine a much shorter, quicker, faster team
Speaker 10: would play. And yet you have all these pieces that
Speaker 10: are six foot five and can dominate you off the
Speaker 10: block as well. So it's been really exciting.
Speaker 1: If you minted up with Maggie Davis a BBN tonight,
Speaker 1: you guys are already covering baseball because the baseball team
Speaker 1: has been working hard. They've been practicing this indoors, of course,
Speaker 1: but this is a crucial time and a crucial stage
Speaker 1: for this team, this program which is coming, as you know,
Speaker 1: off the College World Series. I got James McCoy on
Speaker 1: the show tonight talking about what it's been like, you know,
Speaker 1: with new teammates but the same goal and they got
Speaker 1: a lot of talent coming back. But we know how
Speaker 1: tough the SEC is. But again, this should be an
Speaker 1: interesting season for Nick Minngeon.
Speaker 10: Oh of course, and you have to be excited for
Speaker 10: it anytime you come off a campaign like one the
Speaker 10: UK baseball team was able to put together last year,
Speaker 10: there's naturally going to be more excitement and a lot
Speaker 10: of extra juice just surrounding the program as a whole.
Speaker 10: I mean, I don't have any numbers to fact this,
Speaker 10: that's what I would imagine. They're having a pretty good
Speaker 10: time and to ticket office, Like if you didn't have
Speaker 10: season tickets before, did last season not convince you that
Speaker 10: you want to be a part of it?
Speaker 11: Right?
Speaker 10: Like last year was so much fun, and like you said,
Speaker 10: there are some good familiar faces returning, like Devin Burke
Speaker 10: is such a cornerstone of what this program is all about,
Speaker 10: and to have him back at catcher is going to
Speaker 10: be phenomenal just from a leadership persessive. But I mean,
Speaker 10: I think the number is something crazy, Like I think
Speaker 10: there's like thirty newcomers on this roster, whether they're freshmen
Speaker 10: or transfers, and you know, there's a couple of big
Speaker 10: names that stand out. But I think for me, it's
Speaker 10: hard to get past that big of a number of
Speaker 10: new places or new people, new players to start getting
Speaker 10: to know. So we'll dig into that.
Speaker 9: A little bit more a face off.
Speaker 10: You think it's closer, and I know you will too.
Speaker 10: I was talking to Darren Hedrick not too long ago,
Speaker 10: and he said that, you know, it's a lot of
Speaker 10: work from a broadcaster's perspective to get to know all
Speaker 10: these new guys, new names, new hometowns, like what they do,
Speaker 10: what they're good at, what they want to get better at.
Speaker 10: It's a lot of conversations we still need to have,
Speaker 10: but I'm excited to see all these pieces start to
Speaker 10: come together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just the basic baseball elements, you know, who
Speaker 1: is he, what is he doing? But then you get
Speaker 1: into the backstory a little bit, as we did with
Speaker 1: guys like Amelian Petrie and Grant Smith and those guys,
Speaker 1: you know, it becomes even more interesting. Plus, you know,
Speaker 1: being part of the TV broadcast crew, it helps when
Speaker 1: you're kind of filling in the blanks throughout the game,
Speaker 1: as you know, because of the pace of baseball games.
Speaker 1: But again, that's that's what makes them enjoyable, is learning
Speaker 1: about these guys.
Speaker 10: Yes, I don't know how much you know about this
Speaker 10: this nice man they call Big Biscuit, but I'm excited
Speaker 10: to get to know Big biscs a better and bring
Speaker 10: that story to VbN. I know that's something we will
Speaker 10: probably hear quite a lot about on the broadcast this
Speaker 10: year to fill some that time you were talking about.
Speaker 10: But yeah, Dylan could starting at first base, I think
Speaker 10: is where he's big projected, and obviously they shoot to
Speaker 10: fill there Ryan Nichol Finn and before that Hunter Gillum.
Speaker 9: I mean, they've had a lot of success.
Speaker 10: There, So we'll see what Big Biscuit can bring to
Speaker 10: the table.
Speaker 9: Pun very much intended.
Speaker 1: Well, he looked good in the fall. I got to
Speaker 1: see some of their fall games and yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: maybe the best nickname this year in the SEC. But
Speaker 1: you're right, and by the way, that what Ryan did
Speaker 1: last year after struggling just a little bit early, but
Speaker 1: he was a testament to what a lot of guys do.
Speaker 1: And McCoy was telling me the same thing. You know,
Speaker 1: they get in the cage, they work with the coaches,
Speaker 1: they tinker with their swing, they figure things out, and
Speaker 1: Ryan turned out to be one of the best sluggers
Speaker 1: in college baseball last year.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 10: Absolutely, And I think there's you know, there's going to
Speaker 10: be a lot of stories and a lot of talk
Speaker 10: about that.
Speaker 9: This season as we looked forward the future of.
Speaker 10: What do they look like early on, but at the
Speaker 10: same time, what can they look like months into this season,
Speaker 10: because baseball is a long season, but it goes very quickly.
Speaker 9: Those midweek games kind of.
Speaker 10: Stretch it out, and then all of a sudden you've
Speaker 10: got these like three game weekend series lining.
Speaker 9: Up, just one after the other after the other, right,
Speaker 9: and you know it comes quickly.
Speaker 10: But at the same time, I think what we've seen
Speaker 10: from nickmon Geones, his teams traditionally have gotten a lot
Speaker 10: better as the season's gone on, especially in the last
Speaker 10: two or three years or so. So for me, I'm
Speaker 10: excited to see like the starting point and then start
Speaker 10: to talk about the potential from there.
Speaker 1: That's what's so great when you're covering a team that's
Speaker 1: and I've been fortunate enough to cover several Kentucky teams
Speaker 1: that have been in the race, and they've won two
Speaker 1: SEC titles since I've been covering them. But scoreboard watching,
Speaker 1: you know, you know what did this team and that
Speaker 1: team do? All every team in the league and every weekend,
Speaker 1: it seems like the standings are turned upside down. Unless
Speaker 1: you've got a team like Tennessee a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: or one of those great vanity teams, it just dominates
Speaker 1: from day one, but every weekend the SEC standings sometimes
Speaker 1: they're literally turned upside down. And that's what's fun when
Speaker 1: the team right in front of you is a part
Speaker 1: of that, isn't it?
Speaker 10: Absolutely and honestly I'm thinking sitting here thinking about it,
Speaker 10: like that's what's fun about college sports, Not that that
Speaker 10: doesn't happen to an extent in the pros, but just
Speaker 10: thinking about you know, we talk about what a team
Speaker 10: looks like from day one to the College World Series,
Speaker 10: and the growth and the change that a team can
Speaker 10: can make over the span of a couple of months.
Speaker 10: I mean, once you get to the pro league, you're
Speaker 10: not seeing drastic changes, drastic improvements to how a season
Speaker 10: is going. Obviously, teams get hot, go on a run,
Speaker 10: have a big injury that affects things. Of course, all
Speaker 10: these things are true, but the year in and year out,
Speaker 10: you don't see the same Like they come in as
Speaker 10: these new guys on campus who are just trying to
Speaker 10: figure out the college game at this level, and by
Speaker 10: the end of it, they are playing at the team,
Speaker 10: they are playing together, they have earned the buy in
Speaker 10: of the fan base, and everything along the way goes
Speaker 10: to what you were just talking about.
Speaker 9: Of what big the.
Speaker 10: Standings upside down every weekend, and you remember some of
Speaker 10: those all time great teams that kind of withstood that
Speaker 10: right to Tennessee's and the Bandies over the course of decades.
Speaker 10: But I think if you think about Kentucky fans specifically,
Speaker 10: like last year's team is one they're going to remember
Speaker 10: forever because of the way we got to watch them
Speaker 10: grow up and grow together.
Speaker 9: And that's what makes college so fun.
Speaker 1: She is Maggie Davis Abban tonight. Follow her on Twitter
Speaker 1: at Maggie Davis TV. Thank you, ma'am. We'll see you
Speaker 1: at a ballgame.
Speaker 9: Thank you so much. I'll see you soon.
Speaker 1: Coming up next and now number two, we are going
Speaker 1: to shamelessly plug a little bit more of the documentary
Speaker 1: of the team that airs on Sunday on WKYT at
Speaker 1: five o'clock. We'll have some clips from that show, and
Speaker 1: we'll also talk Kentucky baseball with Wildcats veteran outfielder slash
Speaker 1: pitcher James McCoy, part of last year's College World Series
Speaker 1: run and a super regional championship team. All that coming
Speaker 1: up on six point thirty.
Speaker 12: Wlap Man Man than Welcome back to the Big blue Cider.
Speaker 12: I remember two as we wrap up the week, and
Speaker 12: coming up in this hour, we'll talk Entucky baseball with
Speaker 12: the Wildcats outfielders, slash pitcher James McCoy. In a few minutes,
Speaker 12: we'll talk about the bizarre timeline down in Florida that
Speaker 12: has found former UK offensive coordinat Liam Cohen as now
Speaker 12: the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. After leading the
Speaker 12: Tampa Bay Buccaneers to believe that he would become the
Speaker 12: highest paid offensive coordinator in the history of the National
Speaker 12: Football League, a little subterfuge went on, so clearly when
Speaker 12: he got here it was not going to be for
Speaker 12: the long haul, even though he had indicated to Mark
Speaker 12: Stoops that he would stay awhile.
Speaker 1: But now he's a head coach in the NFL. But
Speaker 1: I did want to talk about the reairing of our
Speaker 1: documentary coming up on Sunday shameless plug time. But it's
Speaker 1: a happy topic for Kentucky fans, and of course the
Speaker 1: documentary is the team which was shot down in for
Speaker 1: the most part down in Miami. One of those guys
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen had their twenty year anniversary and Cameron Mills,
Speaker 1: who was part of that team, a little used reserve,
Speaker 1: of course, but a good buddy. Now. He decided that
Speaker 1: somebody should shoot video and kept thinking about it. Thought
Speaker 1: this might make a good documentary, so he approached me.
Speaker 1: I said sure. He approached Jason Epperson, who was a
Speaker 1: very skilled and experienced filmmaker from Winchester, and we hired
Speaker 1: a crew and we went down and we shot interviews,
Speaker 1: and we also went to the first night cocktail party,
Speaker 1: which was on a small boat in a marina. They
Speaker 1: had another function the next night on a huge boat.
Speaker 1: We were not allowed to shoot that. They just wanted
Speaker 1: that to be players only, and that was a boat
Speaker 1: that included a big dinner and they went up the
Speaker 1: inter Coastal Waterway. There are photos from that get together.
Speaker 1: But we shot our video at the cocktail party, you know,
Speaker 1: the guys all getting to see each other once again
Speaker 1: and hug and backslap and shake hands. But eventually it
Speaker 1: turned into kind of a round table discussion centered around Patino,
Speaker 1: of course, on that season, how it came together. At
Speaker 1: one point, Anthony Apps asked, Patino, when did you know
Speaker 1: we had what it took to win the title, And
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna spoil the surprise. There really a surprise,
Speaker 1: but it kind of was to me what Patino said.
Speaker 1: But it's just one of the really fun elements of
Speaker 1: that documentary. I will tell you this that I edited
Speaker 1: and produced it for the most part, Jason did the
Speaker 1: post production work on it. Cameron did the legwork. Cameron
Speaker 1: raised the money, made the arrangements, you know, set us
Speaker 1: up with the plane tickets, all that stuff, and did
Speaker 1: a great job there, got it on a w KYT,
Speaker 1: which it will air again on KYT this Sunday at
Speaker 1: five o'clock. So it was a team effort for us,
Speaker 1: and Cameron actually came up with the name the team
Speaker 1: right away. He told me that was the name of
Speaker 1: the show. I'm really bad at naming things, and I've
Speaker 1: done so many specials in documentaries, but that's my weakest element,
Speaker 1: his names. And this was perfect because to Cameron had
Speaker 1: drove home the notion that it was, yes, a collection
Speaker 1: and probably the best ever collection of talent, skilled players
Speaker 1: in the history of Kentucky basketball, and yet it was
Speaker 1: a team. And that's all credit to Rick Patina. I
Speaker 1: went back and looked at the numbers again this morning,
Speaker 1: and I remembered correctly that Antoine Walker led that team
Speaker 1: in minutes played with slightly less than twenty eight per game.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine fewer than twenty eight minutes per game?
Speaker 1: Antoine Walker and Tony Delk led the team in scoring
Speaker 1: at seventeen per game. But this was a team that
Speaker 1: was just a matchup nightmare, you know, Delk on the outside,
Speaker 1: Walter McCarty and twine Walker, Derek Anderson doing his thing.
Speaker 1: Ron Mercer, an incredibly talented freshman, only averaged eight points
Speaker 1: a game, and he was a hero of the championship game. Walker,
Speaker 1: by the way, averaged fifteen a game. Tony averaged almost eighteen.
Speaker 1: In fairness, Mark Pope came off the bench for that team.
Speaker 1: He was a key Rick Patino. The year before, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember this, that team fell short
Speaker 1: in the regional losing to North Carolina. But all that year,
Speaker 1: whenever there was a rebounding issue, Rick Patino would say, oh,
Speaker 1: that won't be a problem next year. Mock Pope's on
Speaker 1: the way. And Mark Pope was a very very good
Speaker 1: rebounder for that ball club. But he only played like
Speaker 1: eleven minutes a game something like that. The key for
Speaker 1: this team and They talk about this in the show.
Speaker 1: Was when Anthony Epps was inserted into the starting lineup,
Speaker 1: and Patino talked about that, we tried to make Tony
Speaker 1: Duck a point guard. Tony's a little sensitive there. Tony
Speaker 1: takes pride in the work he did as a point guard.
Speaker 1: He wasn't bad, but when you're point guard is also
Speaker 1: your best backcourt scoring guy, your best shooter, that that
Speaker 1: can be a little tenuous. So once he moved Anthony
Speaker 1: into the starting lineup early in the year, I can't
Speaker 1: isolate which game it was, and then Tony slides over
Speaker 1: to the two guard. This team took off, no question
Speaker 1: about that. You know, he had Wayne Turner as a
Speaker 1: backup point guard. He tried to play Jeff Shepherd as
Speaker 1: a backup point guard. That didn't work either. Apps made
Speaker 1: it go, and they talked a length about that. Every player,
Speaker 1: to a man gives Anthony EPP's credit for making that
Speaker 1: team really really mesh. I'll play a couple of clips
Speaker 1: for you from the show. This is the opening sequence.
Speaker 1: It's basically the collection of a lot of these players
Speaker 1: and Rick Patino talking about the pressure that was on
Speaker 1: this team and what it faced going in because that
Speaker 1: was preseason number one, lost immediately almost to Umatz, and
Speaker 1: was number two for much of the year. It was
Speaker 1: number one by the end of the regular season and
Speaker 1: was the odds on favorite to win it all. But
Speaker 1: here are some of the recollections from these guys as
Speaker 1: to what they were facing when we.
Speaker 11: Built that ninety sixteen we knew everybody knew we had
Speaker 11: a championship basketball team.
Speaker 5: Now were we going to beat ourselves?
Speaker 3: We are so close to the final four, never really
Speaker 3: winning that championship at the Universe of Kentucky.
Speaker 13: I think he wanted that, you know, this was the year,
Speaker 13: this was the year, like this was the year that
Speaker 13: had to get done.
Speaker 1: There was so much pressure on us in ninety six
Speaker 1: honestly because there was no option to fail.
Speaker 4: All the tension would be on us like the other crowds,
Speaker 4: like it was like the Beatles.
Speaker 5: And we felt it and that just fed our egos.
Speaker 2: I think we clearly knew that our job was to
Speaker 2: win a national championship.
Speaker 6: We knew we were going to be preseason number one.
Speaker 5: We knew that.
Speaker 6: I don't think we understood at that time when being
Speaker 6: right number one the country.
Speaker 5: Meant, you know, they had to feed their own monster.
Speaker 11: And they they knew if they walked out with anything
Speaker 11: short of a championship, they would have felt that coach
Speaker 11: careers were wasted.
Speaker 5: Like when he sold something to us, we bought it.
Speaker 5: I don't care what it was. We bought it.
Speaker 3: It was his way or the highway, no matter who
Speaker 3: he was, and you had to buy in.
Speaker 6: The team wasn't built around one person. It was built
Speaker 6: around fifteen guys that can play together. And we had
Speaker 6: to figure out how we're gonna make this work.
Speaker 1: You know, from that fifteenth man to the number one player.
Speaker 5: He wanted everyone to compete at the hotest level.
Speaker 4: Even though people would say that we had a lot
Speaker 4: of pressure on us, but everybody was still looking at him.
Speaker 5: You know, he is this great coach. He't he hasn't
Speaker 5: won the big one yet.
Speaker 14: He was the best coach at that moment in time
Speaker 14: not to win a national championship, and he had the
Speaker 14: team to do it, and he had the.
Speaker 5: Program to do it.
Speaker 11: The pressure really melted on this basketball team. We really
Speaker 11: didn't enjoy it until over.
Speaker 2: You know, we were under a lot of pressure. There
Speaker 2: were incredible expectations.
Speaker 11: You have to win it, even if you losing the
Speaker 11: greatest game ever played in the finals.
Speaker 5: It's going to be a major disappointment.
Speaker 3: We was chasing the national title. Once we got to
Speaker 3: playing really good, we were chasing the national title, be
Speaker 3: to be one of the greatest teams.
Speaker 1: That's Anthony F's there at the end. You heard Patino,
Speaker 1: you heard Mark, Pope and Cameron, A lot of these guys,
Speaker 1: they had great memories of what they were facing, that
Speaker 1: uphill battle for this team. Even though they were so talented. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they carried a lot of pressure and they knew they
Speaker 1: were going to be good starting with the summer pickup games.
Speaker 1: And they talked at linked about how competitive they were
Speaker 1: because obviously so many talented players that Patino would put
Speaker 1: on that roster.
Speaker 5: He had experience with Delk, mccaudy and Pope.
Speaker 11: You know, then you had you had Ron Mercer in
Speaker 11: the young class, you had to transfer Derek Anderson. You
Speaker 11: had guys that can shoot, You had guys that were tough,
Speaker 11: guys who were The.
Speaker 6: Pickup games were unbelievable. I thought they were the best
Speaker 6: and most competitive basketball I ever played in my life.
Speaker 6: Guys had something to prove to each other. We were
Speaker 6: playing for playing time, in the summertime.
Speaker 13: You know, we jumping in these pickup games in the summer.
Speaker 13: In fact, Ron was actually Ron was saying this last
Speaker 13: night in the car. He was like, I came here
Speaker 13: and you know, had these plans like I'm gonna start,
Speaker 13: and I'm I'm gonna score, you know, score a ton
Speaker 13: of points. And I come to pick up and I'm like,
Speaker 13: what is every single guy in here can really really play?
Speaker 5: Coach showed me a bill of goods. What is happening?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 14: We were an all star team, but the first day
Speaker 14: on campus, uh, Coach Patino and his staff kind of
Speaker 14: stripped you away from all of those high school accolades.
Speaker 6: This is the time now you guys read the press
Speaker 6: clippers about each other. So this is our opportunity now
Speaker 6: to go at each other. And that was some of
Speaker 6: the best basketball games you ever wanted to be a
Speaker 6: part of.
Speaker 1: They went on to talk about and by the way,
Speaker 1: that was of course Antoine Walker along with Mark Pope
Speaker 1: talking about Ron Mercer being surprise and Jeff Shephard. But
Speaker 1: they said that in practice, when Patina would always finish
Speaker 1: up or usually with five on five scrimmages, and the
Speaker 1: team that would lose would say one more. They didn't
Speaker 1: want to stop one more. They hated to lose to
Speaker 1: each other, and of course that helped forge that team.
Speaker 1: Five o'clock Sunday on WKYT the encore presentation of the team.
Speaker 1: I want to Call Him on six thirty WLAP Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the Big Blue Insider. I mentioned earlier in
Speaker 1: the first hour, Liam Cohen, who came back to Kentucky
Speaker 1: briefly and told Mark Stoops I'm your guy, and then
Speaker 1: suddenly left and Stoops was not happy about that quite frankly.
Speaker 1: But Cohen goes back to the NFL, got a good opportunity,
Speaker 1: winds up as the OC and Tampa does a great
Speaker 1: job with Baker Mayfield, and now he's the head coach
Speaker 1: of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Such as the life for a
Speaker 1: young assistant coach, You kind of become a nomad a
Speaker 1: little bit, traveling around. He's got a wife and a
Speaker 1: young kid. But you know that, again, that's the life.
Speaker 1: That's what you sign up for. But this is what's
Speaker 1: nuts about this whole story. Cbsports dot Com. It's an
Speaker 1: interesting timeline of how this search kind of went off
Speaker 1: the rails for a while in Jacksonville. Back on January sixth,
Speaker 1: the Jaguars fired Doug Peterson, the head coach. He just
Speaker 1: didn't get it done there. Guy won a Super Bowl
Speaker 1: in Philly, but just didn't get it done there. So
Speaker 1: they say, well, we're keeping Trent Balki. The owner says,
Speaker 1: I'm keeping my general manager. But people who watched the NFL,
Speaker 1: we're kind of surprised that they kept Balki in place.
Speaker 1: And word was, you're gonna have a hard time finding
Speaker 1: a new head coach if this guy stays there. So
Speaker 1: five days later, the Baguars interview everybody's favorite, Ben Johnson,
Speaker 1: THEOC from Detroit, and it seemed like that was a
Speaker 1: good fit. They have a franchise quarterback, and it seemed
Speaker 1: like that was gonna work down there, but he moved
Speaker 1: away from the job. So now they bring in Liam
Speaker 1: Cohen for an interview on January fifteenth, his first interview,
Speaker 1: and the Jaguars apparently interviewed a wide range of candidates,
Speaker 1: but it was pretty evident they were going to go
Speaker 1: with an offensive guy. And because you know, you've got
Speaker 1: Trent Lawrence, you've got a good quarterback. So they were gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, either Cohen or Johnson would have made more sense.
Speaker 1: But on the twenty first, Johnson passed on the Jaguars
Speaker 1: job and ends up signing actually on a January twentieth,
Speaker 1: the same day he signed with the Chicago Bears, and
Speaker 1: apparently in the Athletic Reporter, Johnson had no interest in
Speaker 1: the job because they didn't quote like their setup, polite
Speaker 1: way of saying, I don't I don't think I can
Speaker 1: work with their GM. Cohen was supposed to come in
Speaker 1: for a second interview but turned it down. He backed out
Speaker 1: of the interview in said I'm staying with the Bucks.
Speaker 1: So they start negotiating right now. They come up with
Speaker 1: that three year deal. According to Sports Illustrated, he's gonna
Speaker 1: make him the highest paid coordinator, not just in the league,
Speaker 1: but in NFL history. But there was a catch, according
Speaker 1: to SI, if he wanted to sign it, he wouldn't
Speaker 1: be allowed to go to Jacksonville for a second interview.
Speaker 1: So you combine that with the fact that he didn't
Speaker 1: want to work with Trent Balki, so he calls off
Speaker 1: the meeting with the Jaguars. Well, just hours after that,
Speaker 1: the owner Shod Khan realizes, Man, this Jam's holding us back.
Speaker 1: He fires Trent Balki, which at the time was a
Speaker 1: stunner because he decided to keep him. Then he goes
Speaker 1: back to Liam Cohen and says, would you talk to
Speaker 1: us again? And he did. Now here's another catch. Cohen
Speaker 1: agrees to the second interview, but never told the Buccaneers
Speaker 1: about that. He goes back to negotiate with Jacksonville. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the Bucks are trying to reach him for several hours yesterday,
Speaker 1: but Cohen ghosted them. He eventually talked to somebody with
Speaker 1: the Bucks last night and has signed on with the
Speaker 1: Jaguars as their head coach and by the way, Robert Sala,
Speaker 1: who had been fired as the head coach by the Jets.
Speaker 1: He was supposed to interview yesterday, but that goes out
Speaker 1: the window once Liam Cohen is back in the picture.
Speaker 1: Crazy timeline for Cohen and the Jacksonville Jaguars, but apparently
Speaker 1: now he's the man, so again a couple of former
Speaker 1: Wildcats we'll be working for the former UK two time
Speaker 1: offensive coordinator. Up next, We're going to talk Kentucky baseball
Speaker 1: with James McCoy and I don't really talk scheduling with James,
Speaker 1: but anytime you look at the SEC schedule whenever it
Speaker 1: comes out. Keith Madison, Darren Hedrick, Jeffiicor and I on
Speaker 1: our chain Yang Doug Flynn. We talk about it, but
Speaker 1: you know what, every year you can talk about how
Speaker 1: tough you talk, you think the basketball schedule stuff. Every
Speaker 1: year SEC baseball is brutal. One of your home or
Speaker 1: away and Kentucky opens on the road this year against
Speaker 1: Georgia's had a really good team last year, but their
Speaker 1: best player was the player of the Year Charlie Condon,
Speaker 1: one of those guys who just came out of nowhere
Speaker 1: in his career and worked on himself, worked on his
Speaker 1: game and became the College baseball Player of the year,
Speaker 1: power hitter number three overall. Picking the draft of the
Speaker 1: Colorado Rockies, led d NCA and home runs last year.
Speaker 1: So he's gone, but Georgia will be talented. The home
Speaker 1: opener in the SEC. I'm not going to go through
Speaker 1: the non conference schedule for you. Auburn is the home
Speaker 1: opening SEC schedule. That's March twenty first three game set.
Speaker 1: These are all three game sets. The following week they
Speaker 1: visited Texas, A and m not an easy place to play.
Speaker 1: Nothing's easy Ole Miss comes to town the week after.
Speaker 1: Oh Miss has been struggling, so we'll see if they
Speaker 1: can pull themselves back to the kind of form they
Speaker 1: showed what three years ago when they won the national championship.
Speaker 1: Texas comes to town in early April. Wildcats do play
Speaker 1: at Louisville Tuesday, April eighth. Mark your calendar. It's always
Speaker 1: a great crowd. Cats one in Louisville last year. Then
Speaker 1: they come home to play Texas. That's gonna be so
Speaker 1: cool to see Texas here playing against Kentucky. But the
Speaker 1: following week, more Orange in Knoxville and defending national champion Tennessee.
Speaker 1: The Cats play down there in the middle of April. Again,
Speaker 1: not the same team, a lot of guys have moved on,
Speaker 1: but they'll be good. Then it's home for another game
Speaker 1: with Louisville. All right, they always played Louisville home and home,
Speaker 1: which is great. After that, South Carolina here in Lexington,
Speaker 1: then on to Starkville in Mississippi State, and Oklahoma comes
Speaker 1: to Lexington and the first week in May that's going
Speaker 1: to be great as well. Actually second week of May
Speaker 1: to see Oklahoma, one of the new members come to town.
Speaker 1: Then the Wildcats wrap up with a trip to Vanderbilt
Speaker 1: to close out the season. So it's always challenging and
Speaker 1: always will be in the SEC. But Western Kentucky's on
Speaker 1: the schedule, Miami of Ohio's on the schedule, and so
Speaker 1: is a home and home set in March with Eastern Kentucky.
Speaker 1: And they did this last year. This season, it's the
Speaker 1: first week of March on Tuesday to fourth, the Wildcats
Speaker 1: go to Richmond and last year EKU No hit Kentucky
Speaker 1: for like seven innings for the Wildcats, jumped up and
Speaker 1: won it the next night, same teams in Lexington. So
Speaker 1: on March fourth and fifth, it's a two game series
Speaker 1: with EKU. I really like that and they always do
Speaker 1: play one another. But now with EKU improving its facility
Speaker 1: over in Richmond, it's an easy road trip obviously for
Speaker 1: Nick ben Jones team. So we'll talk more baseball on
Speaker 1: the other side of the break with James McCoy. You're
Speaker 1: on a Big Bloon Sider six thirty. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the Big Bloon Sider. Joining us now is a guy
Speaker 1: who is a veteran of the UK baseball team. He
Speaker 1: was a key to the Wildcats March to the College
Speaker 1: World Series last year, looking for more this season. He
Speaker 1: is James McCoy Richard junior outfielder and a pitcher. James,
Speaker 1: how's your off season been.
Speaker 15: It's been good, you know, going in making such changes
Speaker 15: to the swing and uh a little bit on the
Speaker 15: pitching side too, you know, just kind of getting a
Speaker 15: little reset and uh, looking at strengths and weaknesses and
Speaker 15: just growing in all aspects of the game. Really, it's been, Uh,
Speaker 15: it's been fun.
Speaker 1: Well, you already answered one of my first questions, and
Speaker 1: that is will you be both playing outfield and pitching again?
Speaker 1: Are you looking forward to two different roles again?
Speaker 15: Ah, yes, sir, Yeah, I'm excited for the year on
Speaker 15: both sides of the ball. You know, I think, uh,
Speaker 15: I think we'll be good, uh really in all areas
Speaker 15: and just playing like Kentucky.
Speaker 1: Baseball, well Kentucky baseball last year and meant finally getting
Speaker 1: to Omaha. As you look back on it, I know
Speaker 1: you got to look forward. You're you're you're looking to
Speaker 1: improve and and you know, work on this season. But
Speaker 1: it's it's fun to look back on what you guys
Speaker 1: accomplished last year, isn't it? What what does that mean
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 15: I mean it means a lot going in and you know,
Speaker 15: working our butts off all year, and you know, we
Speaker 15: see it in practice. Not everyone sees their practice and everything,
Speaker 15: and you know, just grinding all year and getting to
Speaker 15: the point where like almost proven guys are other people
Speaker 15: wrong and showing them that what we're made of in
Speaker 15: that Kentucky Baseball does deserve to get to Omaha and
Speaker 15: then eventually getting there, and you know, just having really
Speaker 15: fun playing together with a great group of guys.
Speaker 1: You know, what I think some people may overlook is
Speaker 1: the fact that, yeah, you want to regionally, you want
Speaker 1: a super but you guys are also SEC champions, So
Speaker 1: now you're the defending champs, or at least you shared it.
Speaker 1: So now people are going to becoming at you, aren't
Speaker 1: They get a target on your back?
Speaker 15: Oh yeah, certainly. You know whenever, whenever you're on the top,
Speaker 15: you're you're always got a target on your back. And
Speaker 15: every year is different. You know, you never know who
Speaker 15: it's going to be each year. But of course we're
Speaker 15: gonna try and go out there and do the same
Speaker 15: thing as last year.
Speaker 1: Well, let's get back to what you're working on now. First,
Speaker 1: of all, did you play here in the summertime? Did
Speaker 1: you play in one of the summer leagues?
Speaker 11: Not?
Speaker 15: This past summer, I went back home, got a little reset.
Speaker 15: You know, we played through the end of June, so
Speaker 15: really you get you get like a month a month
Speaker 15: between the end of this season and then school starting
Speaker 15: and fallball and everything. So talking with the coaches and
Speaker 15: and everyone, just kind of take a little reset, get
Speaker 15: a little time off, and then kind of just hit
Speaker 15: the ground running instead of you know, just plugging away
Speaker 15: all summer. So it was it was nice to get
Speaker 15: a little mental reset and physical reset, get the body
Speaker 15: back nice and rested and back in shape. So it
Speaker 15: was good.
Speaker 1: Well, as I said, you're you're a Richard junior at
Speaker 1: least I think you are now Or are you a
Speaker 1: Richard senior?
Speaker 15: Now Richard junior?
Speaker 1: Okay, another word, You've played a lot of baseball, So, yes, sir.
Speaker 1: You know yourself pretty well, don't you, Yes, sir, So
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about last year and how
Speaker 1: the season developed for you, and how you can play
Speaker 1: off of that this year, because you actually had better
Speaker 1: numbers in the Southeastern Conference, including all five of your
Speaker 1: home runs. How will that serve you this year.
Speaker 15: Yeah, it seems like, like like you said, I tend
Speaker 15: to do a little bit better in SEC play. So
Speaker 15: really just knowing that, like, hey, like I'm doing good
Speaker 15: in SDC play, might not be doing as as good
Speaker 15: in like the midweeks or non conference play, but it's
Speaker 15: something to build off of, looking at what I've struggled with,
Speaker 15: not only in the SEC, but also in non conference,
Speaker 15: working on that with the coaches, creating like a game
Speaker 15: plan to attack those weaknesses turn them into strength, and
Speaker 15: just you know, baseball as always game of adjustments, so
Speaker 15: I might need to adjust a little bit to those
Speaker 15: non conference or even the SEC pitchers. But the coaches
Speaker 15: are really good with like our individual development programs and
Speaker 15: just trying to get us better in all facets of
Speaker 15: the game and just just developing us not only as
Speaker 15: players but as as as people. So that of course,
Speaker 15: you know you've heard this all the time, a big
Speaker 15: mantra for the program as student person players, and of
Speaker 15: course not only on the field, but off the field.
Speaker 1: Nick Mangione really has built quite the culture, has any
Speaker 1: when it comes to Kentucky baseball.
Speaker 15: Oh yeah, and culture is a big thing with baseball.
Speaker 15: You know, I think that also played into how well
Speaker 15: we've done the past couple of years. You know, I
Speaker 15: kind of remember some some media and like some other
Speaker 15: you know, people just talking and saying like, uh, like
Speaker 15: on paper, we're not like the best or anything like that.
Speaker 15: But it's that culture of hey, like no one really
Speaker 15: no one. Everyone writes this off and you know, we're
Speaker 15: going to go out and prove them wrong. And that
Speaker 15: kind of like mentality and culture of hey, we're going
Speaker 15: to play our ball and we're going to show them
Speaker 15: how uh how how we can uh you know, being
Speaker 15: the best, be one of the best teams at SEC
Speaker 15: like we were last year.
Speaker 1: Why do you think you guys were able to accomplish that?
Speaker 1: Looking back on it now given more perspective.
Speaker 15: Uh, not only the talent that we had, but how
Speaker 15: how well we played together and how much we trusted
Speaker 15: each other. It was it was like I knew, uh,
Speaker 15: the pitchers were going to throw the ball in the
Speaker 15: zone and that if the ball was hit to second, short,
Speaker 15: first third, you know, I knew Mitch Grant, p Ryan
Speaker 15: Nicholson or wald or Nolan. You know, it's just trusting
Speaker 15: in each other and like those guys will make it
Speaker 15: play and that the pitchers you know, will pull through
Speaker 15: for us. And then it's the same one on the
Speaker 15: flip side, you know, the pictures. They can't they can't
Speaker 15: really do anything when we're when we're hitting, but they
Speaker 15: trust us to go out there, get get our jobs done,
Speaker 15: and you know, give them, give them runs to.
Speaker 1: Work with you and Nolan and Waldi gave Kentucky one
Speaker 1: of the fastest outfields in the Southeastern Conference defensively, not
Speaker 1: a lot fell in. Of course, you may be the
Speaker 1: only starter out there from last year. I don't know
Speaker 1: who's going to get the other starting positions. But how
Speaker 1: confident are you in your outfield defense this year?
Speaker 15: I'm feeling pretty confident with like you said, kind of
Speaker 15: like the only starting returner, you know, kind of kind
Speaker 15: of leading away in like our outfield practice and everything.
Speaker 15: But we have younger guys who who know it looks
Speaker 15: like also with Griff and Cameron then you like, you know,
Speaker 15: they're out there all the time with us. Patrick Carrera too,
Speaker 15: he's doing a little bit more infield, but still he
Speaker 15: could come out there and tell you every single drill,
Speaker 15: every single like, every single step. We've pretty much taken
Speaker 15: offense and are our outfield defensive practice. But those but
Speaker 15: those new guys, they're all so bought in and they're
Speaker 15: all they were always asking questions, you know, looking looking
Speaker 15: for ways to get better and and kind of like
Speaker 15: learn how we play in the outfield.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the new guys. We'll talk about them in
Speaker 1: a minute. But you do have a lot of guys
Speaker 1: coming back from last year. You've got a little bit
Speaker 1: of playing time to Kayas Gargets and Ethan Smalls and
Speaker 1: people like that. Uh, how vital is that because they've
Speaker 1: been around, they know Kentucky baseball. Now they have a
Speaker 1: chance to play more and uh, but but they know
Speaker 1: what's expected, right, Yeah.
Speaker 15: I think you said it best. They've been around, they've
Speaker 15: seen Kentucky baseball, and they know what's expected. So even
Speaker 15: with like new guys in the infield or anywhere like
Speaker 15: they can they can help those new guys and how
Speaker 15: Kentucky baseball and how that kind of culture is built.
Speaker 15: And you know, they they were able to travel with
Speaker 15: us too. So they were also a key part in
Speaker 15: our Omaha run because when you're on the field, you know,
Speaker 15: nine innings baseball, it can get along sometimes. You know,
Speaker 15: we've had games where it's three and a half four
Speaker 15: if not four and a half hours, and so you
Speaker 15: kind of neet those guys in the dugouts to almost
Speaker 15: pick you up. And they they did great with that
Speaker 15: role last year, and you know, I'm excited to see
Speaker 15: them step up and, like you said, get a little
Speaker 15: bit more of a playing role this year. But it's
Speaker 15: valuable that they know what it looks like and what's expected.
Speaker 1: Well, I have more with UK outfielder slash pitcher James
Speaker 1: McCoy on the other side of the break here on
Speaker 1: the Big Blue Sider six thirty wlap. We're talking with
Speaker 1: James McCoy, Kentucky outfielder and a pitcher. He is a
Speaker 1: Red Shirt junior and three years ago, James, you were
Speaker 1: the guy in the dugout waiting for a chance to
Speaker 1: throw a red shirting. You were choreographing some of the
Speaker 1: musical numbers. He did a great job at that. But
Speaker 1: once you finally got a chance to play, you were
Speaker 1: all business. Not that you weren't business in the dugout,
Speaker 1: but that's one of the things that that that Doug
Speaker 1: Flynn and I enjoined Darren Hedrick looking down from the
Speaker 1: press box and seeing what goes on in the dugout,
Speaker 1: and that's that's important. Nick man Jonas kind of explained
Speaker 1: that to the Big Blue Nation over the last couple
Speaker 1: of years, how vital he finds it, you know, the
Speaker 1: body language and and what the guys in the dougout
Speaker 1: are doing throughout the game, whether they're playing or not.
Speaker 1: He kind of holds everybody accountable. How much does that
Speaker 1: help the team entirely?
Speaker 15: I mean, it's like you said, it's it's invaluable. They're
Speaker 15: picking guys up doing you know, crazy stuff in the dugout,
Speaker 15: and they sometimes they can even see things that we
Speaker 15: not we might not be able to see in the game.
Speaker 15: Ruben Church last year he sat right next to coach
Speaker 15: Mine every every single game, just right right there with him,
Speaker 15: and he would pick up on things and you know,
Speaker 15: he would tell coach Minche and Mine would tell us,
Speaker 15: or he would tell you know, the guy's playing individually
Speaker 15: and it's and it seemed like every every game, it
Speaker 15: seemed like Mine would be like, yeah, Rubin, Ruben saw this,
Speaker 15: Ruben saw that, or another guy on the another guy
Speaker 15: on the bench. You know, they they saw this, they
Speaker 15: saw that and ended up you know, leading to like
Speaker 15: a big run, a big out, like something important in
Speaker 15: the game happening. So there's more than just you know,
Speaker 15: cheering that happens in the dugout.
Speaker 1: Ruben's a guy who played a lot of baseball in
Speaker 1: a Kentucky uniform and had a lot of big base
Speaker 1: hits through his career. Oh yeah, but he's moved on
Speaker 1: and now, as we mentioned earlier, a lot of new faces.
Speaker 1: The portal door was spinning, and it's not as unusual.
Speaker 1: People don't understand that, James, and I know you do that.
Speaker 1: In baseball, there's more personnel movement than has been for
Speaker 1: many many years. People go nuts when it happens in
Speaker 1: football and basketball. That's that's a way of life in baseball.
Speaker 1: But now these rule changes, we may be seeing even
Speaker 1: more of that. But tell me about the new guys
Speaker 1: and how they've kind of assimilated, how they're fitting in.
Speaker 15: I think they're fitting in well because coach Bene also,
Speaker 15: of course, you know, he wants he wants the guys
Speaker 15: coming in to be able to perform and you know,
Speaker 15: play it an sec level. But he's also big on
Speaker 15: the person So those guys are they in really well,
Speaker 15: you know, they're great people. They're awesome to be around,
Speaker 15: and we uh, you know, it's fun to hang out
Speaker 15: with them outside of the field too. So it's not
Speaker 15: only like, you know, they're just here for baseball. They're
Speaker 15: they're here to be developed as a student and a person.
Speaker 1: So you answered it again. My next question, you're you're
Speaker 1: roughly prescient today. Uh. I was going to ask about
Speaker 1: about chemistry. How everybody's fitting in, and uh, it's I
Speaker 1: know it's a challenge with so many guys and uh
Speaker 1: some downtime, but how's that been going.
Speaker 15: It's been good.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 15: You know, like we said earlier, culture is a big
Speaker 15: thing in baseball and in Kentucky baseball, so building that
Speaker 15: culture and that chemistry uh is big. You know, some
Speaker 15: guys have mentioned already or I mean this is in
Speaker 15: the back in the fall, but they've mentioned, you know,
Speaker 15: I've never had like a team hangout this much outside
Speaker 15: of the field, and it's kind of like, well, this
Speaker 15: is that's just you know, that's just normal for us.
Speaker 15: You know, you're you're the guy who doesn't come around.
Speaker 15: You're kind of like almost the odd man out. So
Speaker 15: you gotta you gotta pull those guys who don't normally
Speaker 15: come out and hang out with everyone. You gotta pull
Speaker 15: them out and you know, come hang out. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 15: culture chemistry, like you can build it on the field,
Speaker 15: but it's just taken to another level when you get
Speaker 15: to know everyone outside of the field.
Speaker 1: I think I already know the answer to this question,
Speaker 1: But how valuable is it to have a Devin Burks
Speaker 1: come back both off and on the field.
Speaker 15: Yeah, it's valuable because, like you said, he's played a
Speaker 15: lot of a lot of baseball and a lot of
Speaker 15: Kentucky baseball. So he's another guy who who knows what
Speaker 15: it looks like and knows what it takes. You know,
Speaker 15: he's behind the plate and buyers out out there with
Speaker 15: the pictures, you know, they they kind of corral the
Speaker 15: pictures and Devin with the catchers. You know, it's kind
Speaker 15: of like we have these pieces that are in each
Speaker 15: kind of group that kind of pull everyone together to
Speaker 15: make this one big group. Because you know, outfielders are
Speaker 15: not always with the infielders, and certainly the position players
Speaker 15: aren't always with the pitchers. So it's it's nice to
Speaker 15: have those pieces kind of ringing everyone in together. So
Speaker 15: then when we do come when all of us do
Speaker 15: come together. It's just kind of like a well old
Speaker 15: machine just running.
Speaker 1: Well, you're the older guy in the outfield group. Are
Speaker 1: you enjoying that role?
Speaker 15: Yeah, it's it's also nice having guys like Griffin and
Speaker 15: Eli coming back. You know, they they they might be
Speaker 15: tagged as younger guys, but you know, you spend you
Speaker 15: spend pretty much a full year out there at the
Speaker 15: same same outfielders every single day. You know, you start
Speaker 15: to you learn pretty quickly. Even even if even if
Speaker 15: you might learn a little bit slower or anything, you know,
Speaker 15: you still learn pretty quickly. So it's also it's also
Speaker 15: good to have them there because you know, I think
Speaker 15: we're not always all together. You know, sometimes we'll split
Speaker 15: up to right, center, left, so you know, I can't
Speaker 15: really yell the way across the outfield that easily. But yeah,
Speaker 15: not only that, but having those guys there to kind
Speaker 15: of help me with that.
Speaker 1: I got a couple of minutes up with James McCoy,
Speaker 1: Kentucky outfielder, slash pitcher, and we've touched on pitching a
Speaker 1: little bit. But you've got guys like Robert Hogan is back,
Speaker 1: Bobby Spins and you mentioned Evan and Jackson Novy's back,
Speaker 1: so you got some veterans, but and Ben Cleaver. I
Speaker 1: think people are looking forward to seeing what he can do,
Speaker 1: but some new faces as well in the pitching group.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you divide your time between outfield
Speaker 1: and pitching, but what can people expect from the pitching
Speaker 1: staff this year?
Speaker 15: I certainly split all with the position players a little
Speaker 15: bit more, but I think our pitchers will be pretty
Speaker 15: good just from what we've seen in bullpens and these
Speaker 15: live at bats recently, you know, a lot of a
Speaker 15: lot of moving pitches and being able to spot it.
Speaker 15: So I think it's just another year of Kentucky baseball
Speaker 15: pitching where it's it's just, you know, throw whatever pitch and.
Speaker 1: Whatever count and throw strikes which sounds you know people
Speaker 1: would think, well duh, but you know, yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I know. Dan Roselle just pounds that into into the
Speaker 1: heads of the pitchers and they did that James last
Speaker 1: year with such consistency, and my my broadcast partner, Doug Flynn,
Speaker 1: it was a gold glove shortstop has talked repeatedly about
Speaker 1: how that helps the defenders stay in the game mentally,
Speaker 1: you know, when when they're always and the pitchers are
Speaker 1: ahead in the count. It keeps the defense sharp. You
Speaker 1: think we'll see that more of that this year?
Speaker 15: I would think we would, Yes, sir, I think so.
Speaker 1: All right, well, just a minute or two left. But
Speaker 1: tell me about this weather, and you guys have been
Speaker 1: able to hang in there with it because it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a while before you can get outside. Are you
Speaker 1: chomping at the bit to get outside, get outdoors?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 15: Yeah, of course, you know, splitting our time between nutter
Speaker 15: and the cages and everything, but trying to stay warm
Speaker 15: between walking to classes and everything. Found found some extreme
Speaker 15: warmth bibs on sale there. I had to get those,
Speaker 15: and yeah, coming you know, I went, I went home
Speaker 15: to Florida for uh Christmas break and I think the
Speaker 15: cooldest day there was fifty And I came back here
Speaker 15: and it was like ten. So I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 15: I might need a little bit a little bit more closed.
Speaker 15: But yeah, splitting our time between nutter and the cages
Speaker 15: and everything. Guys can extra work in whenever we can,
Speaker 15: you know, just doing doing what we can, uh with
Speaker 15: what we got.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're from Florida, so and but yet they're
Speaker 1: getting snow in Florida, Ut, i'd imagine, can you.
Speaker 15: Uh no, not at all. My parents we don't Oh jeez,
Speaker 15: we upstairs.
Speaker 1: We don't have heat. So, oh my god.
Speaker 15: Right now my parents have like a kind of like
Speaker 15: a tarp setup to separate the upstairs from the townstairs.
Speaker 1: My gosh, that's incredible. Are they still in Port Saint Joe, Yes, sir, wow, Well,
Speaker 1: bless their hearts. I just hope they got a space
Speaker 1: heater as well. That would come in handy form or
Speaker 1: maybe send in some bibs.
Speaker 15: Yeah, I know, my dad's got a heater laying around somewhere.
Speaker 15: If not, he broke out the duck hunting ways.
Speaker 1: Oh there you go, There you go. Well, let's I'll
Speaker 1: let you go. I guess, I guess it. It kind
Speaker 1: of happens organically. But last year there was the pink hat,
Speaker 1: there was the uh, the Saint Patrick's Day song that
Speaker 1: caught on. I guess we'll I just have to wait
Speaker 1: and see what the dougout antics turn into this year.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, like.
Speaker 15: You said, it happens organically. Some will pop up in
Speaker 15: the middle of the years.
Speaker 1: Has to just happen naturally. Well, I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: it and James will be out at the ballpark watching
Speaker 1: you guys. Take BP before long, I hope and best
Speaker 1: of luck this year and we'll see you at the ballpark.
Speaker 15: All right, thank you.
Speaker 1: And in case you're wondering, Opening day is Valentine's Day,
Speaker 1: February fourteenth, but it's on the road at Lipscombe down
Speaker 1: in Nashville for the Baseball Wildcats. They come home on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: February eighteenth and take on morehead states. So mark your calendars.
Speaker 1: That'll do it. Thanks to James McCoy, Thanks to Maggie Davis.
Speaker 1: Don't forget watch the team on WKYT at five o'clock
Speaker 1: on Sunday as we look back on the ninety six
Speaker 1: championship team led by a lot of guys including Mark Polk.
Speaker 1: That's it. Good night from the garage and Lexington us.
Speaker 14: You low the gag, the ball around the envy, you
Speaker 14: love the gag.
Speaker 4: You're right down the first you lovely gay.
Speaker 1: You're out of your dug out. Did you know what
Speaker 1: that makes you?
Speaker 5: Worry?
Speaker 1: Lolly Gaggers
Speaker 12: Say