Speaker 1: For the college football teams you care about wins, losses
and everything in between. We talk it through on one
O three nine and ninety eight three ESPN The Van.
Get to know the Cougar's opponents and rivals right now.
You gonna know the faux segment on Cougar Sports with
Ben Gretel.
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point three ESPN The Fan. I've been brutal broadcasting from
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and A to obtained some gems from Vanderwealthbandwealth dot com. Uh,
it is time to get to know the foe BYU
taking their talents to Kansas City. They're trying to take
on the Kansas State Jayhawks, excuse me in the Kansastate Wildcats.
I apologize and we're gonna get to know the foe
here on your Utah ESPN Radio Network. It's gonna be
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Garage Utah dot com. Let's get out to the hotline
and welcome in the voice of the Kansas State Wildcast.
We got Wyatt Thompson on the line. Wyatt, how are
you living well?
Speaker 3: I'm doing okay, Ben, how are you? I got a
little bit of a there's a little bit of a
sore throat kind of chess colds going around the team.
I've got just a tiny bit of it, So bear
with me on this. But here we are in Kansas
City and getting ready for I think what'll be an
interesting tournament this year, without question.
Speaker 2: No doubt about it. Well, sorry you're under the weather.
We appreciate you making the sacrifice. What you know, being
a voice, right, Like, what are your typical protocols? I
mean people just think like we just step up to mic.
We never have a cold, we never get sick. When
you know, there's never any issues with anything, and we
can just do it every day, all day and pontificate
without any sort of inhibition in our vocal cords. Like,
what's your protocol when you do feel a little you know, coronavirus,
little flu bug hitting you.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't have a whole lot then. To
be honest, I've known guys that have, you know, like
lost their voice almost entirely, not on wood. I've never
had that happen. I don't know about you, but I've
never had that happen. I'm just a little raspy. The
truth is, I feel okay, I just don't sound perfect
or like I normally do. But Coach Driscolls like that,
a couple of our players, a couple of other coaches.
It's just kind of some of the stuff that's going
around this part of the country right now, so hopefully
the coopers won't get that.
Speaker 2: So you know, you don't do any like cough drops. No,
like lemon honey tea, chamamle chai tea I've got, you know, uh.
Speaker 3: Cold Buster will do the tamabiles so much, but the
hot tea A little bit of lemon every now and again.
Lemon water is probably pretty good. But that's a rarity
for me because knock on wood, I'm not you know,
under the weather very often. I've been pretty lucky.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got like sailine spray, I got salt gargling,
I got cold I have Yeah, I mean I gotta
you know, I have a pro No, no, now, I
think I'm just more impacted by by cold and flu
season than than most on the radio. So I got,
I gotta, I gotta have like all my profile axes.
I taken zinc every night now because you know, there's, uh,
there's been all manner of bugs going around. So uh
but let's uh, let's get into what we are really
having you on for here, the Big twelve basketball Termam
I give us a state of the basketball program with
Kansas State, there's been turmoil. There's been ups and downs, right, Uh,
it seemed like a couple of years ago the Kansas
State Wildcats, they had this upward trajectory and all was
well out there in Manhattan. As it relates to this
basketball program, now there's been some turmoil. Give us the
state of the program. What's going on.
Speaker 3: Well, turmoil is probably a good word to use to
quantify what this has been. Four years ago, in coach
Tang's first year, it was magical. They went to the
Elite eight, had a really really good team lost to
fau in the regional final in Madison Square Garden led
by Marquise Noel who had one of the great tournaments
in the history of the NCAA tournament. Keante Johnson was
a fringe pro on that team. They really played well.
The next year they lost a young man by the
name of Makwon Tomlin got into some trouble off the floor.
He was removed from the team somewhat in a controversial move,
and I don't know, if I'm being honest, if they
ever recovered from that, I think that would have been
a tournament team, but it wasn't. And then it's I
have been the continued downhill slide over the last two years.
You know, this year was a three and fifteen conference
season at twelve and nineteen campaign overall, that really exposed
case State in a lot of areas. What I would
tell you is they struggle defensively, they struggle with rebounding.
They don't have a lot of front court depth, and
when you are bringing that to the table in this league,
you're going to get your backside kicked a lot. And
they have one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's crazy. I didn't think that there'd be
so much turmoil this season there within this basketball program,
that there was an upward trajectory, where what's the current
like maybe outlook from the personnel standpoint look like, have
they been able to retain some of the maybe the
culture cohesion that could get them a win or two
in the twelve tournament dis go around?
Speaker 3: You know, that's a really good question. I'm not sure
how to go about answering that because they've been so inconsistent.
I'll give you what I would describe as the perfect example.
You know, you know this, you follow this league pretty closely,
right well, one team that's been really, really pretty darn
good of late is TCU. We kind of got them
off the deck a few weeks ago in Fort Worth.
Led for thirty nine minutes and thirty seconds. They never
led until the very end and scored the final seven
points of the game. My point is is Case State
has done a really good job of finding ways to
not win games. They lost a close game, and they
truthfully have probably been better in conference play on the
road than they've been at home. But think about this,
they've at home, They've played Kansas BYU, you know, a
few teams like that. On the road, it's been more
of the Arizona States, the Oklahoma States, that thing. We
played the Iowa Stage at home as an example. So
it's the Big twelve, right, It's hard. We've also, I
want to be totally fair and honest with your listeners,
this is a team that has lost some I've kind
of lost the exact track, but probably somewhere in the
neighborhood of fifty eight or fifty seven games because of injuries.
With this club, they have played most of the conference
season without Abdy Vasher, who was a sharpshooter for them
from three during the times that he was available. Forty
from three is pretty good right, and they missed that badly.
And again, they're not big enough, They're not deep enough,
and that's that's been problematic. They are good enough with
their guards on a day where they shoot the ball well,
if they do some other things well, where they can
give you a game, but getting over the hump has
been the biggest part of that. I mean, they scored
eighty five and Lawrence, but they gave up one hundred
and four. So you kind of get the idea. And
I'm I probably sound like Debbie Downer and I don't
mean to be that way, but I also have to
be honest. And when this season started, I'm not gonna
kid you, I really felt like they had enough to
maybe be middle of the pack, maybe be in the
conversation for an NCAA tournament team. And they haven't been.
They haven't been in the hemisphere of that, not even close.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So who are some of the key players, Like,
if Kansas City is going to be competitive in this
game vers at BYU, who are those players that are
going to stand up and show out in the bright
lights of the Big twelve tournament.
Speaker 3: Well, I think three guys are guys that I probably
should and need to mention. Probably PJ Haggerty would be
the lead guy. He was aimous. Think about this a minute.
He was a unanimous second team All American last year
at Memphis. He was an honorable mention Big twelve pick
this year and was second in the leading league in
scoring behind some guy named AJ Debonta who's averaging almost
twenty six a game into Big twelve play, but for PJ,
it's about twenty four and a half, so he's been
a good score right. The other two guys Amarie McGriff
who is undersized at you know, six eight six nine
and two thirty, left handed athletic, but really struggles with
foul trouble. But the last couple of games he's been
eighteen seven and two and seventeen seven and two because
he hasn't been in foul trouble at home against West
Virginia and at KU. And then the real wild card
for me is Nate Johnson. When Nate plays well, Kse
stages in games and they give themselves a chance. When
he doesn't, it's really, really, really difficult for them to
win games. And he's the kind of guy that he
could he could be a fifteen point seven rebound seven assists,
four steel guy. That's pretty good. Now, he doesn't do
that all the time, but I mean he's twelve and
a half p five rebounds, four and a half assists,
and leaves to the conference and steels. So when he
plays well, he's pretty good.
Speaker 2: Give me a little scouting report on BYU from your perspective.
What is it that they do well? What challenges do
they pose? And I look, they've had their ups and
downs this season. I mean there's a tenth team in
the Big twelve. Like sometimes they play like a top
ten team. Sometimes they played like maybe a top fifty team.
Speaker 3: You know, it's more than fair. Yeah, that's more than
fair man. I think what I would say is, I'm
just being honest. Losing Richie was really hard. He's such
a real t piece for them, that's, you know, very experienced.
I mean, how many guys, mean, be honest with yourself,
how many guys that you can you name that are
eighteen points, nearly six rebounds, two assists. Blue guy make
big shots, not afraid to be your top rebounder, defender
night once in a while. And this is a team
that has Devonsa and Robert Wright and others. So they
miss him a lot. Now, what do they pose in
terms of issues for Kansas State. Well, the one guy
that I always say really really hurts Case State is
because of the size and strength is Cape Keta. When
you think back to the game in Manhattan, hit eleven points,
sixteen rebounds, and I think a couple of blocks if
memory serves me right. Visiting with coach Driscoll this morning,
that's that's one of the things he said. They've got
this and this and this and this, but the one
guy that always seems to get us is Capa Keata
And that's a fact. I like what they do offensively.
I think if they if they defend, and you know,
they I looked. I watched the UH I watched part
of the Texas Tech game the other night live and
then rewatched it the next morning, and if I'm not mistaken,
they were down thirteen in the first half and came
back and won the game. I just wonder how they
will build off of that. That's that's a big time
get in my mind. So I think they're dangerous. Would
it be better for them long term if they had Richie, Yeah,
but they don't. Unfortunately, that's you know, we've seen that
with him, We've seen that with Topping. That's that's tough
this time of year.
Speaker 2: The Big twelve awards were dropped yesterday. Any thoughts on
any debate on who should have would have could have
received Maybe Player of the Year. We were debating a
little bit whether or not A J. Debonca deserved the
Player of the Year award. Give me your take on
the matter.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't tell you that. I think in a lot
of years he would have been the Player of the Year,
just just based on numbers alone and what he did consistently, right,
I think that's the thing you want to look at. That.
The interesting part for me with with Bradley winning the
award is I think Arizona was clearly the best team
in the league consistently start to finish. I think you'd
agree with that. But who's the main guy with them?
And maybe that's why they're so good Because one night
it's Crebas, one night is Philip he one night it's Bradley,
one night it was del Orso, I mean, Tobeyawaka. I mean,
you just keep going with those guys, right, And I
wonder sometimes the way these guys vote, maybe they cancel
each other out. So I really like Bradley, and you
went at the highest level with a good big man
and a good point guard. Everybody knows that, right, So
I don't necessarily disagree with Bradley, but I'm just trying
to state that in a lot of years, Debonsa would
have been the winner. In my opinion. As far as
the rest of them, I didn't have a real big
issue with it. And this is kind of nitpicking a little.
And I don't understand how that freshman guard at Colorado,
Isaiah Johnson, wasn't at least honorable mention. He really was
good when we saw him. I think he finished with
the flourished. But then you get to look in who
are you going to take off? To put him on there?
I didn't think it would have hurt to put him
on just as an honorable mentioned guy. But that's again,
that's probably myth picking. Did you have a real big
problem with any of them? You could argue all day
on the coach of the Year, But I if it
were me, I would love to This is just my opinion.
I would have loved to have seen the voting because
I wonder how many votes Johnny Dowkins would have gotten.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think most people want to see the votes. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I think most people want to see the votes. Yeah.
I think that if you you know, in this era,
I think everybody wants to know the why. Everybody wants
that accountability. And I think the awards are supposed to
be from a public relations standpoint, from an internal Big
twelfth emilial standpoint, They're not supposed to be controversial, right,
They're supposed to be really positive. They want to give
awards to everybody. Everybody gets an award, everybody gets a
troph everyone gets the medal. That's what it looks like
to me. And I think for the most part, save
the you know Thomas the call Rade Reguard, Like, I
think you're right, he probably should have got a nod
on the honorable mention. But if he didn't get a
vote for whatever reason, that's on the voters.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's probably more than fair. I'm
you know, I'm sitting here looking at this now. I
went ahead and called it up, and I mean that
that first team, it shows you the strength of the league.
But show me another league that has Ritchie Baba Miller,
Taman Lipsey, Mam Chileovich and Darren Peterson on the second team. Yeah,
I would. I would say that would stand up against anybody,
and then you continue to go down and like folks
at UCF, I thought he had a fantastic year, Xavier
Edmonds at TCU. Same. I love Colea Pete from the
night he had thirty first night out. You know, So
the league is, the league is really really good.
Speaker 2: How many NCAA tournament bits does the Big twelve get
this year?
Speaker 3: Well? I think they. I think they're pretty much locked
in for eight.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: I don't see how you can keep uc F and
TCU out now right, I just don't see that. To me,
it all comes down to, you know, big Steelers and
can and or can Cincinnati play their way in this week?
Do you agree with that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean I don't know how often the conference tournaments,
even in the kind of the power structure of basketball,
determine seeding. Right now, I feel like they kind of
like they they kind of the they toss it aside
to it. Agree. So, I think the idea of playing
playing into the tournament in the in your conference tournament
outside of the championship game, it seems to me to
be folly. I don't know. I could be wrong. Does
that make sense? Like I just I'm not there yet.
I'm not there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, I would not disagree with that in any way.
And I think generally speaking, and again I'll repeat it
that way, generally speaking, I think you're on the money.
But if you have if you have a team like
Cincinnati and that's.
Speaker 2: Trending, that's trending in.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, they didn't have Gizzle James for the longest
period of time to start the year, that's a relatively
legitimate piece.
Speaker 2: Not only that, the marketability of that name n c
W Gizzled James. You know what I mean, it really
it really rings true. I like it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think you can say that too. You know,
some some people were I think, just being dumb about it.
We're questioning about by you being in I'm going wait, wait, wait,
go look at their resume. Man. And you know what,
if I'm a if I'm a major college basketball fan
and I'm watching the tournament, don't we want to see
aj Debons in the tournament. Yes, and for that matter,
BYU in the tournament. But but sometimes it gets a
little bit and I'm not picking on anybody but come on,
Bruce Pearl, really.
Speaker 2: I will say this. If I will say this, I'll
counter it. If this was the college Football Playoff Committee,
for sure, b YU would be outside of the NCAA tournament.
They just find a way to leave BYU out and
not get them into the big boys club. I don't
know why that is.
Speaker 3: Well, let me tell you, I don't. I don't want
to speak for this past year because I think it
was tighter. But two years ago they got jobbed. Yeah, period,
end of story. I mean they beat said new head
to head at their place. That's to me. That really
fired me up. Man, and I I fight for the
Big twelve. I've been doing this in this league for
twenty four years, and a newcomer team or not. Man,
I'm all for them, and they deserve to be in
one h I'll fight that till the end of time.
Speaker 2: You know this, agreed? Well, this is what I'll say
about it, because I think Kansas State It's legacy, it's history,
be it on the grid iron, on the hardwood, is gritty,
blue collar, and I don't know if they always receive
the benefit of the doubt, you know, especially, I mean,
look like obviously the Snyder era is akin to an
adjacent to and parallel to in many ways the Lavell
era Edward Levell Edwards Eric excuse me, yeah, And so
like you know, I think there's some some similarities here,
kind of arm in arm and how the two programs
are built and were built and maybe having to overachieve
always because of whatever reason, right, you know, Kansas State
in many ways, And I look at like what Indiana
and Signetti are doing right now, and I think Snyder
in many ways built up Kansas State in kind of
the same way that Signetti is right now. And now
it's somewhat different because Signetti just won a national championship,
But I mean Kansas State was put on the mat
because of Snyder. That being said, I'll kind of end
with this new money. Old money doesn't like new money,
the new kids on the block in the college football
cabal that we're living in the cartel, right, this is
me being a conspiracy there. It's hard to break through there.
It's hard to get a equity in that brand stake,
is what I'm getting at. They don't like that new money,
they don't like the new kid on the block.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll just add this and I know you're probably
running out of time, But I'm one guy you could
be talking to today that experienced Lavelle Edwards and Bill Snyder.
Snyder more up close and personal than Lavelle. But I
was at Colorado State for a lot of years thirteen,
I believe, and there is nobody from an offensive mind
standpoint that I would necessarily put, you know, up against
him on most days. Yeah, you could argue Bill Snyder. Yeah,
you could probably argue Tom Osborne and maybe a couple
of two or three others. But we're talking elite, elite,
and sometimes I think he gets left out, and I
think that's sad. That dude was insanely good and put
BYU Athletics on the map. And as far as I'm
concerned and Snyder, most people that don't follow it all
that closely have no idea how bad case they was
when Bill Snyder showed up. They just don't know, and
believe me, they were bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right the way would you say that they were
kind of in lockstep, kind of side by side with
who Indiana has been, you know, over the years, like historically,
and then Snyder came in and completely changed the trajectory
of the.
Speaker 3: Program they went, they went to one bowl for Snyder
showed up in their history and you know how they
did it, Yeah, they did it a bunch of guys
that they red shirted for a year and then brought
him back his red shirt seniors and they played in
the Independence Bowl Bend in Shreveport. So Snyder comes along.
Snyder comes along and goes to eleven straight and wins
two Big twelve championships. A little different animal.
Speaker 2: It took him five years to get to a bowl
game though. That's what's so crazy. I mean they went
seven to four, you know, and in a modern era,
yeah they would have been I mean, but yeah, So
when I when I look at it like that, I
really do I see I see a lot of similarities
to Indiana and Kansas State in the pre Snyder era.
Well hopefully, hopefully it's a great game to I you know, turning,
you know, our gaze, casting our games towards the b
YU Kansas State matchup. Two fantastic programs. One that has
been relink with turmoil in b YU, A little bit
of a Jeckyll and Hide team this year. B YU
a favorite in this game. I think eleven and a
half point favorite and ESPN Analytics gives B y U
and eighty three point nine percent chance at victory, but
hopefully it's a competitive one five pm tip off, I
believe on ESPN Plus. Well, we appreciate you joining us.
Thanks for getting letting us get to know the phone,
Wyatt Thompson. Ladies and gentlemen, we appreciate you. Why we'll
catch up with the en soon.
Speaker 3: You got it, but always right talking to you, my friend,
Thank you, my.
Speaker 2: Pleasure, my blessing, talking to Wyatt there. That segment was
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