Speaker 1: Welcome to the Big Blind Sider. Dick Gabriel with you
Speaker 1: on a Tuesday edition of our program. It is exam week.
Speaker 1: Hope you're studying hard. What it means is no midweek
Speaker 1: basketball games. The women play on Friday at six o'clock
Speaker 1: at Historic Memorial Coliseum against Belmont, and the men, of course,
Speaker 1: will be in New York City for the Ohio State
Speaker 1: game about five thirty. It's the second game of that
Speaker 1: doubleheader in Madison Square Garden. And yes, I am going up.
Speaker 1: The wife and I are actually going to make that
Speaker 1: trip Christmas in New York. I love it, and I've
Speaker 1: seen several games in Madison Square Garden. In fact, I
Speaker 1: covered the nit in nineteen seventy six start to finish
Speaker 1: all four games up there. The Kentucky Colonel crew. We
Speaker 1: went up. Gosh, there were four of us to have
Speaker 1: fun and have a long weekend in New York because
Speaker 1: we thought the Wildcats might win a game, Nah, maybe two,
Speaker 1: but we knew we'd be coming home. Nope. I just
Speaker 1: kept right on winning. I had to go to laundromat
Speaker 1: and do some laundry to last out the week. But
Speaker 1: the Garden's a great place to see college basketball and
Speaker 1: it should be interesting. So we'll talk about the basketball
Speaker 1: Cats here in just a moment. Later on, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk with j R. Vanhus, who, of course was
Speaker 1: a Kentucky schoolboy legend went under a great career at Marshall,
Speaker 1: his alma mater. Had to drop out of the Independence
Speaker 1: Bowl in Shreveport, a ten to three team, but their
Speaker 1: coach resigned to take a different job at Southern Miss
Speaker 1: and so so many players jumped into the portal with
Speaker 1: the head coach leaving, they can't feel a team. So
Speaker 1: now there's going to be a five and seven Louisiana
Speaker 1: Tech team playing in that bowl game. That's where it's
Speaker 1: come to with the portal and nil money. So we'll
Speaker 1: talk to JR about that a little bit later on
Speaker 1: in the show. But basketball Cats, of course, coming off
Speaker 1: the big win over those Louisville Cardinals, Lamont Butler with
Speaker 1: just an incredible performance, a perfect night at the second
Speaker 1: most points thirty three ever scored against the Cardinals Derek
Speaker 1: Miller at thirty four, many many years ago. But Jack
Speaker 1: Gibbons talked to Lamont about the fact that, yeah, he
Speaker 1: came off the ankle injury. But Lamont assured Jack they
Speaker 1: would have won without him.
Speaker 2: But I don't know how we win that thing to
Speaker 2: night without you out there. We were one to just
Speaker 2: like we won the last two games with that like that.
Speaker 2: Just you know, everybody steps up, you know when when
Speaker 2: someone goes down. You know, Kurt was out, so we
Speaker 2: all stepped up again. So, you know, a big credit
Speaker 2: to my teammates. They you know, continue to play with hard.
Speaker 2: You know, with me on or off the Corey, It's
Speaker 2: gonna take us far this year.
Speaker 1: Those are noble sentiments. And at first I thought, yeah,
Speaker 1: Jack's right, But then I got to thinking, when you
Speaker 1: watch this Kentucky team, Yeah, you gotta worry if you're
Speaker 1: the opposing team about Lamont Butler, But you also have
Speaker 1: to worry about Jackson Robinson on the Arc. You gotta
Speaker 1: worry about Andrew car You gotta worry about so many things.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people have said there's no truce, Superstar,
Speaker 1: there's no true lottery pick or whatever that is. That
Speaker 1: is a fact. I do agree with that, But I
Speaker 1: just think the way that Mark Pope has put this
Speaker 1: team together speaks well to the balance, teamwork, unselfishness for
Speaker 1: this team and in fact, speaking to Jackson Robinson. Somebody
Speaker 1: asked him after the game if it surprised him the
Speaker 1: Lamont butler, known for defense, jumped up with an effort
Speaker 1: like this on offense and before whoever was asking the
Speaker 1: question could finish, Robinson was shaking his head. No, not
Speaker 1: at all. I played Lamont last three years.
Speaker 3: I know exactly what he's capable of, and just being
Speaker 3: with a coach like Coach Pope and just learning the system,
Speaker 3: learning how to playoff two feet, make plays for his teammates.
Speaker 3: He wasn't forcing anything, got all the great shots that
Speaker 3: he gets every single game. They were open and he
Speaker 3: knocked him down. So I mean, I couldn't be more problem.
Speaker 3: Puts them to work every day.
Speaker 1: That last comment, Seeing him put in the work every day,
Speaker 1: that is so important. And I don't get to go
Speaker 1: to practice a lot, but what I have as a
Speaker 1: constant reminder of how much time these kids spend in
Speaker 1: the gym. They spend time working with the team, working
Speaker 1: with their coaches, but they spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: in there by themselves. John Caliperry talked about this a lot,
Speaker 1: and it was important when he talked about it. When
Speaker 1: any coach talks about it. The work these guys do
Speaker 1: on their own as well as practice is so vital.
Speaker 1: And with Lamont Butler, it's clear he's worked on his shooting.
Speaker 1: I mean to work on defense. Of course, you got
Speaker 1: to have your teammates around. You can do slides, you
Speaker 1: can do all kinds of individual work, but when you're
Speaker 1: honing that skill it takes to read an opponent and
Speaker 1: to shoot passing lanes and things like that. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: got to come in either full court practice or drills.
Speaker 1: But it's the reps that make you a better shooter.
Speaker 1: And Jack Gibbons has talked about it on the air.
Speaker 1: Everybody who's ever played basketball knows that the more time
Speaker 1: you spend on reps doing things right. If you're jacking
Speaker 1: up shot after shot and you've got major flaws in
Speaker 1: your shot, then it's going to hurt you, obviously. But
Speaker 1: the guys who spend time in there working by themselves,
Speaker 1: working with their teammates, it pays off, of course, And
Speaker 1: so that's why Robinson wasn't surprised at all that his
Speaker 1: teammate had such a big game shift over to football.
Speaker 1: For just a moment. We talked about this a little
Speaker 1: bit on the state wide show last night. Wake Forest
Speaker 1: head coach Dave Clawson is stepping down and you might
Speaker 1: shrug and say, eh, so well, a couple things. Number One,
Speaker 1: Brad White's a wake Forest alum. If you're Wake Forest,
Speaker 1: do you not take a good, hard look at him? Yes,
Speaker 1: I know Kentucky struggled this year, but if you're smart,
Speaker 1: if you're a smart ad, you look beyond that. You
Speaker 1: look at the body of work and you talk to
Speaker 1: other people who will tell you, not that I'm trying
Speaker 1: to push this guy out the door, but they'll tell
Speaker 1: you he's a tremendous defensive coordinator. And then you've got
Speaker 1: to sit down and talk to him to find out
Speaker 1: if he's a good fit, if he wants the job.
Speaker 1: And again I haven't heard anything about it. It just makes
Speaker 1: sense to link the two and don't talk about the fact.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying he's a candidate. I'm just saying there's
Speaker 1: a connection. Clawson, what a great job. In eleven years,
Speaker 1: seven Bowl games, twice had them in the top fifteen.
Speaker 1: Wake Forest. That's the Vandy of the acc Due respect
Speaker 1: to Andy, but he wanted out. He's not happy as
Speaker 1: a coach right now. And one have you heard that before?
Speaker 1: Thank you Nil, Thank you Portal. Want to come on
Speaker 1: six thirty eight WLAP Welcome back to the Big Blue Sider.
Speaker 1: Coming up at the bottom of the hour. WKYT's Brian
Speaker 1: Milem who is of course covering the Basthtsketball Cats the
Speaker 1: football Cats, but also has recently been named to the WYMT,
Speaker 1: the TV station in Hazard where Brian worked for I
Speaker 1: think a dozen years. Brian has been named to the
Speaker 1: WYMT Mountain Classic Hall of Fame. That's the basketball tournament
Speaker 1: that's been happening for nearly four decades now. Crazy success
Speaker 1: in the Mountains and Brian's been a part of that,
Speaker 1: the coverage. Brian loved covering sports in the Mountains and
Speaker 1: did a great job. We've talked to him about that before.
Speaker 1: A little bit later on Jara Van, who's speaking of
Speaker 1: the mountains. Paintsville High School legend mister Basketball, helped lead
Speaker 1: Paintsville to a Sweet sixteen championship in the mid nineties,
Speaker 1: went on to a great career at Marshall, and we
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to him about Marshall having to drop
Speaker 1: out of a bowl game. He's had some strong comments
Speaker 1: on social media, so we'll talk to him about that,
Speaker 1: and we'll put a rap on the Kentucky volleyball season
Speaker 1: with Hunter Mitchell, who covers the sport so capably for
Speaker 1: On Three. In fact, he writes about it so well
Speaker 1: and takes really good photos for their website as well.
Speaker 1: But I did want to touch base on a couple
Speaker 1: of things. There's been so much fallout about Bill Belichick,
Speaker 1: and I join those who are skeptical simply because I
Speaker 1: just really wonder about Bill Belichick sitting in somebody's living
Speaker 1: room trying to beg an eighteen year old to come
Speaker 1: play for him. And I don't buy this stuff about
Speaker 1: all kids don't know who he is. Yeah they do,
Speaker 1: Yeah they do. They know who Tom Brady is and
Speaker 1: kids who love football. If you want to be a
Speaker 1: college football player, you eat, sleep, and breathe a sport.
Speaker 1: So I guarantee you you pay attention to more than
Speaker 1: just what's happened in the last twenty minutes. So they
Speaker 1: know who Belichick is. If for no other reason, the
Speaker 1: Belichick story is front and center all the time, it
Speaker 1: was about the fact that he couldn't get an NFL job.
Speaker 1: Now it's about the fact that he's going to be
Speaker 1: coaching college football. But yeah, Tom Brady's coaching. Why do
Speaker 1: you think Rick Patino at success when he first got
Speaker 1: to Kentucky. Well, this guy coach the Knicks. You know,
Speaker 1: this guy knows how to get me to the league.
Speaker 1: You think Belichick isn't going to sell that. He already is.
Speaker 1: He said it's going to be his program will be
Speaker 1: a feeder system to the NFL. But it's interesting. He
Speaker 1: was on with Pat McAfee the other day, as he
Speaker 1: has been frequently, and McAfee was going on about his
Speaker 1: thoughts about it and you know what's gonna happen down
Speaker 1: in Chapel Hill, and Belichick interjected with some pretty good
Speaker 1: promotional ideas. Bill.
Speaker 4: I want to let you know last week I spent
Speaker 4: a lot of time talking about you recruiting with a
Speaker 4: lot of people, you know, because cause you come on
Speaker 4: the show, because we did the draft together, because I'm
Speaker 4: considered an NFL person, All the college football people that
Speaker 4: I know are like, how do you think Bill's gonna do?
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, Bill's not gonna half ass anything like
Speaker 4: for He's not gonna He's gonna be very well researched.
Speaker 4: His team is obviously going to be held to a
Speaker 4: standard the way they're going to operate, Like, I think
Speaker 4: he's gonna win. And everybody was like, well, how's he
Speaker 4: gonna recruit, how's he gonna recruit, how's he gonna recruit?
Speaker 4: You think he's gonna recruit? And it's like, I think
Speaker 4: it's gonna be a little different for him. I think
Speaker 4: it's gonna bet. And I literally spent the entire week
Speaker 4: saying that to a lot of college football people. So
Speaker 4: to hear that it's all kind of happening the way
Speaker 4: that we thought it was.
Speaker 1: Can I jump in there?
Speaker 5: It's like, why don't you come down and talk about
Speaker 5: it in person?
Speaker 1: How about if we do game day down here? See
Speaker 1: already gets yeah, gets it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Hey, we love that. Uh And I would be
Speaker 4: honored to go down there. Lombardi tells me it's the
Speaker 4: most beautiful place that he's ever been, and obviously he
Speaker 4: told us about you guys taking the off seasons down
Speaker 4: there when instead of watching film in Cleveland.
Speaker 1: We can't wait to get down there. I can't wait
Speaker 1: to get down And again that's Pat McAfee and Bill Belichick.
Speaker 1: Courtesy of ESPN. I heard Sally Jenkins talking to Tony Corneiser. Jenkins,
Speaker 1: of course, is a tremendous sports writer for the Washington Post.
Speaker 1: She talked about the fact that Belichick's parents were we're educators,
Speaker 1: and of course his dad was a coach but was
Speaker 1: tenured at the Naval Academy, and she thought, she said, well,
Speaker 1: maybe he has belonged on a college campus all along.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think the way Bill Belichick,
Speaker 1: with all due respect to Sally Jenkins, he was a
Speaker 1: great NFL coach and GM and manager whatever it took
Speaker 1: to build that program. And yes, things, you know, fell
Speaker 1: off the table after Brady left, but that team was
Speaker 1: so much more than Brady. And yeah, you've got to
Speaker 1: have a good trigger man, but of course if you
Speaker 1: don't have the guys around him like the Julian Edelmans,
Speaker 1: you know. And of course Belichick coached the defense and
Speaker 1: the Patriots won as much with their defense as they
Speaker 1: did with Brady. So will he be successful in North Carolina?
Speaker 1: It depends on who surrounds him, depends on who he hires.
Speaker 1: If he hires people with extensive college experience and then
Speaker 1: listens to them, that's the key. Will he listen to
Speaker 1: them and take their advice. Yeah, he could be successful,
Speaker 1: no question about that. A couple of other notes from
Speaker 1: the national picture Adam Schefter, who I'm not a huge
Speaker 1: fan of his, nothing personal, but I think ESPN bends
Speaker 1: over backwards to make it seem like he's got the
Speaker 1: inside view on everything, when in fact they'll run a
Speaker 1: crawl stating a story someone else has broken, and then
Speaker 1: I'll put a Schefter confirms, well, so what. But anyhow,
Speaker 1: he's going at it with Doug Gottlieb, who was a
Speaker 1: radio personality for CBS Sports Network and CBS TV. I'm
Speaker 1: not a huge Gottlieb fan either, but Gottlieb is now
Speaker 1: the head coach at Wisconsin Green Bay and he took
Speaker 1: issue on the interweb with Schefter tweeting the fact that
Speaker 1: Sacramento State is talking to Michael Vick as its new
Speaker 1: head coach and said the school plans to move up
Speaker 1: to FBS building a new stadium with over fifty million
Speaker 1: dollars in nil, and Godlieb took a shot at him, saying,
Speaker 1: Jesus with a zz shifty edit, what agents tell you
Speaker 1: zero points zero percent chance? Sach State is fifty million
Speaker 1: in nil? And Schefter fired right back at him, saying
Speaker 1: the school has already announced it has reached its initial
Speaker 1: goal of raising fifty million in NIL funds to strengthen
Speaker 1: the school's case for an invitation to the PAC twelve
Speaker 1: or Mountain West Conference. That I'd be debies at a
Speaker 1: number as well, but Schefter is quoting school officials. God
Speaker 1: Leaves to bind a skepticism, said they have to raise
Speaker 1: money for a stadium, coaches, and then nil, saying it's
Speaker 1: fifty million in nil as Disingenuos was. But Schefter came
Speaker 1: back and said, Jesus Doug with a Z A seven
Speaker 1: game losing streak and last place in the Horizon League,
Speaker 1: less time on social media, more time in the gym,
Speaker 1: ye Green Bay right now two and ten overall, zero
Speaker 1: to three in the conference. So we'll just leave that
Speaker 1: right there. One other note before we hit the brake.
Speaker 1: If you're an NFL fan, there's a chance you have
Speaker 1: the red zone, and I do have it. Although I
Speaker 1: did not watch last Sunday. I was working on something
Speaker 1: at the TV on in the background. In fact, I
Speaker 1: looked up because I was waiting for my Packers to
Speaker 1: come on Sunday Night Football. By then, the red zones
Speaker 1: wrapped up, but whatever I was doing, it sort of
Speaker 1: distracted me, so I didn't even dial up the red zone.
Speaker 1: And so now I'm reading that there were commercials throughout
Speaker 1: the seven hours, and fans took to the interweb to
Speaker 1: social media happy about it. Because Scott Hansen, who hosts
Speaker 1: that day long festival of NFL highlights it, does a
Speaker 1: tremendous job. He always comes on with the promise of quote,
Speaker 1: seven hours of commercial free football, and I've always wondered,
Speaker 1: are subscriptions enough to make this channel work. Well, evidently
Speaker 1: the answers know or somebody got greedy upstairs because now,
Speaker 1: and admittedly they did it with a split screen, they
Speaker 1: were dropping in commercials on the red zone. So if
Speaker 1: that bothers you, they ain't going away. And again fans
Speaker 1: made a big deal. Fans let people know it did
Speaker 1: indeed bother them that they were seeing commercials on their
Speaker 1: beloved red zone. And somebody told me. I was skeptical
Speaker 1: about it. Somebody told me it'll change your life, and
Speaker 1: it did. Indeed, another NFL story that's out there, this
Speaker 1: is interesting to me. Actually, it's double sided. Bone Knicks,
Speaker 1: the rookie quarterback for the Broncos. He might be the
Speaker 1: rookie of the year, leads them to a comeback win
Speaker 1: over the Colts. Right, he throws three interceptions for the
Speaker 1: first time in his career, but he kept grinding. He
Speaker 1: hung in there, and he leads the Broncos to a win.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people thought the Broncos would stink
Speaker 1: this year, at the very best, be mediocre. But because
Speaker 1: of Nicks. And remember now, the Broncos got rid of
Speaker 1: Russell Wilson handed the car keys to a rookie. This
Speaker 1: is a guy who started his career in the SEC.
Speaker 1: He was a much ballyhooed quarterback at Auburn. He was
Speaker 1: going to be the guy who led Auburn back to
Speaker 1: the mountaintop. Well, fans turned on him. He struggled for
Speaker 1: a while. Beat Kentucky. It was the open air for
Speaker 1: the COVID year. Remember the year that Kentucky played nothing.
Speaker 1: Everybody played nothing but conference games. That was Kentucky's opener
Speaker 1: at Auburn and Kentucky got out of a touchdown, ends
Speaker 1: up losing. Bo Nicks had a great game be Kentucky
Speaker 1: as much with his legs as his arm, but later
Speaker 1: in the year struggled and people turned on him and
Speaker 1: he left. Which quarterbacks are doing that a lot? As
Speaker 1: you know, goes to Oregon, has an incredible career at Oregon,
Speaker 1: and now he's doing great things in the NFL. And
Speaker 1: you got to wonder, if you're an Auburn fan, just
Speaker 1: how badly did we screw up letting that guy get away?
Speaker 1: I mean, one of his veteran teammates said, he is
Speaker 1: so tough, smart and put together. He's everything you want
Speaker 1: him in that moment, didn't even blink, just kept going
Speaker 1: and kept at it. And it's a team football game.
Speaker 1: Now balance that against what's happening in San Francisco with
Speaker 1: Devondre Campbell. He's done. He's the guy who walked to
Speaker 1: the locker room in the second half during the game
Speaker 1: of their twelve to six loss to the Rams and
Speaker 1: his locker now empty, and his teammates have basically said
Speaker 1: good riddance. One of his teammates said, to quit in
Speaker 1: your team. That just sucks. Nick Bosa said, I think
Speaker 1: he's gonna have a hard time finding somewhere else to
Speaker 1: go when you act like that. He believes this guy's
Speaker 1: career is over. He's only thirty one, nine year veteran,
Speaker 1: but he was moved to a backup role for this
Speaker 1: game because another guy made his season debut after tearing
Speaker 1: his achilles in February, and he just wasn't happy about it,
Speaker 1: complained about it before the game, during the game, left,
Speaker 1: and now his locker's empty. So things like that matter
Speaker 1: both when you're hanging in there and getting the job
Speaker 1: done for your team and when you turn your back
Speaker 1: on your team and literally walk away. Ryan milms up
Speaker 1: next from wyt here on six thirty WLAP. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to the Big Blue Insider, joining us now as a
Speaker 1: buddy of mine and a longtime friend of the show
Speaker 1: and now a Hall of Famer, mister Brian Nylem. I'm
Speaker 1: teasing you before one on the air, but it is
Speaker 1: what an honor. You were named to the Mountain Classic
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame, and you and I have talked before
Speaker 1: about your love for the time you've spent in the
Speaker 1: mountains and you still spend time in that part of
Speaker 1: the state. Congratulations, first of all, thank you.
Speaker 6: It is a nice honor when you can be in
Speaker 6: the same company, at least by name with Bobby Keith,
Speaker 6: Richie Farmer, Jr. Van Hoos Clay County, Paintsville, you know
Speaker 6: in the list at Jay Crawford, the list goes on
Speaker 6: and on. So I'm at the special. It was a
Speaker 6: special moment and it's.
Speaker 1: A great coincidence I have Jr. Coming on in the
Speaker 1: show a little bit later on, so it's kind of a
Speaker 1: hall of Fame sort of show, the host notwithstanding. But well,
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit of course in Mountain Classic,
Speaker 1: Brian goes back how far and by the way, I
Speaker 1: think I told you this. I was in the building
Speaker 1: the da wymt you went on the air. Our late
Speaker 1: Gray GM Ralph Gabbard, who built that place, leaving the
Speaker 1: ground up. He wanted all of us department heads, all
Speaker 1: of his management team from Lexington to be there for
Speaker 1: this historic occasion. So we saw the sun come up
Speaker 1: over the mountain where the transmitter is and we saw
Speaker 1: it go on the air. But tell us about the
Speaker 1: history of that basketball tournament.
Speaker 6: Well, the tournament was started in nineteen eighty eight and
Speaker 6: it was to raise money scholarship money for four students,
Speaker 6: I mean basically, and at the very at the inception,
Speaker 6: it was eight scholarships, I think, one to represent each
Speaker 6: school involved in the tournament. Well now here we are
Speaker 6: thirty eight years later, and that scholarship a lot is
Speaker 6: more than five million dollars. And wow again, from eight
Speaker 6: thousand and year one to a totality of more than
Speaker 6: five million, that's pretty incredible. And oh yeah, by the way,
Speaker 6: you've seen some great basketball over the years too. But
Speaker 6: the premise was to raise money to send Appalachian students
Speaker 6: to college that may not have had the means to
Speaker 6: do so, or at least give them a jump start
Speaker 6: into thinking about college and rewarding students who had done
Speaker 6: the work.
Speaker 1: And it has survived, it has thrived, it has grown,
Speaker 1: which says everything there is to say about the pride
Speaker 1: of the mountains really, and I don't know how to
Speaker 1: how to better put it. I mean, there you know
Speaker 1: people who've lived their all their lives. They love it,
Speaker 1: even though it's it's sometimes a rough place to live,
Speaker 1: but it's theirs, and they live it, don't.
Speaker 6: They they do? And you know, and just to show
Speaker 6: you the impact, I came across the story you did
Speaker 6: with st Roach, oh yeah, twenty five years ago maybe,
Speaker 6: and you asked him, who treated your dunbar bearcats better
Speaker 6: than anybody else? And he said all the people in
Speaker 6: the mountains, Wow, and you said really said, yeah, Breathitt County, Pikesville,
Speaker 6: those people treated us better than any other place in
Speaker 6: the state of Kentucky. And if st Roach can say that,
Speaker 6: what's that mean for? I mean, that's just the ultimate
Speaker 6: sign of affirmation about Eastern Kentucky. If sd roach Conte says.
Speaker 1: A lot about the sport of basketball, too, doesn't it?
Speaker 6: Sure? I mean with John Bill Trivett, who was coaching
Speaker 6: at Pikeville for those years and helped raise money for schools,
Speaker 6: you know, if dun Bar's having a tough situation, hey,
Speaker 6: come on over here. We'll feed you, we'll house you,
Speaker 6: and we'll play some great basketball. And man, I would
Speaker 6: have loved to have lived in that era that Bob
Speaker 6: White and Earl Cox got to live through. We just
Speaker 6: lost Bob lastly, but they saw some They saw the
Speaker 6: foundation really and the explosion of high school basketball in
Speaker 6: this state.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you what I did. I mean, I
Speaker 1: was a kid, but I'm a little bit older than you.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean back back when you know basketball,
Speaker 1: high school basketball was a king in the state of Kentucky.
Speaker 1: They would talk about New York Chicago, LA, and Kentucky.
Speaker 1: You know, in terms of young kids coming up and
Speaker 1: playing ball. I think there's still a lot of that
Speaker 1: in the mountains, don't you.
Speaker 6: I think there is. But obviously, with the decline of
Speaker 6: population in the mountains, the Tallepool is going to dwindle.
Speaker 6: And that's why the nineteen eighties for me from college
Speaker 6: and high school in this state may have been second
Speaker 6: to none at least when you compare decades throughout this
Speaker 6: state's history. But it is tough to see the dwindling
Speaker 6: population again. The Tallepool is going to suffer a little bit.
Speaker 6: But one thing that doesn't suffer is the pride and
Speaker 6: the way these communities show up for their teams, not
Speaker 6: just basketball, but football as well. And it's really something special.
Speaker 6: If you've never been there to experience and said, you
Speaker 6: need to. Devin Jackson, one of our guys at KYT,
Speaker 6: he was down there. He goes, man, this is all right,
Speaker 6: shod and this is nothing compared to what it was
Speaker 6: twenty years ago when you'd have five thousand strong and
Speaker 6: twenty five hundred on each sidy to kill each other.
Speaker 1: We're talking to Brian Milem, sports director WKYT and now
Speaker 1: a member of the Mountain Classic Hall of Fame, the
Speaker 1: WYMT Mountain Classic Hall of Fame. You're talking about the eighties,
Speaker 1: I got to think that it it. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it peaked, but certainly it culminated in Richie Farmer
Speaker 1: versus Alan Houston, that game in the Sweet sixteen where
Speaker 1: they both went for a thousand points.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was. That was in many ways the last.
Speaker 6: In some ways it felt like maybe I'm just being
Speaker 6: I'm overlooking something, but that was the last great rivalry
Speaker 6: that pitted city versus country, small town team versus an
Speaker 6: enrollment of two thousand. You know, it had to have
Speaker 6: a great rivalry. You must have contrasting styles. Oli Frasier. Yeah,
Speaker 6: Ballard and Clay County. You've got the tall, beautiful looking
Speaker 6: athlete in Ali and you got the short, kind of
Speaker 6: clumsy looking guy who's just coming straight at you, the
Speaker 6: Rocky Balboa guy. Yeah, you know. And that's what Clay
Speaker 6: and Ballard was in eighty seven and eighty eight, And
Speaker 6: I think people forget they met in the Louisville Invitational
Speaker 6: Tournament in Clay County won there and eighty eight finals.
Speaker 6: The eighty eight state finals was the culmination of Clay
Speaker 6: County winning the year before and then Ballard and maybe
Speaker 6: it's coincidence, irony, I don't know. Clay County wins it
Speaker 6: in rough Ballard wins it in Freedom Ball.
Speaker 1: That's a great point. I hadn't thought about that either.
Speaker 1: But I remember Terry Hatton, who of course had to
Speaker 1: walk on UK and he's since written a book. His
Speaker 1: dad's verned and wrote a book about being a ticket
Speaker 1: scout for He was an intern at KYT and he
Speaker 1: and a young Steve Moss so I think was an
Speaker 1: intern then as well, went on to become executive sports producer,
Speaker 1: you know, one of your colleagues. They argued all season
Speaker 1: about Richie and Allen, and of course Terry's game was
Speaker 1: much closer to Allen's than Richie's, and Steve kept telling him,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, and I remember getting to that game,
Speaker 1: and it was in the early stages of that game
Speaker 1: at Freedom Hall and Terry looks up at me and
Speaker 1: all he said was, you know, I believe it now.
Speaker 1: You know I get it when you see Richie Farmer play.
Speaker 1: But then again, you know, Alan Houston went on to
Speaker 1: have an incredible career for Bad teams at Tennessee. But
Speaker 1: also I think you'll agree, Brian, because you grew up
Speaker 1: following U of L as I did. If he goes
Speaker 1: to Louisville instead of Tennessee, I think the trajectory of
Speaker 1: Denny Crumb's career, his career ends on a much higher note,
Speaker 1: don't you.
Speaker 6: Absolutely When Wade Houston left, he was the main recruiter,
Speaker 6: and he went the Vince Marrow to Mark Stews at
Speaker 6: that time. And when he left, so did that pipeline,
Speaker 6: maybe the Camden, New Jersey, and maybe the pipeline to
Speaker 6: other places that had made Louisville so successful, And unfortunately
Speaker 6: it did not follow to Knoxville for Wade. Now Allen had.
Speaker 6: He may still be the school's all time leading score,
Speaker 6: maybe behind christ Oh gosh, how can I forget his name? Yes,
Speaker 6: Chris Laughton. Maybe he's two behind him or maybe still
Speaker 6: a head I don't remember. But he had an individually
Speaker 6: spectacular life in Knoxville, but as a team they didn't
Speaker 6: make it. And Diddy Crumb goes to at least in
Speaker 6: my opinion too, maybe three more final fours of Allan
Speaker 6: Houston as a global cardinal, and he'd like to think
Speaker 6: with his track record of getting to the final four
Speaker 6: that he could have won at least one of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're talking to Brian Milam WKYT is the newest
Speaker 1: one of the newest members of the WYMT Mountain Classic
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. When we come back, we'll talk some
Speaker 1: baseball and some Wildcat Wildcat basketball that is here on
Speaker 1: the other side of the break six thirty WLAP Welcome back.
Speaker 1: We're talking with Brian Mylam of WKYT as the sports director.
Speaker 1: I often call him Mister Baseball because he just absolutely
Speaker 1: loves baseball, played it in college at Morehead State. And
Speaker 1: before I get to the basketball cats, Brian, I texted
Speaker 1: you the other day about this the Golden Rule or
Speaker 1: whatever they're calling it, that the suits who run Major
Speaker 1: League Baseball are actually considering this some kind of rule
Speaker 1: tweak where at a certain point in the game you
Speaker 1: can send up to the plate your best hitter whoever
Speaker 1: you want, which would just be an a just an
Speaker 1: aberration of the worst degree. I know you hate that
Speaker 1: as well, but what we talked about in text is
Speaker 1: the fact they're even thinking about this. Nuts.
Speaker 6: It's called the Golden at bat that's it. And this
Speaker 6: tells you all you should need to know. It was
Speaker 6: basically it was brought up a decade ago by someone
Speaker 6: within the MLB commissioner just a you know, just a
Speaker 6: pipe dream, hey, just a brainstorm. But the Savannah Bananas
Speaker 6: are the ones who put it into play. And Savannah Bananas, yes,
Speaker 6: they played base but their number one objective is to
Speaker 6: be entertaining. It's not about winning championships and doing you
Speaker 6: know whatever. I mean, at what point are they trying
Speaker 6: to make Major League Baseball just backyard baseball? Hey? Ghost Runners? Second? Sick?
Speaker 6: All right, I'm here, you know, then you go listen.
Speaker 6: I just can't understand how anybody in their right mind
Speaker 6: would say this is a great idea. I just I
Speaker 6: can't understand it. And uh, you know, I thought the
Speaker 6: pitch clock rule for the pitch I thought that was
Speaker 6: a great idea because the game was being slowed down
Speaker 6: in ways it was not meant to be. Yeah, uh
Speaker 6: that And at first I thought, well, the umpires have
Speaker 6: allowed this to happen because they should never. They should
Speaker 6: always and say hey let's go, let's go pick it up,
Speaker 6: pick it up. But they didn't, So I don't mind
Speaker 6: that rule. The ghost Runner at second needs to go.
Speaker 6: I mean at some point just for the just to
Speaker 6: speed up baseball, what are they going to inherit a
Speaker 6: three to two count next year? And he's all right,
Speaker 6: you're on the beauty of baseball. For me and for
Speaker 6: many was that it was there was no time, there
Speaker 6: was no clock. You may play all night if you
Speaker 6: don't get that lashed out. And I love Thomas Boswell,
Speaker 6: the great writer for the Washington Post for all those years,
Speaker 6: and he even mentioned one time he's he wrote in
Speaker 6: a in an article about just basically an impairphrasing. Just
Speaker 6: when you think you understand baseball, there's an illusion that
Speaker 6: can almost be understood. You can almost see what's going on,
Speaker 6: but you really don't know the intricacy things. And if
Speaker 6: this happens, I mean, you talk about driving Billy Martin
Speaker 6: and Earl we were crazy. They'd have great arguments. It
Speaker 6: just doesn't make any sense as to changing the game
Speaker 6: is one thing, enhancing it as another. And this would
Speaker 6: change it and it would not enhance it at all.
Speaker 1: No, And like you said, the next thing you know
Speaker 1: is that you know leftfield's closed. You know that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff like in a bankard. No, it's nuts. Well,
Speaker 1: let us get over to the basketball catch. You've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of those uku of l games, and to me,
Speaker 1: what surprised me the most was the fact, and this
Speaker 1: is not a knock on Kentucky. Oh maybe it is,
Speaker 1: Kentucky goes up ten and couldn't pull away. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you had the same sort of feeling, But
Speaker 1: what did you make of that? What did you make
Speaker 1: the way that game was played?
Speaker 6: Well, I think it depends on how you look at it,
Speaker 6: because you know our job, your job, my job is
Speaker 6: to look at it from both both angles. And yeah,
Speaker 6: Kentucky could not pull away, So that means you got
Speaker 6: to credit Louisville a little bit. And it's been tough
Speaker 6: to credit Louisville at anything over the last five years
Speaker 6: and four years. So you've got to credit Louisville for
Speaker 6: having a belief in what they're doing. And you also
Speaker 6: got to remember, for Louisville, they were without two of
Speaker 6: their players who were lost to the year for medical reasons.
Speaker 6: They've been gone for a couple of weeks now. But
Speaker 6: Kentucky could not pull away, and I think if I'm
Speaker 6: Kentucky a little bit, the only thing that bothers me is,
Speaker 6: you gave up eighty five points. You scored ninety three.
Speaker 6: But at some point down the road, you're going to
Speaker 6: have to stop giving up these these bursts. And for
Speaker 6: Louis to score eighty five, louisles much better. It's amazing
Speaker 6: what an attitude adjustment and a culture culture adjustment can
Speaker 6: do for a program. But if Lamont Butler is not perfect,
Speaker 6: who knows what outcome we've got.
Speaker 1: That's true, that's true. A few minutes Levet with Brian
Speaker 1: Mylin from WKYT, you and I talk a lot about
Speaker 1: were both old schools. You know, you're an old soul
Speaker 1: like me, even though you're younger. And the big picture
Speaker 1: on this Kentucky team, I think is incredible, given the
Speaker 1: fact that the new coach comes in and has to
Speaker 1: build a roster literally from the ground up, due respect
Speaker 1: to the walk Ons. Never been done at Kentucky, rarely
Speaker 1: done in college basketball period. I remember Max Good had
Speaker 1: to rebuild the EKU program when he got the job.
Speaker 1: He was an assistant and was promoted, but he had
Speaker 1: two scholarship players to start with, you know, none, and
Speaker 1: this is of course one of the blue bloods. Where
Speaker 1: do you put this in the Annals of College Basketball History, Brian,
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying this team's going to win the
Speaker 1: national title, but just the fact that it's thriving says
Speaker 1: so much.
Speaker 6: You know, I don't remember what it was like, and
Speaker 6: you would when Patino took over the first that first year. Yeah,
Speaker 6: when he gets your tickets are going to be more
Speaker 6: valuable than hastains and oil and all that stuff. That
Speaker 6: great New Jersey Boston active that he had. But what
Speaker 6: he did at a fourteen and fourteen clip coming off
Speaker 6: of a dumpster fire that he inherited. But he had
Speaker 6: scholarship guys on the team. Now they weren't. He would
Speaker 6: have gone out and saw it had he been the
Speaker 6: head coach for the previous three years. He said, Yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean Richie, Richie Farmer is not on that ball club.
Speaker 6: Pelfrey might be, Beldhouse might be. I don't know if
Speaker 6: Sean Woods is. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 6: he is, maybe isn't. But I think when now, for
Speaker 6: the first half of this season of the regular season,
Speaker 6: Cope has been perfect almost. I don't think anybody saw
Speaker 6: this team with one loss at this juncture. You thought
Speaker 6: Pagan zagad. They've got three losses, maybe four if there's
Speaker 6: an upset at the halfway point. Mark Pope has got
Speaker 6: to be the SEC coach of the year, the national
Speaker 6: coach of the year. He has got to be in
Speaker 6: my opinion. I'm not being biased in this. Bruce Pearl
Speaker 6: would have something to say. Rick Barnes would have something
Speaker 6: to say about it with the way their teams are playing,
Speaker 6: But Mark Pope has done He's got to be the
Speaker 6: halfway point, the national coach of the year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I can't disagree with that, all things considered.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. And now we're going to see just how
Speaker 1: well this team fairs. Can it survive in the SEC,
Speaker 1: which it is early, but I heard another talking hit
Speaker 1: earlier today saying it could be the best conference in
Speaker 1: the history of basketball. And that's got a lot more
Speaker 1: to do than just adding Texas and Oklahoma.
Speaker 6: You know it is, but I think but still, and
Speaker 6: I had this conversation with someone the other day, but
Speaker 6: the more teams, the more schools rather that you put
Speaker 6: into a conference, especially with the histories, the athletic histories
Speaker 6: of Texas and Oklahoma, and then the rumor mill that
Speaker 6: in the next three years of Virginia could be there,
Speaker 6: or a Clemson or North Carolina. I mean, when you
Speaker 6: gobble up all the smart kids in the room, you
Speaker 6: better have the smartest room in school.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: This case, you're getting the majority of the great talent
Speaker 6: across the country, you better be the best conference. And what,
Speaker 6: in my opinion, what's always made the SEC better than
Speaker 6: everybody else? It's not Kentucky because you expect them to
Speaker 6: be there. You expect the horses of the conferences to
Speaker 6: be there. But when Tennessee comes and doing what they're
Speaker 6: doing and Auburn doing what their it's always and I
Speaker 6: don't mean this in a bad way, but it's the
Speaker 6: it's the schools that don't have a crazy basketball reputation.
Speaker 6: When they're better, it raises everybody else. Though, that's right,
Speaker 6: and uh, you know when Kentucky's great in football are
Speaker 6: very good in football, it raises the SEC.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 6: Now, just the same thing for basketball when your Tennessee's
Speaker 6: and Auburn's come up and then LSU. I've always thought
Speaker 6: the conference is at its best when LSU was there,
Speaker 6: But now you throw in Texas and Oklahoma and they've
Speaker 6: made runs before and have had great individual talent. This, Yeah,
Speaker 6: this could be the greatest, This could rival this could
Speaker 6: rival the eighties Big East a little bit. And maybe
Speaker 6: they're pack We will see, because you know the eighty
Speaker 6: five Big East did put three teams to the final.
Speaker 1: Four right here in the election. That's exactly right. What
Speaker 1: I was going to say was I remember John Cohen
Speaker 1: talking about and he didn't use his phrase back then,
Speaker 1: but it's now. It's you know, not just raising the ceiling,
Speaker 1: but raising the floor. And when he got to Kentucky
Speaker 1: and Kentucky was starting to become relevant, he said, that's
Speaker 1: what's making the league tougher. It's not that LSU is
Speaker 1: going to be great again this year or whatever, but
Speaker 1: he said, it's the Kentucky's and whoever else was good
Speaker 1: that year, you know, getting better. When the league gets better,
Speaker 1: when the teams in the lower half get better, That's
Speaker 1: exactly what's happening with the SEC right now. Brian Milin,
Speaker 1: sports director w KYT and one of the new members
Speaker 1: of the Mountain Classic Hall of Fame, congrats again, thanks
Speaker 1: so much.
Speaker 6: Sir, Thank you, buddy, appreciate you.
Speaker 1: And as I mentioned up next, JR. Van, who's former
Speaker 1: mister Kentucky basketball went onto a Hall of Fame career
Speaker 1: at Marshall. We'll talk about what's going on with the
Speaker 1: portal nil, how it's getting into the high schools, all
Speaker 1: of that and more. And now number two here on
Speaker 1: six thirty WLAP Welcome back to the Big Blue and
Speaker 1: sider joining us down our celebrity hotline as a guy
Speaker 1: I've known for a while, but JR. Van, who's to
Speaker 1: believe this might be the first time you've been in
Speaker 1: our show.
Speaker 7: Welcome, Thank you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this is the first time I've been on your show.
Speaker 6: I do appreciate it well, Jr.
Speaker 1: As most sports fans around here, I would hope No
Speaker 1: was Kentucky's mister basketball in nineteen ninety eight at the
Speaker 1: Paintsville High School led him to the ninety six Sweet
Speaker 1: sixteen state championship, went on to a Marshall University Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame career playing for the Thundering Herd. And the
Speaker 1: reason I wanted to reach out to JR. Besides just
Speaker 1: chatting with him at ball games was I wasn't aware
Speaker 1: of this, JR. But you're alma mater apparently has had
Speaker 1: the back out of a bull game because you won't
Speaker 1: have enough players, Is that right?
Speaker 6: Well, that's I think that's what's been reported on the internet.
Speaker 6: But from what I hear, I think there's somewhere around
Speaker 6: thirty thirty five players that are in the portal as
Speaker 6: of right now. Yeah, I mean that's that's a lot.
Speaker 6: But you know I and I believe three or four
Speaker 6: of them are quarterbacks. So you know, you definitely, I
Speaker 6: don't think you could show up to a ball game
Speaker 6: with maybe one quarterback and no backup.
Speaker 1: You know, Marshall was slated to play Army and Independence
Speaker 1: ball and now apparently Louisiana Tech will play. But as
Speaker 1: a former college athlete and you're an educator, that's got
Speaker 1: to hurt your heart and being a Marshall alum, I've
Speaker 1: got to think that's a what a terrible feeling.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, anytime that you know, something like that
Speaker 6: happens to a school, especially your school, your sports team,
Speaker 6: it's a it's a big blow because you know, you
Speaker 6: always want to see your modern football teams win championships,
Speaker 6: playing bowl games, you know, do all those things that
Speaker 6: teams talk about doing. But you know, the landscape of
Speaker 6: college sports today, just for some reason, these things happen
Speaker 6: and they happen quite often, and it's just it's really,
Speaker 6: it's really sad to see.
Speaker 1: This is happening in the wake of the head coach
Speaker 1: resigning to take the vacant job at Suttern, Miss Charles Huff.
Speaker 1: So in a way, I mean, as a former athlete,
Speaker 1: can you blame these guys for saying, well, you know,
Speaker 1: if he's gone, so am.
Speaker 6: I No, you know, I don't. I don't. I definitely
Speaker 6: don't blame the players at all. I think the system
Speaker 6: that exists today allows them to do that. And you know,
Speaker 6: like I said, being a being a former player, I
Speaker 6: don't blame players for looking for better opportunities for them.
Speaker 6: I just think there needs to be some type of
Speaker 6: system in place to prevent things like this from a
Speaker 6: team not being able to participate in a ball game
Speaker 6: from happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it costs the kids who want to play
Speaker 1: in the ball game now they don't get that experience.
Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, I think when you
Speaker 6: play college football, I think your goal is to always
Speaker 6: playing a bowl game. It's like going to the NCAA tournament.
Speaker 6: You might not have a chance to win a national championship,
Speaker 6: but you sure want a chance to play in that
Speaker 6: tournament or that bowl game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as you pointed out on your tweets and
Speaker 1: your social media posts, the history of Marshall University football
Speaker 1: is one of course that it includes the terrible tragedy.
Speaker 1: Some friends of mine, former colleagues, worked the story of
Speaker 1: the plane crash that wiped out the football team. But
Speaker 1: you know the fact that Marshall came all the way
Speaker 1: back to win championships is phenomenal.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, you know, you go and have a
Speaker 6: school that experiences a tragedy like that, where seventy five
Speaker 6: members of your community, your football team, your coaching staff
Speaker 6: are killed in a tragic plane crash, and you know,
Speaker 6: the administration and new coaching staff that was brought in
Speaker 6: fought to have a season the next year, you know,
Speaker 6: and when you look now and you win your conference championship,
Speaker 6: you finished ten to three, and you're invited to a
Speaker 6: fairly prestigious bowl game against an army team that you
Speaker 6: know had been in the top twenty five whijor recently,
Speaker 6: and you know that's the opportunity you want. And so yeah,
Speaker 6: it's just it's just sad to see something like that happen,
Speaker 6: and like I said, you know, I definitely don't blame
Speaker 6: the players that I think the system just needs six.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it needs more these better guard rails, doesn't it.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean, I think there could be things in place,
Speaker 6: like you can't transfer to after the ball season, and
Speaker 6: I think that should be the same for coaches too.
Speaker 6: I think contracts should remain in place. That's if you
Speaker 6: make it to a ball game, you have to coach
Speaker 6: that game, and then you can you know, maybe they
Speaker 6: can push back the hiring date for coaches or I don't.
Speaker 6: I don't know. I think there's a lot of things
Speaker 6: that can be looked at.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, it is still in the early stages.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that several year years from now,
Speaker 1: we'll look back at this period of time and say, wow,
Speaker 1: that was crazy back then. It's hard to believe that
Speaker 1: the guard rails were not in place. But you know,
Speaker 1: after that at obandoned lawsuit situation where they they kind
Speaker 1: of rushed everything into place such as it is, I
Speaker 1: guess I shouldn't be surprised that things are just kind
Speaker 1: of messed up right now, you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Yeah, I mean, and again I'm all four players
Speaker 6: having the best opportunity for them to make money off
Speaker 6: their image and likeness and you know, all of those things.
Speaker 6: I just think if you're going to pursue those opportunities,
Speaker 6: I would definitely like to see some guardrails in place
Speaker 6: that won't hurt you their teammates if they choose to
Speaker 6: stay at at university.
Speaker 1: That's right. Have you talked to other Marshall lums about this?
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, some of my former teammates. Of course, we're
Speaker 6: in you know, a tech a text group, a text chain,
Speaker 6: and you know, we talk about it, and I think
Speaker 6: most of them have similar sentiments. You know, we are
Speaker 6: definitely not the players. We just would like to see
Speaker 6: something in place that doesn't hurt the teammates that stay
Speaker 6: behind or choose not to leave.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We're talking with Jared Van who's the former of
Speaker 1: Kentucky Mister Basketball and a member of a Hall of
Speaker 1: Famer at Marshall University after a terrific career there. And
Speaker 1: we're talking, of course about the fact that Marshall's had
Speaker 1: to back out of a bowl game because it just
Speaker 1: basically won't have enough players because there's so many in
Speaker 1: the portal. After the head coach decided to take a
Speaker 1: new job. There is a player on the Marshall roster
Speaker 1: right now. I don't know how much you keep up
Speaker 1: with the basketball team, but a kid named Creighton theenem
Speaker 1: and from Louisville. His father went to Trinity High School,
Speaker 1: graduated with me. Phil was a great player for US,
Speaker 1: went to Virginia Tech, played pro ball in Europe. Now
Speaker 1: he is back in Louisville, and we were talking at
Speaker 1: a reunion a year or two ago about the fact
Speaker 1: that Marshall, as you know, Jr. Went to the NSA
Speaker 1: tournament a couple of years ago and and pulled off
Speaker 1: at least one upset, as I recall, But then the
Speaker 1: bigger schools came calling with the big money and poached
Speaker 1: a couple of their best players. And like you say,
Speaker 1: you can't really blame them, but it really kind of
Speaker 1: leaves a school like Marshall in the dust, doesn't it.
Speaker 6: You know, it does and and and that's that's exactly
Speaker 6: what happened a couple of years ago. You know, Marshall
Speaker 6: finished second in the Sun Belt Conference in the regular season.
Speaker 6: I mean it went down to the last game of
Speaker 6: the season and they finished second. Our our one player
Speaker 6: that did graduate was the player of the year in
Speaker 6: the Sun Belt and he's still he's still playing professionally
Speaker 6: in the G League. And uh, you know, we had
Speaker 6: two other players that were all conference performers. One with
Speaker 6: a four year point guard who left to an SEC school,
Speaker 6: and one was a seven foot freshman who was the
Speaker 6: freshman of the year, you know, and average close to
Speaker 6: a double double and he went to another SEC school. So,
Speaker 6: you know, you lose three players like that when two
Speaker 6: of those players could have been returning, that definitely just
Speaker 6: hurts your prospects going into the next season, because not
Speaker 6: only do you have to find pieces that fit your team,
Speaker 6: you really have to rebuild your roster after losing three
Speaker 6: players like that. And it is sad to see. You know,
Speaker 6: I think I think schools that you know, maybe aren't
Speaker 6: in the SEC, the Big Ten, you know, all these
Speaker 6: bigger conferences, it's almost like they're a breeding ground for
Speaker 6: those schools, Like they're almost like a minor league. To
Speaker 6: give like a baseball example. You know, you you sign
Speaker 6: and you develop players for one or two years, and
Speaker 6: then when they get really good, they're off to more money,
Speaker 6: a bigger school, you know, a better opportunity, whatever you want.
Speaker 6: To call it, and then you're here just kind of
Speaker 6: left holding nothing and hoping to replace that player, which
Speaker 6: sometimes that's hard to do.
Speaker 1: I've heard a lot of former Kentucky players talking to
Speaker 1: each other like, hey, can you imagine what we would
Speaker 1: have gotten and things like that. As a guy who
Speaker 1: played at a so called mid major, do you think
Speaker 1: about that much that how your life might have been
Speaker 1: different if and you you were a kid with skills
Speaker 1: and size. I got to think that you would have
Speaker 1: been attractive to a lot of other schools. Do you
Speaker 1: think about that much?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I mean, you know, when you have when you
Speaker 6: have these situations happening like they are now, you kind
Speaker 6: of almost put yourself in that spot. You know, what
Speaker 6: would I do? How would I react? What decisions would
Speaker 6: I have made? I mean, it's you know, it's easy
Speaker 6: to look back now and say, well, you know, I
Speaker 6: loved my time. I'm thankful for everything that I did
Speaker 6: at Marshal, everything that I accomplished. But at the same time,
Speaker 6: you're like, man, you know, even if I wouldn't have
Speaker 6: had the opportunity to maybe playing in the Nbay, you
Speaker 6: know in Europe, you know, who knows if I would
Speaker 6: enjoyed that or not. But if I would have made
Speaker 6: four hundreds, five hundred thousand dollars in college, that'd have
Speaker 6: been a nice start to my life. You know what
Speaker 6: I mean? I may you know, I mean once you
Speaker 6: graduate and you get an entry level position in a job.
Speaker 6: For me, you know, a first year teacher making eight
Speaker 6: hundred and sixty dollars every two weeks. Money like that
Speaker 6: that you could have made in college just by playing sports.
Speaker 6: It's life changing. Top money that you're talking about. It's
Speaker 6: almost like you're signing professional contract and still playing collegiate sports.
Speaker 1: And at these kids who are not only helping themselves
Speaker 1: but helping their families.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, And so who's to say that I would
Speaker 6: have not played at three different colleges and all these
Speaker 6: different things, you know, I mean, it's just money talks,
Speaker 6: and money talks a lot. And again that's why I
Speaker 6: don't blame the players for entering the transfer portal. I
Speaker 6: just think there needs to be rules in place that
Speaker 6: kind of allow them to do those things while not
Speaker 6: hurting the university and the teams that they're leaving. You know,
Speaker 6: when they're playing in a tournament, a bowl game, championship,
Speaker 6: you know what whatever, whatever it may be. But yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean it's just a it's a different landscape. I
Speaker 6: can't imagine what it would have been like when I
Speaker 6: when I played. I've had, you know, some of my
Speaker 6: former college coaches and people that coached against me, you know,
Speaker 6: talk about how much money they would have offered me
Speaker 6: and all this stuff. And I mean it's just as
Speaker 6: an adult, as a forty five year old adult now,
Speaker 6: it's just kind of unbelievable to hear things like that,
Speaker 6: like you would have gave me how much just to
Speaker 6: just to play and go to you know. I mean,
Speaker 6: it's just it's unbelievable. So I can't imagine what these
Speaker 6: kids have to deal with today.
Speaker 1: Marw Kentucky high school basketball legend Jared Van, who's after
Speaker 1: to break here on six thirty WLAP Welcome back. We're
Speaker 1: talking with j Van who's he was mister basketball at
Speaker 1: Paintville High School back in the nineties, went on to
Speaker 1: a Hall of Fame career at Marshall. And we've been talking,
Speaker 1: of course about the portal and nil dollars see and
Speaker 1: now it's kind of creeping into the high school ranks.
Speaker 1: And you've coached at Paintsville. You've coached at Johnson Central,
Speaker 1: do you talk to other coaches about what it's like now?
Speaker 1: I got to think there's more pressure from parents, you know,
Speaker 1: to get their kids to a situation where there may
Speaker 1: be some dollars out there for them.
Speaker 6: Well listen, I mean, you know, especially there's not a
Speaker 6: lot of college high school age players that go on
Speaker 6: to play college yep. And so like, if you think
Speaker 6: that you may at least have an opportunity to make
Speaker 6: a little bit of money, you you are probably going
Speaker 6: to have to look at different situations and see how
Speaker 6: things work out. Now. I hate that that has come
Speaker 6: to that, but again, I mean, who knows what families
Speaker 6: are experiencing behind closed doors, right, you know what I mean,
Speaker 6: especially financially, And so it is almost like the recruiting
Speaker 6: and the stories that you've heard of college recruiting, like
Speaker 6: in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, that's almost gone down
Speaker 6: another level to the high school level now. And you
Speaker 6: know now that those college players are getting paid. You
Speaker 6: hear the I'm getting offered this from this school, and
Speaker 6: this opportunity and these different things you're hearing at the
Speaker 6: high school level two, which you know I'm sure that's
Speaker 6: that's always been the case for the most part, but
Speaker 6: I mean to hear it as often as we're hearing
Speaker 6: it now, that's that's kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And next year it's going to be even crazier
Speaker 1: when the schools can flat out pay players. But they're
Speaker 1: going to change, for instance, they're going to cut way
Speaker 1: back on the number of baseball players, for instance, who
Speaker 1: can be on a roster. They are gonna be kids,
Speaker 1: and it's going to have a ripple effect all the
Speaker 1: way down to high school recruits who won't be playing
Speaker 1: Division one college baseball or Division two three whatever. So
Speaker 1: it's incredible.
Speaker 6: And listen, I think, you know, I think what the
Speaker 6: lady that I look at is, you know, you have
Speaker 6: a lot of Olympics they're getting shut down because they
Speaker 6: can't And that is really that that's not only hurting
Speaker 6: the university, that's hurting opportunities for kids to compete at
Speaker 6: those levels in a sport that they chose to play,
Speaker 6: you know, because they were good at it, you know.
Speaker 6: And so it's almost like, well, if you're not playing
Speaker 6: football or basketball or even baseball, we're sorry about your luck.
Speaker 6: You know, we don't have a team a roster spot.
Speaker 6: You know, you're gonna have to think about doing this
Speaker 6: at another place and maybe not even going to your
Speaker 6: dream school. And it's just because a kid is good
Speaker 6: at or chose a sport that's not considered to be
Speaker 6: a money making sport, which is real and that's really sad.
Speaker 6: And when you look at it hurting the collegiate level,
Speaker 6: I mean, shoot, it may hurt the Olympic level. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you know, you don't have players developing in college that
Speaker 6: are playing golf, swimming, track and field. You know, what's
Speaker 6: that going to do to the Olympics in a couple
Speaker 6: of years. Are there going to be enough people to compete?
Speaker 6: I'm sure there will, but will it be at a
Speaker 6: higher level like it has been? You know, I mean
Speaker 6: there's all kinds of unknowns that that people are talking about. Man,
Speaker 6: it's just kind of blows your mind to hear them all.
Speaker 1: Talking to j Aravan, who's a few minutes left where
Speaker 1: a former Kentucky Mister Basketball Parade All American at Paintsville
Speaker 1: High School went onto a Hall of Fame career at
Speaker 1: Marshall And we've been talking about the portal, and of
Speaker 1: course Nil and I don't know if the word is plagued,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly affected sports up and down the level,
Speaker 1: from college down really to middle school with kids bouncing around.
Speaker 1: But let me get back to your career at Marshall.
Speaker 1: As I said, I have a couple of friends who
Speaker 1: cover the tragedy and I'm wondering on campus there, Jay are,
Speaker 1: when you got there, how cognizant of it did you become?
Speaker 1: How much did you know about it when you got there,
Speaker 1: Because it was about twenty years after the accident that
Speaker 1: you and it's been another what twenty years or so,
Speaker 1: But I've not been on that campus in a long time,
Speaker 1: but I wonder what it's like to be an athlete
Speaker 1: on that campus.
Speaker 6: Well, I'll tell you this. You know, in the recruiting
Speaker 6: process even you know, there were a couple of people
Speaker 6: from the area who had played football at Marshall.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I actually graduated high school with a girl whose dad
Speaker 6: was on the Young Thundering Herd. He was he was
Speaker 6: one of the players that Marshall brought in. He was
Speaker 6: from Buffalo, New York, YEP to continue the football program.
Speaker 6: So it's kind of ironic, but I did know the story.
Speaker 6: One of the gentlemen killed on the plane crash. Roger
Speaker 6: van Over he was actually from Van Leer, which is
Speaker 6: in Johnson County, but had gone to high school in Russell,
Speaker 6: and so that that story was always around. The story
Speaker 6: was always around, and so it was a big part
Speaker 6: of the culture at Marshall. I mean, you honor those people.
Speaker 6: Some of my very best friends were impacted. You know,
Speaker 6: Keith Morehouse, who still does sports for w SEZ lost
Speaker 6: his father in the plane crash, you know, and his
Speaker 6: wife lost her parents in the plane crash. And so
Speaker 6: you know, you meet these people throughout your time there
Speaker 6: at Marshall and you're just like, I can't believe that.
Speaker 6: You know, you're actually meeting people that this tragedy affected
Speaker 6: the way it did. And you know, when they hurt,
Speaker 6: you hurt, especially when your friends and so you know,
Speaker 6: you just always think about them, especially when that time
Speaker 6: rolls around every year, and you know, it's just it
Speaker 6: is a big part of Marshall's a big part of
Speaker 6: who we are because you know, we came back from
Speaker 6: that moment and our football program, I believe at one
Speaker 6: time was called the winningest Division I program in the
Speaker 6: nineteen nineties. You know, we had more wins than even
Speaker 6: in Alabama.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so.
Speaker 6: You know, to go from that moment to national championships,
Speaker 6: conference championships, I mean, that's that's just astonishing to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Marshall became a real power. In one double A
Speaker 1: was a rival of EKU. I covered the playoff game
Speaker 1: over there is one of the best games I ever covered,
Speaker 1: and that was special. He is Jr.
Speaker 6: Van, you know, And and we had Hosman finalists too,
Speaker 6: Dad Diennington, Randy Moss, right, you know the list of
Speaker 6: players who have come through there. I mean, it's just
Speaker 6: to go from that tragedy and all of the things
Speaker 6: that had happened to what Marshall football he is, it
Speaker 6: is just it's amazing in mine.
Speaker 1: Jr. Van, who's former mister basketball and Marshall Hall of Famer.
Speaker 1: I appreciate your time. We'll call back and check with you.
Speaker 1: We'll talk some more basketball during Sweet sixteen. How's that?
Speaker 6: That sounds good? That sounds good. And in the meantime,
Speaker 6: if I can get some in ile money from me, body,
Speaker 6: you know, please please don't hesitate to contact me.
Speaker 1: I'll see what I can do. All my best to
Speaker 1: your wife.
Speaker 6: All right, thank you, we'll come.
Speaker 1: Back and take a look at the Kentucky volleyball season
Speaker 1: on the other side of the break here on six thirty,
Speaker 1: Wlap join us on Celebrity Heartline as a longtime friend
Speaker 1: of the show. You've heard him well, he used to
Speaker 1: hear him on Cameron Mills' radio show regularly. Hunter Mitchell
Speaker 1: joined us now and then to talk Kentucky volleyball. Hunter,
Speaker 1: Unfortunately the season is over. But I got to ask
Speaker 1: you if you and I had spoken back when Kentucky
Speaker 1: was losing to the likes of you know, well, let's
Speaker 1: not even talk about Auburn. I thought that was a
Speaker 1: real surprise. But you know, Stanford, Louisville, Purdue, the opener
Speaker 1: against the over in Louisville against Nebraska. If I had
Speaker 1: told you that they would have won SEC and made
Speaker 1: it to the Elite eight, would you believe me?
Speaker 7: Not even a little bit, especially the SEC part with
Speaker 7: Texas joining the league. I don't think anyone thought. I
Speaker 7: mean obviously no one day Kentucky was six third in
Speaker 7: the preseason in the league. But I don't think anyone
Speaker 7: thought that the SEC championship was going to come back
Speaker 7: to Lexington, and certainly not in Elite eight. So for
Speaker 7: all intents and purposes, the Cats very much exceeded expectation.
Speaker 1: I think this year, how did they do that?
Speaker 7: You know, when we looked at it, the way the
Speaker 7: team was playing early in the year, their problems were
Speaker 7: very similar to what happened last year. If you remember. Offensively,
Speaker 7: they started really slow last year with Brooklyn being a
Speaker 7: freshman and just all the new pieces, it just took
Speaker 7: a while to get the offense going. Ben Josephson came
Speaker 7: in and I think utilized a lot of stuff that
Speaker 7: we see in the mind game, with the idea of
Speaker 7: resetting the block, you know, by intentionally throwing the ball
Speaker 7: into the block to get the point recycled, and then
Speaker 7: also just how fast the offense he wanted to bring
Speaker 7: it in. So I think it took a while for
Speaker 7: the offense to adjust last year. I think you saw
Speaker 7: that again this year. Even though a lot of those
Speaker 7: players came back, you had some freshmen mintal blockers that
Speaker 7: had to get used to the tempo behind Emma, and
Speaker 7: so there was just a lot of stuff that they
Speaker 7: were early in the season really struggling to figure out.
Speaker 7: And again we know how Craig's schedules, he schedules, the
Speaker 7: likes of the Nebraska's and the Penn States and the Stanfords.
Speaker 7: All that comes early, and so unfortunately, when you're learning,
Speaker 7: you don't really get to learn during a lot of wins.
Speaker 7: And so they showed slashes. If you think about it,
Speaker 7: Kentucky was not swept except for Texas and obviously yesterday
Speaker 7: against Pittsburgh all season long. And you mentioned they played
Speaker 7: Nebraska and Louisville and Stanford and like all these teams
Speaker 7: and they were only slipped twice. So we saw, yeah,
Speaker 7: Penn State had they were up two zero on Penn State. Yeah,
Speaker 7: like we saw flashes of how good this team could be,
Speaker 7: but they just couldn't put it together consistently. And then
Speaker 7: sec play came and it seemed like they really settled
Speaker 7: into who they were and their identity. And once they
Speaker 7: did that and they got the offense rolling, you started
Speaker 7: to see this team really click and really lean into
Speaker 7: who they were and leaning to each other. And I
Speaker 7: think that's a big reason why they were able to
Speaker 7: run off that success in the Southeastern Conference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that Pittsburgh match, you know, Pittsburgh wins set one.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, all right, Okay, Kentucky is up twenty two
Speaker 1: to sixteen, and Set two in that run that Pittsburgh
Speaker 1: makes is gonna haunt Craig Skinner's dreams, I know and
Speaker 1: all those kids. A nine to one run by Pittsburgh. Kentucky,
Speaker 1: it had its way in your eyes. What the heck
Speaker 1: happened there?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 7: It's funny you same question if you would have told
Speaker 7: me yesterday going into that pit match that they were
Speaker 7: going to out hoold Pit to less kills than them,
Speaker 7: that it wasn't going to be Alivia Babcock going off.
Speaker 7: She's only going to have like thirteen kills, like I
Speaker 7: would have thought, Oh wait, Kentucky might have won that game.
Speaker 7: But Pittsburgh is just one of those teams that if
Speaker 7: you've watched them at all this season, they don't They
Speaker 7: only lost one game that was to SMU. They're just
Speaker 7: a team that they've been together forever. They've got some
Speaker 7: fifth year seniors. Olivia Babcock and Tory Stafford are two
Speaker 7: of the best hitters in the country and they're only sophomores.
Speaker 7: So that was already going to be a tall order.
Speaker 7: And you're also playing in pit. That first set, though,
Speaker 7: Kentucky early it looked like they were overmatched, and then
Speaker 7: they settled into it again. They said, they started playing
Speaker 7: their game, and they made it a game. They made
Speaker 7: it a one point game late until Pit closed it
Speaker 7: out on a little two oh run there at the end.
Speaker 7: In the second set, it was all Kentucky service pressure, right,
Speaker 7: which going into the match, the only way Kentucky was
Speaker 7: going to win that game is if they applied ridiculous
Speaker 7: service pressure on Pitt, and they did in the second
Speaker 7: set and twenty two to sixteen lead. Actually, it back
Speaker 7: today and watch that part of the match, only that
Speaker 7: part of the match when they went up twenty through sixteen.
Speaker 7: Just what in the world happened? And if you watch it,
Speaker 7: Brooklyn only got set one time in that run. Now,
Speaker 7: part of that is she was in the back row,
Speaker 7: so obviously when you're in the back row, it's a
Speaker 7: bit harder. But Kentucky has gone off of the arm
Speaker 7: of delay all season long. It's one of those things
Speaker 7: where you know, when you're playing a team like Pitt,
Speaker 7: you want to make sure your offense is balanced that way,
Speaker 7: the block can't just camp on Brooklyn. But you also
Speaker 7: have to make sure that you just ride your best player,
Speaker 7: and so I think unfortunately Kentucky tried to get a
Speaker 7: little bit too cute, They tried to get the others
Speaker 7: involved too much. And when a team is coming back
Speaker 7: like that, at a point you just have to say,
Speaker 7: you know what, we're going to ride with delay, and
Speaker 7: if we go down with delay swinging, then we go
Speaker 7: down with delay slinging. And unfortunately she just didn't get
Speaker 7: the ball enough. And I think that was a really
Speaker 7: big part of it. The crowd came back into it,
Speaker 7: and with Brooklyn in the back, they just they couldn't
Speaker 7: side out terminally, which is a problem that they had
Speaker 7: had at points in the season against good competition. It's
Speaker 7: still kind of felt like at times they were missing
Speaker 7: a second left side hitter. And unfortunately Aaron Lamb just
Speaker 7: she struggled yesterday against that big pit block. So they
Speaker 7: just they especially in that rotation when Brooklyn was in
Speaker 7: the back, they just could never really sat out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a healthy Asia thig Pen I'm sure would
Speaker 1: have helped, But at five ten, I don't know how
Speaker 1: much damage she could have done against them bigs for Pittsburgh, you.
Speaker 7: Know, Yeah, And it would be hard to throw her
Speaker 7: into her really her first instill of the tournament game
Speaker 7: against it. She played a little bit in some garbage
Speaker 7: time in the previous rounds, but that would have been like, hey,
Speaker 7: this is it. We really need you to go, and
Speaker 7: so that would have been tough. But you know, some
Speaker 7: obviously in hindsight's twenty twenty, so you think, well, maybe
Speaker 7: we should don't know what to tig pin and see
Speaker 7: what would happen. But I do think that it's helpful
Speaker 7: looking towards next year. What Stigpin showed you this year
Speaker 7: is really really encouraging. And that's obviously not looking at
Speaker 7: what Hannah Benjamin could be. It's not looking at what
Speaker 7: Georgia Watson could be as a freshman coming in. Like,
Speaker 7: Kentucky's got a lot of really good pieces on the
Speaker 7: outside next year. Obviously, this year, with all the injuries
Speaker 7: like that is a refreshing thing to see if you're
Speaker 7: Kentucky fan, because there's a actually hopefully going to be
Speaker 7: a flew of talent there on that left pin.
Speaker 1: But they do say goodbye to Ammigrom the best now
Speaker 1: statistically set her in the history of the program. But
Speaker 1: they've said goodbye to Madison Lily. They said goodbye to
Speaker 1: Morgan Berg. So you know who's next.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So it's funny because when Madison left, that was the
Speaker 7: big question, right, like, oh my gosh, how is this
Speaker 7: coaching staff going to replace Madison freaking Lily? You know,
Speaker 7: at the time, the best setter that Kentucky'd ever seen,
Speaker 7: one of the best collegiate setters that we have seen
Speaker 7: play the game anywhere the year, the national player of
Speaker 7: the Year, who won the team that the program's first title.
Speaker 7: Like all of those things were true, there was a
Speaker 7: lot of questions, who on earth is going to replace
Speaker 7: you know, Madison, whether that was a transfer portal player,
Speaker 7: whether it was a freshman coming in and Emma came
Speaker 7: in and really from the minute that she was on
Speaker 7: campus was superb. She just carried herself with that kind
Speaker 7: of confidence. And that's what you need to cetter. You
Speaker 7: had a confidence setter that is sure of where she's
Speaker 7: setting the ball. A The fact that Matison Lily is
Speaker 7: now on your coaching staff, regardless of who is your setter,
Speaker 7: is an incredible asset. Like the fact that she is
Speaker 7: over there. Whoever she's training next year is going to
Speaker 7: be in good hands. But secondly, keep in mind Ava
Speaker 7: Sarafa was supposed to come in as a freshman and
Speaker 7: actually challenge Emma grown for that starting spot. I think
Speaker 7: there was a little bit of some some confidence problems
Speaker 7: when she came in, just trying to figure out the
Speaker 7: college game. It's obviously very different. The speed of the
Speaker 7: game is very different. You're playing the SEC, so she
Speaker 7: really didn't get there. But I think we saw her
Speaker 7: in that serving specialist role, and as the season went on,
Speaker 7: she looked like her confidence was through the root. Even
Speaker 7: yesterday she was setting balls in transition when Emma was
Speaker 7: out and she was serving or Emma was taking that
Speaker 7: the first ball, excuse me, and she looked good. So
Speaker 7: I think there's some hope and some confidence that Ava
Speaker 7: could could buy for it.
Speaker 6: And then Cassie.
Speaker 7: O'Brien the freshman coming in. She's a six to one setter.
Speaker 7: That's a big setter, right, so they have some size
Speaker 7: coming in now in the setting position, who I think
Speaker 7: is also going to challenge for it.
Speaker 1: Well, Madison was a tall setter.
Speaker 7: She was I think Madison was five to eleven, so,
Speaker 7: you know, a little taller than Emma and a little
Speaker 7: shorter than Cassie. So we'll see again, I think with
Speaker 7: Ava and Cassie, they've got a nice little battle. We'll
Speaker 7: see who wins it next year. You know, I haven't
Speaker 7: gotten to watch Cassie play a whole lot, and I
Speaker 7: haven't really gotten to watch Ava play in the setting
Speaker 7: position a whole lot. But I think that again, with
Speaker 7: Madison on the coaching staff, the setter position is going
Speaker 7: to be well taken care of it and we'll figure
Speaker 7: it out. There might be some growing pains, There probably
Speaker 7: will be, and so it's gonna take some adjusting. But again,
Speaker 7: we've seen Kentucky the last two years now have those
Speaker 7: growing pains early in the season and they've overcome them.
Speaker 7: So you know, I think there's reason to be encouraged
Speaker 7: given the setting position and what's coming.
Speaker 1: In talking to Hunter Mitchell, he covers UK volleyball for
Speaker 1: on three dot com and has covered the Wildcats for
Speaker 1: a long time, taking pictures written about him, tweeted about him.
Speaker 1: You don't see anybody covering volleyball the way you see
Speaker 1: Hunter do it. You mentioned Brooklyn delay twenty two kills yesterday.
Speaker 1: Not a surprise, you know, I guess we should have
Speaker 1: seen this coming in that she was freshman of the year.
Speaker 1: Last year, Well, let me put it to you this way.
Speaker 1: Were you surprised she did win Player of the Year,
Speaker 1: not Kennedy Martin from Florida?
Speaker 7: I actually was, Yeah, I really expected Kennedy Martin to
Speaker 7: win it, just because Kennedy has had so many thirty
Speaker 7: bomb games. Yeah, and as the right side, thirty kills
Speaker 7: is hard because you weren't always getting as many opportunities
Speaker 7: as the outside is because it's harder to set the
Speaker 7: right side in transition on nouns system ball. So I
Speaker 7: was surprised to see Brooklyn get it. But when you
Speaker 7: look at what Brooklyn did this year, it's hard to
Speaker 7: argue that she didn't deserve it. You know, I'm not
Speaker 7: surprised by what Brooklyn did, but at the same time,
Speaker 7: a little bit like she was ridiculous. That she was
Speaker 7: ridiculous as a freshman. I didn't think she could get
Speaker 7: that much better as a sophomore, and we hear about
Speaker 7: sophomore slumps all the time. Brooklyn doesn't even know what
Speaker 7: that means. She just she was superb this year. I mean,
Speaker 7: she was averaging darn near five six kills per set.
Speaker 7: Me install the tournament, you think they're playing Minnesota, they're
Speaker 7: playing Pittsburgh. I mean in Pittsburgh they played three sets.
Speaker 7: She had twenty two kills, so she averaged over seven
Speaker 7: kills a set. And she also hit three forty five
Speaker 7: against the pitt team that's one of the best blocking
Speaker 7: teams in the country. Like, she is just a ridiculously
Speaker 7: talented left side. And I was texting Edmond yesterday and
Speaker 7: I said, you know, Leah, I hate saying that you're
Speaker 7: right because I'm just I'm tired of telling you. But
Speaker 7: you know, when Brooklyn before the season last year, she said,
Speaker 7: you got to watch out for Brooklyn Delay now, like
Speaker 7: she's really good. She could make a viye for my
Speaker 7: kills record depending on how much she plays. And I
Speaker 7: thought she was crazy. But if Brooklyn keeps this up,
Speaker 7: she could I don't know, they might need some some
Speaker 7: deep tournament runs. But if she keeps bombing twenty plus
Speaker 7: kill games, and you got to think she had a
Speaker 7: thirty kill game this year, which has only been done
Speaker 7: by like three other players in Kentucky's history. So and
Speaker 7: when you look at that, serve how much better from
Speaker 7: behind the service line she got, like the room for improvement.
Speaker 7: The fact that Kentucky still gives her for two more years,
Speaker 7: and they already made an Elite eight with her as
Speaker 7: a sophomore. Like, there is a lot of reason to
Speaker 7: be really excited about what Brooklyn can be as a
Speaker 7: junior and even as a senior, because because this guy
Speaker 7: is the woman with her. She is a ridiculously talent outside.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, and when you look at stats, you
Speaker 1: look at kills. Yes, but I think her overall game
Speaker 1: may have pushed her to the top when it comes
Speaker 1: to player of the year. Plus you know, playing for
Speaker 1: the team that won the SEC championship that helps.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, it does.
Speaker 7: And Brooklyn, you know, you mentioned that she made a
Speaker 7: lot of improvements in her blocking game. She made a
Speaker 7: lot of improvements in the fit in defense. In the
Speaker 7: back row, she had improvements oftensively in the back row.
Speaker 7: She was almost as good, if not better, in the
Speaker 7: background than she was in the front row.
Speaker 6: This year.
Speaker 7: I mean, they started running her out of the middle back,
Speaker 7: they started running on the right back. They stared using
Speaker 7: her on the slide attack on the right back. Like,
Speaker 7: they got really creative with how they moved Brooklyn around
Speaker 7: and used her offense this year and again to be
Speaker 7: able to do that with a sophomore is really really impressive.
Speaker 7: And I think, you know, especially as Kentucky loses some
Speaker 7: pieces that have been big leaders over the last several
Speaker 7: years and Aaron Lamb and mcgrome and Eleanor Bevin, having
Speaker 7: Brooklyn there now be as good as she has been
Speaker 7: and also kind of it seems like really settling into
Speaker 7: that leadership role and have the confidence that she's got
Speaker 7: is really really beneficial for what Kentucky's going to be
Speaker 7: the next two years.
Speaker 1: More with Hunter Mitchell from on three dot com when
Speaker 1: we come back on six point thirty WLAP Welcome back.
Speaker 1: We're talking with Hunter Mitchell, who covers volleyball UK volleyball
Speaker 1: for on three dot com. You mentioned Texas and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there's no sense crying over the proverbial spilled milk,
Speaker 1: but Kentucky loses two really good players and Reagan Rutherford
Speaker 1: and especially Maddie Skinner to Texas. You think about the
Speaker 1: portal when it comes to football, baseball, and basketball, but boy,
Speaker 1: it affects every sport, doesn't it.
Speaker 7: He does, Yeah, and Texas was a team that again
Speaker 7: I told Leo she was right about this. She told
Speaker 7: me coming into the year. Hey, don't just give it
Speaker 7: to Texas now or remember, the transfer portal affects everybody,
Speaker 7: So everybody's getting players like this, and I think the
Speaker 7: parody in the entire sport we've seen, you know, like
Speaker 7: Creighton this year for example, Crayton's been good, but they're
Speaker 7: top five good. You know, at least get Singer went
Speaker 7: over to Creighton and they just they're not. They knocked
Speaker 7: Texas out this weekend. So the parody and the whole
Speaker 7: sport all over the place is really good. And that
Speaker 7: transfer portal has really really been a big part of that.
Speaker 7: Craig he uses it when needed, But Craig likes to
Speaker 7: develop his players as freshmen, which I think you've you've
Speaker 7: seen the the fruits of with Emma and Eleanor and Brooklyn.
Speaker 7: I mean just recently, like man, my goodness, their growth
Speaker 7: from freshmen to just sophomore and senior for mong them
Speaker 7: has been superb. Yeah, the transfer pot is a big weapon,
Speaker 7: and you're starting to see more parody across the entire sport.
Speaker 7: Now it's not always just Stanford and Penn State winning it.
Speaker 7: Now you're seeing a lot more teams that have never
Speaker 7: won it before actually make national championship games and actually
Speaker 7: win it. So it's really cool to see.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think it would be nice if Pittsburgh
Speaker 1: goes on to win it, right, I mean the team
Speaker 1: that a way to Kentucky.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, And I think Kentucky fans probably would probably
Speaker 7: like that if they knocked Louisville out. You know, you
Speaker 7: don't you don't really want to see louvill win it,
Speaker 7: do you? I mean?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 1: But you know it's like you said, it's a new face.
Speaker 1: But ESPN, I guess was did a terrific piece on
Speaker 1: how close pitt has come. I mean you talk about
Speaker 1: a driven team against Kentucky. I mean they were absolutely
Speaker 1: focused because they were so bitterly disappointed each of the
Speaker 1: last two years.
Speaker 7: Right, Yeah, Pitt's been knocking on the door for a
Speaker 7: very long time with this group, which also is a
Speaker 7: big part of it. And when you look at when
Speaker 7: you have hitters like Vasquez Gomez and Tory Stafford and
Speaker 7: Lyudia Badcock, a center like Rachel Fairbanks, like that team
Speaker 7: is just loaded at every position. And you mentioned it,
Speaker 7: they've been so close so many times. I would be
Speaker 7: very I thought before the tournament started that it's Pits
Speaker 7: to lose. The pit is the overall favorite. They have
Speaker 7: looked the best in the country all season long, even
Speaker 7: games do they look quote unquote bad, like against Oregon
Speaker 7: for example, the round before Kentucky, like Orgon, exposed a
Speaker 7: lot of weaknesses in Pitt's game, but Kentucky tried to
Speaker 7: exploit right and Kentucky did to a degree, but pitt
Speaker 7: covered them. I mean, I thought that a lot of
Speaker 7: the things that Kentucky was trying again in that run
Speaker 7: in the second set when they went up twenty to sixteen,
Speaker 7: pitt adjusted on the fly really quickly. And they just
Speaker 7: have so much confidence. That's a team that knows that
Speaker 7: they've been right there, and I think that they know
Speaker 7: how good they are, and they know their identity and
Speaker 7: their pieces. And when you have athletes that are a
Speaker 7: that good but we also know and play within their identity,
Speaker 7: it's just really hard to be a team like that.
Speaker 7: And again I thought Kentucky played them closer than I
Speaker 7: thought they would, not that I thought Kentucky was bad
Speaker 7: and just going to get blown out, But again, Pittsburgh
Speaker 7: is just that good. I did not think that Kentucky
Speaker 7: would be up twenty two sixteen in one of the
Speaker 7: sets pitch, they just imposed their will on you, and
Speaker 7: it's just really really hard to beat that team. Obviously
Speaker 7: only one team half, so.
Speaker 1: I thought Kentucky was extremely competitive with Pitt. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was pleasantly surprised, and like you said, twenty two to sixteen,
Speaker 1: I thought, well, this is going to be interesting if
Speaker 1: they can finish this up and get it into a
Speaker 1: third and four set. But we know, like you said,
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many times where I thought,
Speaker 1: well that's down, that's.
Speaker 7: A point, but kept it alive and that was the game, Dick, Yeah,
Speaker 7: that was the game. When they lost that run, you
Speaker 7: knew that the it was over just because the confidence
Speaker 7: that you're up twenty two to sixteen, which in volleyball,
Speaker 7: like you have a six point lead. Really in any set,
Speaker 7: it's hard to overcome, especially when you're only three points
Speaker 7: away just be between service errors and hitting errors, like,
Speaker 7: it's really hard to lose a lead like that. The
Speaker 7: other team has to play Basically, it's like being up
Speaker 7: fifteen with three minutes to go on basketball, like, it's
Speaker 7: very unlikely that it's going to be overcome. And so
Speaker 7: when they lost that lead, you just you knew, like
Speaker 7: what else do we have to do? Like we were
Speaker 7: just up six, three points away, and even that didn't
Speaker 7: do it. And you think, you know, you'd like to
Speaker 7: think if that match gets tied one to one, you
Speaker 7: have all the momentum on your side, and you've exploited
Speaker 7: a lot of the things that you wanted to exploit,
Speaker 7: and you really didn't play well in the first set
Speaker 7: and you almost won that one. So you've got to
Speaker 7: think that their confidence would have been like, hey, we
Speaker 7: got this. And so when they lost that lead, you
Speaker 7: just kind of knew, like, there's just it would take
Speaker 7: a herculean effort, in a miraculous collapse on Pittsburgh's parts
Speaker 7: for them to actually come back. And so that was
Speaker 7: the game that right there was the game when they
Speaker 7: lost that run on Well.
Speaker 1: Chucky was out playing pitt It's not like pitt was
Speaker 1: playing poorly. Kentucky's just playing better. And yeah, it just happens.
Speaker 1: And that's that volleyball. Momentum changes in volleyball more than
Speaker 1: any other sport, quicker than any other sport. Is wild, yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's what helps make it great. Hunter Mitchell, you
Speaker 1: can follow him on Twitter. Where do people see your work?
Speaker 6: You can follow me on Twitter at h Mitchell fourteen
Speaker 6: and then I've been writing on KSR on k sr's website.
Speaker 1: So sounds good, brother.
Speaker 6: Thank you see us soon, yes, sir, Thank you, Dick.
Speaker 1: It really was a remarkable season when you think about
Speaker 1: all those losses back at the beginning of the year,
Speaker 1: and not surprising because they were playing just a brutally
Speaker 1: tough schedule, including Louisville, which is in the Final four
Speaker 1: now playing on its home court. But you know, you
Speaker 1: had to wonder was this the year that the streak
Speaker 1: would end when it came to Southeastern Conference championships. Turns
Speaker 1: out no, they won their a straight. Didn't look good
Speaker 1: after they were swept by Texas, but then Texas began
Speaker 1: to falter and Kentucky took care of business and went
Speaker 1: on to take the championship with the ability to host
Speaker 1: for a seventh consecutive season. Craig Skinner, of course, was
Speaker 1: proud of what happened this year winning the conference title,
Speaker 1: but really proud, he said, of the way this team
Speaker 1: battled back after the setbacks early in the year.
Speaker 5: Outside of this particular match, I couldn't be more proud
Speaker 5: of this team and doing this a long time, and
Speaker 5: there's been very few that have those resilient, tough understanding
Speaker 5: and seeing the value in each other and overcoming injuries,
Speaker 5: you know, all kinds of things to get to this point,
Speaker 5: and you know, each one of them maximize their abilities
Speaker 5: and maximize the potential of this team, and all fifteen
Speaker 5: on the roster made a difference in you know, us
Speaker 5: having the success that we did this year. So as
Speaker 5: a staff and a coach, couldn't be more proud of
Speaker 5: of what we'll accomplished this year.
Speaker 1: One of Skinner's building blocks next season will be Brooke Baltima,
Speaker 1: who was a force on that front line up at
Speaker 1: the net. She can score, and she talked after the match,
Speaker 1: and again this is her freshman year. She's a red
Speaker 1: shirt freshman after sitting at all last year injured. She
Speaker 1: talked about the late run that this team made.
Speaker 8: I think those are the things that I'm most proud
Speaker 8: of this team because we went through a lot of
Speaker 8: hard things. There are a lot of things that we
Speaker 8: had to work through, and by the end, I mean
Speaker 8: we I mean we were so close, we were so bonded,
Speaker 8: Like our bond on the court was just the strongest
Speaker 8: it's ever been and something that I just will hold
Speaker 8: on to the rest of my life. That's I'm gonna
Speaker 8: remember that more than the wins, more than the accolades,
Speaker 8: more than anything else. So I think just the little
Speaker 8: victories that we achieved together.
Speaker 1: And I'll do it for now. Thanks to Jared Van
Speaker 1: who's Hunter Mitchell and Brian Milin. Back with you tomorrow night.
Speaker 1: That said good night from the garage in Lexington. That's
Speaker 1: a joke, son a flying waiver. You're built too low
Speaker 1: a fast ones go over your head.
Speaker 8: You got a hole in your glove.
Speaker 4: I keep picking them and you keep missing them.
Speaker 1: You gotta keep your eye on the ball.