Speaker 1: All right, let's get it. Wednesday afternoon Drivetime, nine minutes
Speaker 1: past the hour of two o'clock.
Speaker 2: Another beautiful day. Man, It's been a.
Speaker 1: Stretch of great, nice warm weather here in downtown Salt
Speaker 1: Lake City, Utah. It's about forty eight degrees and sunny,
Speaker 1: and as it is every single day, it's gonna have
Speaker 1: you along for the ride. My name is Spence Checketts.
Speaker 1: I host this program. It is called The Drive with
Speaker 1: Spence check Its on ESPN seven hundred ninety two NFM,
Speaker 1: proud to be part of Utah's ESPN Radio network. That
Speaker 1: young man is named Porter Larson. He produces the show
Speaker 1: and we've got a lot to do on a jam
Speaker 1: packed local and national sports day. Not a ton of
Speaker 1: local stuff. Last night at the Utah Hockey Club, got
Speaker 1: a win and a win they need it. Chicago's not
Speaker 1: very good this year, two to one. So the march
Speaker 1: toward the wild card continues for the Utah Hockey Club.
Speaker 1: But tonight bevy of local action jazz taking on the
Speaker 1: Sacramento Kings at the Delta Center. University of Utah is
Speaker 1: at McHale take on Arizona. Tough task for Josh right out.
Speaker 2: Of the Gates as the interim head coach for the Uts.
Speaker 1: Brigham Young is taking on Arizona States, and the Utah
Speaker 1: women will take on West Virginia. So we got a
Speaker 1: lot to talk about on the program today. A lot
Speaker 1: to talk about on the program today. You'll hear the
Speaker 1: Utah men's basketball game on our radio station, our coverage.
Speaker 1: We'll get rolling with Ryle's and Sean Mooney at about
Speaker 1: six thirty to night and tip off on ESPN Plus,
Speaker 1: keep that in mind is at seven o'clock. So a
Speaker 1: lot of local basketball action to get to tonight. Some
Speaker 1: great NBA basketball last night that did not include the
Speaker 1: Utah Jazz. We saw Luka Doncitz take on his old
Speaker 1: team in Los Angeles, Lakers and the Maps. Luca had
Speaker 1: a triple double. Kyrie was awesome, but the Lakers were
Speaker 1: able to hold off the Mavericks. The Warriors moved to
Speaker 1: six and one with Jimmy Butler in the lineup, and
Speaker 1: the Grizzlies and the Suns combined for two hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety nine points. We saw a great game between the
Speaker 1: Bucks and the Rockets. So a lot of really fun
Speaker 1: NBA basketball last night, and moving over to kind of
Speaker 1: the stretch run. And I will say, as the guy
Speaker 1: that oftentimes complains about NBA basketball employing basketball players that
Speaker 1: don't seem to like to play basketball, some good hard
Speaker 1: NBA action over the past few days after the All
Speaker 1: Star break, you kind of see players playing a little
Speaker 1: bit harder with more intention. And I wish they did
Speaker 1: it all year, But what are you gonna do. We'll
Speaker 1: take it as we can get it. The NFL PA
Speaker 1: survey was released today. Whatdy Johnson is the worst owner
Speaker 1: in the NFL? Eons to New York Jets. I am
Speaker 1: a New York Jets fan. The annual Team report Card
Speaker 1: survey of nearly seventeen hundred players who graded their teams
Speaker 1: in various categories.
Speaker 2: So we do some NFL offseason.
Speaker 1: The latest on Matt Stafford is the High Speed Ahead
Speaker 1: to the Raiders. Reports are he's been hanging out with
Speaker 1: Tom Brady. Are the Giants going to look to stag
Speaker 1: Matt Stafford? And of course the NFL Combine is going
Speaker 1: on in preparation for the NFL Draft. We've got free
Speaker 1: uts there Forrede Reed junior to fote in Rand Keithy.
Speaker 1: So we'll do some NFL on the program today as well.
Speaker 1: Good guest list rsl is in action six thirty Mountain
Speaker 1: Tome Kick rsel Eradiano.
Speaker 2: We'll get you ready for that game as well.
Speaker 1: It is soccer season and as you know, we like
Speaker 1: to cover all of our local teams and local bases
Speaker 1: on the program. We'll start things off today with Christopher Camaraddi,
Speaker 1: our buddy from the Athletic.
Speaker 2: We'll do a bunch of anything.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, we'll do a bunch of everything and anything
Speaker 1: with Chris Comaraddi. We may have a special guest live
Speaker 1: in studio with Chris at three o'clock. Let's call the tease.
Speaker 1: Won't tell you it is because I don't want c
Speaker 1: koo either, but we'll bring in Chris in right off
Speaker 1: the bat. Richard Smith joins us at three thirty for
Speaker 1: an hour live in studio. Good day to have Smitty on.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to Smithy about a bunch of
Speaker 1: different topics, both with the Jazz and the NBA. Then
Speaker 1: get Smitty's thoughts as somebody who's been in our community
Speaker 1: for forty plus years on the current vacant head coaching
Speaker 1: position at the University of Utah. All due respect to
Speaker 1: josh I don't think he's a candidate to take it permanently.
Speaker 2: I could be wrong.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what direction Mark Harlin's going to
Speaker 1: go over bringing Smitty today and then the latest on
Speaker 1: the utes, basketball, football, women's hoops. Maybe Red Rocks two
Speaker 1: with Josh for Long on the program, an edition of
Speaker 1: that So Chris Camaraddie, Richard Smith, Josh Furlong potentially a
Speaker 1: very special guest live in studio during the three o'clock
Speaker 1: hour as well, Me Spence checkets all of you the
Speaker 1: great listeners, and that young man Porter Larson on a
Speaker 1: Wednesday afternoon. If you're Josh Eiler and not, but I
Speaker 1: know well if you were, that would be weird because
Speaker 1: he has a game to coach. How do you feel
Speaker 1: that the first game you're in charge of is potentially
Speaker 1: one of the two or three hardest places to play
Speaker 1: in the country. McHale is a nightmare.
Speaker 3: I will say that's a tough place to play. It's,
Speaker 3: you know, a storied venue. But I think it's also
Speaker 3: a good opportunity to have a team that is really
Speaker 3: energized and you know, ready to play for I don't
Speaker 3: know what that vibe is like, what that locker room
Speaker 3: back and forth. It's like between Josh Eilert and those
Speaker 3: players and what his culture that he's going to try
Speaker 3: to establish is going to be. But hey, if you're
Speaker 3: going to start anywhere, if it's not at home, why
Speaker 3: not a historic venue on the road, because you really
Speaker 3: don't have much to lose as the interim head coach
Speaker 3: going into a game against a ranked team in that venue.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, I like that. I like that attitude.
Speaker 1: Don't forget you can hear that game tonight. It's you
Speaker 1: tie Arizona. The pregame coverage we'll be get at six
Speaker 1: thirty and tip off is at seven. All right. Our
Speaker 1: first guest today will be Christopher Camaraddie Liven Studio on
Speaker 1: this beautiful Wednesday afternoon. Before we get the ck, courtesy
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Speaker 1: now for your opening tip.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Drive with Spence Check its on utah's
Speaker 4: number one Sports talk. Now into the studios of ESPN
Speaker 4: seven hundred to set the scene for the show. The
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Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: So the big news of the week has been of
Speaker 1: Utah electing to move on from Craig Smith. The craigsm
Speaker 1: Smith era is over the uttarn't action tonight. Josh Eiler
Speaker 1: interim head coach and his first task is to lead
Speaker 1: Utah men's basketball into McHale's Center to take on the
Speaker 1: Arizona Wildcats. This is one of the hardest places to
Speaker 1: play in the entire country. And give BYU a lot
Speaker 1: of credit an Tony Padilla, the official, a lot of
Speaker 1: credit for giving that game to BYU at the end
Speaker 1: with a horrific call. It wasn't a super well officiated game, period,
Speaker 1: but that call at the end was just a tough
Speaker 1: pill to swallow. And I think the Arizona fans made
Speaker 1: their feelings known with a ridiculously, you know, inappropriate chant
Speaker 1: after the game. But Arizona is going to be grumpy
Speaker 1: and it'll be interesting to see how Utah comes out
Speaker 1: when it comes to this matchup. Arizona is a fourteen
Speaker 1: point five point favor that's a massive spread. The over
Speaker 1: under is one fifty two point five. We've talked to
Speaker 1: a bunch of guests throughout the course of the week,
Speaker 1: Bill Riley, Sean Mooney, Josh Grant, et cetera. And yesterday
Speaker 1: bringing on Bill and Sean live in Tucson, my question
Speaker 1: was like, how do the players seem how do these
Speaker 1: young men seem to be doing? And unfortunately neither Bill
Speaker 1: or Sean had access to them yet because the players
Speaker 1: were in route form Orlando. But I'll be really interested
Speaker 1: to see how these young men look when it just
Speaker 1: comes to their body language.
Speaker 2: How are they going to react to a new coach?
Speaker 1: How are they going to react to one of the
Speaker 1: toughest places to play in all of college basketball? Against
Speaker 1: the team that Ken Pomeroy still believes and certainly after
Speaker 1: the chaos, as far as some of the colleges basketball upsets,
Speaker 1: I always stay lost. Again, Ken Palm still believes that
Speaker 1: Arizona is the second best team in this conference. Houston
Speaker 1: has lapped everybody. They're clearly the best team in the
Speaker 1: Big Twelve, probably one of the best three or four
Speaker 1: teams in all of college basketball. But according to Ken Palm,
Speaker 1: and it was Roxy Bernstein on the show yesterday, Arizona
Speaker 1: the second best team in the Big Twelve. And so
Speaker 1: the Utes with a tough tough task tonight, A really
Speaker 1: tough ask. Now this feels a little bit if I
Speaker 1: could draw the parallel, and it's not a perfect parallel,
Speaker 1: but you know, what sort of improvement, what sort of
Speaker 1: systematic change, what sort of concepts does Josh Eiler believe in?
Speaker 1: And will that manifest itself immediately? You know, Josh coach
Speaker 1: under Bob Huggins for a number of years. Bob Huggins
Speaker 1: seemed to be a little bit of a grumpy man,
Speaker 1: but a defensive minded coach that really believed in a
Speaker 1: lot of full core press, a lot of pressure, you
Speaker 1: you know, right up and down the floor, different sorts
Speaker 1: of looks when it comes to a press, different sorts
Speaker 1: of looks when it comes to wanting to make the
Speaker 1: other team uncomfortable defensively.
Speaker 2: I don't know if Josh is that type of coach.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we're going to see Utah implement
Speaker 1: some pressure, And honestly, this is probably the wrong team
Speaker 1: to do it against because they have one of the
Speaker 1: best point guards in America and Caleb Love, who's played
Speaker 1: a ton of college of basketball and he's having another
Speaker 1: great year.
Speaker 2: He's a pro. Caleb's about sixteen points.
Speaker 1: Four boards, four assists, his three point shooting percentage of
Speaker 1: down to thirty percent.
Speaker 2: But he is a problem.
Speaker 1: And when you have a league guard like that and
Speaker 1: an off guard like Aiden Bradley and even kJ Lewis,
Speaker 1: they kind of have this three guard, three headed monster
Speaker 1: with three really really capable ball handlers. I don't know
Speaker 1: that Utah will be able to provide pressure to bother
Speaker 1: this team. I don't think Utah has the personnel. I've
Speaker 1: talked about it all week long. You know, we can
Speaker 1: talk about the lack of results, in the lack of
Speaker 1: winning that happened under Craig, and certainly when you're the
Speaker 1: head coach, the issue is if you have a talent issue,
Speaker 1: you're also partly to blame for that. In this modern
Speaker 1: day and age of college basketball, you can't entirely blame
Speaker 1: the head coach, but the head coach in college basketball
Speaker 1: is also in charge of recruiting talent. It's different, and
Speaker 1: I do think we're actually moving into a different kind
Speaker 1: of era of college basketball and certainly college football, but
Speaker 1: we're kind of already there, and I don't know if
Speaker 1: the mechanisms to acquire talent in college will look exactly
Speaker 1: like the pros, I mean nil essentially as free agency,
Speaker 1: we just call it nil. But will we move into
Speaker 1: this era where you have to have like a salary
Speaker 1: capologist and somebody that understands the economics and you're actually
Speaker 1: offering contracts to players in college and it looks a
Speaker 1: lot like the pros. And I do think if we
Speaker 1: get there, by the way, it will be very good
Speaker 1: news because it will solve a lot of issues. I've
Speaker 1: been on this for years. Just lean into the pro model.
Speaker 1: If you want to understand the easiest way to eliminate
Speaker 1: players coming and going via nil, guess what it is?
Speaker 1: You sign a two year deal with a three year
Speaker 1: you know, with a third year option. Okay, so here
Speaker 1: Gabe Madson. Will use Gabe as an example. I guess
Speaker 1: let's use Ezra because Gabe is a senior. But here
Speaker 1: Ezrasar is a two year contract to play for the
Speaker 1: University of Utah, and then we have a third year option,
Speaker 1: or hey, you have a third year option as well,
Speaker 1: and if you want to leave after two years, then
Speaker 1: you can leave, but at least you know that you
Speaker 1: have Ezra for the next two years. And college basketball programs,
Speaker 1: like college football programs, are starting to hire general managers.
Speaker 1: They're starting to formulate their personnel to look very much
Speaker 1: like NBA and NFL front offices, and so as we
Speaker 1: kind of move into that era, you will have the
Speaker 1: ability to sign contracts and sign players just like NBA
Speaker 1: teams do via free agency. I seriously doubt we ever
Speaker 1: get into an area where you can execute trades. Right.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine if BYU and Utah just started trading players,
Speaker 1: so instead of Utah losing Kiba Keda, it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: just send us Richie Saunders. You can have Kbakeda and
Speaker 1: a second round pick or whatever. It sounds so weird
Speaker 1: to be talking about this, but ultimately, if college football
Speaker 1: and basketball move into the pro model entirely, maybe we
Speaker 1: do start seeing trades. I don't know, but I do
Speaker 1: feel that Craig as a coach is top shelf and
Speaker 1: high level. I just don't think he had talent night
Speaker 1: in and night out. So when it comes to what
Speaker 1: we'll see now, this feels a little bit the way
Speaker 1: we talked about Utah Football's offense when Mike Bajakian took
Speaker 1: over after coach lud was fired, Like, what is Josh
Speaker 1: Eiler going to figure out? That Craig didn't, and is
Speaker 1: he just going to keep running Craig's concepts because that's
Speaker 1: what these kids know, which may tonight kind of interesting
Speaker 1: and worth tuning in to see if there are any
Speaker 1: defensive philosophies or offensive concepts that change. You know, is
Speaker 1: Josh Eiler a coach that believes in different things than
Speaker 1: Craig believes? And I honestly have no idea, but that's
Speaker 1: what makes tonight kind of interesting.
Speaker 2: So Utah Basketball at Action.
Speaker 1: You can hear that game on the station starting at
Speaker 1: six thirty and then tip off will be at seven.
Speaker 1: No real new news as far as the coaching candidates,
Speaker 1: the two step in and replace Craig Smith have no
Speaker 1: idea which direction they're going. We talked quite a bit
Speaker 1: about some of the young coaching candidates that are coaching,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of smaller schools right now that ultimately
Speaker 1: feel like they could earn a shot of Bryce Drew
Speaker 1: and Eric Olson. But a lot of people are leaning
Speaker 1: in heavily to the idea of execut of executes, namely
Speaker 1: Alex Jensen as your head coach and Andre Miller's your assistant.
Speaker 1: That seems to be the rumor that's getting the most attention.
Speaker 1: That seems to be the scenario in situation A lot
Speaker 1: of alumni and boosters would lean into we'll talk about
Speaker 1: this with Smitty coming up in a little bit. And
Speaker 1: as I said yesterday with both Bill and Sean, I'm
Speaker 1: not usually a hey, let's win the press conference guy.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's really germane to results. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's something that's necessary. But I do feel like
Speaker 1: part of me feels like a little bit with this scenario,
Speaker 1: trying to win the press conference and win the day,
Speaker 1: and win the moment, to inject this college basketball community
Speaker 1: with a little bit of life, life that we haven't
Speaker 1: really seen consistently for a long time.
Speaker 2: If we're completely honest.
Speaker 1: If we're entirely honest, there have just been moments, right
Speaker 1: Ray Jacaletti Andrew Bogut Boga was a Majeri's recruit. Even
Speaker 1: Jim Boiling had a Luca Dertcha Luke Neville team that
Speaker 1: went to the NCAA Tournament as a five seed. They
Speaker 1: lost Arizona, but that was a good team. Coach Kriscoviak
Speaker 1: had a couple of good team Delon Yakub obviously and
Speaker 1: Craig had some wins here there Oregon, you know, Arizona
Speaker 1: by U, but the moments have not led to any
Speaker 1: consistent energy brought by the community. And so if you
Speaker 1: get a release and the University of Utah sends out
Speaker 1: an announcement like the new head coach of the Utes
Speaker 1: is Alex Jensen and his lead assistant is Andre Miller,
Speaker 1: I think instantaneously the basketball building up there receives a
Speaker 1: ton of phone calls from interested consumers wanting to put
Speaker 1: down deposits for season tickets next year.
Speaker 2: And I do think that's what this program needs.
Speaker 1: And I do believe both of those two would be
Speaker 1: part of culture building that eventually might bring Utah back
Speaker 1: to where we all want to see Utah basketball be.
Speaker 1: So we'll have to see Little yacht Rock. On a Wednesday,
Speaker 1: I told Porter to watch the yacht Rock documentary on
Speaker 1: HBO Max because my next guest told me to watch it.
Speaker 1: I've got to say, you have a pretty phenomenal taste
Speaker 1: all of your.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you know.
Speaker 5: That's how we're starting.
Speaker 1: Chris Camaraddi Liven Studio log on YouTube right now, We've
Speaker 1: got seven viewers. You can see ck in sunglasses and
Speaker 1: a shirt that I'm legitimately envious of, which is a
Speaker 1: T shirt with a picture of Aaron Falk on it
Speaker 1: in the Goat Adam Mikholitch and Aaron is trying to
Speaker 1: fix his ear piece before he goes on television direct.
Speaker 2: It's an excellent T shirt.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 2: How'd you get that done?
Speaker 5: There's a website called tea Public where you can upload
Speaker 5: high resolution photos and make them look weird and then
Speaker 5: they'll print a T shirt for you. Okay, so there
Speaker 5: was a time for a good four or five year stretch.
Speaker 5: We were making really stupid T shirts as like a
Speaker 5: side Joe hustle as a group of friends.
Speaker 2: Do you have any other falk teas or is that
Speaker 2: your only one?
Speaker 5: I have one. Falk made a once in a lifetime
Speaker 5: one that I lost that I of you, not of me,
Speaker 5: of the real Goat Gordon Monson, No way correct. I
Speaker 5: haven't seen it since. The reason why I lost it
Speaker 5: is because, long story short, my bachelor party was in Moab,
Speaker 5: and for some insane reason, there was a bachelorette party
Speaker 5: in Moab as well, and we met at one of
Speaker 5: two bars in Moab and the groups got together and
Speaker 5: they started dancing to country music. Okay, somebody liked my
Speaker 5: shirt and they asked for it, and I gave it
Speaker 5: to him.
Speaker 2: Very nice of you.
Speaker 5: It's now no longer a bar, it's gone. So now
Speaker 5: there's only one official bar in Moab. This was This
Speaker 5: was called the Rio, and it was a great time.
Speaker 5: So you'll have to ask Aaron about the shirt that
Speaker 5: I don't know if he even has it. It's an
Speaker 5: amazing one.
Speaker 1: Falk has impressive Moab knowledge.
Speaker 2: By the way.
Speaker 1: I went down to Moab with Falk, our guy named
Speaker 1: Bench and Trap when we played golf, and I don't
Speaker 1: think I had been to Moab since I was in college.
Speaker 1: I just have not been that down south very much.
Speaker 1: And Aaron knew where to eat, he knew where to go,
Speaker 1: he knew where to stay.
Speaker 5: A lot of his guys at school at Utah State
Speaker 5: were Moab amazing stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, without him, I would have been lost. But
Speaker 1: otherwise we had a great time, great place. We need
Speaker 1: to get you down there. Hey, let's go.
Speaker 5: I was thinking about I think the last time, one
Speaker 5: of the last times I went golfing was when we
Speaker 5: were at Wasatch Mountain State Park and I wore my
Speaker 5: Antonio Daniel's jersey.
Speaker 1: Yes, and your garden gloves.
Speaker 5: And my garden gloves. And the sheriff what do we
Speaker 5: call him? The ward, the marshall, the marshall sorry, you know, aggressive.
Speaker 5: The Marshall was none too pleased.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, that's right. Did he ask you to
Speaker 1: stop playing? Did he kick you off the course?
Speaker 5: No, he he asked me to I think he asked
Speaker 5: me to put shoes on.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's right.
Speaker 1: You also didn't have shoes. Yeah, yeah, I remember, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that entire scenario. You also teed off for
Speaker 1: a par three with your driver and it was a
Speaker 1: great shot and it actually worked out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I landed on the green.
Speaker 1: It was very impressive.
Speaker 2: So we need to get you down involve. It's a
Speaker 2: good time, man. We had a good time.
Speaker 1: And when you get bench and fall together, you never
Speaker 1: know how it's going to go down.
Speaker 2: All right, Christopher.
Speaker 1: Big news of the week this week, Craig Smith has
Speaker 1: been encouraged to find more constructive things to do with
Speaker 1: his time. He's no longer the head coach at the
Speaker 1: University of your top. So let's just get your reaction
Speaker 1: to that news and then we'll kind of dig in
Speaker 1: a couple of dynamics here.
Speaker 5: Like everyone else thinks somewhat odd timing, But if you
Speaker 5: are a smart person who can read the tea leaves,
Speaker 5: you are getting a jumpstart potentially on a coaching search
Speaker 5: now as opposed to three or four weeks from now.
Speaker 5: I understand the the argument of wanting to retain players
Speaker 5: for the next potential coaching staff, but I think one
Speaker 5: thing we can say is the next potential coaching staff
Speaker 5: needs to make wholesale upgrades on this roster if they're
Speaker 5: going to be competitive. And there are some pieces I
Speaker 5: think you can say on this team, but Craig Smith
Speaker 5: is a good coach. But looking at his track record,
Speaker 5: even going back to Utah State, he generally performed really
Speaker 5: well with guys he inherited. Namish Kita is the one
Speaker 5: that I can really think of that he brought in.
Speaker 5: Difference Maker went pro is in. I think he's in
Speaker 5: the Celtics rotation.
Speaker 2: Yeah minutes.
Speaker 5: But you know Sam Merrill, he inherited. Sam Merrill is
Speaker 5: so old our guy. Sam's twenty eight now, which makes
Speaker 5: me feel very old. Sam committed to Stu Morril. That's
Speaker 5: how That's how long ago he came back and played
Speaker 5: for Tim Durrea, who was Stu's an assistant. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 5: and then when Tim got fired, you know, Craig go hired,
Speaker 5: and so on and so forth. So long winded way
Speaker 5: of saying, if Utah is going to be good, I
Speaker 5: understand the fan base's desire to get a somewhat exciting
Speaker 5: new head coach. You got to get plenty of very
Speaker 5: exciting talent. That's the bottom line.
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, you're not wrong. And I do believe this
Speaker 1: was more of a talent issue than a coaching issue.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's keep in mind, Utah basketball was picked
Speaker 1: to finish last in the Big Twelve this year, and
Speaker 1: when you look at you know, the expectation for who
Speaker 1: most people thought they would be, and the fact that
Speaker 1: they're mid table with a chance to still win ten
Speaker 1: conference games. I actually think Craig did a good job
Speaker 1: this year coaching the roster. The problem, Chris, as you know,
Speaker 1: this isn't the NBA. Will Hardy did not draft these players.
Speaker 1: Will hard you to not acquire these players. That's Danny,
Speaker 1: that's justin. That's the jazz front office in college if
Speaker 1: you don't have talent. It also comes back to the
Speaker 1: head coach. Now, in the new day and age of
Speaker 1: college of basketball, it's not as on the coach as
Speaker 1: it used to be because you have to have a
Speaker 1: healthy economic structure behind you to pay these players in
Speaker 1: a way you didn't used to. And I still have
Speaker 1: questions about where Utah's collective is. I honestly don't know.
Speaker 1: Mark Carlin releases a statement. You hear certain things about
Speaker 1: where they're at now, the excitement for where they could
Speaker 1: be moving forward, But from a basketball standpoint, it's pretty
Speaker 1: clear that economically Utah at this point has just elected
Speaker 1: not to lean into the basketball financing the way that
Speaker 1: Brigham Young has. How much of the consternation around Craig
Speaker 1: and Utah basketball do you think it's tied to what
Speaker 1: Kevin is doing down south?
Speaker 5: I think it plays a role in it. I think
Speaker 5: you'd be a fool if you didn't say that out loud.
Speaker 5: Either you're up in the night or you're just lying
Speaker 5: to yourself, and you could potentially be doing both. But
Speaker 5: the same way, Byu was gritting their teeth for ten
Speaker 5: years while Kyle you know, was kind of running the
Speaker 5: table over them with that, with that win streak, you
Speaker 5: can't be shown up in such dramatic fashion by your rival,
Speaker 5: Be so boring, be so irrelevant, and just not have
Speaker 5: the fan base get apathetic. The fan base has been
Speaker 5: apathetic for a long time. Let's be honest. I mean
Speaker 5: we've talked about I think the last time they had
Speaker 5: a really good team, that Sweet sixteen team with Kuzma, Yeah,
Speaker 5: Delon Wright yaka Perl. They haven't made an NCAA tournament
Speaker 5: almost ten years. It's so wild, that is insane. Haven't
Speaker 5: had a player drafted since Kyle Kuzma in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 5: And I know, and I know the draft thing. You know,
Speaker 5: like you need pros, you needah. Not only do you
Speaker 5: need pros, but you need guys who can go over
Speaker 5: and play at Barcelona or realmand just like Utah hasn't
Speaker 5: had it right. And I know who is the dude
Speaker 5: who wants sat John's that everyone was mad about.
Speaker 2: Davon Davon Smith.
Speaker 5: Is he a difference make round?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah he's good. Okay, he's really good.
Speaker 5: But does he make them a top six team in
Speaker 5: the Big twelve?
Speaker 1: Probably not, But he gets them a lot closer because
Speaker 1: he's exactly what they're missing this year.
Speaker 2: Okay, He's exactly what they're missing this year.
Speaker 5: My argument would be, you need at least one or
Speaker 5: two guys better than a guy like that in order
Speaker 5: to really turn this thing around. And I don't think
Speaker 5: Utah has come close to developing anybody like that in
Speaker 5: house for a very long time.
Speaker 1: It's very fair and it's a simple exercise, and you
Speaker 1: can do it with both the local stuff and nationally.
Speaker 1: I mean, whoever wins the national championship this year, whoever
Speaker 1: is in the final four, they will have more than
Speaker 1: two or three high level pros NBA guys, fringe rotation players,
Speaker 1: and then maybe a couple of players that can go
Speaker 1: over to Europe. And we have examples of that that
Speaker 1: we can look at with the University of Utah. The
Speaker 1: s teams Rick ever had had, Andre Pro, Alex Jensen,
Speaker 1: European pro Britton Johnson NBA, and europe Mike Doliak made
Speaker 1: money playing pro basketball. Hanald Metzla like they I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: probably the best example. So all of these teams that
Speaker 1: we all watched in the nineties that didn't just make
Speaker 1: the tournament but made runs, one of them came within
Speaker 1: a red bull of winning a national championship. They're up
Speaker 1: ten and at halftime with Kentucky and then I I'll
Speaker 1: never forget man. They come out of the locker room
Speaker 1: in the second half within five minutes and like their gas.
Speaker 1: Because Rick was essentially playing seven guys. He wanted his
Speaker 1: top shelf players playing. And it's not just Utah. I
Speaker 1: mean right now, Kevin Young down a BYU has two
Speaker 1: pros for sure, two NBA guys for sure in Yegor
Speaker 1: Demon and Cannon Catchings, and a guy in Richie Saunders
Speaker 1: who's playing his way onto the radars and scouts. He's
Speaker 1: really good. He is a European guy for sure. I
Speaker 1: think that's probably it. I know Dallen Hall talks about
Speaker 1: wanting to play pro basketball, but as John on Kalipara
Speaker 1: used to say, when somebody asked him, Ami prosy yat,
Speaker 1: he said, I have twelve go ask him. Right, they
Speaker 1: all think they can play, but no, to your point, like,
Speaker 1: if you want to win championships, if you want to
Speaker 1: compete for championships, if you want to make the tournament
Speaker 1: and advance, this is a player's game at the end
Speaker 1: of the day. Luke Walton took over the Warriors from
Speaker 1: Steve Kerr and won like thirty seven of thirty nine games.
Speaker 1: Luke Walton couldn't get a job. He just had that
Speaker 1: group of players. So the unfortunate reality is the coach
Speaker 1: is the one who falls on the sword. He's the
Speaker 1: one that loses his job because you can't fire the players.
Speaker 1: This to me is a talent issue, period, and not
Speaker 1: a coaching issue in my opinion.
Speaker 5: Oh, it's been an issue for a long time. I
Speaker 5: mean Larry, Larry inherited, I mean our guy Bill. Next
Speaker 5: time you have Bill on, you should ask Bill about
Speaker 5: his first year on the beat. He covered that first
Speaker 5: Larry team that will Arm. Yeah, that won like five
Speaker 5: games back in the PAC twelve era.
Speaker 1: Porter Yes, idea, Bill Arm. Let's get Bill on this week.
Speaker 6: A right.
Speaker 5: Larry built it into something that was tangible and it worked.
Speaker 5: Chris Hill was a huge Larry guy, made him a
Speaker 5: ten paid coach in the nation, which you can make
Speaker 5: an argument is is a reach. But Larry proved to
Speaker 5: be able to get to the NCAA tournament and did
Speaker 5: it a few times. It's interesting in retrospect that fans
Speaker 5: were frustrated with Larry when you know Mark Carlin decides
Speaker 5: to fire Larry I think they were on the hook
Speaker 5: for about seven million of dead contract money with him,
Speaker 5: and then I think it's about four with Craig. So
Speaker 5: in three and a half years, the athletic Department has
Speaker 5: had to pay essentially eleven million dollars of dead money
Speaker 5: to coaches that have been released from their contract for
Speaker 5: a school like you taught, that's a lot. It's a lot.
Speaker 5: We're not talking about a blue blood program that has
Speaker 5: cash rolling in. And to your point, I think one
Speaker 5: of the main reasons why this move was made was
Speaker 5: because the apathy within the donor booster supporter base reached
Speaker 5: a level that was untenable. And what is next is
Speaker 5: people going to try to live in the past, which
Speaker 5: I think is a very dangerous game, especially a thirty
Speaker 5: years ago type past. But if those are the people
Speaker 5: that are cutting in checks all these years later, you
Speaker 5: kind of have to listen to them. So how this
Speaker 5: thing shakes out will see, But safe to say you
Speaker 5: have to nail the higher man. But you have to
Speaker 5: nail the higher.
Speaker 1: And before we get to what's next, because that's ultimately
Speaker 1: where I want to go to. In just a moment,
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of pressure on Mark to kind
Speaker 1: of get this thing right. Yeah, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that we talked about, and you and I
Speaker 1: discussed this Tom Homo after he announced that he's stepping
Speaker 1: down after twenty years, and look for people that are upset.
Speaker 1: I know there are other sports outside of basketball and football,
Speaker 1: but these are the revenue generators, and these are what
Speaker 1: people watch more than anything and are interested in more
Speaker 1: than anything. Shout out to the other coach hires, you
Speaker 1: know that were made outside of it. But Tom essentially
Speaker 1: went five for five. You know when you look at
Speaker 1: Dave Rose and Bronco Menenhall and Mark Pope and Kladie
Speaker 1: Satake and now the early returns on Kevin Young seemed
Speaker 1: to be positive.
Speaker 2: And Mark's only hires Craig that didn't work.
Speaker 5: He's only outside higher, Yeah, he's only outside higher.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5: He gave Gavin Peterson the job after Lynn Leu.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, right right, And so ultimately the plan was
Speaker 1: in place, I believe for Moregan to take over for
Speaker 1: Kyle before Mark took his job. So we have Mark Harlan, who,
Speaker 1: if we're honest, had a bit of a rough year,
Speaker 1: a little bit here there, some rough looks. The press
Speaker 1: conference after the BYU game took a lot of heat,
Speaker 1: was reprimanded from the conference, they had to pay a fine,
Speaker 1: and the one main major higher he made is now over.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of it was his call.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of it was boosters. I
Speaker 1: don't how much of it was Taylor Randalls one of
Speaker 1: the Taylor Randall's like an underrated figure and all this stuff,
Speaker 1: because that dude is sharp, He's very smart, and.
Speaker 5: He's he's a sports guy too.
Speaker 1: He's a sports guy, but he's a wicked, smart businessman,
Speaker 1: like he understands the bottom line. So were these boosters
Speaker 1: going to Taylor and then Taylor going to Mark and saying, look,
Speaker 1: we got to do something here. Is there something with
Speaker 1: player retention that they were worried about, which is why
Speaker 1: the timing was right now? Like do they want ezra
Speaker 1: us Our back? And are there players that feel like
Speaker 1: they're underutilized that they want to keep.
Speaker 2: I don't fully know how it.
Speaker 1: All went down at the end of the day, but
Speaker 1: it does sound like a lot of this was booster driven,
Speaker 1: and so the reasons could be varied. We could reduce
Speaker 1: it to the fact that he didn't win enough. We
Speaker 1: could reduce it to the fact that the attendance continues
Speaker 1: to dwindle. And it's a basketball community that I do
Speaker 1: think needs a little shot of juice, needs a little
Speaker 1: shot of life. And that's why let's move over to
Speaker 1: what's next. When you look at the direction that Mark
Speaker 1: could take. Here, there's a list of young coaches at
Speaker 1: smaller schools that have done a great jo and kind
Speaker 1: of the college basketball ecosystem has always worked like this.
Speaker 1: You take a small school from a smaller conference, you
Speaker 1: get an auto bid to the NCAA Tournament because you
Speaker 1: won your conference. You win a couple of games, and
Speaker 1: your life changes. Craig did it right, and so Mark
Speaker 1: has already followed that model. You have names like Eric
Speaker 1: Olsen from UC San Diego. You have Nico Medved from
Speaker 1: Colorado State. You have Eric Henderson from South Dakota State.
Speaker 1: You have Leon Rice from Boise, Russell Turner from UC Irvine.
Speaker 1: This is a list put together by Jeff Borzello. So
Speaker 1: that's one avenue the young college coach that's done well
Speaker 1: at a small school and you're gonna make him rich
Speaker 1: to coach in the Big twelve. The other avenue, as
Speaker 1: you outlined just now is the Johnny Bryant, the Alex Jensen,
Speaker 1: de Andre Miller, the former utes to sit on the bench.
Speaker 1: Let's start here. Do you think in our state it
Speaker 1: is over sold to need a BYU guy, need a
Speaker 1: Utah guy, need a guy that understands the community. Do
Speaker 1: you think that's in Do you think it's Do you
Speaker 1: think it's overrated? Because every time one of these jobs
Speaker 1: comes up and Chris, this is what we do. As
Speaker 1: soon as Bronco left, it was Kilane right. Kevin's different,
Speaker 1: you know, but LDS b Yu it's kind of a
Speaker 1: different thing. Do you think you have to understand Utah
Speaker 1: to take this job? Urban didn't?
Speaker 5: Urban didn't. I don't think so. But if we're talking
Speaker 5: about the power brokers behind the scenes, they are the
Speaker 5: folks who presumably were involved during the Heyday and they
Speaker 5: lived it, and if they're going to have a say,
Speaker 5: they're going to trend in that direction. They do not
Speaker 5: want to see the bleachers covered up anymore in the
Speaker 5: upper deck. They shouldn't be covered up. They shouldn't be
Speaker 5: I mean, like it's been like that for so long
Speaker 5: it's insane. I personally think the Utah fan base as
Speaker 5: a whole doesn't show out the same way some of
Speaker 5: the other fan bases in this stay tue for basketball.
Speaker 5: They they just don't and they haven't for a long time.
Speaker 5: And maybe it is just being fed up with being
Speaker 5: so average or below average. But I can tell you
Speaker 5: the one time I was at the Huntsman Center where
Speaker 5: I felt like it was at the Marriott Center or
Speaker 5: up at up in Logan, I can't And I've covered
Speaker 5: a bunch of games there for fifteen years. Can't remember it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So.
Speaker 5: There is a lot that goes into this. Like I said,
Speaker 5: are you willing to go out and pay an Alex
Speaker 5: Jensen five to seven million dollars a year to leave
Speaker 5: the NBA lifestyle to take over at his alma mater
Speaker 5: knowing that the nil landscape at the alma mater might
Speaker 5: be on shaky ground. I mean, nobody's ever gonna come
Speaker 5: out and talk about what numbers they have because they're
Speaker 5: afraid of looking bad. But I think the frand for
Speaker 5: Scilla tweet caught fire a little bit, and I don't
Speaker 5: think was wrong in putting that out there either. There
Speaker 5: are many layers into what constitutes building a winning program
Speaker 5: in college basketball, in college football, in twenty twenty five now,
Speaker 5: and you mentioning the talent, looking at the talent, is
Speaker 5: there a indispensable player on this roster that absolutely has
Speaker 5: to come back next year? There's not. No, there's not no,
Speaker 5: there's not there's not. I mean, like, you can't be
Speaker 5: a power for conference team in a market that is growing,
Speaker 5: at a school that presumably is in a decent spot
Speaker 5: that should be in a better spot when it comes
Speaker 5: to nil, and not have a single indispensable player.
Speaker 1: It's a really, really fair point because if you look
Speaker 1: at the roster, so these are the players, there would
Speaker 1: be candidates to come back, and I think you'd like
Speaker 1: Ezra Sar back is at the end of the world.
Speaker 1: If you don't get him back, it's not. But he
Speaker 1: said he's had some real bride moments. He was the
Speaker 1: best player on the floor in that byu in So
Speaker 1: I think you would like Ezra back, but it's not
Speaker 1: the end of the world. Keanu Daz is a sophomore.
Speaker 1: He has shown Spurts got the same deal. Think you'd
Speaker 1: like him back, not a big deal if you don't
Speaker 1: have him. Hunter Rickson's gone. He's a senior. Of course,
Speaker 1: when you look down the roster, so is lost and
Speaker 1: lovery and Gabe Madsen as is Gabe's brother, Mason Shrob
Speaker 1: Jamps is a junior. Jake Wallen might be the answer.
Speaker 1: Jake's sophomore. He was a pretty good player. But no,
Speaker 1: to your point, none of these players leaving would kill
Speaker 1: your program.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that is pretty damning. I think it is.
Speaker 5: And the fact that we have to go back to
Speaker 5: twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, seventeen to really talk about the
Speaker 5: last time a Utah team had a potentially a potential
Speaker 5: NBA player on its roster is pretty wild.
Speaker 2: It's fair, No, it's very fair. What so let me
Speaker 2: get your thoughts on.
Speaker 5: So, let me ask you, let me interrupt you. Yeah,
Speaker 5: is going back in the time machine? Is that the
Speaker 5: right move for a guy who if we're talking theoretically,
Speaker 5: and Alex who's been a head coach in the G
Speaker 5: League only asn't coached college basketball. I don't think since
Speaker 5: he was an assistant for Rick at Saint Louis in
Speaker 5: twenty eleven, almost fifteen years. Yeah, you know, taking Andre
Speaker 5: Miller out of Grand Rapids or wherever he is G League, Yep,
Speaker 5: I just I can understand the draw, the desire for,
Speaker 5: you know, the legacy to come back, but I honestly
Speaker 5: just don't know what the right move is.
Speaker 1: Well, and you also touched on this earlier. Whoever Mark calls,
Speaker 1: the first thing they're going to ask is what's your
Speaker 1: nil deal? What's the collective? What's the economics, what's the foundation?
Speaker 1: The financial foundation around your basketball program? Looks like what
Speaker 1: what is it now? And what are you willing to
Speaker 1: promise me in writing that it will be if I
Speaker 1: take this job, Because it doesn't matter if you resurrect
Speaker 1: Rick Majaris. If you don't have your NIL in order,
Speaker 1: you cannot compete. Kyle talks about it every time he
Speaker 1: has a mic, like he leans into yes, like this
Speaker 1: is what we need from you as our community if
Speaker 1: you want our football team to be good. There are
Speaker 1: wild reports, mostly on the football side, that top Shell
Speaker 1: football recruits won't even answer the phone until they get
Speaker 1: like fifty k and then they'll talk to you.
Speaker 2: I have no idea if these are true.
Speaker 1: I think he was Sharif Shaw, who gave a nice
Speaker 1: coach show pep Talk last year and shared some anecdotes
Speaker 1: about players that he wanted to get on campus to
Speaker 1: visit Utah football for like Texas right, and He's like,
Speaker 1: I couldn't even get them to talk to me unless
Speaker 1: I was willing to like hit their venmo for fifty
Speaker 1: k or whatever.
Speaker 5: Shout Kevin Reynolds, Shout out Kevin.
Speaker 1: Yes he is killing and we'll get to that in
Speaker 1: a moment BYU's football andil situation and BYU fans who
Speaker 1: like to use the Internet to be brave and killing
Speaker 1: our guy Kevin. But it doesn't matter if it's Alex
Speaker 1: Jensen or if it's pat Riley or Fitz Brad Stevens.
Speaker 1: If your nil isn't in order, you're behind the eight ball.
Speaker 1: But to answer your question, I've changed my view on this,
Speaker 1: and here's why I do think this basketball community needs
Speaker 1: a lifeline. I think they need an injection of energy
Speaker 1: and you know, just something to jumpstart the basketball community
Speaker 1: interest that we haven't had here to your point, if
Speaker 1: we're honest, in a very long time, consistently outside of
Speaker 1: moments Jacko letty boge boilin Dertcha Neville.
Speaker 5: Dea, how dare you n tournament? Dare you?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: The five seat. They lost Arizona first round, but they
Speaker 1: were a top five seed in the tournament. You outline
Speaker 1: some of Larry's teams. We've had moments, but nothing's been
Speaker 1: consistent since Rick was on the sideline. That's just the
Speaker 1: bottom line. And because of that, I just think a
Speaker 1: Alex Jensen head coach, Andre Miller lead assistant would win
Speaker 1: the press conference inject life, and I believe the basketball
Speaker 1: facility would be in an data with calls for season
Speaker 1: ticket deposits. That doesn't answer the question of what it
Speaker 1: looks like long term, and I can't speak to that.
Speaker 1: I know Alex better than I know Andre, and I
Speaker 1: think Alex is a very very smart basketball mind, and
Speaker 1: he is credited with a lot of development of very
Speaker 1: good players, namely Rudy Gobert. Five years ago, when Mark
Speaker 1: decided to move on from Larry and Alex's name came up,
Speaker 1: I said, I don't think so, because I just think
Speaker 1: he's going to be an NBA head coach at some
Speaker 1: point five years later. I'm not sure he's at an interview.
Speaker 1: Back in the day, he had one interview with Cleveland
Speaker 1: before they hired Bickerstaff, and he was Quinn's lead assistant
Speaker 1: and that was such a successful run here in Saal
Speaker 1: Lake under Quinn Snyder. If I'm an owner, I'm looking
Speaker 1: at his lead assistant. But at this point Alex himself
Speaker 1: might be resigned to the fact that the NBA has
Speaker 1: labeled me as a lifetime assistant, and if I ever
Speaker 1: want to be a head coach, it is probably going
Speaker 1: to be in college, and this would be an opportunity
Speaker 1: that I think at this point he would lean into
Speaker 1: in a way that I didn't think five years ago.
Speaker 1: So I think it makes more sense in my mind
Speaker 1: that I thought it did a number of years ago.
Speaker 5: So that we're going to bottom line it here before
Speaker 5: we go to break because I know you're ready. You're
Speaker 5: gonna have to hire the right coach who will bring
Speaker 5: in the nil money, who has to go get the
Speaker 5: right players. Yep. It's as simple as that. And whether
Speaker 5: that's Alex Jensen or the dude from UC Riverside or
Speaker 5: Irvine or Richard Patino at New Mexico, that's how it works, period,
Speaker 5: end of story.
Speaker 6: Yep.
Speaker 5: You have to hire a guy that people want to
Speaker 5: give money to to go out and sign and pay players. Now,
Speaker 5: that's it. That's how it works. So if it is
Speaker 5: a guy that has ties to the program and it
Speaker 5: works great. And if it's a guy that doesn't have
Speaker 5: ties to the program and it works great too. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and right now it is an absolute crapshoot.
Speaker 1: And to your original point, if the Echos and the
Speaker 1: Huntsman's and whoever else, the Garfs, the Garfs, the camaradis,
Speaker 1: you know, whoever else is.
Speaker 5: My other point was going to be, I just think
Speaker 5: b YU has a longer history of rich people who
Speaker 5: are willing to donate to the university. I think Utah
Speaker 5: in a sense is still young there in terms of
Speaker 5: significant athletic success. Overall, it is a school that hasn't
Speaker 5: reached that echelon as say a BYU that's been swimming
Speaker 5: in that pool for fifty years, as opposed to you
Speaker 5: can talk about Majeris and then Urban and Kyle, we're
Speaker 5: talking thirty years. Yeah, so there, and obviously with BYU,
Speaker 5: the reach globally with the church as much wider. And
Speaker 5: I'm not saying there aren't rich members of the church
Speaker 5: that went to the U. There are, but that is
Speaker 5: also a very big part of this as well. The
Speaker 5: really rich people who want to donate money, they are
Speaker 5: fewer and far between.
Speaker 1: It the you as opposed to, and I think the
Speaker 1: data indicates that. So if you're a Youte fan, and
Speaker 1: if you're listening, we need to start instantly creating MLMs
Speaker 1: in Salt Lake that can fool peak companies into believing
Speaker 1: that a gel will cure answer or a drink.
Speaker 5: Have you watched the Netflix on the on the dude
Speaker 5: who wants to live forever?
Speaker 1: No, but from Utah? Of course he is, he went
Speaker 1: to Of course he is. That doesn't My brother sent
Speaker 1: me his book. I'm I'm not reading this and I
Speaker 1: haven't watched it either, because you know what, you just
Speaker 1: put me in a bad rude. But the data, so
Speaker 1: what I was told by somebody you would know is
Speaker 1: that BYU right now has nine seven figure donors. Utah
Speaker 1: is too, and I think you can guess who the
Speaker 1: two are. But before we catch a break, to your point,
Speaker 1: if the Echos and the Huntsmen and the Garths and
Speaker 1: whoever else up here is donating money at a large level,
Speaker 1: if they call Taylor President Randall and they say we
Speaker 1: want Alex, you got to hire him. I think it's
Speaker 1: kind of that simple. Because the people with deep pocketbooks
Speaker 1: are running this thing in a way they never have
Speaker 1: ye last thing because I wanted to ask you, what,
Speaker 1: what's your opinion on kind of the pressure that Mark
Speaker 1: is under to get this thing right based off of
Speaker 1: the rough year he's had.
Speaker 5: Well. So when Mark was hired from UCF, he came
Speaker 5: in as a guy who was very, very good at
Speaker 5: fundraising and wanted to prioritize facilities. That's talking to folks
Speaker 5: down in Tampa. They said that was his bread and butter,
Speaker 5: and he's done that. He got the you know, the
Speaker 5: garfend Zone whatever that's called. He got that across the
Speaker 5: finish line after Chris Hill put in a lot of
Speaker 5: work on that. You know, they broke round on the
Speaker 5: gymnastics center, They're working on the baseball stadium wherever that's
Speaker 5: going to be up on Sunnyside. But at the end
Speaker 5: of the day, Man, I've said this on the show
Speaker 5: Ad nauseum, the product is all that matters. Fans want
Speaker 5: to pay to see their teams play an exciting style
Speaker 5: of sport, whatever it is, and you have to nail
Speaker 5: it otherwise. If you don't nail this higher, then people
Speaker 5: are going to start to get really, really frustrated.
Speaker 1: I think, if we're honest, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people in this community that have put some pressure on
Speaker 1: Mark and if this doesn't go well, I'm not making
Speaker 1: any sort of grand statement about what's next, but I
Speaker 1: think this is bigger for him than most people realize.
Speaker 5: No, I wholeheartedly agree, all.
Speaker 1: Right, ck Liven Studio. We got a special guest I
Speaker 1: think joined us coming up next with Chris. He doesn't
Speaker 1: know who it is. I wanted it to be a surprise.
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Speaker 1: seven hundred. I got a Tom Bowter tweet. Wow, this
Speaker 1: is a little serendipity according to uh what do we
Speaker 1: call him? C K Tommy, Tommy Scoops.
Speaker 2: Lance, Now hold on a second, Okay, I'm gonna bring
Speaker 2: you in.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring in cording to Tommy Scoops, uh courding
Speaker 1: of sources where all saw Lake looking both international and
Speaker 1: domestic for a center forward. Amos dabl And signed before
Speaker 1: the end of the window. Hopefully soon RSL's called around
Speaker 1: MLS about Duncan McGuire, Brian White, Willie Ajada and you
Speaker 1: know what, not even taking a shot.
Speaker 2: The last name Tanny is the first name.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 1: A little r SL news which is apropos because Chris
Speaker 1: Camraaddie live in studio and sitting across from me, very
Speaker 1: handsome haircut. Trey Fitzgerald on a Wednesday, Hello Trey, good
Speaker 1: to be here, Thanks for coming.
Speaker 8: To see you guys on Conker Calf home opener day.
Speaker 1: Well, let's star art with Tommy Scoops. We got we
Speaker 1: got a forward on the way or what I mean? Look? Uh,
Speaker 1: Kurt all but admitted it on the show last week. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys are looking.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 8: No, Kurt had a media breakfast that you did not
Speaker 8: RSVP for a few weeks ago.
Speaker 1: That's irrelevant, he shared.
Speaker 8: Basically, this information is that RSL seeking a forward, maybe
Speaker 8: a DP nine, maybe a winger, maybe both, hopefully getting
Speaker 8: it done before the April twenty third close of the
Speaker 8: current window, because if you wait till the summer, there's
Speaker 8: only going to be seven or eight MLS games left
Speaker 8: by the end of August.
Speaker 1: Who was at the media breakfast? Was it Falking Dens Or.
Speaker 8: Who dens has hung up the tape Recorder's basically hung
Speaker 8: up his Twitter game too, But.
Speaker 1: Out to Den's may the forest Beware of the Originals?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, love soccer and Star Wars. David James there,
Speaker 1: DJ made Andy Larson was there, shout out to Andy, Okay,
Speaker 1: several did you send me an email about this?
Speaker 8: I send you every email. I'm not it's the old well,
Speaker 8: I'm not going to give out your email on here.
Speaker 8: It's all right, the old st check one which you
Speaker 8: may not check.
Speaker 1: You just gave it out and that's all right. Do
Speaker 1: I get a credential this year or what.
Speaker 8: Only if your hotmail accepted the application?
Speaker 2: Do you want to tell email stories on the radio
Speaker 2: today track?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 8: I don't have to.
Speaker 2: Do you know what Trey's email was in two thousand
Speaker 2: and four?
Speaker 5: I do not.
Speaker 1: Okay, quick story, anecdotally real quick. So two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: Tray is one of the first people we hire for RSL.
Speaker 1: We hadn't had our RSL email set up yet, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to start a fantasy football league for the
Speaker 1: new employee.
Speaker 2: So we get to know each other.
Speaker 1: So I go to Todd, Titus Brook Bingham, John Kimball,
Speaker 1: So I got to try and like, try, I need
Speaker 1: your email and he goes, I don't want to tell
Speaker 1: you what, dude, we're starting a fantasy football league. You
Speaker 1: got to tell me what it is. And he looks
Speaker 1: at me and he goes, it's ll cool. Tray. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, at yes, I had that at AOL dot
Speaker 1: I do that at AOL dot com LLL.
Speaker 5: AOL was still holding on at the time.
Speaker 1: It's no for sure, and instantly I'm like, I want
Speaker 1: to hang out with that guy, like that sounds awesome.
Speaker 8: Spence just wanted to play fantasy football against soccer guys
Speaker 8: for his ego's sake.
Speaker 1: I can't even tell you how much money I've made
Speaker 1: off that dumb league. I've wanted like thirteen times. If
Speaker 1: you want to feel good about your football knowledge, play
Speaker 1: fantasy football with soccer people. Matt Lennio is like my
Speaker 1: farm league. It is awesome. How many how many folks
Speaker 1: are we expecting out at the Riot tonight?
Speaker 8: I think we could see twelve to fourteen thousand out
Speaker 8: at America First Field and Sandy tonight. It's obviously clear day,
Speaker 8: beautiful day. It'll be a little chilly this evening. Going
Speaker 8: to warm up even more this weekend for the two
Speaker 8: thirty kickoff Saturday against Seattle, which will be sold out
Speaker 8: very nicely.
Speaker 1: You just called it the riot, right, It's a riot, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's the right. I never called it vivid. It was
Speaker 1: Delta Center still is. You know, it always was, it
Speaker 1: is now, it will always be the riot at America
Speaker 1: First Field. Let's get the online community angry today and
Speaker 1: refer to it. Referred to it as America First.
Speaker 5: Field credit Union.
Speaker 2: I'm aware of it.
Speaker 1: It's the same like if you get mad that cocuzesota
Speaker 1: because it's also a drug. You're an idiot. You can't
Speaker 1: hold two thoughts in your mind at once. It is
Speaker 1: a credit union. In addition to a statement that makes
Speaker 1: people upset, I'm here, RSL striker potential, what do you
Speaker 1: think necessary?
Speaker 5: I think you saw last year what Pablo Masteroeni can
Speaker 5: do with a full deck of cards. And I'm not
Speaker 5: saying he doesn't have a full deck of cards, but
Speaker 5: I kind of am right now. I think the offseason
Speaker 5: went sideways for RSL at the most important position on
Speaker 5: the team, and that happens, and you brought in some
Speaker 5: pieces that hopefully pan out. But as we saw over
Speaker 5: the weekend, Man and Trey knows this, like the teams
Speaker 5: that were winning and scoring goals, they were having goals
Speaker 5: scored by guys that came into this league and were
Speaker 5: paid five to ten million dollars. That's where we are now.
Speaker 5: You can't moneyball it anymore. You simply can't. Yep, And
Speaker 5: I think RSL knows that the bones around the number
Speaker 5: nine position is there. But without that, without an alpha,
Speaker 5: I don't know what the ceiling is for this team
Speaker 5: beyond scraping for sevent eight. I don't know, Tray, Are
Speaker 5: we still top seven?
Speaker 8: Is top top nine? Now there's an eight to nine
Speaker 8: play in game in each conference?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, top nine for the playoffs? Yeah, dumb league.
Speaker 8: So there's fifteen teams in each conference.
Speaker 1: That's still too many teams in the playoffs. You just
Speaker 1: want more content for your Apple viewers, and then you
Speaker 1: can lie about the number of viewers. I understand is
Speaker 1: it Ilias man Manuel? Because I had I said Elias,
Speaker 1: and he corrected me. He said it was Ilias.
Speaker 8: I've heard it three different ways, all.
Speaker 1: Right, Anyway, he didn't person so helped me understand this, right.
Speaker 1: So what happened because it felt like there was a
Speaker 1: little bit of buzz around him potentially coming And when
Speaker 1: I looked at simply the release you sent, they'd had
Speaker 1: numbers that he had scored goals and it looked like
Speaker 1: he could be was somewhat of an answer so I think.
Speaker 8: Young young Anderson Julio was the thought there half the
Speaker 8: price five six years younger uh scored a hat trick
Speaker 8: in the playoffs two years ago. Was it was it
Speaker 8: was a pretty good player for New York. Pablo Kurt
Speaker 8: had a exciting in there in Kurt's terms, zoom call
Speaker 8: with this guy. And then after he was traded, and
Speaker 8: this happens, I think more often than not with foreign players.
Speaker 8: Is anywhere else in the world do you have a
Speaker 8: say and where you go when you leave a team.
Speaker 8: In MLS, you're traded, much like in every American sports league.
Speaker 8: And and this guy and his agent two days before
Speaker 8: training camp said hey, we're not going to show up
Speaker 8: until you triple my salary. And we said, it's not
Speaker 8: how we were.
Speaker 2: It was a salary demand.
Speaker 8: Yeah, And then he he and his agent they wrote
Speaker 8: a big letter saying that they don't recognize Major League
Speaker 8: Soccers the contractual bylaws that allow you to be traded
Speaker 8: because MLS owns all the player comes. So it's a
Speaker 8: very unique thing. But so he never reported, He got
Speaker 8: suspended and fined and all these things, and I think
Speaker 8: now he's on the verge. According to Tom Bogert on
Speaker 8: the verge of being sold to a very prominent team
Speaker 8: in Brazil. So I think RSL will end up being
Speaker 8: made whole for the for the gam that we sent
Speaker 8: New York for him and a bunch of draft picks
Speaker 8: back on December twentieth. It's a little disappointing, right, Like,
Speaker 8: you know, he sounded like he wanted to come take
Speaker 8: Julio's place and maybe compete to take Chicho's place eventually,
Speaker 8: but he was viewed internally as a Anderson Julio replace him.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and if we're being honest, that's as a placeholder.
Speaker 5: He was a guy that could have helped stem the
Speaker 5: tide from January when they reported in camp through conquer
Speaker 5: Calf March April, hopefully get somebody who's going to come
Speaker 5: in and be in Alpha. But he was not the
Speaker 5: guy that was going to be the person who was
Speaker 5: going to replace Chicho Rondo. Is that that's just?
Speaker 2: Is that fair to say?
Speaker 1: Absolutely?
Speaker 7: Okay?
Speaker 5: Yeah, all right, and and sorry to interrupt you please again.
Speaker 5: To get back to where RSL was last year, I
Speaker 5: understand Deandrascoms sale had to happen, and you do that
Speaker 5: ten times out of ten, but you have to have
Speaker 5: somebody come in and take I don't know, bowl by
Speaker 5: the horns, scruff of the neck. I don't know which
Speaker 5: RSL attacker right now instill sphere in an opponent, I
Speaker 5: honestly don't. And there was a time last year where
Speaker 5: you had several and it's just part of it. But
Speaker 5: for RSEL to get back into contention in a league
Speaker 5: now that is spending a bleep ton of money on
Speaker 5: attacking players, they got to nail these moves.
Speaker 1: So the strikers on the roster now, Ilius is on
Speaker 1: the website.
Speaker 8: Well, he's still technically our proper.
Speaker 5: You haven't finalized the sales.
Speaker 8: Forrester for sure, A Jago r Peel Ari Peel?
Speaker 2: Are those the two best strikers on the rosters?
Speaker 8: The two nines right now? There is a first round
Speaker 8: draft pick named his sus Barea who will officially sign
Speaker 8: his MLS deal shortly once his student visa goes to
Speaker 8: being a P one visa.
Speaker 1: You know what his middle name is, I don't hopefully
Speaker 1: starts with Jay JJ Burreah. There you go, you like it.
Speaker 8: And then as you said, Kurt is scouring the league
Speaker 8: and scouring the globe looking for more competition up top.
Speaker 8: I think, to Chris's point, like you've seen a vander
Speaker 8: go from Portland to Cincinnati for thirteen million. Cincinnati also
Speaker 8: signed an international striker named Kevin Dankey for sixteen million.
Speaker 1: I believe.
Speaker 8: Lucha Acosta, who was the MVP two years ago, went
Speaker 8: from Cincinnati to Dallas for five million cash. So yes,
Speaker 8: the price of doing business is going up in this league.
Speaker 8: You remember we bought Chicho almost two years ago for
Speaker 8: six million. That's the biggest purchase in the history of RSL.
Speaker 8: As Pablo has taken a saying before Chicho was he
Speaker 8: was just a guy. Right now, rip Ol and Forster
Speaker 8: Rajago are just guys and they got to perform to
Speaker 8: become what everybody believes they will be. I think between
Speaker 8: Diego Luna, Diego Gonsalves, Dominic Marchuk, there is a belief
Speaker 8: that we can set these guys up for success, but
Speaker 8: clearly we've not seen that in the first one hundred
Speaker 8: and eighty minutes this season. I think Forrester has had
Speaker 8: a couple of good breakaway opportunities that.
Speaker 1: Didn't get finished.
Speaker 8: And I think tonight you'll see you a different team
Speaker 8: that just plays a little better and more cohesively than
Speaker 8: what we saw Saturday tonight.
Speaker 2: Jason.
Speaker 1: Two weeks ago, Jason crist and shout out to John Paul,
Speaker 1: you guys have lost JP. We're trying to win JP
Speaker 1: back to becoming an RSL fan, So this is partly
Speaker 1: for him. Jason brought up the conversation that my father
Speaker 1: had with him when Jason went to him and said,
Speaker 1: I'm trading Jeff Cunningham, and my dad said, who's going
Speaker 1: to score our goals? And Jason said it'll be by committee,
Speaker 1: and ultimately that's what happened, right, you trade, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: nail it Sturgis for Robbie Finley. Is that Nate Sturgis
Speaker 1: Robbie Finley client. Yes, Jason went brutus e two on
Speaker 1: his best friend tredon Mela, but you know, Robbie shows
Speaker 1: up and then you know, you never know when a
Speaker 1: hobby air type thing. I know rself fans hate when
Speaker 1: I go back to two thousand and nine, But Chris,
Speaker 1: is there a chance that the way that two thousand
Speaker 1: and you know, seven eight nine team was able to
Speaker 1: make up for Cunningham's goals by committee?
Speaker 2: Is there a chance this group can do that. No,
Speaker 2: there's not.
Speaker 5: I'm going to be with my guy here. I'm just
Speaker 5: where the league is now.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 5: I don't even can I go beyond night and day.
Speaker 5: It is so starkly different than like it is. Wild
Speaker 5: Trade just mentioned a team spent twenty nine million dollars
Speaker 5: on two players. That's wild and they were a team,
Speaker 5: an expansion team a few years ago that were like
Speaker 5: the worse than the history of the league. So it
Speaker 5: turns out if you spend a lot of money, you're
Speaker 5: gonna be really good. And now they're winning Conker Caf
Speaker 5: matches because they're really good. So the same thing we
Speaker 5: were talking about with the running Newts. Spend money, nail
Speaker 5: it and you'll be okay. Yeah, But if you don't
Speaker 5: spend money and you don't nail it, you will not
Speaker 5: be okay.
Speaker 1: So Trey, and if you need a pun on this,
Speaker 1: just pun on it, because I obviously am not going
Speaker 1: to ask you to speak poorly of your employer, and
Speaker 1: nor am I leading you with this question. But I'm
Speaker 1: just wondering if the rsl ethos of development right like
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of andres, you know, and look, that's good economics.
Speaker 1: I understand the business decision, even though as a sports
Speaker 1: fan that wasn't raised with this model, I don't love it.
Speaker 1: I never will. Like if you sell Diego, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be bummed, But I understand that you kind of have to.
Speaker 1: But to Chris's point, with this money that's being spent,
Speaker 1: is there is it time to maybe take a look
Speaker 1: at the model and maybe adjust it a little bit
Speaker 1: as opposed to being a developmental club, like we're in
Speaker 1: this game, we need to go spend some money to
Speaker 1: get some big dogs.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Look, I think if Kurt, Pablo Jason, John Kimball went
Speaker 8: to David Blitzer and Ryan Smith tonight and said, look,
Speaker 8: we found our guy. He fits in our locker room.
Speaker 8: He's the right guy.
Speaker 2: It costs thirteen million dollars.
Speaker 8: I think if Pablo Kurt made the case that they
Speaker 8: could get it done. I do believe our ownership is committed. Look,
Speaker 8: I think besides what you see on the MLS salary cap,
Speaker 8: I think it's probably not well known that this team
Speaker 8: spends I don't know, seven million a year on academy
Speaker 8: and monarchs for that developmental piece. We haven't sold a
Speaker 8: kid to Europe for twenty million, like Dallas or Philadelphia
Speaker 8: or the Red Bulls have started to do. The Andres
Speaker 8: Gomez sale was important not only because it was six
Speaker 8: times our previous highest sale, but because we are now
Speaker 8: a participant in that global market. We I'm sure that
Speaker 8: at some point we will have opportunities to sell Diego
Speaker 8: Luna for big money, and sell Dominic MARCHUK for big money,
Speaker 8: and maybe now Kobe Henry for big money once you know,
Speaker 8: maybe we bought him from the team that is loaning
Speaker 8: him to us, now from friends. This is the one
Speaker 8: silver lining, maybe of the rumored calendar change, is that
Speaker 8: then the biggest transfer market window in the world doesn't
Speaker 8: happen in the middle of our season. It will happen
Speaker 8: at the end of our season. But there's a lot
Speaker 8: of obvious problems trying to play games in fourteen fifteen
Speaker 8: MLS markets in December, January, February. Yeah, so that's but
Speaker 8: that's the that's the trade off is that MLS could
Speaker 8: become an even more prominent economic player in the global marketplace.
Speaker 1: So c k if let's let's let let's give our
Speaker 1: guy the benefit of doubt, Okay, to operate off a
Speaker 1: hypothetical that over the next couple of weeks we hear
Speaker 1: of a big time nine that is signed, a DP
Speaker 1: type nine that is signed. Because if you look up
Speaker 1: and down the roster, there's great depth in the midfield
Speaker 1: right like holding made and that they he seems like
Speaker 1: they have four or five options there. I don't know
Speaker 1: enough about the keeper to have some sort of that
Speaker 1: he gave up four, but the team gave up four
Speaker 1: against San Jose.
Speaker 2: Some acquisitions of the back line.
Speaker 1: If they can solidify nine, what do you think they
Speaker 1: can be this year?
Speaker 5: Well, I'll start by saying it matters who it is.
Speaker 5: And you have to look at the track record of
Speaker 5: the type of guy they're bringing in. Garth Agerway and
Speaker 5: Chris Henderson brought in a guy from Middlesbrough for like
Speaker 5: twenty two million dollars who scores eight ton of goals
Speaker 5: and guess what he had too in his debut. You
Speaker 5: know when when Garth brought in Raul Ruy Diaz for
Speaker 5: Mexico and Seattle, he was scoring a ton of goals
Speaker 5: in Mexico and guess what he was scoring a ton
Speaker 5: of goals in Seattle. They won MLS Cup, they won
Speaker 5: Conca CAF. Find guys that do it, do it often,
Speaker 5: and do it at a high level, and you'll be okay.
Speaker 5: But you can't go out and give and give the
Speaker 5: fan base that is satiating for some star talent right now, Oh,
Speaker 5: this is going to be a guy who can potentially develop,
Speaker 5: and we already have two those guys on the rostra.
Speaker 5: You need to go out and say, oh, this is
Speaker 5: a dude who who has scored forty goals in Mexico
Speaker 5: in the last two or three years, or this is
Speaker 5: a guy who scored twenty five goals in Brazil the
Speaker 5: last two years, or a guy who scored fifty goals
Speaker 5: in the Netherlands over the last four years. Bring in
Speaker 5: guys who have track records who can do it, and
Speaker 5: as Trey mentioned, the earlier you do it, you don't
Speaker 5: have the lull that all of these guys hit when
Speaker 5: they come in the summer transfer window, because they're adjusting
Speaker 5: in real time in the middle of the dog days
Speaker 5: of summer. As we saw with Diego Gonzalvez last year,
Speaker 5: it takes a very long time, especially for attacking talent,
Speaker 5: to adapt to a league that will beat the crap
Speaker 5: out of its attacking player. Still, it is a very
Speaker 5: physical league, and that's that is part of the acclamation process.
Speaker 2: Do you think they need more than one nine?
Speaker 5: No, I wouldn't say they need more than one nine.
Speaker 5: I think depending on what they want to do with
Speaker 5: Diego Luna. If Diego does want to be sold to
Speaker 5: Mexico or Europe or South America, then we're having a
Speaker 5: much different conversation and that will be a very very
Speaker 5: difficult sell to the fan base because I think you
Speaker 5: can make an argument that Diego Luna is maybe the
Speaker 5: most beloved RSO player hmm. I mean, I'm thinking like
Speaker 5: he's up there with like like maybe Demir Crylocker and
Speaker 5: even before that kind of like the star.
Speaker 1: Talent is Rusty Pierce, Matt Bank.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I think Chris is right though. I think you can
Speaker 8: put Diego in there with Demir, with Kyle, with Nick
Speaker 8: absolutely no doubt. And you know him playing with a
Speaker 8: broken nose, a shatter nose, creating six big chances in
Speaker 8: the game, winning assist in that US game a couple
Speaker 8: of months ago. It's part of the legend. It went viral,
Speaker 8: it's massive. This is his team right now, and it
Speaker 8: will be this year, I think, until maybe a bigger
Speaker 8: name comes in.
Speaker 1: I've ever had to tell you I had one of
Speaker 1: those nights where it's like sleep not an option tonight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not too long ago, and I knew it's one of
Speaker 1: those things, you know. I'm like, all right, I've got
Speaker 1: to figure something out. And I pulled up the Apple
Speaker 1: TV like quick doc they did on Diego. I'm assuming
Speaker 1: you saw it. Yeah, it was really good. It was good.
Speaker 1: It's great. I mean, so he seems like such a
Speaker 1: sweet kid. But obviously it helps that he's awesome, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's one thing to have a player that you love,
Speaker 1: but it helps that he's really, really, really good.
Speaker 8: And look, he just turned twenty one, Yeah, in September.
Speaker 8: He came to us when he was nineteen. He had
Speaker 8: a baby when he was nineteen. He lives apart from
Speaker 8: you know, his kid and his wife. He's trying to
Speaker 8: like build this career. And he's been talking for about
Speaker 8: a year now, very openly about when he was alone
Speaker 8: moving to Salt Lake City and didn't know anybody, taking
Speaker 8: a job at a coffee shop. Just just a tone
Speaker 8: his social skills.
Speaker 1: That's really cool.
Speaker 8: And then he's talked a lot and I think the
Speaker 8: doc you're talking about hones in on this his dedication
Speaker 8: to his mental health and really trying to juggle the
Speaker 8: pressure and the expectation. He started talking about why he
Speaker 8: left his home, which was a very soccer centric home
Speaker 8: when he's fourteen in the Bay Area to start pursuing
Speaker 8: some of these academy opportunities, and he's just he truly
Speaker 8: is an inspiration when you hear him kind of open
Speaker 8: up and talk about his challenges. And then we saw
Speaker 8: it last year in Chicago because he had been benched
Speaker 8: and Pablo is very much a father figure and a
Speaker 8: mentor to this young guy. And then he scored that
Speaker 8: fourth goal in Chicago, ran right over the bench, had
Speaker 8: a nice embrace with Pablo and those two have become
Speaker 8: very very close over last year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you move on from him, and you're not bringing
Speaker 1: in reinforcements. This fan base might riot at the Riot.
Speaker 5: Well, it matters that he's an attacking young player. To
Speaker 5: Rsel has done a great job of producing young academy talent.
Speaker 5: That our goalkeepers, defenders, holding midfielders, whatever. There's something about
Speaker 5: the position that with guys who scored goals that have
Speaker 5: tantalizing plays, they endear themselves to a fan base On
Speaker 5: a different level and that matters. And you know, if
Speaker 5: and when Diego Luna does move, I think every RSL
Speaker 5: fan who understands the game will understand him. But it
Speaker 5: will be heartbreaking. But at the same time, it is
Speaker 5: part of the sport that you didn't grow up with
Speaker 5: Spence and it will be cool for us in Salt
Speaker 5: Lake to see him at a different club potentially you know,
Speaker 5: hitting a different stride. Yeah, making maybe more inroads with
Speaker 5: the national team, because that is the reality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I understand the dynamic. I just am used
Speaker 1: to We have a good player. Let's hold on him
Speaker 1: as long as we can, unless Donovan doesn't want to
Speaker 1: live in Salt Lake and then he leaves right Like,
Speaker 1: I just want to hold on to the best players
Speaker 1: real quick. I just got an update, a text from
Speaker 1: lifelong RSL super fan JP John Paul Chonger. He says,
Speaker 1: I remain unconvinced, So before I set you loose, make
Speaker 1: a plead to our guy, get him back on RSL side.
Speaker 2: Twenty years of fandom, out.
Speaker 8: The wins that the first game out the window.
Speaker 1: He's our guys out win.
Speaker 8: Let's tell JP to text me at eight thirty tonight
Speaker 8: after the forster a jogo hat trick.
Speaker 1: All right, yeah, love it? Love it?
Speaker 8: And then and then Saturday after ri E Peel's coming
Speaker 8: out party.
Speaker 2: Okay, I love it. I like the confidence.
Speaker 7: I look.
Speaker 8: I see these guys every day. I'm biased as well.
Speaker 8: I definitely see glass half full. But I really do
Speaker 8: think these guys are talented and they are surrounded by creativity,
Speaker 8: and sure, can they fail, Yeah, but I don't think.
Speaker 8: I don't think they're going to.
Speaker 7: Look.
Speaker 1: I want us all the stand on our feet and
Speaker 1: shout it out right. I want us all the to believe.
Speaker 1: All right, last thing format tonight, you gotta win, right, Yeah, So.
Speaker 8: No away goals in the first leg, so that tiebreaker
Speaker 8: sort of tips in favor of already Ono. Any scoring
Speaker 8: tie tonight is bad for us.
Speaker 5: We gotta win.
Speaker 8: Uh. If it is tide zero zero after ninety minutes,
Speaker 8: you go thirty minutes of extra time. Way, goals in
Speaker 8: extra time have no value, do not count. Still tied
Speaker 8: after one hundred and twenty minutes, we go to penalty kicks.
Speaker 8: The good news is that RSL has won three straight
Speaker 8: elimination games on Utah soil. Tonight, hopefully Pablo can make
Speaker 8: it a fourth. Only five of eighteen elimination games under
Speaker 8: Pablo have happened at home, almost all of them.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 8: If you think about the PK shootout losses and all
Speaker 8: these other things in different competitions have been away.
Speaker 1: RSL dot com for tickets. Ck you think they get
Speaker 1: it done tonight?
Speaker 5: Who's in the starting eleven tree? Lots of changes?
Speaker 8: Eight changes from eight changes.
Speaker 5: From the first legger from San Jose.
Speaker 2: Well, that's good.
Speaker 1: To follow up a mecca with the armband again? Most
Speaker 1: likely good.
Speaker 8: A mecca is an absolute stud.
Speaker 1: Shout out in eight bench. That's right, all right, guys,
Speaker 1: great to see Okay.
Speaker 8: Thanks for coming to you, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: Trey Fitzgerald, Chris Comradi. Brought to you by Prize Picks.
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Speaker 1: seven hundred and get fifty dollars when you just play
Speaker 1: five bucks live in studio. After very successful johnts down
Speaker 1: to spring training, where he was in eighty degree weather
Speaker 1: every day looking very tan and very rested. Forty years
Speaker 1: with the Utah Jazz Richard Smith on a Wednesday afternoon, Smittie,
Speaker 1: Happy Wednesday, sir?
Speaker 7: Are you same to you, Spence? It's good to be
Speaker 7: back in Salt Lake for a few days anyway.
Speaker 2: And you got something else coming up?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 7: I always making a priority to stop by the drive,
Speaker 7: you know, whenever I'm in town and make sure that
Speaker 7: I can I can bring your show down to the
Speaker 7: down to the depths where it usually isn't isn't used
Speaker 7: to being when I'm on the air.
Speaker 1: Well, that's not true, as we all know. But what
Speaker 1: are you?
Speaker 2: Are you out again? You have another trip planned?
Speaker 5: You know what?
Speaker 7: You know what doing? Spence? I last year I volunteered
Speaker 7: to work at the the Indian Wells Tennis tournament down
Speaker 7: and Palm Springs, and that's coming around starting on Monday,
Speaker 7: and so we'll go heading back down there. I'm gonna
Speaker 7: work down there as a volunteer. And uh, I love
Speaker 7: you know, you know me, Spence, I love being out
Speaker 7: among the people, you know. And I'm a guy of
Speaker 7: the of the people, and so anything I can do
Speaker 7: to to help out the cause. Uh. That that's where
Speaker 7: you'll find me. So, so last year we did it,
Speaker 7: and and the first few days I worked. The first day,
Speaker 7: who walks right by me? And I do one of
Speaker 7: those double takes with Steve Nash and I go, is
Speaker 7: that's Stevenash? And then like the minute, lady, he walked back,
Speaker 7: you know by. And then the next day, who walks
Speaker 7: by Derk Novitski, you know, just cruising, cruising, uh, cruising
Speaker 7: along the plaza there. So it's it's a it's a
Speaker 7: fun event. It's considered by tennis officionados as the fifth
Speaker 7: major and so everybody plays both the the A t
Speaker 7: P and the w t A play uh, and so
Speaker 7: it's a fun tournament to be be part of. And
Speaker 7: so so we're heading down there, uh this week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good for you, good for you.
Speaker 1: Well, while you were away, Smidty, we had some news
Speaker 1: drop here locally where the University of Utah is now
Speaker 1: looking for a new head coach, Craig Smith relieved of
Speaker 1: his duties in his fourth year. It's a six year contract.
Speaker 1: He's due roughly five mill a little less than that.
Speaker 1: I think they're still paying Larry. So it's a lot
Speaker 1: of dead money to make coaches that you decided to
Speaker 1: move on from before we get into these kind of
Speaker 1: the nuts and bolts.
Speaker 2: But what was your reaction when you heard the news.
Speaker 7: Well, I was, first of all, I was very surprised
Speaker 7: that it happened during the season. I was at the
Speaker 7: at the Kansas game the week earlier where they played
Speaker 7: well and and and be beat a good Kansas team
Speaker 7: this week not not playing very well lately, but but
Speaker 7: we all know what they're about. And then they had
Speaker 7: the uh, the tough, the tough game against Central Florida
Speaker 7: the other day. Tough, tough way to lose a game
Speaker 7: at the end. But I'll tell you one thing, Craig
Speaker 7: Smith is a very good coach. He works extremely hard
Speaker 7: at it. His teams really get after especially defensively. I'm
Speaker 7: surprised they did this. I don't know if it was
Speaker 7: a move made because of the coaching or they expect more.
Speaker 7: I don't know what you would expect more out of
Speaker 7: this roster. I don't think it's it's a great roster.
Speaker 7: I think it's what it really is when you look
Speaker 7: at the standings, is that they're a middle of the
Speaker 7: road Big twelve team at the moment. I don't know
Speaker 7: if it was an indictment on recruiting and not getting
Speaker 7: better players. I don't know what the thinking was behind
Speaker 7: the scenes, but I think it was, for me, my
Speaker 7: own personal opinion, very premature and very short sighted. When
Speaker 7: you have a good coach like Craig Smith at the
Speaker 7: helm of your program, I think there are other ways
Speaker 7: to go about trying to strengthen and increase what you're
Speaker 7: trying to do with.
Speaker 1: That some good point there, and you know, let's kind
Speaker 1: of dig into some of the elements of this conversation
Speaker 1: before we get into what could come next and what
Speaker 1: that looks like. You know, my instant reaction was just
Speaker 1: kind of gutted for a good man, right, there's a
Speaker 1: personal side of these things that I don't think we
Speaker 1: cover very well on the media side, you know. And
Speaker 1: as you know, you know, my father was never a coach,
Speaker 1: but he was an executive and we uprooted several times
Speaker 1: because of his career. There's a family that has things,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of thrown into a little bit of
Speaker 1: chaos when a father loses a job and you've got
Speaker 1: to figure something out. The money, obviously, is a nice
Speaker 1: parachute in college sports. The reason why coaches negotiate buyouts
Speaker 1: like this is you're hired to be fired oftentimes. But
Speaker 1: like you, I was a little bit surprised. I kind
Speaker 1: of raised my eyebrows a little bit. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about the timing of it and why this could be.
Speaker 1: I've heard people say this gives the program some runway
Speaker 1: to retain some of the players, to get them back
Speaker 1: next year. I honestly don't know on this roster who
Speaker 1: you really want back next year.
Speaker 2: That's just my opinion.
Speaker 1: Because Gabe's a senior, so is lost and I think
Speaker 1: Jake Wallen's a nice player. I think Ezra Asar has
Speaker 1: shown some nice things. But I've heard that's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons I can't coroborate that. I really don't know why,
Speaker 1: because they had just be the two Kansas schools. This
Speaker 1: cannot be made just because they had a road loss
Speaker 1: a UCF, And if it's made because of that, that's
Speaker 1: like in a vacuum, which is unfair. So why do
Speaker 1: you think they decided to do this when there are
Speaker 1: still games left to be played?
Speaker 7: Well, I think one of the things is probably the
Speaker 7: notion that behind closed doors, if they thought and they
Speaker 7: being the athletic department, Mark Harlan and whoever advises him
Speaker 7: or works with him in those kinds of things. If
Speaker 7: they were talking about this and it was something they
Speaker 7: had decided in their minds, we're going to do this anyway,
Speaker 7: it's an eventuality that we've come to the conclusion of doing,
Speaker 7: then you might as well do it, you know, when
Speaker 7: you feel comfortable that that that's the decision we're going
Speaker 7: to make anyway, you cut it clean, you cut it early.
Speaker 7: And then it also gives it gives you a chance
Speaker 7: a leg up on maybe other coaches who are either
Speaker 7: out there or coaches who might be uh interested or
Speaker 7: and or available, uh to get a head up on
Speaker 7: on maybe getting in with them in terms of conversations
Speaker 7: about about the job. The flip side of it for me,
Speaker 7: Spence is when you do this in the college ranks,
Speaker 7: it really in some regards, it really smacks of a
Speaker 7: little bit of urgency by the program, uh, you know,
Speaker 7: a little bit of maybe excitability by the by the
Speaker 7: decision makers that they're they're nervous or they're anxious about
Speaker 7: what's going on, and they're not they don't quite like
Speaker 7: what's happening now, so they're just gonna they're just gonna
Speaker 7: cut the cord. Uh. With that, I don't I don't
Speaker 7: like that feeling. I don't like the fact that that, uh,
Speaker 7: that you're not letting that coaching staff and those players
Speaker 7: see through the end of the season to see what
Speaker 7: could happen. You know, they've had some good wins, but
Speaker 7: but hey, you know the the the other part of
Speaker 7: it also is there they're one and seven on the road, uh,
Speaker 7: you know in the Big twelve. H But but you
Speaker 7: know they look at the standing and say, well, do
Speaker 7: you the Big twelve or sixteen teams and their tenth
Speaker 7: and they're right in the middle. To me, we talked
Speaker 7: about that spence when the season began. That's what I
Speaker 7: expected them to be. I didn't expect them to be
Speaker 7: any world beaters in the in the Big twelve.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 7: They got a lot of heavy hitters in this league.
Speaker 7: And you know, if they want to make something, they
Speaker 7: want to make something happen now and get ahead of
Speaker 7: the curve. That's probably what I would assume they're they're thinking.
Speaker 7: I'm not sure it's a good look for the university
Speaker 7: when you do that, you know, during a season, because
Speaker 7: to me, then it would say if I'm a coach.
Speaker 7: If I'm a perspective coach and I'm looking at that
Speaker 7: as a possible landing spot for me, the first thing
Speaker 7: I would say would be, Okay, who are the people
Speaker 7: calling the shots? Is it the the booster club, is
Speaker 7: it the athletic director? Are there other people involved in
Speaker 7: that decision making process? And who are they that I'm
Speaker 7: going to be working with that would make this kind
Speaker 7: of a decision during a season with the current coaching staff.
Speaker 7: That's a thing that would would come back to me
Speaker 7: as a question I would want to have answered, you know,
Speaker 7: as a perspective candidate, because that tells me that that
Speaker 7: you know, maybe the you know, the people you're working
Speaker 7: for aren't with you in the row boat when it's
Speaker 7: sinking and aren't willing to stay with you when it's
Speaker 7: not going as well as they want it to, that
Speaker 7: they jump ship on you. And that that's a concern
Speaker 7: that I would have as well.
Speaker 1: For four years of data with Craig and you know,
Speaker 1: some good moments, some good wins, I just I'm sitting
Speaker 1: or shaking my head that we haven't had an NCAA
Speaker 1: tournament team here since twenty sixteen. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: nearly been a decade, and ultimately, I you know, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of this, from what I've been told,
Speaker 1: was booster driven. I don't know how much of this
Speaker 1: was just Mark making the call. Uh, you know. I
Speaker 1: could foresee a scenario where the Huntsman's of the world,
Speaker 1: the Echos of the world, the Garths of the world,
Speaker 1: called Taylor Randall and say we're not with this. It's
Speaker 1: not working, it's not moving the direction that we want.
Speaker 1: I know, you're out of town. Josh Grant came on
Speaker 1: the show two days ago and just went scorched earth
Speaker 1: on the entire thing, and he even said he was excited.
Speaker 2: Did they decided to do this?
Speaker 1: I can't coroborate any of this, but Josh's claim is
Speaker 1: several alumni tried to contact Craig toa for help and
Speaker 1: Craig wasn't open to that, which I'm conflicted about if
Speaker 1: I'm honest, because if I'm Craig, I say, I'm running
Speaker 1: a program, I have a team to coach. You know.
Speaker 1: His job is not to uh, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: coout out or whatever the alumni want him to do.
Speaker 1: But when the heavy hitters, the guys that are writing
Speaker 1: the checks aren't happy with the Directionsmitte. If you're Mark Carlin,
Speaker 1: you probably are kind of forced to do something.
Speaker 7: Well, I mean, and and that's the thing. If you
Speaker 7: if you're the head guy, you know, Mark Harland's the
Speaker 7: athletic director, then who are you answering to? And and
Speaker 7: who who is your your constituency? You know, Look, if
Speaker 7: you know anything about basketball, if you're if you're a
Speaker 7: student of the game, if you profess to love the
Speaker 7: game and watch it, and you're sitting courtside and you're
Speaker 7: you're watching these players, and you're watching the teams that
Speaker 7: come through and who you're playing against, you cannot look
Speaker 7: at You could not look at the roster you know,
Speaker 7: for the for Utah this year and and say, oh,
Speaker 7: that's a highly competitive team that's gonna be you know,
Speaker 7: you know, battle for a top four spot in the
Speaker 7: conference standings.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 7: They they don't have that kind of personnel. So do you,
Speaker 7: as the athletic director and the people making those decisions?
Speaker 7: Is that what you're basing your your your response, your
Speaker 7: your knee jerk reaction to h are you doing it
Speaker 7: because you don't like the way the coach handles his team?
Speaker 7: You do it because you think they're not running the
Speaker 7: right offense, their their defense isn't stout enough in tough
Speaker 7: circum you know, you know, whatever it is that that
Speaker 7: you that you think you're hanging your hat on. But
Speaker 7: but this team, you know, this program the way it
Speaker 7: is at the current time, and and and I can
Speaker 7: see some of this. You know, I'm a Craig Smith
Speaker 7: fan because I know him somewhat not great, but I
Speaker 7: know that he's a very good coach, and I know
Speaker 7: that he works extremely hard, you know, at it, and
Speaker 7: he's got a sincere will uh with his team and
Speaker 7: gets his team to buy into his approach and what
Speaker 7: he's trying to do. His issue this year has been
Speaker 7: that he just doesn't have the horses to stay in
Speaker 7: the race. That that's just that's a fact if you
Speaker 7: study basketball, if you know anything about it. They also
Speaker 7: had what, to me Spence was a very soft pre
Speaker 7: conference schedule, and so that makes their record look maybe
Speaker 7: a little bit better than what the team really is.
Speaker 7: And I understand that also in terms of college scheduling,
Speaker 7: every college team tries to get you know, what they
Speaker 7: call built in wins in November and December to get
Speaker 7: your team, you know, positively affected and get them confidence
Speaker 7: for going into their conference seasons each year. But if
Speaker 7: they made this decision based on boosters and based on
Speaker 7: you know, people who are paying you know, the money
Speaker 7: into Nils or whatever it is, and they're letting those
Speaker 7: guys you know, have a loud voice in the room,
Speaker 7: then then that's really a major problem for the whole
Speaker 7: program in my opinion, because now you're you're you're expecting
Speaker 7: a coach to do miracles with a limited roster and
Speaker 7: and limited resources that they have available to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with you on the talent, uh level
Speaker 1: of this team. I just every and I watch every game.
Speaker 1: I watch every minute of every Utah basketball game, and
Speaker 1: I've been to a grip of them this year, and
Speaker 1: I just felt like Craig did not have the same
Speaker 1: amount of talent as his peers did. And Big twelve
Speaker 1: plays specifically, you know teams kind of rolling into the
Speaker 1: Huntsman Center with better players, or you know, Craig going
Speaker 1: out on the road and going into gyms. That Houston game,
Speaker 1: it wasn't even fair, Like, it wasn't even a fair fight.
Speaker 1: At one point, I think they had eight turnovers in
Speaker 1: three baskets because Houston defensively overwhelmed you. They could not
Speaker 1: even get a shot off. So I do believe that
Speaker 1: there is a ten a issue with the current roster.
Speaker 1: Do respect to the young man who are working, young
Speaker 1: men who were working hard to get better. But the
Speaker 1: problem committee is in college that's on the coach too,
Speaker 1: you know. So like of course, ultimately I am with
Speaker 1: you when it comes to, you know, being gutted and
Speaker 1: seeing a good man losing his job. But there is
Speaker 1: part of me that doesn't mind this statement that this
Speaker 1: is not good enough. We are a basketball community that
Speaker 1: once upon a time had a team at the University
Speaker 1: of Utah not just make the NCAA tournament, but make
Speaker 1: deep runs and almost win national championships. And I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a bad thing to want a different standard
Speaker 1: while at the same time feeling bad for a good
Speaker 1: man who's lost his job. I think two things can
Speaker 1: be true there.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well I think again, I think there's a other
Speaker 7: forces that get involved in that. I don't know. Again,
Speaker 7: I don't know pretend to know what the University of
Speaker 7: Utah scenario is in that regard. I'm just surprised that
Speaker 7: it happens you know, during the course of the season,
Speaker 7: when you've been watching this team and you just came
Speaker 7: off you know where you saw that a team that's
Speaker 7: not as talented can go out and uncertain nights, you know,
Speaker 7: give Arizona a run for the money. You know, play
Speaker 7: Kansas very well. You know, play b YU very well,
Speaker 7: which is a very you know. So you know, yeah,
Speaker 7: it's been an uneven season for them. I understand that.
Speaker 7: I have to. I have to guess that they wanted
Speaker 7: to get ahead of the curve on a decision that
Speaker 7: had already been made at some other point, and they
Speaker 7: were just trying to figure out the best way to
Speaker 7: do it and to maybe uh, you know, get up
Speaker 7: ahead of the pack on a new hiring.
Speaker 1: All right, before we catch a break, we'll do pro
Speaker 1: basketball coming up on the other side, Let's talk smitty
Speaker 1: about what could come next. So, you know, one of
Speaker 1: my favorite things about March Madness and the NCAA Tournament
Speaker 1: is watching coaches that get an automatic qualifier spot after
Speaker 1: winning the Horizon or something, win a couple of games,
Speaker 1: and their life changes because they parlay that run into
Speaker 1: a bigger job at a bigger school where you get
Speaker 1: paid in a way that you never have to work again.
Speaker 1: I mean, your life literally changes if you're one of
Speaker 1: these coaches that rises up through the ranks. So there's
Speaker 1: that direction, and Jeff Bordella from ESPN to put together
Speaker 1: list of these young coaches that are in line to
Speaker 1: get a bigger job. U see San Diego, Eric Olsen,
Speaker 1: Colorado State, Nico medved South Dakota State, Eric Henderson, Boise State,
Speaker 1: Leon Rice u c Irvine, Russell Turner. Those are the
Speaker 1: four coaches he lists as candidates for Utah that fit
Speaker 1: the mold of younger coaches at smaller schools that are
Speaker 1: kind of rising through the ranks. Now on the other side,
Speaker 1: the community seems to have latched on to this idea
Speaker 1: of Alex Jensen as your head coach and Andre Miller's
Speaker 1: your assistant. Five years ago, when Mark fired Larry Ciscoviak,
Speaker 1: I was asked about Alex as a possibility, and I
Speaker 1: thoughts many at the time you were working with him.
Speaker 1: He was Quinn's lead assistant. With the work he did
Speaker 1: with Rudy and how many games you guys want, I
Speaker 1: thought Alex would get a look and get an NBA job.
Speaker 1: Five years later, he still hasn't had an NBA job.
Speaker 1: Maybe he views this as I am labeled as a
Speaker 1: lifetime assistant in the pros, and maybe he looks at
Speaker 1: the Utah job. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 7: Well, I don't know. I can't speak for Alex. I
Speaker 7: don't know what his you know, what his druthers would be.
Speaker 7: I think, you know, the whole idea of the concept
Speaker 7: of trying to bring trying to bring back your uh
Speaker 7: your former heroes, you know, to resurrect and save the
Speaker 7: day and and and get you right on top at
Speaker 7: the mountaintop. I think that's I think that's a little
Speaker 7: preposterous to expect that, you know, type of reaction. Uh,
Speaker 7: you know, I think people are just grasping it. Stars Now,
Speaker 7: these guys might have interest, they may come and do it.
Speaker 7: I don't know any of that. I think what you're
Speaker 7: trying to do as a program is you're trying to
Speaker 7: find the best coach that you think can get you
Speaker 7: good players where you can compete. And again, I'm going
Speaker 7: back to what I think in my own opinion as
Speaker 7: to what they were probably looking at in this regard
Speaker 7: with Craig Smith, is that is that they probably looked
Speaker 7: and said Hey, we just don't have We got to
Speaker 7: have someone who can recruit and get in better players
Speaker 7: to be able to compete, you know, the way that
Speaker 7: we think we should be. Because his basketball knowledge is acumen,
Speaker 7: his approach, all those things have proven to be successful.
Speaker 7: Do they think someone else they have on their radar
Speaker 7: can bring in those players? Do you bring in those
Speaker 7: It's not like the old days, Spence, where you're recruited
Speaker 7: and you just tried to recruit on reputation and co
Speaker 7: ing and and the things that you can give to
Speaker 7: a player to help them along their path. Uh, and
Speaker 7: then you know you didn't have to worry about na
Speaker 7: l stuff. Now it seems to be all related to
Speaker 7: how much money you have available. And and you know,
Speaker 7: the whole college thing to me is so out of
Speaker 7: whack and it's so so way out out there in
Speaker 7: space because this is really not college athletics. This is
Speaker 7: now just another version of a pro approach because you're
Speaker 7: in fact it's it's really even you can even look
Speaker 7: at it and and as you study it say that
Speaker 7: it's even more so another step beyond like uh, the NBA,
Speaker 7: for example, which has salary caps in certain restricts in
Speaker 7: in in college you can just offer guys whatever you
Speaker 7: can you have to offer them, and then there's no
Speaker 7: there's no contracts. So the player can come, he can
Speaker 7: come for a freshman year. It doesn't work, it doesn't
Speaker 7: you know, whatever it is, he's playing better than what
Speaker 7: you thought he was or the ni L that you
Speaker 7: have available for him. So he goes to another school
Speaker 7: the next year. You know, he doesn't have to sit
Speaker 7: out a year. He doesn't have to you know, get
Speaker 7: out of conference. You can just do whatever he wants.
Speaker 7: And so you know this this notion of the wild
Speaker 7: wild West in college basketball is really true. And if
Speaker 7: you if you want to be one of those one
Speaker 7: of those guys that is competing, if that's your thing,
Speaker 7: then you have to do like the approach the b
Speaker 7: YU is taken, which is jumping all in and saying
Speaker 7: we're gonna set it up like an NBA program, or
Speaker 7: we're gonna we're gonna get a lot of money in
Speaker 7: the n I L and we're gonna start recruiting guys.
Speaker 7: And you know, there's no way a b YU program
Speaker 7: gets in with a conversation even with an aj debanza. Uh,
Speaker 7: you know, five years ago, of course, there's no way.
Speaker 7: So so if your if that's what your goal is,
Speaker 7: if that's what your aim is toward, then you jump
Speaker 7: all in. And maybe that's what this is about, is
Speaker 7: about out to you saying, Okay, we gotta we gotta
Speaker 7: get we gotta get some headway here. So we got
Speaker 7: to get a new start, and we got to figure
Speaker 7: out how to redirect the program from from where it
Speaker 7: is at the current time.
Speaker 1: Josh Eiler your interim head coach. His first task is
Speaker 1: McHale's center against Arizona tonight.
Speaker 7: That's an easy one.
Speaker 1: Six thirty pre game seven o'clock coverage here on ESPN
Speaker 1: seven hundred. Coming up next, we will talk some pro basketball.
Speaker 1: The Jazz are in action tonight. Luka Doncics put up
Speaker 1: a triple double against his old team. Smindy Liven Studios
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Speaker 1: com Orris Smithy coming up next right here on ESPN
Speaker 1: seven hundred. All right, we got one more big segment
Speaker 1: with Richard Smith live in studio. We're gonna bring in
Speaker 1: Josh Furlong, who covers the University of Utah for our
Speaker 1: friends at KSL Smitty.
Speaker 2: Let's bring an off.
Speaker 1: Air conversation on air because when Alex Jensen was Quinn's
Speaker 1: lead assistant, you were with the Jazz, so you got
Speaker 1: to know Alex. Alex was G League Coach of the Year,
Speaker 1: and you were outlining why it is such a tough
Speaker 1: league to coach you and what kind of strictly basketball wise,
Speaker 1: what kind of coach is Alex Jensen.
Speaker 7: Well, the first thing is he's very organized, he's very
Speaker 7: you know, he learned a ton and worked for a
Speaker 7: lot of years, you know, with a very good coach,
Speaker 7: with a very tough coach and in Rick mcgeris, And
Speaker 7: so he took a lot of the good things, you know,
Speaker 7: the the Rick would bring to the court every day
Speaker 7: in terms of how they approached uh, their their workouts,
Speaker 7: how they approached their player development, how they approached their
Speaker 7: attention to detail. You know, those those are the things
Speaker 7: that that he really has has taken as part of
Speaker 7: his his playbook, so to speak, you know, in the
Speaker 7: in the coaching ranks. But but all you have to
Speaker 7: do is look at any coach and and the and
Speaker 7: the coach right now with Oka see is a good
Speaker 7: example of Mark Dano, who coached the G League team
Speaker 7: for ok C. They hired him as a young coach.
Speaker 7: I think he was the youngest coach in the NBA
Speaker 7: at the time they hired that's right. But they hired
Speaker 7: him because they felt confident that he knew what he
Speaker 7: was doing as a coach, how he was approaching the
Speaker 7: job with with with his team. And obviously they've gotten
Speaker 7: players and they've been able to build their team up
Speaker 7: to what it is now. And and but just think
Speaker 7: of it this way, Spence, and we used to talk
Speaker 7: to the guys about this all the time who are
Speaker 7: on our various G League teams over the years. The
Speaker 7: the the tough part about coaching in the G League
Speaker 7: for a coach is is that nobody who's there wants
Speaker 7: to be there.
Speaker 1: That's a good way to put it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, everybody who everybody, the players, the coaches, the trainer,
Speaker 7: the pr guy, you know, whoever it is, they all
Speaker 7: want to be somewhere else, meaning they want to be
Speaker 7: in a higher profile job. They want to be in
Speaker 7: the n b A or they you know whatever. However
Speaker 7: you would you would uh uh determine that. But at
Speaker 7: the same time, they're also everybody who has chosen to
Speaker 7: be there. In other words, you know, we would speak
Speaker 7: to the guys all time. Hey, Spence, check its your
Speaker 7: you're player, your you're our backup point guard. Well I'm
Speaker 7: giving you some leeway just being a backup on the
Speaker 7: team period.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Okay, yeah, but you look at a guy and you say,
Speaker 7: you have chosen to be here, even though we all
Speaker 7: know you want to be somewhere else. And so just
Speaker 7: think of it from a coaching perspective. You've got twelve guys,
Speaker 7: thirteen guys however many they have on their rosters now
Speaker 7: in the G League, and you're trying to coalesce those
Speaker 7: guys and get them all moving in the right direction
Speaker 7: and trying to trying to get something done in a
Speaker 7: positive way in terms of learning, in terms of playing,
Speaker 7: in terms of executing, and ultimately trying to win games.
Speaker 7: At the same time, as a coach, you know, all
Speaker 7: these guys not only want to be in another situation,
Speaker 7: but they're all trying to look out for their best
Speaker 7: interest good.
Speaker 2: Right, really good.
Speaker 7: So they're all moving, you know, in different directions, with
Speaker 7: different motivations, et cetera. So as a coach in that league,
Speaker 7: it's very tough. That's why you get, I think spence
Speaker 7: if you if you're paying attention to G League games,
Speaker 7: you get these wild swings during games where one team
Speaker 7: goes on a twenty one to two run and then
Speaker 7: the other team calls a time out whatever, and they
Speaker 7: come out, and then the next four minutes the other
Speaker 7: team goes on in eighteen and zero run or whatever
Speaker 7: it is. And it's because you're as a coach, you're
Speaker 7: trying to keep all your guys moving in the same
Speaker 7: direction and trying to get the same result, and it's
Speaker 7: a very difficult job to do. So if you have
Speaker 7: done that and you've shown you have success there, then
Speaker 7: to me, that's always been a big factor in looking
Speaker 7: at someone as a potential candidate for some other coaching
Speaker 7: job that they might be interested in.
Speaker 1: What about Alex as a person, his personality, He's always
Speaker 1: struck me as very level headed, very measured, very even keel.
Speaker 1: You reference working for Rick, he also worked for a
Speaker 1: good yet tough coach in Quinn Right, And I would imagine,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you have insight into this, being an
Speaker 1: assistant coach for Quinn Snyder probably at times was great
Speaker 1: and probably at times you went home not feeling awesome
Speaker 1: about yourself. Right, He's a tough guy to probably work
Speaker 1: for and work with, even though I respect him, he's
Speaker 1: a good coach. So Alex as a person as opposed
Speaker 1: to a basketball coach tell us about.
Speaker 7: That, Well, he's just a he's a quiet guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's.
Speaker 7: You know, a very friend guy. But he's not an exuberant, uh,
Speaker 7: you know person, So he doesn't he doesn't get out
Speaker 7: of his element. Uh very often when I've seen him
Speaker 7: in practices where where things aren't going right and someone's
Speaker 7: not doing what they've been asked to do or been
Speaker 7: instructed to do and doing it a certain way. He
Speaker 7: can be very stern and very direct. Uh, but but
Speaker 7: he does it in a in a manner that is
Speaker 7: respectful to the people around him. And in other words,
Speaker 7: it's not a yelling match, it's not a shouting match.
Speaker 7: It's not a you know, waving your hands all over
Speaker 7: the place kind of making a spectacle type of thing.
Speaker 7: You know. He does it in a very succinct, very
Speaker 7: matter of fact, step by step process to try and
Speaker 7: get to where you're you're you're trying to go. And Uh.
Speaker 7: In that regards, he's a very calming influence, you know,
Speaker 7: for them. I think with the Jazz staff for the
Speaker 7: several years that he was working with Quinn, he was
Speaker 7: a good balance to Quinn's fiery nature. Uh, both on
Speaker 7: the court and and and you know, off the court,
Speaker 7: in practice and and meetings and that kind of thing.
Speaker 7: I think he brings a certain a certain resolve and
Speaker 7: a certain uh steadiness uh that that is uh, that
Speaker 7: is needed. And in a lot of situations, especially in
Speaker 7: the pro game, when you have so many games coming
Speaker 7: at you and and you have so much stuff, you
Speaker 7: know that that's changing almost every day, you need someone
Speaker 7: who's organized, someone who thinks through things, someone who has
Speaker 7: an approach uh that that is a step by step
Speaker 7: approach that makes sense to get you to where you
Speaker 7: want to go. And he's, uh, he's that kind of guy.
Speaker 1: One more thing here, because I didn't get asked you
Speaker 1: about another candidates. I'm using air quotes as candidates because
Speaker 1: I don't know. But it's another guy that you know,
Speaker 1: and that's Johnny Bryant, who currently is the associate head
Speaker 1: coach for the Cleveland Cavaliers. And they are awesome, and
Speaker 1: Johnny was with in New York right and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people believe Johnny an up and coming
Speaker 1: young coach. Maybe at some point we'll get a head
Speaker 1: coaching opportunity. I don't know that this is something he
Speaker 1: would be interested in, based off of just where he's
Speaker 1: at in his career. But that's a name people have
Speaker 1: thrown around, you know, Johnny as well, what do you
Speaker 1: what do you think?
Speaker 7: Well, again, I think spends a lot for me in
Speaker 7: my opinion. A lot of that is because Johnny's got
Speaker 7: the ties to the University of Utah, you know, from
Speaker 7: from many many years ago. You know, he's proven himself
Speaker 7: as a very good player development guy, as a very
Speaker 7: very good again, Johnny is a very organized coach. He's
Speaker 7: also somewhat like Alex and that he's more of a
Speaker 7: quiet voice in the room. He's he's not a an
Speaker 7: exuberant guy.
Speaker 5: He's not a yeller.
Speaker 7: He's not a you know, a high energy type of
Speaker 7: personality in the room. He's more he's he's more laid back,
Speaker 7: he's more succinct. He gets his point across very directly.
Speaker 7: He comes from a background where he was in for
Speaker 7: a lot of years in the player development world. Where
Speaker 7: he was he had to be organized, you had to
Speaker 7: have a certain plan of attack, you had to do
Speaker 7: things in a structured manner, uh, in order to try
Speaker 7: and see results.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 7: And that's what he's that's what he's done at the
Speaker 7: pro level. Paul millsap A knew him, and coming out
Speaker 7: of the last NBA lockout year, Paul talked the Jazz
Speaker 7: into bringing him in as a player development guy, working
Speaker 7: with players individually and skilled development. And and Johnny worked
Speaker 7: his way on onto the NBA bench and as an
Speaker 7: assistant coach, uh and that kind of thing. But he's
Speaker 7: he's always been a very structured, organized guy with a
Speaker 7: quiet leadership and and and you know that would be
Speaker 7: somebody that that would be interesting for because he also
Speaker 7: had ties. You know, he's from the Oakland area originally,
Speaker 7: so he has ties outside of Utah. You know that
Speaker 7: would potentially in that kind of scenario possibly help in
Speaker 7: terms of recruiting and and uh, you know, having contacts
Speaker 7: with people you know in other parts of the country.
Speaker 1: Give us some perspective on how hard it is to
Speaker 1: play at McHale Center, where Utah is playing tonight.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, the mcale Center is an older facility
Speaker 7: where the fans are right on top of you. It
Speaker 7: was built at the same time as the facility at Arizona.
Speaker 7: States that they're identical to each other. The fans in Tucson,
Speaker 7: they are They're very rambunctious, It's funny because the students
Speaker 7: show up, the students get rowdy. But then there's a
Speaker 7: section of the of the of the spectators who are older,
Speaker 7: retired folks who live in Tucson who go to the
Speaker 7: games because they have a lot of money and they
Speaker 7: don't have anything else going on in Tucson. And so
Speaker 7: the Arizona the University of Arizona men's basketball team for
Speaker 7: years has been like their pro team. And so all
Speaker 7: of those people come and they invest a lot, not
Speaker 7: only you know, financially, but also you know, with their
Speaker 7: activity at the games. And so it's an interesting crowd,
Speaker 7: but it's a tough, tough place to play, you know,
Speaker 7: partly because of the crowd, but more more, more importantly
Speaker 7: because Arizona always has very good teams and very good
Speaker 7: talent on the floor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 1: Our pregame coverage for Utah hoops tonight begins at six
Speaker 1: thirty and then tip off for Josh Eilert's first game
Speaker 1: as the coach is at seven against Arizona and the
Speaker 1: McHale Center. I'm sure Josh is like, couldn't you wait,
Speaker 1: couldn't you wait?
Speaker 7: Well, and and think of it too. Spencer the Arizona's
Speaker 7: coming off that that brutal loss to BYU a few
Speaker 7: days ago. I was watching that game, and you know,
Speaker 7: the b YU, to their credit, got the benefit of
Speaker 7: two calls at the end of the game on the
Speaker 7: road in the McHale Center, which which you you you
Speaker 7: wouldn't put that in a movie script because you'd say, well,
Speaker 7: that wouldn't that would never happen. But it happened, UH
Speaker 7: to b wau's benefit. But they took advantage of it,
Speaker 7: and UH and made a payoff with those two Richie
Speaker 7: Saunders free throws at the end and UH and held
Speaker 7: on for for a big win for them, and and
Speaker 7: UH a great win for their program in terms of
Speaker 7: where they're trying to go.
Speaker 2: You think Richie is a pro, You think Richie can
Speaker 2: make money play I do.
Speaker 7: I like I like him, you know, I like him
Speaker 7: Spence because he's got good size as a guard six
Speaker 7: five sixty six. He plays with intensity, He's he is
Speaker 7: not afraid. He comes off those screens and is ready
Speaker 7: to catch and shoot. He's gotten better this year, you know,
Speaker 7: under Kevin Young and his staff. And again we're talking
Speaker 7: about skill development. But but what Richie brings for me
Speaker 7: is he brings an intensity on both ends of the floor.
Speaker 7: He really plays hard, and he really plays with a
Speaker 7: certain level of fearlessness, which I like. I really think
Speaker 7: he's he's been been a terrific player for them. I
Speaker 7: think he's been their MVP this year. Totally agree, you know,
Speaker 7: and I really like him as a pro prospect.
Speaker 1: Because we were debating this earlier, back to the whole
Speaker 1: talent thing, and this is not a hard exercise to do.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're at home or at work, he
Speaker 1: can just google past National champions or Final four teams.
Speaker 1: Almost all of them, Smitty have at least two or
Speaker 1: three NBA guys in one or two like European pro types.
Speaker 1: The Duke team that won the National championship with John
Speaker 1: Shire and the zu Bec kid maybe your only exception, right,
Speaker 1: I know, John got a little bit of a look
Speaker 1: to be a pro, and I think zu Beec got
Speaker 1: a couple of contracts. But even our teams here, you know,
Speaker 1: Rick had teams with and horn Metal, uh uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Hanno of course, and then Doleiak Britten obviously Andre multiple
Speaker 1: NBA guys, multiple pros, not just NBA guys, but European
Speaker 1: pros as well. How many pros do you think Kevin
Speaker 1: has on that by U roster right now?
Speaker 7: Well, well, totally. There'll be a few guys who will
Speaker 7: play overseas.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 7: I think he's probably got four or five guys that
Speaker 7: will play uh professionally somewhere. I like the Demon kid,
Speaker 7: he's uh. It'll be interesting to see if he's if
Speaker 7: he stays another year, you know, I think he could
Speaker 7: use that personally. I think he's uh. Sometimes he doesn't
Speaker 7: play full speed to me. Sometimes he really shows his
Speaker 7: skill level and shows the things that he's capable of doing.
Speaker 7: For me, he doesn't seem to do it enough. He
Speaker 7: doesn't seem to Sometimes he seems to me to be
Speaker 7: playing in second gear.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 7: But I like him. I like his skill level, and
Speaker 7: I like his his feel for the game, you know,
Speaker 7: and his size obviously is is is an NBA type
Speaker 7: uh type size for that for that position. You know.
Speaker 7: The other kid, the Catchings kid, it just has had
Speaker 7: such an uneven uh season, you know, I I would
Speaker 7: assume he'd be coming back. You know, there was a
Speaker 7: lot of talk at the beginning of the year that
Speaker 7: he was a one and done kid. I haven't seen that. Personally,
Speaker 7: I think he's played. Uh he's paid too erratically during
Speaker 7: the course of the year. Uh to uh to warrant
Speaker 7: coming out in the draft. Uh you know, but again
Speaker 7: who knows. In this day and age, you never know, Spence.
Speaker 7: It's one of the things that is set up and
Speaker 7: for these kids, uh that that helps them is that
Speaker 7: they can always go into the draft and do workouts
Speaker 7: for NBA teams and then there's a certain date where
Speaker 7: they have to make a decision I'm staying in the
Speaker 7: draft or I'm pulling out. And the smart kids every
Speaker 7: I've always said this for years. Every college kid should
Speaker 7: enter the draft, no matter what year of school they're in,
Speaker 7: because then that gives them a window in the spring
Speaker 7: to go and do do pro workouts. You go to
Speaker 7: the Jazz, you go to the Denver Nuggets, you go
Speaker 7: to the Phoenix Suns. You get a workout. You a
Speaker 7: see where you measure up against the other guys who
Speaker 7: they happen to have in a workout that day. But
Speaker 7: more importantly, you get direct feedback from the NBA personnel
Speaker 7: people who say, Spence, check its you have no left hand.
Speaker 7: You cannot go left. Everybody knows it. It's in a
Speaker 7: bold lettering and the top of it. So you need
Speaker 7: to go back to school and work on that. That's
Speaker 7: what's going to help you in a potential program. So
Speaker 7: they get this kind of feedback and then you can
Speaker 7: always you can take that and go wow, I got
Speaker 7: a lot of good feedback from these workouts and from
Speaker 7: the pro personnel guys. Tell me what I need to
Speaker 7: work on. Now I'm pulling out of the draft and
Speaker 7: I'm going back to school. I don't know why every
Speaker 7: college player doesn't do that. You know, it really makes
Speaker 7: a lot of sense for them, and it's there for
Speaker 7: them to help them make rational decisions about what they
Speaker 7: want to do with their you know, their careers going forward.
Speaker 7: So BYU has some guys will who will be in
Speaker 7: that position I think in the spring, and it'll be
Speaker 7: interesting to see how it plays out for them.
Speaker 1: All Right, let's do a little jazz here, you know jazz.
Speaker 1: You know, finally, well, I mean, ultimately, we all know
Speaker 1: the deal and we're all just kind of riding this
Speaker 1: thing out and hoping for a little lottery luck and
Speaker 1: maybe a little Cooper flag action. So it's tough to
Speaker 1: make it all that interesting. But the latest Jazz young
Speaker 1: player who has played pretty well is Kyle Philipowski, who
Speaker 1: over the past six games he's fifteen points, he's seven boards,
Speaker 1: he's sixty two percent from the floor, and he had
Speaker 1: his first two twenty point double doubles during you know,
Speaker 1: the past six games. So he's looked pretty good as
Speaker 1: of late. He's the latest young player we talked about
Speaker 1: Kyante and Isaiah kind of the the rotational decision will
Speaker 1: Is made to start Isaiah and bring Kiante off the
Speaker 1: bench last time. But what are you seeing as of
Speaker 1: late now that Kyle's getting some minutes.
Speaker 7: Well, and he's going to continue to get minutes. And
Speaker 7: again this is this is all in the area of
Speaker 7: player development and trying to find out which guys you
Speaker 7: think have a chance to continue progressing, continue moving up
Speaker 7: the ladder, might be able to do something for you
Speaker 7: down the road somewhere, you know, in a more meaningful setting.
Speaker 7: And and Kyle Philipowski his his turn is up. And
Speaker 7: so I heard tonight that you know, again market In
Speaker 7: isn't going to play again tonight, so you know, Philipowski
Speaker 7: will probably get some good run again. And and that's
Speaker 7: the way they're playing it. And it's you know, you
Speaker 7: can say they're not trying to win games. You can
Speaker 7: say that they're trying to uh develop guys, you know,
Speaker 7: give them opportunities, and that's where they that's where they
Speaker 7: get them, that's what they've chosen to do. Instead of
Speaker 7: a Kyle Philipowski, who in a so called normal NBA
Speaker 7: setting would be doing this in the G league situation,
Speaker 7: he's now doing it in the NBA situation. So there's
Speaker 7: arguments both ways, because you say, well, you know, he
Speaker 7: really should be at the G League and they should
Speaker 7: be working on specific things with him in terms of
Speaker 7: his improvement and development. But then you say, hey, he's
Speaker 7: now he's playing in the NBA and he's being able
Speaker 7: to to play with against NBA guys, and so he's
Speaker 7: getting that kind of experience that you can't get anywhere else.
Speaker 7: And so that's where you find how how the guys
Speaker 7: can can get better? How can they improve? I think
Speaker 7: the Collier kid has improved this year. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 7: he's he looks like you know, I mean, there's a
Speaker 7: lot of holes in his game, not the least of
Speaker 7: which is his decision making at times on the fly
Speaker 7: and the and the passes to go into the fourth
Speaker 7: row in the stands, and or where he tries to
Speaker 7: make a pocket pass with his three defenders in the lane,
Speaker 7: and it's it's just ill advised. And and and he
Speaker 7: and he's and he's, uh, you know, he's having a
Speaker 7: tough time shooting the ball. So that's something that he's
Speaker 7: gonna have to get get better at. But but he
Speaker 7: looks like he has a feel for the game and
Speaker 7: maybe that's something that uh, uh that will continue to
Speaker 7: improve for him. And and these will be a couple
Speaker 7: of guys that they can work with uh during the
Speaker 7: summer on certain things that they see. And it's just
Speaker 7: part of that developmental package that that the Jazz have
Speaker 7: chosen to go in that direction.
Speaker 1: All right, Smitty, before I set you loose, Uh, let's
Speaker 1: end with this because everybody in the NBA world is
Speaker 1: talking about it. As Luka Doncic faced his old team
Speaker 1: last night put up a triple double uh Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1: But every measurable metric isn't just the favorites. In Vegas,
Speaker 1: they're the favorite, but you know, their net differential is
Speaker 1: flirting with all time and they're still on pace to
Speaker 1: win north of seventy games even though they're forty six
Speaker 1: and eleven. They did lose just the other night, but
Speaker 1: they're the favorite with Luca and Lebron. How much of
Speaker 1: a legitimate threat this year are the LA Lakers?
Speaker 7: Well this year, yeah, we always we always say this, Spencer,
Speaker 7: and it becomes a passe. But it really depends on
Speaker 7: their health. I mean, because they're gonna have to, you know,
Speaker 7: lean on Doncic and James to play forty one forty
Speaker 7: two minutes a game in playoff games, and those guys
Speaker 7: are gonna have to be one hundred percent and they're
Speaker 7: gonna have to be able to to go full bore.
Speaker 7: If they're able to do that, if they're able to
Speaker 7: play in in in games where they're not playing back
Speaker 7: to backs and they don't have to travel issues that
Speaker 7: you have during the regular season, and they're and they're healthy, Uh,
Speaker 7: then you surround them with some some complimentary role players,
Speaker 7: whether it's Hachimura or whether it's the Reeves kid or
Speaker 7: whoever you got uh to help you in that regard,
Speaker 7: But those guys will have to do a lot of
Speaker 7: heavy lifting. Now you can also do that in playoff situations, Spence,
Speaker 7: because playoff games tend to be slower, they tend to
Speaker 7: be less possessions, they tend to be more controlled possessions.
Speaker 7: And with James and and Doncic, you know, those are
Speaker 7: things that could help them during the course of a
Speaker 7: potential six or seven game series where where they're able
Speaker 7: to to save some energy, uh and be able to
Speaker 7: play at a pace that that suits them a little
Speaker 7: bit better. So, you know, I've always said this, any
Speaker 7: team that has Lebron James on it, and he's another guy,
Speaker 7: meaning a top level guy. He had Anthony Davis for years.
Speaker 7: Of course before that had Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh.
Speaker 7: But with this team, if Doncic is healthy and James
Speaker 7: is healthy, I don't put anything past him because Don
Speaker 7: Chic is a special talent and James has shown that
Speaker 7: he can he can do this, you know, against anybody
Speaker 7: at any time. And it's still is still getting it
Speaker 7: done at age forty, So you know, is it possible, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 7: it's possible. You know, will it happen? Well, you know,
Speaker 7: we'll see. There's a lot of good teams in that mix.
Speaker 7: I think there's a lot of teams in the West
Speaker 7: that could come out if they're healthy and playing the
Speaker 7: way that they expect to play. I think it'll make
Speaker 7: for the playoffs to be exciting.
Speaker 1: All right, my friend. Always great to see you. Welcome
Speaker 1: back for a moment. If I don't see you, enjoy
Speaker 1: the tennis tournament. It's good to be Richard Smith.
Speaker 7: There you go. Hey, I can't I can't deny that.
Speaker 7: Spend about twenty two.
Speaker 1: Minutes away from tip off for the Utah Women. They're
Speaker 1: taking on West Virginia tonight. West Virginia very good team,
Speaker 1: number eighteen in the country. Both teams are twenty one
Speaker 1: and six. You can see that game on ESPN Plus.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have the Utah Men's game on the radio
Speaker 1: station tonight. The Utah Men are taking on Arizona Ada
Speaker 1: McHale first game with Josh Eilert on the sideline as
Speaker 1: the interim head coach. After the news came down to
Speaker 1: Craig Smith has been relieved of his duties.
Speaker 2: So busy night on the station tonight.
Speaker 1: Gonna bring in Josh Furlong from KSEL coming up in
Speaker 1: just a little bit fun stuff. Earlier, Chris Comroddie rolled by,
Speaker 1: as did Trey Fitzgerald from RSL Real saw Lake in
Speaker 1: action tonight Aridiano. It's Leg two of the CONCACAFF Champions Cup.
Speaker 1: It is here in our state. It's a home match
Speaker 1: for RSL. That's a six thirty star time. The Utah
Speaker 1: jazzer in action tonight as well. The Jazz are welcoming
Speaker 1: in the Sacramento Kings. That's a seven o'clock tip time
Speaker 1: at Delta Center. And by you is an action they're
Speaker 1: taking on Arizona State, trying to continue their hot streak.
Speaker 1: That's a seven thirty star time and that can be
Speaker 1: seeing on ESPN Plus. So busy, really busy night in
Speaker 1: local action with the Utah Women, the Utah Men, BYU
Speaker 1: and RSL in addition to the Utah Jazz. The Utah
Speaker 1: Hockey Club got a good win last night over a
Speaker 1: bad Chicago team, but that almost got loose. They went
Speaker 1: down one zero, scored two goals one two to one,
Speaker 1: and that's the type of game at this point you
Speaker 1: cannot let slip away. If you missed our Bill Armstrong
Speaker 1: interview earlier this week, the general manager of the Utah
Speaker 1: Hockey Club, it was a really fun conversation. Seems like
Speaker 1: a great guy, and he basically said, this is a
Speaker 1: situation now where we have twenty three game sevens left. Currently,
Speaker 1: the Utah Hockey Club finds themselves three points behind the
Speaker 1: Calgary Flames and seven points beyond the Colorado Avalanche and
Speaker 1: the race for the wild card, so they are right
Speaker 1: in the mix. Man, got to win more a home.
Speaker 1: Gotta make sure you protect to ice. They're gonna try
Speaker 1: to hold off to Saint Louis. Blues are on sixty points,
Speaker 1: Vancouver is on sixty three points, and the Utahey Club
Speaker 1: is on sixty one, so they are right in the
Speaker 1: mix for a wild card, which really would be a
Speaker 1: phenomenal accomplishment for how quickly they had to essentially get
Speaker 1: this team here. Gary Bettman joined our radio show the
Speaker 1: Commission of the NHL and said, the first conversation apt
Speaker 1: with Ryan about this was in March, and they basically
Speaker 1: were able to get it done by May, and now
Speaker 1: they are three points beyond Calgary for a wildcard spot
Speaker 1: in the world of pro hockey.
Speaker 2: So some good stuff, all right.
Speaker 1: Let's get to the latest with the university's athletic department
Speaker 1: with Josh Furlong from cass On on a Wednesday.
Speaker 2: Josh Happy Wedes and man, how are we.
Speaker 6: Doing I'm doing well. How about yourself, Man, I'm good.
Speaker 2: I appreciate the time.
Speaker 1: So now that we've had a couple of days between
Speaker 1: the news, your reaction when you heard that Craig Smith
Speaker 1: had been fired, and where you at with it as
Speaker 1: we sit here today.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I think it was surprising in the
Speaker 6: terms of the timing, right, And I think that's what
Speaker 6: really surprised everybody the most. It wasn't surprising that Craig
Speaker 6: was fighting for his job the entire time he knew it.
Speaker 6: I think the way that he recruited this year kind
Speaker 6: of indicated that in terms of what he did, he
Speaker 6: knew that this is kind of a lasticch effort. I
Speaker 6: think it was just you know, I think for everybody
Speaker 6: it's just an odd timing to do it. But in retrospect,
Speaker 6: I mean, if you've got your guy that you want
Speaker 6: and you want to act fast, I mean it's it's
Speaker 6: I don't want to call it a perfect timing, but
Speaker 6: I think it's a good opportunity to be able to
Speaker 6: just jump while the irons hot. So, you know, I
Speaker 6: think I think Utah has in a good spot in
Speaker 6: terms of what they're doing. You know, it always sucks
Speaker 6: to be able to fire a guy that a lot
Speaker 6: of people liked in terms of personality, But I think
Speaker 6: Craig was always kind of fighting an uphill battle. He
Speaker 6: didn't quite have the full support of, you know, the
Speaker 6: athletic department the second he was hired. He had a
Speaker 6: fan base that really just wasn't you know, energized by him.
Speaker 6: They obviously wanted an alumni to be able to be
Speaker 6: the coach and bring back some culture there, and so
Speaker 6: I think he was just always trying to fight for
Speaker 6: something that was ultimately never going to pan out. So,
Speaker 6: you know, the timing, the timing stucks by all means,
Speaker 6: but I think that the reality is is, you know,
Speaker 6: you don't want him to get hot in the end
Speaker 6: of the season, and then suddenly what do you do?
Speaker 6: And then you're kind of pinned trying to figure out
Speaker 6: what to do. So it makes sense to just it's
Speaker 6: just a tough situation, and you feel for the guys
Speaker 6: that are on the team that absolutely do love Craig.
Speaker 6: You know, this was a team that the one hundred
Speaker 6: percent bought into who he was and kind of his personality,
Speaker 6: and it's just hard that they don't get to be
Speaker 6: able to spend senior night with him and do different
Speaker 6: things that way.
Speaker 1: So interesting stuff there, Josh, I am unaware of the fact,
Speaker 1: and I guess obviously what you're saying is correct because
Speaker 1: you know he was fired. But elaborate a little bit
Speaker 1: more on just how hot that seat was and when
Speaker 1: you feel like the heat became really really hot. Was
Speaker 1: it last year? Was it two years ago? Like how
Speaker 1: long as you put it, Craig fighting for his job.
Speaker 1: When do you think that battle really really got going?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think ultimately was last summer. Obviously, as you know,
Speaker 6: the transferportal open up and a lot of these players
Speaker 6: there was a mass exodus. Coaches were trying to leave.
Speaker 6: You know, I don't want to, you know, put words
Speaker 6: into anybody's mouth, but I could see, you know, somebody
Speaker 6: like a Chris Burgess deciding to say, look, I don't
Speaker 6: want to go down with this ship and take his
Speaker 6: reputation once again. That's my opinion. So don't put that
Speaker 6: on me saying that that's what Chris said or anything.
Speaker 6: But I think you're looking at situations like that where
Speaker 6: you were starting to see he was on the hot seat,
Speaker 6: and there was rumblings that you know, people were trying
Speaker 6: to talk to Andre Miller to come work for the
Speaker 6: team and come being the assistant, trying to get something
Speaker 6: in there, and they were just there was just a
Speaker 6: general sense of frustration that he wasn't able to get
Speaker 6: you taught to where they needed to be, especially in
Speaker 6: what we would consider to be a weaker PAC twelve.
Speaker 6: Right if you look at the Big twelve, it's going
Speaker 6: to obviously be much challenged, much more challenge. The fact
Speaker 6: that they were going to the Big twelve with this
Speaker 6: mass exodus, I think everybody just kind of had that
Speaker 6: written out there that this was his you know, last year.
Speaker 6: If he couldn't do anything with this, that doesn't help,
Speaker 6: and so then you get picked as the sixteenth worst
Speaker 6: team in the conference. You know, he was just coming
Speaker 6: into this already just under fire. I know some relationships
Speaker 6: have soured, whether that be from the athletic department with donors,
Speaker 6: with with alumni trying to help him. I know there
Speaker 6: was frustrations all around and some of that look you
Speaker 6: look at somebody like in Craig Smith spot like he
Speaker 6: wasn't always given a great opportunity. He had players that
Speaker 6: got injured that hurt them and take their run. You know,
Speaker 6: you've got this alumni base that wants to come in
Speaker 6: and say, hey, this is how we do it here.
Speaker 6: You understand why a guy wants to come in there
Speaker 6: and say, hey, look I want to do it my way,
Speaker 6: like I with all due respect, like I don't need
Speaker 6: you as a handout ted situation, right, And I know
Speaker 6: that rubs people the wrong way, but I can see
Speaker 6: why somebody would want to do that. So it's just
Speaker 6: a challenge, you know. And I think he felt the
Speaker 6: heat and he was doing everything that he could to
Speaker 6: be able to get there. It just it was just
Speaker 6: never really going to work out. And it felt like
Speaker 6: this was a foregun conclusion no matter where Utah finished,
Speaker 6: barring you know, then finishing in the top four or
Speaker 6: getting d NC tournament and even then, I don't know.
Speaker 6: I just think that Utah needed a galvanizing moment, and
Speaker 6: I think everybody around that and the donors around it
Speaker 6: feel like it had to be somebody related to the
Speaker 6: old era of you know, Rick Majeris and the winning
Speaker 6: times to be able to bring back that culture.
Speaker 2: So some interesting things there.
Speaker 1: And Josh Grant joined the program this week and was
Speaker 1: very clear eyed salient, honest and direct about the news
Speaker 1: in his words, exciting him. And then josh himself talked
Speaker 1: about how a lot of alumni did try to reach
Speaker 1: out to Craig to offer assistance, whatever it is. I'm
Speaker 1: a little bit conflicted about this, Joshua. Let's dig in
Speaker 1: here for a moment, because if you put yourself in
Speaker 1: Craig's shoes, your job is not to answer the phone
Speaker 1: calls of alumni calling to try to help you do
Speaker 1: your job better. Your job is to run a program
Speaker 1: and build a program, and it's so hard to do
Speaker 1: and such a grind, and certainly with the way the
Speaker 1: sport has changed, I actually don't know how much I
Speaker 1: really give a rip about whether or not Craig is
Speaker 1: answering the phones when the alumni call. And I heard
Speaker 1: a lot of alumni I say the same thing about
Speaker 1: Larry Kriskoviak. They had the kind of the same beef, like, Hey,
Speaker 1: we're reaching out, we're trying to help him, and he
Speaker 1: doesn't really seem to be, you know, all that open
Speaker 1: to help. How much of this do you think has
Speaker 1: to do with that at all, Like alumni reaching out. Look,
Speaker 1: it's one thing if your last name is Huntsman and
Speaker 1: your last name is Echols and your last name is Garth,
Speaker 1: and you call the president of the school and you say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know those checks, Well, I'm not writing them anymore.
Speaker 1: If this is your guy, Like, if that's the deal,
Speaker 1: then we have a different conversation. But if like players
Speaker 1: that played twenty five years ago want like tickets or
Speaker 1: access to practice, I don't think that's Craig's job to
Speaker 1: give them that.
Speaker 2: That's just my opinion where you're at with it.
Speaker 6: No, and I completely agree, And I think you know
Speaker 6: the thing that you mentioned there with the donors, You know,
Speaker 6: I know that there was some falling out to an
Speaker 6: extent there where he didn't I don't want to say
Speaker 6: panda's the right word, but you know he didn't kind
Speaker 6: of concede to some of the things that the donors wanted.
Speaker 6: And so that's where you do lose it, right, Like,
Speaker 6: if you can't get the donor support, you're not getting
Speaker 6: the general support there, the money's not coming into the program,
Speaker 6: like you're screwed. So on that side of the vein, like, yes,
Speaker 6: Craig hurt himself there, But to your point with this alumni, Yeah,
Speaker 6: his job as a coach, and obviously, like it's important
Speaker 6: to be able to have a coach that understands the culture,
Speaker 6: understands what it is to be a member of the
Speaker 6: running Utes team, try to pay homage to, you know,
Speaker 6: kind of that era. But at the same time, he's
Speaker 6: there to win games. And you know, I wouldn't fault
Speaker 6: him for not wanting to do it the way that
Speaker 6: some other former player wanted to do it. You know,
Speaker 6: it's easy to come into a job and be like, well,
Speaker 6: our boss did it this way. That's not how it,
Speaker 6: you know, always works for people. Right, there's obviously glory
Speaker 6: days and quite honestly, the Rick Majeri's days would not
Speaker 6: work probably in today's are well. Just a lot of
Speaker 6: the things that Rick Majaris did wouldn't work in today's era.
Speaker 6: But that's not the point. I think a lot of people,
Speaker 6: especial actually alumni, they want to return back to that culture,
Speaker 6: and you know, that culture is a very specific culture
Speaker 6: to a guy that had his perfect way of doing
Speaker 6: it that worked for Utah, Like you said, Larry Kostoviac,
Speaker 6: he was closer to that, I'd say than Craig was.
Speaker 6: He obviously had the ear of Huntsmen, and they you know,
Speaker 6: the reason he got a massive contract that he did
Speaker 6: is because of Huntsmen, because they were, you know, good friends.
Speaker 6: But I think the difference there is is you've got
Speaker 6: a guy that he's already had his back against the wall.
Speaker 6: He's already been told, you know that he's not going
Speaker 6: to get that same support that he's had from previous coaches,
Speaker 6: and so when other people kind of swoop in and
Speaker 6: say here's how to do it, like, you can see
Speaker 6: why he's going to say, no, I'm going to do
Speaker 6: it my way. If I'm going to go down with
Speaker 6: this ship, I'm going to do it my way. And
Speaker 6: so you can't fault unnecessarily to that. I know it's frustrating.
Speaker 6: I know that really rubbed people the wrong ways. You know,
Speaker 6: the fan base absolutely wanted to buy into this team,
Speaker 6: and I think the hard part was is Craig's way
Speaker 6: worked at times, but then they would go on and
Speaker 6: lose these games that were like boneheaded games. You know,
Speaker 6: you go beat Kansas and Kansas State and then you
Speaker 6: go lose to a team like UCF that had only
Speaker 6: won five games in the regular or in the Big
Speaker 6: Twelve conference schedule, and so you've got the situation where
Speaker 6: that was the kind of the model of his career
Speaker 6: where he can go out there and you can go
Speaker 6: beat in Arizona and then you go drop a game
Speaker 6: against a team like an Oregon State and you're like,
Speaker 6: what the heck just happens? So, you know, for me,
Speaker 6: it was just Craig, if he's going to do this,
Speaker 6: he's going to go down with the ship and understand
Speaker 6: that he's going to do it his way. So I
Speaker 6: don't know that I, you know, care too much that
Speaker 6: you know you're not doing it the way that other
Speaker 6: guys do, But I still think you have to kind
Speaker 6: of pay some respect to that. And unfortunately Craig kind
Speaker 6: of put himself on an island that ultimately made it
Speaker 6: so that he had to sacrifice a job for.
Speaker 1: A team that was picked to finish sixteenth in the
Speaker 1: Big Twelve and a team that, in my opinion, has
Speaker 1: a roster that is left wanting. Is there a case
Speaker 1: to be made that Craig actually did a good job
Speaker 1: as the coach of this team this year?
Speaker 6: Oh? Absolutely. I Mean the fact is, if you win
Speaker 6: that UCS game, you're five hundred and Big Twelve play
Speaker 6: and I think anybody would have said that going into
Speaker 6: two weeks left in the season, you would have said
Speaker 6: they're crazy. Right, You beat Kansas in Kansas State, you
Speaker 6: beat b YU, who is now on a tear and
Speaker 6: is in the top twenty five. Like, this was a
Speaker 6: good season, and you're doing it with a team with
Speaker 6: not really a star. I mean, you and I have
Speaker 6: talked about it. Gabe Madson and Ezrasar have kind of
Speaker 6: taken on that leadership role and have been the stars
Speaker 6: of the team. But for the most part, this is
Speaker 6: kind of a team that is greater than the some
Speaker 6: of its parts, right, Like I mean, I think it's
Speaker 6: one of those things where even that UCF game, there
Speaker 6: was more talent on that roster than there probably is
Speaker 6: a Utah top to bottom. And so the fact that
Speaker 6: UCF isn't performing the way that they are isn't indicative
Speaker 6: in the terms of their talent. And so I think
Speaker 6: what Craig did was pretty remarkable. They were in contention
Speaker 6: for a potential buy into the Big twelve tournament by
Speaker 6: getting into the top eight seeds. Now that's a tough
Speaker 6: challenge and you still had a tough slate, But the
Speaker 6: fact that you're even in contention in that in the
Speaker 6: last part of the season kind of shows that he's
Speaker 6: got the chops. It's not perfect, right, Like, there's many
Speaker 6: flaws of what Craig Smith did and the things that
Speaker 6: made it so that it was really frustrating to watch
Speaker 6: turnovers or whatever that may be in consistent play. But
Speaker 6: the fact that he's able to pull together a group
Speaker 6: of players that he has that don't really have a
Speaker 6: star yet and still be almost five hundred and big
Speaker 6: twelve play kind of shows the talent that they had. So,
Speaker 6: you know, it's frustrating for him. They obviously exceeded expectations,
Speaker 6: but you know that's the nature of this sport, and
Speaker 6: you e didn't get them to the nc A tournament.
Speaker 6: So the donors, you know, aren't happy, fans aren't happy.
Speaker 6: They're obviously not turning out as much, and so that's
Speaker 6: the nature of the game.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you, based off your knowledge in your reporting,
Speaker 1: if there's any meat on this bone, because and you
Speaker 1: make some really good points about if you know who
Speaker 1: you want and that coach is available, and you've decided
Speaker 1: to move on from the guy you have, then just
Speaker 1: pull the ripcord, pulled the band aid, off and get
Speaker 1: get the higher done. And maybe that's what has described
Speaker 1: the timing, and maybe that's the point we all should
Speaker 1: kind of lean into and land on. I was told
Speaker 1: part of the timing was trying to lean into some
Speaker 1: player retention on the current roster they want back next year. Now,
Speaker 1: if you just go down the roster, that to me
Speaker 1: is a little bit difficult to believe that you would
Speaker 1: fire your head coach to get Like, I think Jake
Speaker 1: Wallen's a nice player, right, and I think Ezra is
Speaker 1: a nice player. I'm not saying these kids can't play,
Speaker 1: but the bulk of the better players on the roster
Speaker 1: are seniors. You know, ultimately lost in Gabe. You know,
Speaker 1: you know Sharav Jamps is a junior. Jake Walleen as
Speaker 1: a reference, he's a sophomore. Ezra is a junior. He
Speaker 1: could come back as well, Keanu Dawes, who's showed them
Speaker 1: some minutes as a sophomore. Meral Little is a soft
Speaker 1: Do you think there's any meat on that bone that
Speaker 1: they decided to pull the trigger now because they think
Speaker 1: they have a better chance at getting some of these
Speaker 1: kids back without him. That doesn't seem to resonate a
Speaker 1: ton with me.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I think it's a part, right, But
Speaker 6: I don't think it's the top priority. You know, it's
Speaker 6: maybe be like priority see as part of this, I
Speaker 6: mean there's there's pieces there, and you mentioned a couple
Speaker 6: that I would think that they would absolutely want and
Speaker 6: Jake Qually and Keanu does if not just for kind
Speaker 6: of a local angle, you know, if you could keep Ezra,
Speaker 6: I would imagine Azra gets a lot of attention to
Speaker 6: the transfer portal just for what he's been able to
Speaker 6: do the last part. But if you know, if you
Speaker 6: can keep some of that core, then yeah, maybe maybe
Speaker 6: that helps. But as we've talked about, like there's not
Speaker 6: necessarily a player on this roster that's not graduating that
Speaker 6: you're just saying, oh, it's a muff half, right, Like
Speaker 6: it would be nice to have Ezra come back one.
Speaker 6: And I think if you could get him with a
Speaker 6: new coach that can kind of coach him up to
Speaker 6: be even better, that is one hundred percent of guy
Speaker 6: you don't want to lose. But I don't think this
Speaker 6: is the end goal here, right, Like the end goal
Speaker 6: here is to get a coach quickly to be able
Speaker 6: to make sure that you kind of stabilize things you're
Speaker 6: out front, especially if it's the guy that we all know,
Speaker 6: and I'm just gonna say it's Alex Jensen. If you
Speaker 6: can get him, especially while the Dallas Mavericks in disarray,
Speaker 6: it's a perfect time. Then if you do have him
Speaker 6: hired and then he can help with the roster management
Speaker 6: and kind of ease some expectations there, then it's better,
Speaker 6: right like, and then I think it works. But I
Speaker 6: just I don't buy it that the timing right now
Speaker 6: had really anything to do with roster retention. It's a factor,
Speaker 6: but it's not one of those big factors where it's
Speaker 6: like you couldn't wait till later, especially with the roster that.
Speaker 1: They have all right, Before we move on to what's next,
Speaker 1: Josh Eiler's first task as the head coach is McHale
Speaker 1: Center against Arizona, which is wild. Of course, an Arizona
Speaker 1: team that's going to be grumpy after they got job.
Speaker 2: And that was a horrible call. I don't care what
Speaker 2: anybody has to say.
Speaker 1: Yes, there were some bad calls throughout the game, but
Speaker 1: a few things can be true at once. Let's hold
Speaker 1: multiple thoughts on our mind. The call at the end
Speaker 1: against BYU. If I'm an Arizona fan on my rates,
Speaker 1: what do you make of the challenge Utah's in front
Speaker 1: of the end tonight? And what do you know about
Speaker 1: josh as You've kind of dug into it a little bit.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, I agree with your first time. I mean
Speaker 6: that call was just the fact that you got and
Speaker 6: I'm not getting into these lives. Oh well at that
Speaker 6: point in the game. Like no, it's just not really
Speaker 6: a foul ever, especially with how aggressive they've let these
Speaker 6: guys play. Anyways, this you know, going into Michael Center,
Speaker 6: it's always a challenge, especially for a Utah team. It
Speaker 6: doesn't matter what the coach is, you know, it's just
Speaker 6: always been a difficult place to play. And this is
Speaker 6: for most teams, right You just don't go into Arizona
Speaker 6: and win, And so I think this is a tall
Speaker 6: task for them regardless. Now I'm really curious to see
Speaker 6: where you know, this Utah team. It may show how
Speaker 6: galvanized they are around Craig Smith. That was their guy,
Speaker 6: you know, like I said, they didn't he didn't lose
Speaker 6: the locker room by any means. You know, there was
Speaker 6: a true emotional connection there. So I could see them
Speaker 6: playing really tough for their coach, really trying hard there
Speaker 6: to be able to compete. But once again, it's Arizona.
Speaker 6: You know, I wouldn't expect to win, but we'll see.
Speaker 6: As far as Josh Arlette goes, I mean, this is
Speaker 6: a guy that last year, you know, you have him
Speaker 6: put into the interim head coach position at West Virginia
Speaker 6: kind of win in there, was expecting to be returning
Speaker 6: as head coach. Everybody kind of expected him to be
Speaker 6: this guy that could probably take West Virginia to the
Speaker 6: next level from the East. You know, he understands that
Speaker 6: area Big twelve very well. And then suddenly they decide
Speaker 6: to go in another direction and he's lost without that job.
Speaker 6: And so now he's in a similar position at Utah,
Speaker 6: and you know the writings on the wall where they're
Speaker 6: not looking for Josh Eiler to be the head coach
Speaker 6: moving forward. He's this is very temporary. Obviously, you'd want
Speaker 6: to keep him on staff because I think he provides
Speaker 6: a lot of value. He's a phenomenal coach of biggs.
Speaker 6: He understands the game at a high level. He understands
Speaker 6: the Big twelve at a high level. Coming from it.
Speaker 6: This is this is a guy that you know you
Speaker 6: can build rosters around, and especially as a coaching staff.
Speaker 6: He's a great person to be able to have on
Speaker 6: the rosters. So I'm curious to see how it is.
Speaker 6: You know, he's a great guy, he's a friendly guy,
Speaker 6: he's he coaches with passion, but he's also got the
Speaker 6: voice of the players right like he understands and he
Speaker 6: wants to be able to have them heard. So I'm
Speaker 6: really fascinated to see how this goes. I don't envy
Speaker 6: him by any means. I mean, this is a tall task.
Speaker 6: Any game after you lose your head coach is going
Speaker 6: to be tough, but this is arguably probably the toughest
Speaker 6: game you probably could have had on the schedule to
Speaker 6: be able to put Josh eilerd in to really kind
Speaker 6: of take over as Utah's head coach.
Speaker 2: All right, Josh.
Speaker 1: Of course, now we move over into the space of
Speaker 1: what comes next and a couple of things here. So
Speaker 1: JEFFBORZELOESPN dot com wrote a piece on the coaching carousel
Speaker 1: and college basketball and one of the avenues that teams
Speaker 1: that have a head coaching vacancy that exists in the
Speaker 1: P four space often take is looking at some young
Speaker 1: coaches from smaller programs that have had success. And it's
Speaker 1: a really cool thing when you watch March Madness when
Speaker 1: to coaches, you know, coaching at a smaller school, they
Speaker 1: get an h bid and they go win a couple
Speaker 1: of games and then he's hired by Illinois or whatever
Speaker 1: and he makes a bunch of money, and it's great,
Speaker 1: it's cool, it's really fun. And Jeff has a list
Speaker 1: on his piece that includes UC San Diego's Eric Olsen,
Speaker 1: Nico Medvedad from Colorado State, Eric Henderson from South Dakota State,
Speaker 1: Leon Rice Boise State, Russell Turner from UC Irvine. He
Speaker 1: even has Jared Calhoun on his list. And my guess
Speaker 1: is that's not going to happen. And Mark has already
Speaker 1: gone this route. That's how he decided to bring Craigan.
Speaker 1: It's the very same thing now that is not a
Speaker 1: bad route to take. Okay. Now, on the other side,
Speaker 1: of course, as you know and you've written about and
Speaker 1: you've covered over at KSL, there's the former ute contingent
Speaker 1: that is pining for a Alex Jensen head coach and Andre
Speaker 1: Miller assistant coach. Bench and you know, when it comes
Speaker 1: to either of these routes, the final route is trying
Speaker 1: to grab somebody who's been on the sideline for a while.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a bigger name that wants to get
Speaker 1: back in the game. So of all the routes, what's
Speaker 1: the josh for a long take, what do you think
Speaker 1: Mark Harlan should do?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I think the first time around. You know,
Speaker 6: it's kind of similar to the conversation we had about
Speaker 6: Craig Smith about wanting to do it your way. I
Speaker 6: think Mark Carlin wanted to do it his way and
Speaker 6: didn't necessarily want to say we're just going to go
Speaker 6: the alumni route, right, And so I think that's why
Speaker 6: he wanted to go with this up and coming coach
Speaker 6: that had won at every level, and that's why he
Speaker 6: picked Craig Smith. And I you know, that's still not
Speaker 6: a bad route because you're seeing coaches that do it
Speaker 6: all the time that can succeed. I think we're at
Speaker 6: the point now where if Utah is going to take
Speaker 6: that next level, they have to at least try their
Speaker 6: hand at somebody that the donors want. And I know
Speaker 6: that's a tricky game. You see this all the time
Speaker 6: with coaches and other institutions where when you go with
Speaker 6: the alumni it doesn't always pan out, you know, and
Speaker 6: then you're in a disaster, and now you've just kind
Speaker 6: of changed the name of a guy that people have
Speaker 6: loved forever. So it's risky, but I think Utah's at
Speaker 6: a point now where that money, whether it be nil
Speaker 6: or just athletic support people coming into the Hunting Center,
Speaker 6: that's not coming unless you actually bow down to the alumni.
Speaker 6: And so all those names that were mentioned are great,
Speaker 6: and honestly, you could throw in, you know, Richard Patino
Speaker 6: in there and Blanket, I'm a guy at Grand Canyon,
Speaker 6: what his name is, But you've got there, you go.
Speaker 6: You've got a lot of these guys that you know
Speaker 6: would absolutely be a great fit for Utah in my opinion,
Speaker 6: But in this era where there's been so much apathy
Speaker 6: towards Utah men's basketball, you have to at least pay
Speaker 6: homage to that Rick Vinjerisara, and what better way to
Speaker 6: do that than with Alex Jenson. Obviously, Andre Miller would
Speaker 6: be a great fit there, Johnny Bryant would be a
Speaker 6: great fit there. But I think just the experience that
Speaker 6: Alex Jensen's had. He's a hometown kid, grew up in Centerville,
Speaker 6: went to Viumont, went to Utah. I mean, this is
Speaker 6: a kid that is Utah threw and through. If you
Speaker 6: can get him, and there's been a lot of traction
Speaker 6: about you know him, him being the next guy, this
Speaker 6: becomes a home run for at least perception standpoints right.
Speaker 6: Obviously he's been a great coach. A lot of credit
Speaker 6: to him, or there was a lot of credit given
Speaker 6: to him for what he did with Rudy Gobert and
Speaker 6: made him the defense. It's a player that he is.
Speaker 6: If you can get him to be able to coach
Speaker 6: at the college level alla you know Kevin Young at BYU,
Speaker 6: and take it from that NBA route to the collegiate route,
Speaker 6: then you potentially get a lot more dollars, You get
Speaker 6: a lot more support, and it may fizzle out still
Speaker 6: and you may be back at this conversation in three
Speaker 6: four years, but at least you're getting some sort of
Speaker 6: galvanizing moment to help the university do better. And any
Speaker 6: coach that comes into this has to get some sort
Speaker 6: of level of support from the university, from the donors,
Speaker 6: you know, from whatever it takes to be able to
Speaker 6: get money there, because if you come into this in
Speaker 6: a similar situation, this is not a good job. Nobody
Speaker 6: would want to pick this job because you're destined to fail.
Speaker 6: You've got to be able to have that support. You've
Speaker 6: got to have much more nil money. You can't just
Speaker 6: have two million dollars. I mean by us playing, you know,
Speaker 6: one player two million dollars, and if you're doing that
Speaker 6: against your rival, you have to at least compete. So
Speaker 6: you know, I know they have circled Alex Jensen as
Speaker 6: their priority number one. As I said, there's there's been
Speaker 6: a lot of conversations about him progressing that way. My
Speaker 6: understanding is that they have met already met the things
Speaker 6: of progressing in the right way, and so I think
Speaker 6: if you can go that route and get that support,
Speaker 6: that's the best case. You know, it doesn't matter what
Speaker 6: other great coaches are out there.
Speaker 2: You have to try this route, last thing, and I'll
Speaker 2: set you loose.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 1: One of the conversations and topics talking points after Tom
Speaker 1: Homo announced that he was stepping down after twenty years
Speaker 1: was his hires and we've talked about it with doctor
Speaker 1: Hill as well. When Doctor Hill stepped out, you know,
Speaker 1: and essentially Tom you can make an argument that he
Speaker 1: went five for five Bronco, Dave Rose, Mark, Pope Kalade Satake,
Speaker 1: and now Kevin Young.
Speaker 2: Mark Carlin's only hire is Craig.
Speaker 1: Now, with all due respect to the other sports, were
Speaker 1: just existing in the basketball and football realm because they're
Speaker 1: the revenue generators. There are other hires and both BYU
Speaker 1: and Utah that have worked out, but the one main
Speaker 1: hire Mark has made was Craig, and it, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously is fizzled out. How much pressure is there on
Speaker 1: Mark Carlan to get this one right?
Speaker 6: Well? Absolutely, I mean I think this is this is
Speaker 6: the higher that will likely determine Mark Carland's tenure at
Speaker 6: Utah as well. You know, I think there's a lot
Speaker 6: of pressure on him right now to be able to
Speaker 6: make the right higher here. And when you're one higher
Speaker 6: of high notoriety, you know, phizzle that help that that
Speaker 6: doesn't help you. And I think in this industry you're
Speaker 6: judged based on how well you hire and kind of
Speaker 6: what you bring to the institution. Mark has always done
Speaker 6: a good job of being able to bring donations and
Speaker 6: fundraising to the university. So he's you know, he's doing
Speaker 6: his job as an athletic director. But if you're not
Speaker 6: able to bring in a coach that is sustainable and
Speaker 6: able to get your team to the level that you
Speaker 6: expect them to. You know, NCAA tournaments is always the
Speaker 6: benchmark inside basketball, then you know you're on the hot seat.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 6: As much as coaches have to perform, so does the
Speaker 6: athletic director. And so you know, whether you agree with
Speaker 6: it or not, this Hier absolutely is going to most
Speaker 6: likely determine mark our future at the University of Utah.
Speaker 6: And you know this this will be interesting because he's
Speaker 6: going to do this well, not necessarily having a lot
Speaker 6: of control either, because he's going to have to pay
Speaker 6: respect to what these donors want. And if you're not
Speaker 6: getting that money, you know, this is kind of out
Speaker 6: of your hands. He could go out there and hire
Speaker 6: Richard Patino, he could go out there and hire somebody
Speaker 6: because they're an up and coming coach and you know,
Speaker 6: have a legacy and family name of being able to
Speaker 6: win at the highest levels in basketball. But if you
Speaker 6: still don't get that support from the donors, you're at
Speaker 6: the same level, right, And so I think some of
Speaker 6: this is out of his control, but at the same time,
Speaker 6: this is kind of a position that he's painted himself into.
Speaker 6: He's also been lucky that he's had a head coach
Speaker 6: in the football program that has lasted as long as
Speaker 6: he has. They've identified the heir apparent. You know that
Speaker 6: everything's gone well there. And then in all of his
Speaker 6: other spots, he's been able to keep longevity with coaches,
Speaker 6: coaches that have been with softball or gymnastics, you know,
Speaker 6: where you're promoting. Even with the women's basketball, you just
Speaker 6: had to promote with them. So you know, he's had
Speaker 6: a good time doing that. And so you're going to
Speaker 6: be judged on such a fine uh, you know, timeline,
Speaker 6: especially when that's really the biggest tire that you've made.
Speaker 1: Josh, thanks for the time, man, good stuff, Keep up
Speaker 1: the great work and we'll chat soon.
Speaker 6: Sounds good man, I appreciate it. Having a bit.
Speaker 1: Josh for Long covers the University of Utah for casts out,
Speaker 1: reporting that his understanding is Alex Jensen is the main
Speaker 1: target for the University of You tide coaching job. Are
Speaker 1: you in a.
Speaker 2: Romantic mood today? What's going on?
Speaker 6: This?
Speaker 1: Is this the the Righteous Brothers.
Speaker 8: This is more hollow Oats. I had to keep a
Speaker 8: little uh on track there.
Speaker 1: This is This is Holland Oats covering the Righteous Brothers
Speaker 1: because I believe they wrote this song.
Speaker 8: Oh did they?
Speaker 1: I think so?
Speaker 8: I believe so the Righteous Gemstones Brothers. Is that what
Speaker 8: you're talking about?
Speaker 1: Coming back Sunday Sunday Night, Righteous Gemstones back on HBO.
Speaker 8: That's actually awesome.
Speaker 1: I badly needed.
Speaker 8: Yeah, some hollow Oats uh breakup song, I would.
Speaker 1: Say, which, you know? So what are you trying to do?
Speaker 6: Man?
Speaker 8: I'm just it's it goes with the theme of the week.
Speaker 8: He come in bad coming up next to It's kind
Speaker 8: of a touchy situation.
Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough, now I appreciate that shadowy. Did you
Speaker 1: ever skateboard.
Speaker 7: As a kid?
Speaker 1: A little bit?
Speaker 3: I grew up like a snowboard kid as you as
Speaker 3: you know, my mom is a snowboarder by trade, and
Speaker 3: so a little bit. They put a skate park like
Speaker 3: in Oakley and Rodeoville randomly, and we definitely used it.
Speaker 3: I crash when I'm on bikes, on boards on all
Speaker 3: of the above. I don't have the filter a limit,
Speaker 3: so I crash and Curt myself.
Speaker 1: So there's a group of hooligans outside skateboarding right now.
Speaker 1: Oh and looks like they're creating content and scared to
Speaker 1: go outside now as you do. And they're like skating
Speaker 1: in the middle of traffic because it's rush hour here
Speaker 1: in downtown saut Lake, and rush hour of course brings,
Speaker 1: you know, multiple vehicles, and these hooligans look like they're
Speaker 1: sixteen or seventeen. They've got one dude taking videos and
Speaker 1: the rest are like houcking tricks. I think that's what
Speaker 1: they say off the curve over here.
Speaker 8: You should go out there and Karen do like a
Speaker 8: make a scene, you know what?
Speaker 1: I heard his story, A former friend of the program
Speaker 1: apparently is the Karen of his neighborhood. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: when we signed off, it is not Month. I wish
Speaker 1: it was so badly. I wish it was Gordon. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say who it is on air because
Speaker 1: he actually still is a friend. But apparently he's the
Speaker 1: dude that if he sees the skateboarders and it's not Bill,
Speaker 1: he's the dude that rolls out and tells the skateboarders
Speaker 1: to chill out.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to go full Karen.
Speaker 1: But if I do drive out and they get my way,
Speaker 1: we might have to have a conversation.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Gettle Street kids speaking.
Speaker 1: Of a righteous gemstone before we get out of here.
Speaker 1: Danny McBride is a hard yes for me. Like whatever
Speaker 1: Danny McBride is in or does, I automatically just watch it,
Speaker 1: give him a bend for the doubt. Who else is
Speaker 1: on that list when it comes to TV like Larry
Speaker 1: David right, Yes, pretty short list. He doesn't do much.
Speaker 1: Just a hard yes yeah.
Speaker 3: Me And since you went comedy with with those guys,
Speaker 3: Jason Bateman, if it's television, I'll watch it. Arrested Development awesome,
Speaker 3: Ozark awesome, he's got the range, he's he's good.
Speaker 2: He does he does all right. Time for us to
Speaker 2: get out of here.
Speaker 1: The Utah men's basketball team is taking on Arizona at McHale.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Josh Eiler, interim head coach, and this
Speaker 1: is his first task, my goodness, So stay tuned for
Speaker 1: that porter what comes our way On a Thursday edition
Speaker 1: of the show.
Speaker 3: On a Thursday, Little Hockey with Neil Smith behind the glass,
Speaker 3: We'll talk some jazz with one Andy Larson, a little
Speaker 3: golf Update with our friend at Paul Pugmyer. And of course,
Speaker 3: as we do each and every day an NBA daily
Speaker 3: is It's is Tim McMahon on a Thursday this time all.
Speaker 1: Right, good stuff, So join us there for this Thursday
Speaker 1: edition of the show, and we'll say good night and
Speaker 1: thank you to Chris Camaraddie, Trey Fitzgerald, Richard Smith and
Speaker 1: Josh Furlong. Missed iny of it websites and option SPN
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