Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Oh, guess what day it is. Guess what day it is?
Speaker 3: Huh anybody, it's humpy.
Speaker 1: Yes, it is hump Day Wednesday. Welcome to the Big
Speaker 1: Blue Insider. Dick Gabriell with you, and you know what,
Speaker 1: this is our final full show of the week. Whether permitting,
Speaker 1: the next two nights, we're gonna have Kentucky baseball, as
Speaker 1: the Wildcats played down in Nashville against Vanderbilt. This is
Speaker 1: the time of year when every team plays a Thursday
Speaker 1: through Saturday series. Everybody, I think plays one during the
Speaker 1: regular season prior to this week just for TV purposes,
Speaker 1: but at this time of year, every SEC team plays
Speaker 1: Thursday through Saturday. In advance of the SEC tournament. Someone
Speaker 1: has to give teams, just about every team a day
Speaker 1: off the rest prepare, get your pitching ready. But also
Speaker 1: if there's rain involved, you don't want to bump into
Speaker 1: the following week because you got the tournament coming up.
Speaker 1: And this year begins on Tuesday. Down in Hoover, Wildcats
Speaker 1: would play South Carolina. If they played today, Kentucky would
Speaker 1: be the ten seeds, South Carolina the fifteen, but Wildcats
Speaker 1: can move up. They could possibly get a first round
Speaker 1: by it would take some doing. They'd have to win
Speaker 1: at least two games from Vanderbilt and get some help
Speaker 1: other teams losing. That is so right now it looks
Speaker 1: like Kentucky will play South Carolina. Wildcats beat the game
Speaker 1: Cocks two out of three earlier this year. That would
Speaker 1: happen next Tuesday, but first a three game series with
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt that begins tomorrow night. The games on Thursday and
Speaker 1: Friday are at seven o'clock. You'll hear the pregame right
Speaker 1: here with Darren at six forty five on six point
Speaker 1: thirty WLAP. Wildcats win. Last night they beat Northern Kentucky.
Speaker 1: They were up three to nothing going into the eighth inning.
Speaker 1: Northern scored a run an interesting three to one. Kentucky
Speaker 1: immediately answered with three runs of its own to sock
Speaker 1: the game away and win their final home game of
Speaker 1: the year, knocking off the Norse. Sorry, Mark Berger, they
Speaker 1: noursed up, they played well, but it was Kentucky winning it,
Speaker 1: and the Wildcats now with more momentum.
Speaker 4: They won four.
Speaker 1: Straight following that weekend series sweep of Oklahoma. Rank thirteenth
Speaker 1: or fourteenth, depending on the pole you favor. This past
Speaker 1: weekend so Kentucky apparently has got some things figured out.
Speaker 1: Wildcats still trying to make things work after some injuries
Speaker 1: rob them of important players and pitchers. But right now
Speaker 1: they're playing their best baseball when they need to the most.
Speaker 1: So it looks like even though they have been listed
Speaker 1: as one of the last four teams in, they should
Speaker 1: be in pretty good shape. I gotta think win one
Speaker 1: and you're fine down in Nashville. Try to avoid that
Speaker 1: sweep to take everything away from or not everything, but
Speaker 1: solidify things, let's say, in the eyes of the selections committee.
Speaker 1: But it looks like they're okay right now. Biggest news
Speaker 1: of the day yesterday, of course, nationally. This hit late
Speaker 1: in the afternoon as we were arriving at the ballpark.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Doug and Darren and I spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time chatting about this as Major League Baseball Commissioner
Speaker 1: Rob Manfred hands down a ruling stating that any former
Speaker 1: player who has deceased now is off the list that
Speaker 1: kept them out of consideration for the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: In other words, Pete Rose, Shueless, Joe Jackson, all these
Speaker 1: players who might have been ineligible for the Hall of
Speaker 1: Fame now eligible. The way that works is the writers
Speaker 1: who vote them in. They're not the ones who declared
Speaker 1: Pete Rose ineligible. He was ineligible because he was on
Speaker 1: the Baseball the MLB list that said he was not
Speaker 1: in good standing.
Speaker 4: With Major League Baseball and.
Speaker 1: That meant he was ineligible for voting into the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame. Well now he is. And I talked about
Speaker 1: this a while back. Right after Pete died, somebody shared
Speaker 1: with me I had not seen this, and it didn't
Speaker 1: get a lot of media play that Rose wrote a letter.
Speaker 4: And you know, I got to think he.
Speaker 1: Knew he was in poor health, he was ailing. He
Speaker 1: sent a letter to the commissioner about eight months before
Speaker 1: he died, admitting to and apologizing for everything. And according
Speaker 1: to my buddy Doug Flynn, who was buddies with Doug,
Speaker 1: Doug introduced, or rather Pete introduced Doug to his wife.
Speaker 1: That's how close they were. Pete broke the news to
Speaker 1: Doug that Doug was traded to the Mets, but Doug
Speaker 1: and Johnny Bench and others held out for years saying
Speaker 1: Pete does not deserve to go in the Hall of
Speaker 1: Fame because he never apologized for lying to his teammates
Speaker 1: much less the fans, much less MLB. Once he did that,
Speaker 1: I felt like he had paid enough penance time to
Speaker 1: vote him into the Hall of Fame. Doug has been
Speaker 1: public now saying he didn't about face because baseball now
Speaker 1: is involved with the legalized gambling. I maintain that that
Speaker 1: should have nothing to do with it, because still, even
Speaker 1: though they're in bed with fan duels, DraftKings, all that,
Speaker 1: players are still not to bet. That's rule number one,
Speaker 1: and they know it. They cannot be involved. And if
Speaker 1: you think it's hypocritical, that's fine, but I do not.
Speaker 1: You don't want the athletes involved in the games to
Speaker 1: be involved with gambling. It's the same reason jockeys and
Speaker 1: trainers are not supposed to bet on horse races.
Speaker 4: Do they do it?
Speaker 1: Sure, they do through other people, but if they're caught,
Speaker 1: they pay a steep price. Literally, Pete Rose got caught
Speaker 1: and he paid the price. Thumbed his nose at Baseball's
Speaker 1: number one rule. And if you think it's silly, we'll
Speaker 1: think about it whatever game you're watching. If you're watching
Speaker 1: a basketball game and the best player on your team
Speaker 1: is sticking it up, and you have every right to
Speaker 1: say to yourself, well, he's probably throwing this game because
Speaker 1: he has a few thousand dollars on it and nothing's
Speaker 1: gonna happen to him. Coach can't really bench him, at
Speaker 1: least maybe down the stretch he can. But that's why
Speaker 1: those rules are in place. So once Rose apologized to
Speaker 1: everybody and admitted to what he did, I felt like
Speaker 1: he deserved to be voted in. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I think they need to take another look at how
Speaker 1: they vote these guys in because some of these writers
Speaker 1: who refused to take the greatest players in the game,
Speaker 1: guys who didn't vote Hank Aaron on the first ballot,
Speaker 1: you know, Babe Ruth on the first ballot. They need
Speaker 1: to turn in their ballots just to dig in and say, well,
Speaker 1: guys don't deserve it in the first ballot. Yes they do,
Speaker 1: some do, Clemente. Some do, not everybody, but some do.
Speaker 1: And now with Rose eligible and shoeless Joe Jackson in
Speaker 1: it never should have been banned in the first place.
Speaker 1: He was duped into a confession putting his mark on
Speaker 1: a piece of paper he couldn't even read. They need
Speaker 1: to take a look at all of this, redo it
Speaker 1: and clean things up up. Next more comments from Mark Pope.
Speaker 1: Little later Aaron Gershano the catch pause on six point
Speaker 1: thirty wlap.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to the.
Speaker 1: Big Bloonsider coming up in just a couple of minutes
Speaker 1: herein Gershawna the Cat's Pause, and then Sean Woods, our
Speaker 1: Unforgettable Guard, joins us every Wednesday, as does our West
Speaker 1: End Bureau chief Gary Moore. That's all coming up in
Speaker 1: our number two. As I mentioned earlier, Mark Pope talking
Speaker 1: to us on Tuesday yesterday, and as I said yesterday,
Speaker 1: you're gonna hear practically everything Mark Pope had to say
Speaker 1: throughout the next several days. I'm sure it's all online somewhere,
Speaker 1: but those of us in the media, we like to
Speaker 1: feed off of this like it's a Thanksgiving or Christmas
Speaker 1: turkey that you carve up the day you get it
Speaker 1: on the holiday, and then you feed off of it
Speaker 1: for the.
Speaker 4: Next few days. So we'll be doing that as well.
Speaker 1: And you know, we played some of the comments yesterday,
Speaker 1: but one of the comments that got a lot of
Speaker 1: traction that I mentioned we would use today was about
Speaker 1: Travis Perry. Somebody asked him, of course, about the young
Speaker 1: man from Lyon County transferring and it caught a lot
Speaker 1: of us off guard, including Mark Pope. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that surprised you or not. It did surprise me.
Speaker 1: And a friend of mine said, well, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: he signs him and then he recruits over him. Well, basically, Perry,
Speaker 1: as you know it committed to play under Caliperi. And
Speaker 1: as I pointed out to my friend, I said, everybody
Speaker 1: recruits over everybody.
Speaker 4: Mark Stoops talked about this in a press conference one day.
Speaker 1: He said, and he was not speaking about anybody specifically,
Speaker 1: but he said, when he signs a young man, he said,
Speaker 1: you know, we need you, We were glad to have you.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to go try to recruit somebody better
Speaker 1: than you. That's how you improve your program. You recruit
Speaker 1: over people. And if the guy you just signed or
Speaker 1: the woman you just signed is good enough and you
Speaker 1: keep trying to recruit over them, they're not going to
Speaker 1: let you bench them or recruit somebody better.
Speaker 4: They're gonna work hard to hold on to their spot.
Speaker 1: That's how you build depth, that's how you build quality programs.
Speaker 1: And keep this in mind now, and I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to defend Mark Pope or criticize Travis Perry or whatever.
Speaker 1: But when Perry signed with Kentucky, it is someone who's
Speaker 1: close to the family told me it was made clear
Speaker 1: to him. You know, if you really don't want to come,
Speaker 1: that's fine with us. This is when Calipari was here.
Speaker 1: Think about the guys, including Boogie Flann, who had agreed
Speaker 1: to come to Kentucky, all those kids who ended up
Speaker 1: at Arkansas, some of them did, and the kids who
Speaker 1: already here. Travis Perry knew this. He just wanted to
Speaker 1: be here. He wanted to be a wildcat. And I
Speaker 1: submit to you he had a better chance of playing
Speaker 1: more minutes at Kentucky under Mark Pope than he did
Speaker 1: under John Caliperi for two reasons. Number one, I think
Speaker 1: cali Peri had more of the upscale, flashy NBA ready talent,
Speaker 1: you know, potential one and done's or two and duns
Speaker 1: at Kentucky than Mark Pope.
Speaker 4: Had in the roster he was building.
Speaker 1: And I do believe that the Pope method, the Pope's system,
Speaker 1: is better for a guy like Perry, simply because Pope
Speaker 1: goes deeper into his bench and it drove a lot
Speaker 1: of unuts this last year.
Speaker 4: You know, why is he subbing.
Speaker 1: Now they're playing well, you know, and Pope explained it
Speaker 1: more than once they sub a little earlier. They don't
Speaker 1: leave player combinations out there as long as some of
Speaker 1: their coaches might because they want the first rotation guys
Speaker 1: fresher at the end of the game. So he's not
Speaker 1: going to pare his rotations down to eight maybe nine.
Speaker 1: He's gonna keep playing. They ask him, you know, who's
Speaker 1: gonna play how much? He said, I want to play everybody,
Speaker 1: And for the most part he does, maybe not throughout
Speaker 1: the entire game. Now, yeah, Perry's time dropped off as
Speaker 1: Colin Chandler's time picked up. But that's all part of it,
Speaker 1: and I'm really curious to see what kind of minutes
Speaker 1: Travis Perry earns at Old Miss. But again, Mark Pope
Speaker 1: with some pointed comments about Travis Perry when somebody asked
Speaker 1: him about the young man leaving.
Speaker 5: I was devastated when Travis left. I think he's a
Speaker 5: you know, mostly because I think he's such a terrific
Speaker 5: young man. I think he's a really really special person.
Speaker 5: I think he's I think he's he's got an old
Speaker 5: soul and he's he's full of wisdom, and he is
Speaker 5: he's just is everything that you want in a in,
Speaker 5: a in a young man and a player. And then
Speaker 5: he's a big time basketball player. He's a great talent
Speaker 5: and and and you know, I think it was it
Speaker 5: was certainly devastating to me personally because I enjoy coaching
Speaker 5: him so much, and I think, you think he's got
Speaker 5: a brilliant upside. I think he was on his way
Speaker 5: to becoming a legend here at Kentucky. So so you
Speaker 5: know that that made me sad. But you know, he's
Speaker 5: he's he's he's to find a path that works for
Speaker 5: him and it's gonna it's gonna be positive. But you know,
Speaker 5: that was a tough one for us.
Speaker 1: Yesterday I played the comment when I asked Pope about
Speaker 1: what it means to play at Kentucky. Where is that
Speaker 1: on the punch list when you're recruiting a guy through
Speaker 1: the portal or through conventional means out of high school.
Speaker 1: And he talked about the fact that it's got to
Speaker 1: be at the top of the list and at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the list, in other words, you start and
Speaker 1: finished with that, and toward the tail end of those comments,
Speaker 1: he added something about understanding what it's like to play
Speaker 1: at Kentucky and really how important it is to appreciate
Speaker 1: that and what it could mean to you later in life.
Speaker 5: Understanding having some concept of what Kentucky basketball means is
Speaker 5: a vital part from the very first phone call to
Speaker 5: the very last pre commitment conversation. And and there are
Speaker 5: a lot of guys that that don't really get that,
Speaker 5: and they're they're going to go be great basketball players,
Speaker 5: they just won't be great basketball players here because this
Speaker 5: place is different. And you need to understand that if
Speaker 5: you want to come play here, not if you want
Speaker 5: to come player, if you're going to accept the incredible
Speaker 5: opportunity to come player, you have to understand that. If
Speaker 5: you don't understand, you're just not going to be successful.
Speaker 5: If you do understand it, you're going to be crazy successful.
Speaker 5: And our guys last season set a beautiful, brilliant standard
Speaker 5: of of what it means to be a Kentucky basketball player.
Speaker 5: And we actually are leaning on them a lot as
Speaker 5: we try and describe this. Their video, their outtakes, their clips,
Speaker 5: their comments, just to help guys understand it's really important.
Speaker 4: I asked about the guys from last year.
Speaker 1: That's how I prefaced a question because when we started
Speaker 1: talking to those guys in August, they allowed us to
Speaker 1: talk to all the newbies. There are so many requests,
Speaker 1: and they were genuinely so appreciative of being in election.
Speaker 1: And they talked in August about what was like already
Speaker 1: to be recognized on the street at restaurants and the
Speaker 1: mall things like that, to be a part of UK basketball.
Speaker 1: It's an appreciation they had having been at other schools,
Speaker 1: some of them multiple schools, but wherever they had been
Speaker 1: it did not compare. You know, they had been kind
Speaker 1: of celebrities on campus or whatever, but nothing like it
Speaker 1: is here. And you know what I'm talking about being
Speaker 1: a Kentucky basketball player, being a basketball player in Lexington,
Speaker 1: in central Kentucky. It's just different. I don't want to
Speaker 1: say it just means more, but it does, you know,
Speaker 1: like being a football player at some of the football schools,
Speaker 1: but even more intense because there are what you know,
Speaker 1: eighty five to one hundred football players. There's only thirteen
Speaker 1: to fifteen UK basketball players. And these guys having been elsewhere,
Speaker 1: it's all relative. Now, what was it like to be
Speaker 1: a basketball player at West Virginia or Arizona or Wake Forest, whatever. Now,
Speaker 1: what's it like to be in Kentucky. You got kids
Speaker 1: coming in, one guy from Alabama, a Final four program.
Speaker 1: You've got a guy coming in from Florida, national champion.
Speaker 1: But he wanted to experience what it's like to be here,
Speaker 1: and he will do that, So that's going to be interesting.
Speaker 1: There was another question about nil, and there are so
Speaker 1: many figures thrown around, and you know this program spending
Speaker 1: this much that much. Mark Pope hung firmly in cheek,
Speaker 1: said Kentucky's NIL figure will be two hundred million dollars,
Speaker 1: and we all laughed at that, but he didn't shy
Speaker 1: away from wanting it to be the fattest number that's
Speaker 1: out there.
Speaker 5: We would like to win it everything, guys, like we
Speaker 5: really would with this the flagship program in the country,
Speaker 5: and so I'm fully on board with all of it.
Speaker 5: We want to play the hardest schedule, we want to
Speaker 5: play the best teams. We want to win the most games.
Speaker 5: We want to have the best players. We want to
Speaker 5: have the highest and I all went out the coolest uniforms.
Speaker 5: We want to have the most media attention, like this
Speaker 5: is Kentucky, and and and We're gonna do this the
Speaker 5: very best we can. And we were blessed. We're really
Speaker 5: blessed UH to have President Capluto and Mitch Barnhardt and
Speaker 5: and some of the most committed generous UH fans and
Speaker 5: donors and and supporters UH in all of college basketball.
Speaker 5: We we we have the best donors in college basketball.
Speaker 5: We have the best fans in college basketball. This is
Speaker 5: the University of Kentucky, Like I never forget that. So
Speaker 5: we should be the best at everything. And and and
Speaker 5: I put anil put the transfer portal on the list.
Speaker 5: Our job is to go be the best at everything.
Speaker 5: So we're not shying away from that, like it's it's
Speaker 5: important to us there.
Speaker 1: That is if you've ever wondered, is Kentucky fully committed
Speaker 1: when it comes to giving this guy what he needs.
Speaker 1: He's not gonna sit still, right So, I don't know
Speaker 1: what the exact figure will be, but I don't think
Speaker 1: they're gonna lack for anything. Coming up next, Aaron Gershan
Speaker 1: of the Cats balls later on Sean Woods, the Unforgettable
Speaker 1: Guard and Western Bureau Chief Gary Moore. That's coming up
Speaker 1: on six point thirty WLAP Welcome back to the Big
Speaker 1: binsider Joining us now is Aaron Gershawan from the Cats
Speaker 1: Bops covers football, cats, baseball, football, basketball, you name it,
Speaker 1: he covers it. And he is working long distance visiting
Speaker 1: mom down in Florida. But one can do that these days, Aeron,
Speaker 1: thanks to the innerweb. And you were dialed into Mark
Speaker 1: Pope's comments yesterday. And as I said, and you were on,
Speaker 1: we're talking off the air. We'll feed off these comments
Speaker 1: for a week or so or more. All of US
Speaker 1: media types and Big Boe Nation anything in particular, jump
Speaker 1: off the podium at you.
Speaker 3: No, nothing crazy, I mean nothing. I wasn't expecting. I thought,
Speaker 3: I'll tell you. I guess two things. I guess that
Speaker 3: probably are different than most coaches. One, I never heard
Speaker 3: a coach speak as candidly about a kid transferring out
Speaker 3: unless it was something really bad, as he did with
Speaker 3: Travis Perry, so I definitely wasn't expecting him to go
Speaker 3: into that much detail there. But and the other one,
Speaker 3: I think I think the quote of the day at
Speaker 3: least that got the fan base fired up was well.
Speaker 3: First of all, Admide the joke when he was asked
Speaker 3: how much he thinks his roster value is he's a
Speaker 3: two hundred billions. That's pretty pretty darn funny. But you
Speaker 3: know the quote saying, you know, we want to be
Speaker 3: the best at everything. We want to have the highest anil,
Speaker 3: we want to have the best transfers, We're going to
Speaker 3: have the best players, best play, the best teams, all
Speaker 3: that good stuff. So you know that competitiveness that firing us.
Speaker 3: I mean, Hope obviously is pretty goofy in these press
Speaker 3: conferences he comes up. You know, he's very charming, he's
Speaker 3: very you know, witty and all those things, but you
Speaker 3: know there's that competitive You see it.
Speaker 2: After they lose.
Speaker 3: I mean that he just he's a whole different person
Speaker 3: after they lose games. But he is a hell of
Speaker 3: a competitor. I think sometimes that gets I wouldn't say unnoticed,
Speaker 3: but I think gets overlooked maybe from more of the
Speaker 3: national perspective or more within the SEC just because of
Speaker 3: kind of with the personality he is and how outgoing,
Speaker 3: you know, charismatic and all that good stuff about him is.
Speaker 3: But man, is that guy competitive. And you could kind
Speaker 3: of see the fire in his eyes as he was
Speaker 3: saying that. So those are kind of the too close
Speaker 3: to stuck out nothing else that was all that earth chattering.
Speaker 3: Just good to hear him talk about some of the
Speaker 3: guys that he obviously hasn't been able to talk about
Speaker 3: yet now that they're signpen to paper.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I thought the comments about Perry were really interesting as well,
Speaker 1: and he followed that up with comments about Trentonoah. You
Speaker 1: could tell how much he really appreciates him. And again
Speaker 1: I think I was talking about this earlier in the show.
Speaker 1: People need to remember that Travis Perry committed and signed
Speaker 1: under Cali Perry. And my theory is, let me see
Speaker 1: what you have to say about this. I said that
Speaker 1: he stood to benefit more in the Mark Pope's system
Speaker 1: then Cali Perry, given the type the style of players
Speaker 1: that Cali Perry had, you know, the future lottery picks.
Speaker 4: All that stuff, whereas Pope goes deeper into his bench.
Speaker 4: And I really believe it.
Speaker 1: Once Perry got bigger and stronger, Yeah, he was going
Speaker 1: to knock his ads with Colin Chandler some other guys
Speaker 1: in the back coourd. But I felt like he would
Speaker 1: have been better off now. He might even be better
Speaker 1: off at Ole Miss, But in terms of what he
Speaker 1: might have done at Kentucky under Calipari versus what he
Speaker 1: did under Pope. I thought he was in pretty.
Speaker 2: Good shape, no question.
Speaker 3: Yeah I don't think. Look, Caliperry didn't recruit him all
Speaker 3: that hard. It was kind of a situation where this
Speaker 3: is where he dreamed of playing, and cal accepted the commitment,
Speaker 3: and that was kind of that process there this. You know,
Speaker 3: obviously Pope didn't recruit Travis Berry at high school and
Speaker 3: only you know, kind of recruited him quickly on the
Speaker 3: fly there as he took the job, probably watched a
Speaker 3: little bit of tape early, but you know, didn't obviously
Speaker 3: didn't know his game as well throughout the recruitment process
Speaker 3: until you know, he got to Kentucky. And of course
Speaker 3: you look at what Travis Perry brings to the court
Speaker 3: as a shooter, and you know his ability on the offensive,
Speaker 3: then he absolutely is a better fit in Pope's system
Speaker 3: than he ever would have been in Cals. And that's
Speaker 3: why he saw Arkansas never really got involved in the
Speaker 3: transfer portal process, but it just look, it's a tough
Speaker 3: situation right where the SEC is better than it's ever been.
Speaker 3: Travis Perry at this point in his career six one
Speaker 3: one hundred and seventy five pounds. He's not his body's
Speaker 3: not quite sec ready yet. It wasn't going to probably
Speaker 3: be ready yet for this coming year, and you know,
Speaker 3: he got recruited over and you know, obviously Colin Chandler
Speaker 3: by the end of the year passed him on the
Speaker 3: depth chart and kind of took his minutes away. But
Speaker 3: you also bring in Denzel Aberdeen who plays the same
Speaker 3: exact convo guard position and is coming off a national
Speaker 3: championship as their six man, and you know he's gonna
Speaker 3: he's gonna devand a lot of playing time, and you're
Speaker 3: bringing Jalen low Is the starting point guard. Like there's
Speaker 3: just there was a log gem there and Perry saw
Speaker 3: that didn't see the pass of playing time. Really, I
Speaker 3: think he probably honestly would have had a smaller role
Speaker 3: next year than he did this past year, and that's
Speaker 3: discouraging in this day and age. And you know, he definitely,
Speaker 3: definitely it's a Parry's credit. He was very thorough with
Speaker 3: his process because he didn't enter the portal till the
Speaker 3: very last day to do so, so he took it
Speaker 3: to the wire and decided that was the best thing
Speaker 3: for him and I think in the immediate it is
Speaker 3: the best thing for him, because again I'm not sure
Speaker 3: about that body being SEC ready yet. We'll see what
Speaker 3: he what he's able to do over the off season.
Speaker 3: But you know, on this just they had a need.
Speaker 3: You go look at their depth chart and there's a
Speaker 3: task for playing time for him right away. He could
Speaker 3: be you know, I don't think he's gonna be a staughter,
Speaker 3: but I think he's going to play be He's kind
Speaker 3: of between six and eight in their rotation. We're here
Speaker 3: probably twalse man, and we all know that you know,
Speaker 3: at Max they're going to have it's going to be
Speaker 3: an eleven man rotation once we get to SEC play,
Speaker 3: and he was probably one of the odd men out.
Speaker 1: You brought up something else that I had also touched
Speaker 1: on earlier in the show, and that is the notion
Speaker 1: that he was recruited over and I think you were
Speaker 1: uncertain in the room some months ago when Mark Stoops
Speaker 1: was talking about recruiting and just in general, he talked
Speaker 1: about the fact that essentially whenever he signed somebody, it
Speaker 1: was yep, welcome to the.
Speaker 4: Family, glad to have you.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to go try to recruit somebody better
Speaker 1: than you are, because that's how you build depth. That's
Speaker 1: how you build a quality team. Now it's a bit
Speaker 1: more intensified when it's basketball, but you can't really play
Speaker 1: a pad hand, can you.
Speaker 2: No, you have no choice.
Speaker 3: If you don't get better, you're getting worse.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is what it is.
Speaker 3: If you say the same, you're getting worse. And last year,
Speaker 3: Kentucky's biggest issue, you know, was a lack of athleticism.
Speaker 3: And you know, Perry, I'm not going to say it
Speaker 3: was part of the issue. He just fit kind of
Speaker 3: that mold of they needed to add some more athletic
Speaker 3: guys than him on the roster point play and Denzel
Speaker 3: Aberdeen fits that, Jayalen.
Speaker 2: Lowe fits that.
Speaker 3: Obviously, the guys they added like Cam Williams, Jayden Quaintons
Speaker 3: and Modia Basse had other positions fit that. And you
Speaker 3: know that that was the biggest kicker that kept them
Speaker 3: from being on Alabama's level. I know they beat Florida,
Speaker 3: but obviously they weren't on Florida's level the whole season
Speaker 3: they were. We saw what happened when they played Auburn.
Speaker 3: They just got man handled. Like those games were decided
Speaker 3: because Kentucky did not have the athleticism they needed to compete.
Speaker 3: Those teams were full of freak athletes one through five
Speaker 3: at each position, and that was clearly I know, I
Speaker 3: think out of respect to those guys, because obviously they
Speaker 3: were a very talented group and did an outstanding job
Speaker 3: getting to the Sweet sixteen and year one with that
Speaker 3: kind of ragtag team. But you know, Pope didn't say
Speaker 3: necessarily yesterday he has to get more athletic, but his actions,
Speaker 3: his actions with recruiting showed that he knew they needed
Speaker 3: to and he brought in some freak athletes, and you know,
Speaker 3: unfortunately Perry is not that at this time in his career.
Speaker 1: I was really interested and fascinated by Pope's comments about
Speaker 1: Diabate coming in from Alabama Aberdeen from Florida. These are
Speaker 1: two guys who were at programs that were excelling and
Speaker 1: as you just pointed out, arguably a notch ahead right now,
Speaker 1: just in the immediate of Kentucky, with Alabama being a
Speaker 1: team everybody loved last year to go back to the
Speaker 1: Final four, did not, and of course we all know
Speaker 1: what Florida did, and yet these two guys were principal
Speaker 1: players on those teams literally, and now they come to Kentucky.
Speaker 1: That fascinates me. And I loved Pope's comments about those guys.
Speaker 3: Didn't you Absolutely yeah, I mean they know the league,
Speaker 3: like you said, they know what it takes from a
Speaker 3: physicality standpoint. They just the venues like nothing's going.
Speaker 2: To rattle them.
Speaker 3: And now they come here and it's a whole different
Speaker 3: experience to play in this uniform of course and play
Speaker 3: at home, but you know, once you get on the court,
Speaker 3: you're gonna you're gonna feel pretty comfortable. They've been there,
Speaker 3: done that, and you know, both of them obviously, Aberdeen's
Speaker 3: a senior, via Bati is a junior. Like there's not
Speaker 3: a venue that haven't played in. There's gonna be really
Speaker 3: outside of just having this experience, which is, you know,
Speaker 3: not a light thing, but uh, there's not much un
Speaker 3: known here, like these are pretty much an own commodities.
Speaker 2: And that's great.
Speaker 3: I mean last year, yeah, you definitely you knew what
Speaker 3: you were getting in the mont Butler, you knew Kobe
Speaker 3: Berry was an elite shooter, but you know, those guys
Speaker 3: were coming from the Mountain West and a ten and
Speaker 3: it's just different and luckily, you know, those guys worked out.
Speaker 3: But these guys you just feel are pretty darn safe too,
Speaker 3: and hopefully they even get better because both of them,
Speaker 3: you know, the reason both of them transferred is they
Speaker 3: wanted to play more too. Like Diabate was off the
Speaker 3: bench there and there were some games he hardly played
Speaker 3: for whatever reason or not. Benzel Aberdeen was the sixth
Speaker 3: man at Florida last year, they go and recruit over
Speaker 3: him at point guard with Xavier Lee from from Princeton,
Speaker 3: and it sure seems they were working on getting a
Speaker 3: second guard in there as well as now we see
Speaker 3: Boogie Slam pulls his name for the draft and all
Speaker 3: the all the talkers Florida. So it's just, you know,
Speaker 3: it was a situation where both those guys were really
Speaker 3: good at their last offs and they want to even
Speaker 3: make a bigger impact at Kentucky, and they're both going
Speaker 3: to get that chance. I mean, I'm not sure exactly
Speaker 3: how the starting lineup's gonna it's too early to say,
Speaker 3: but both those guys are gonna if not, if they're
Speaker 3: not going to be in it, they're gonna have a
Speaker 3: really good shot to make it. And if not, they're
Speaker 3: both probably in line to be in that sixth man role,
Speaker 3: so you know, there it made sense for both of
Speaker 3: those guys. I think the chancefer when you dig deeper
Speaker 3: into it. But it also uh definitely a benefit for
Speaker 3: Kentucky that they decided to and decide to come.
Speaker 1: Aaron Gershean of the Cats pauses. My guess we'll come
Speaker 1: back and talk more with Aaron about Kentucky basketball. On
Speaker 1: the other side of the break here on six thirty
Speaker 1: WLAP Welcome back. We're chatting with Aaron Gershaan of the Cat's.
Speaker 1: Pause covers the basketball Cats, well football, baseball, basketball, but
Speaker 1: we're talking about Mark Pope's comments from yesterday and how
Speaker 1: some of these moves in the SEC are going to affect.
Speaker 4: Teams around the conference.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Boogie Flann prior to the break, and you
Speaker 1: and I have talked a lot of people, really have
Speaker 1: about the fact that boy Arkansas makes that run last
Speaker 1: year under Calipari and frankly should have gone deeper but
Speaker 1: in the NCAA tournament.
Speaker 4: But I truly.
Speaker 1: Believe in a backhanded way, and it seemed evident that
Speaker 1: Arkansas benefited when Boogie Flann was sidelined with an injury
Speaker 1: and looked like it was going to be the rest
Speaker 1: of the year because it just looked like the old school,
Speaker 1: bad old days at Kentucky where one guy dominated the ball,
Speaker 1: the ball stuck, as he used to say, and they
Speaker 1: give the ball to Boogie, tremendous player.
Speaker 4: And everybody hung back and waited for him.
Speaker 1: To do something great, you know, and then he goes
Speaker 1: down and suddenly the rest of the teams involved in Hey,
Speaker 1: what do you know?
Speaker 4: They're pretty good.
Speaker 1: But when he came back, Aaron I thought everything assimilated
Speaker 1: much better with flann Now I'm curious to see how
Speaker 1: he affects Florida if indeed that's where he ends up.
Speaker 4: What do you see.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's gonna be really interesting because again they brought
Speaker 3: in one of the top point guards in the transfer portal,
Speaker 3: Nxavian Lee from Princeton, and another guy that you know
Speaker 3: was testing the NBA waters and completely took his name
Speaker 3: out to be there. So it'll be interesting it is
Speaker 3: Boogie or was one of them moving to the two
Speaker 3: full time to kind of get rid of that problem.
Speaker 3: But you know one thing about Florida, uh with Todd Golden,
Speaker 3: is we know that if any if any coach in
Speaker 3: the country last year proved they can handle having a
Speaker 3: logjam at the guard position and making it work, it
Speaker 3: was Todd Golden in Florida. I mean they had obviously
Speaker 3: Walter Clayton, but then Elijah Martin coming over from Fau
Speaker 3: Guy Ben in the final four, been there, done that
Speaker 3: and makes a major impact there. And then you know,
Speaker 3: Will Riley not too bad either to have. That's another
Speaker 3: guard in that back court. Oh yeah, they Denzel Aberdeen
Speaker 3: coming off the bench. So you know, I trust if
Speaker 3: it is Florida, that Golden's probably gonna make it work
Speaker 3: a little better than cal did. I mean, obviously, you know,
Speaker 3: again in a backhanded way, Arkinson proved. I think the
Speaker 3: biggest thing for them at what it allowed them to
Speaker 3: do is it allowed Janelle Davis to just be himself,
Speaker 3: Like let him get the ball. I mean I watched
Speaker 3: him a time, my brother having gone FA. You just
Speaker 3: let him get the ball in ice those situations and
Speaker 3: beat his man either off the dribbler from thirty and
Speaker 3: that you saw he was a whole different player the
Speaker 3: rest of the year. And he was big John L.
Speaker 3: Daves they paid for. But yeah, it's gonna be interesting
Speaker 3: if it is Florida. Obviously Arkansas at this point the
Speaker 3: way their roster set up, he doesn't really fit with
Speaker 3: d J. Wagner coming back, bringing in Darius Aekoff, who's
Speaker 3: one of the top freshman point guard.
Speaker 2: That's not the.
Speaker 3: Top freshman point guard on the market this past year,
Speaker 3: So that's it's Look, if it's Florida, it's just you know,
Speaker 3: the national champions reloading. I think Todd Golden will make
Speaker 3: it work.
Speaker 1: Wow, that would be something to see if they can
Speaker 1: make it again. Back to back at Florida a few
Speaker 1: minutes level of Aaron Gershan of the Cats. Pause back
Speaker 1: to the Mark Pope comments. Interesting up and down the line.
Speaker 1: It's very entertaining. Obviously he's just fun to listen to,
Speaker 1: as you know. But the comments he made about the
Speaker 1: improvements that his players make from year one to year two,
Speaker 1: I thought you kind.
Speaker 4: Of knew that was coming.
Speaker 1: But the way he of course, he's so exuberant about everything,
Speaker 1: but really when you look at and you think about
Speaker 1: his system, and it truly is a system, and it
Speaker 1: took them a while to figure it out, but once
Speaker 1: they did, I thought Kentucky really moved up nationally, especially
Speaker 1: with defense, but I'm really curious to see how that
Speaker 1: all shakes at, you know what I.
Speaker 3: Mean, yeah, And I think, you know, the biggest thing
Speaker 3: he touched on with that is the decision making stuff,
Speaker 3: and I agree. I mean, you should be able to
Speaker 3: know where guys are at, have a better field where
Speaker 3: guys are at, you should have a better feel of
Speaker 3: what defense, how defenses are going to guard this system.
Speaker 3: And there's no question I agree with it, and i'd actually,
Speaker 3: you know, he kind of talked about the same thing
Speaker 3: when he was on with John Rothstein a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks ago, and I went it's on our website now
Speaker 3: and went through some of the guys at BYU and
Speaker 3: Utah Valley who had second years in the system and
Speaker 3: made the biggest jumps, and you know, they're definitely a
Speaker 3: couple that jump off the page. But really the biggest
Speaker 3: number tick you see. I mean, yeah, there's some guys
Speaker 3: who averaged three more points per game or averaged another
Speaker 3: assist the game. Some of that's minute related, some of
Speaker 3: that's improvement, but the biggest thing you see actually is
Speaker 3: the shooting percentages all go up, and I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm fun of them, especially you know, not just on three,
Speaker 3: been on twos as well, And I think the biggest
Speaker 3: thing with that is, again, you kind of have an
Speaker 3: idea of what defenses are going to give you, and
Speaker 3: you can kind of go into the offseason and train
Speaker 3: from certain spots, train certain situations, and have a better
Speaker 3: feel of things. And obviously you know, defensive adapt and
Speaker 3: you know both. I mean, yeah, they were in the
Speaker 3: Big twelve for one year, but they didn't really get
Speaker 3: to prepare. They didn't really necessarily know exactly what was
Speaker 3: coming at them. But you know, so they were in
Speaker 3: the whack and they were in the WCC, so it's different.
Speaker 3: But that was interesting to me that the shooting percentage
Speaker 3: is all one up, whether that's mechanical stuff, whether that's.
Speaker 2: Knowing the defenses.
Speaker 3: I'm curious to see how that translates for the four guys,
Speaker 3: likely for guys that they have coming back.
Speaker 1: I've got to think as well, that so much of
Speaker 1: that is learning that system, learning those backcuts, learning that
Speaker 1: interior passing that leads to the high percentage shots. Now
Speaker 1: you can't say that about three pointers, but Kentucky last
Speaker 1: year got more and more comfortable with that offense. And
Speaker 1: of course there's so much of that was Amari Williams
Speaker 1: making good. Some of that was Brandon Garrison down the stretch.
Speaker 1: So that's gonna be fascinating, isn't it.
Speaker 3: It is going to be fascinating, And you know it's
Speaker 3: gonna be really interesting to see the jumps Brandon Garrison make. Specifically,
Speaker 3: he's a guy they're going to be really counting on
Speaker 3: because you know, it's we talked about it every week
Speaker 3: and we're going to be talking about it every week
Speaker 3: till the season. But like James Quainton's is a big
Speaker 3: question mark, Like I'm just not counting on a kid
Speaker 3: who had an ACL repair surgery at the end of
Speaker 3: March to be ready for November fourth or whatever.
Speaker 2: Opening night is going to be.
Speaker 3: So Brandon Garrison, you know that's going to be your
Speaker 3: center because Malachi Mareno is still you know, it's going
Speaker 3: to be a true freshman. You can't necessarily count on that.
Speaker 3: And you know this Reese Potter kids probably not going
Speaker 3: to play much at all. So it's it's gonna be
Speaker 3: Ben Garrison at the five uh, and then you know,
Speaker 3: doing some small ball stuff with Diabat. So assuming Quinton
Speaker 3: isn't ready, we'll see if he is. But so my
Speaker 3: point being, and they're going to really need Garrison to
Speaker 3: make that jump from here one to year or two
Speaker 3: and show that he was able to do it quickly
Speaker 3: out of the gates, because the schedule is pretty unforgiving
Speaker 3: because now without set up within the first four or
Speaker 3: five games of the season, depending on how they schedule
Speaker 3: some of these, you know, by games, you're gonna have
Speaker 3: Louisville on November eleventh, and you're gonna have Michigan State
Speaker 3: on November eighteenth, two teams that are probably gonna be
Speaker 3: preseason top ten.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One thing we know about Malachi areno any of us
Speaker 1: who's covered any of his games up to and including
Speaker 1: a state championship game.
Speaker 4: He is a willing passer.
Speaker 1: He is one of the most unselfish kids in word
Speaker 1: and indeed than I've ever covered. So, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just going to be sure learning the system issues
Speaker 1: not gonna be as he willing to give it up.
Speaker 2: He's always definitely be willing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's always thinking about his teammates first, almost to
Speaker 1: a So that's going to be interesting as well.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Okay, as I let you go, I told you beforehand,
Speaker 1: I couldn't remember what it was. I have remembered what
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you about your New York Football
Speaker 1: Giants had the toughest upcoming schedule in the NFL that
Speaker 1: it was like a dagger to your heart when you
Speaker 1: saw that.
Speaker 3: Yes, but it's like you come in last, so you
Speaker 3: should be awarded as such. But you know, you go look,
Speaker 3: obviously you play the FC West. Okay, so you know
Speaker 3: you're playing. And by the way, the schedule leak their
Speaker 3: first four games as of right now, assuming it's accurate,
Speaker 3: at Washington at Dallas Sunday, I had football against the Chiefs,
Speaker 3: happy home opener, and then the Chargers at home, so unforgiving.
Speaker 3: But yeah, they played the FC West. They play I
Speaker 3: believe the NFC North, right yet so the Packers, obviously,
Speaker 3: the Vikings, the Lions there are even improved, at least
Speaker 3: should be. We'll see and then you know it's like, okay,
Speaker 3: well that's brutal. You're already playing in the NFC.
Speaker 2: That's brutal.
Speaker 3: Ye, at least we'll get to play some last place teams.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, San Francisco came in last last year. You
Speaker 3: got to play them. It's like unbelievable. So really, you know,
Speaker 3: the only three games I feel super, I wouldn't even
Speaker 3: say super, but the only three games you feel confident
Speaker 3: in New Orleans with their quarterback situation, New England still
Speaker 3: up and coming, and then you know Vegas maybe, but well, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's unfortunate. It's kind of it's almost similar to Kentucky.
Speaker 3: And to tie it back home here for a second,
Speaker 3: like I think the Giants roster is a lot improved,
Speaker 3: and I think Kentucky's football's rosters actually improved. The schedules
Speaker 3: are just like what are you gonna do? It's like
Speaker 3: you just hope for the best.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of Kentucky, they do have Wandale up there
Speaker 1: and they have Drew Phillips, so I do maybe those
Speaker 1: guys can help.
Speaker 4: Aaron Gersheino the cash Foss.
Speaker 1: Follow him on Twitter at a Gershawan ninety nine. Thank you,
Speaker 1: enjoyed the rest of your time down in Florida.
Speaker 3: Appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Up next our.
Speaker 1: Number two with Shawn Woods, the Unforgettable Guard and West
Speaker 1: End Bureau Chief Gary Moore here on six thirty.
Speaker 6: Set tact then can anything to anything?
Speaker 1: Then welcome back to join now by our Unforgettable guard
Speaker 1: Sean Woods. He joins us each and every week. Of
Speaker 1: course it's Jersey hangs in the rafters of up now
Speaker 1: the head coach at Scott County High School, a longtime
Speaker 1: college coach, I wanted Sean to run something by you.
Speaker 1: We all heard Mark Pope talk yesterday about a number
Speaker 1: of topics, and you and I have talked about Travis
Speaker 1: Perry in the past, and Pope talked about how he
Speaker 1: was really devastated he said when Travis left, and a friend.
Speaker 4: Of mine said, well, he shouldn't have recruited over him.
Speaker 1: But as a guy who now you're going to be
Speaker 1: working with kids who are being recruited. You were recruited
Speaker 1: as a player, You were a recruiter as a college coach,
Speaker 1: both assistant and head coach. Isn't it incumbent upon coaches
Speaker 1: to try to recruit over kids? I believe to build death.
Speaker 2: Isn't that the way it works, no doubt about it.
Speaker 7: You know, and the way the transport portal is right now,
Speaker 7: you know a lot of guys you know you needed.
Speaker 7: You know, this is Kentucky. So you want to recruit
Speaker 7: the best high.
Speaker 2: School players in the country.
Speaker 7: When you have a chance to get them, But not
Speaker 7: only that, you must, as you can see, need some
Speaker 7: older guys to go along with that young talent because
Speaker 7: of the experience and so on and so forth. And
Speaker 7: that's what Mark had to do. You had to go
Speaker 7: get a seasoned veteran at the point guard spot when
Speaker 7: he got the low kid to compensate for you know,
Speaker 7: the youth. But also you got to remember too, he
Speaker 7: was put in the position where injuries kind of plagued
Speaker 7: the growth and the success of their team, so he
Speaker 7: wanted to make sure that that didn't happen again.
Speaker 4: Awesome Is it tougher now?
Speaker 1: Do you think for college coaches to build rosters? I know,
Speaker 1: the portal can be instant help and you've got a
Speaker 1: better idea of what a kid's all about, perhaps after
Speaker 1: a year or two somewhere else.
Speaker 4: But man, the competition for portal players is fierce, no
Speaker 4: doubt about it.
Speaker 7: And strategically you have to, you know, get what fits you.
Speaker 7: Like I told you before, you know, when you in
Speaker 7: that transfer portal, you know you need experience, but not
Speaker 7: only that, you need somebody who fishes what you do.
Speaker 7: And for me, if I was in that situation, first,
Speaker 7: I'm recruiting I'm trying to get a kid out of
Speaker 7: the transfer portal that comes from a winning situation first
Speaker 7: and foremost, so he knows that he's.
Speaker 2: Coming in and he's used to a winning environment.
Speaker 7: And then the second thing is, you know what he
Speaker 7: did last year, like he struck lighting in the bottle.
Speaker 7: You got to get great character kids, you know, because
Speaker 7: everybody's coached different. You know the reason why they're leaving.
Speaker 7: Sometimes it's not just the money. Maybe they didn't get
Speaker 7: along with the coach. Maybe they're hard to deal with
Speaker 7: this player. So you know, a lot of these kids
Speaker 7: now they feel like they.
Speaker 2: Have leverage because of the transfer.
Speaker 7: Portal and nil demands that you know, they can just come.
Speaker 2: In and do what they want.
Speaker 7: They're looking for promises because every last kid wants to
Speaker 7: go to the.
Speaker 1: Prosop spoke as always passionately about what it means to
Speaker 1: play at Kentucky, and I asked him about you know,
Speaker 1: when you're talking, when you're looking at kids and you're
Speaker 1: talking to them, do you put what it's like to
Speaker 1: play at UK at the top of the list or
Speaker 1: do you close with that?
Speaker 4: He said, both.
Speaker 1: You experienced that you played at Kentucky, you played on
Speaker 1: a much beloved team, and you carried those lessons with
Speaker 1: you throughout your life, your professional career, and like like
Speaker 1: you said, you know, Pope said, it's just so important
Speaker 1: that he tries to hammer that home.
Speaker 4: How vital do you think that is.
Speaker 7: It's vital, but it's vital to him, and it's vital
Speaker 7: to us as Kentucky people in Kentucky fans. But it's
Speaker 7: to be realistic with you, it's not that vital to
Speaker 7: these kids anymore. You know, they're looking for the best
Speaker 7: situation for them financially and playing wise. So you know,
Speaker 7: it's not the school anymore, it's the situation and he
Speaker 7: has to do that, and if I'm him, I'm doing
Speaker 7: that because you know, you have to continue to stress
Speaker 7: the importance of where they are and what's that stake
Speaker 7: when you come put on that jersey. But to be
Speaker 7: honest with you, Dick a lot of in that way anymore,
Speaker 7: And if they were, he would be having a more
Speaker 7: success at attracting other guys.
Speaker 2: It's not the name on your jersey.
Speaker 7: It's the money and the situation more so than anything else.
Speaker 7: And you know when they get there. I thought he
Speaker 7: did a great job with this team really stressing the
Speaker 7: importance of you know, wearing that jersey.
Speaker 2: But before you wear that jersey, you have no idea.
Speaker 7: And you know, it's just a different approach, especially with
Speaker 7: these young kids and new kids. Yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 7: about money now. It's not about the jersey. It's not
Speaker 7: about If that's the case, he would be, you know,
Speaker 7: winning every recruiting battle like we used to. But we're
Speaker 7: not doing that anymore because of the situation, the way
Speaker 7: things have changed.
Speaker 1: It's about minutes and money, and minutes can being money.
Speaker 1: I know, I know that for a fact.
Speaker 4: When you were.
Speaker 1: Growing up, we've talked before about it. You spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time election and your grandmother was here. You
Speaker 1: were so aware of Kentucky basket all they offered you
Speaker 1: you you accepted a scholarship and became a Wildcat.
Speaker 4: But before you got here.
Speaker 1: Did you think you knew what you were getting into
Speaker 1: and what was your perception like versus what it actually.
Speaker 4: Became when you became a part of the program.
Speaker 7: Well, I knew what I was getting into because of that,
Speaker 7: he sudden I didn't know what I was getting into
Speaker 7: once he left and coach Patino came in.
Speaker 4: That's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so drastically changed.
Speaker 7: They drastically changed with the changing of the guard.
Speaker 2: So you know what I thought I was.
Speaker 7: Getting into coming in here, style of play, the coach personality, so.
Speaker 2: On and so forth soon changed after the freshman year
Speaker 2: when we you know, when we.
Speaker 7: Got you know, coach Patino, so that you know, that
Speaker 7: situation was different. But you know, the aura of Kentucky
Speaker 7: never changed. Uh, just a coach and the coach has
Speaker 7: a lot to do with because that's who you spending
Speaker 7: most of your time with.
Speaker 2: That's the guy you got to play for.
Speaker 7: And uh, you know, it was a great It was
Speaker 7: a big time adjustment for me because he was totally
Speaker 7: different from Coach Sutton.
Speaker 4: Oh, no question about that.
Speaker 1: Uh, you would have prospered, I believe in or any
Speaker 1: Sutton's system. But I also think Sean of the guys
Speaker 1: who remained behind you might have been best equipped, best
Speaker 1: suited in terms of your skill set to play for Patino.
Speaker 1: Now we have all we've talked several times about the
Speaker 1: fact that that you and your guys Richie and John
Speaker 1: and Darren and Reggie high basketball i Q and Patino
Speaker 1: benefited greatly from that. But in terms of your specific
Speaker 1: skill set. I felt like because Reggie was a little
Speaker 1: undersized for a post player a lot, I felt like
Speaker 1: you were you were best suited maybe to play under Patino.
Speaker 1: Did you see it that way or did you even
Speaker 1: have time to think about that?
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 7: I thought thought I was good enough to play for anybody.
Speaker 7: But his style was.
Speaker 2: Kind of good for me because it was up and down.
Speaker 2: I like to get up and down.
Speaker 7: I was very aggressive, you know, getting in the lane
Speaker 7: and pushing it and things like that. The only thing
Speaker 7: he did to me was he told me scoring wasn't
Speaker 7: my responsibility as much as it would have been for
Speaker 7: Cole Sutton or where I played in high school. So
Speaker 7: other than that, you know, I thought I was good
Speaker 7: enough to play for any coach in the country at
Speaker 7: any place.
Speaker 2: And you know, I did what I needed to do.
Speaker 7: To fit in and make sure things ran smoothly, smoothly
Speaker 7: the way he wanted it. And I became a great
Speaker 7: assist guy because of my the pressure I could put
Speaker 7: on you getting to the basket, you had to help,
Speaker 7: which opened it up for guys shooting threes well.
Speaker 1: Speaking of recruiting, we talked about that earlier and Patino
Speaker 1: and during that documentary series, and he has reiterated he's
Speaker 1: doubled down on it because people have asked him about
Speaker 1: the fact that he is not and I don't know
Speaker 1: if he held true to that, but he basically said
Speaker 1: made it sound like he was going to ignore high
Speaker 1: school players when it came to recruiting and go almost
Speaker 1: strictly portal.
Speaker 4: Did that surprise.
Speaker 2: You, No, it does not.
Speaker 7: You know, if I'm in his shoes, I'm doing the
Speaker 7: same things for the most part.
Speaker 2: You may sprinkle in the freshman the.
Speaker 7: Two here or there. But man, he's in the Big
Speaker 7: East and coaches. You know, he's a pro coach too,
Speaker 7: so he's used to free agency and you know, roster
Speaker 7: changes and dealing with money and contract issues and things
Speaker 7: like that. So he's kind of in his element more
Speaker 7: so than most college guys because college guys are used to,
Speaker 7: you know, a guy coming in as a freshman, you know,
Speaker 7: staying four years and playing or something like that. But
Speaker 7: you know, in the pros, everybody's a free agent, and
Speaker 7: you know, you can be traded at any time. As
Speaker 7: the coach, you have no power over that. That's between
Speaker 7: the general managers. Sometimes the general manager doesn't even tell
Speaker 7: the coach that he's trading a guy or or bringing
Speaker 7: in somebody else. So no coach has kind of got
Speaker 7: a feel for that. And that's the mentality you have
Speaker 7: to have, you know, each year you have to adjust
Speaker 7: to new players.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: It's interesting you said that because Patino during podcasts when
Speaker 1: somebody said, you're exactly right, he's comfortable with it because
Speaker 1: not only does it mirror the pro game, it mirrors
Speaker 1: the European game where he spent a little bit of
Speaker 1: time coaching. He said, if you got a kid or
Speaker 1: a guy for more than two years, that's unusual.
Speaker 4: He said. In Europe, generally.
Speaker 1: Guys come and go after a year or two. So
Speaker 1: that's an advantage for him.
Speaker 4: Isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt about it.
Speaker 7: And you know, coach can get to anybody. You know,
Speaker 7: he knows how to coach prose. Yeah, And as a
Speaker 7: matter of fact, that's what this college game is.
Speaker 2: Now. You're coaching pros.
Speaker 7: You're coaching guys, especially at the high level, that are
Speaker 7: thinking NBA, that are thinking more about money.
Speaker 2: That's more money involved.
Speaker 7: And the only difference is you're dealing with parents and
Speaker 7: you know, but you're dealing with you know in pros,
Speaker 7: you're dealing with age all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. So now these guys.
Speaker 7: Got brokers too now agents, So you know, he's in
Speaker 7: his element, whereas other coaches aren't because they're just dealing
Speaker 7: with the kid and you know, and so on and
Speaker 7: so forth. But that's something that everybody's going to have
Speaker 7: to get used to.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Hey, Sean Wood's the unforgettable guard.
Speaker 4: We talk to him every week.
Speaker 1: We'll talk more on the other side of the break
Speaker 1: here on six thirty WLAP welcome back. We're talking with
Speaker 1: the unforgettable guard, Shawn Woods and Jersey Yangs and the
Speaker 1: Raptors are up now. The head coach at Scott County
Speaker 1: High School. We were talking part of the break about
Speaker 1: your old coach, Rick Patino. He is on the Kentucky
Speaker 1: schedule and Kentucky fans now are excited about it. Patino
Speaker 1: endorsed Mark Pope came back. You saw him at a
Speaker 1: football game, at a basketball game. Was he was a
Speaker 1: villain for so long, Sean, especially when he took that
Speaker 1: Louisville job.
Speaker 4: And I later came to terms with.
Speaker 1: It by saying, Rick Batino knew he made a mistake
Speaker 1: by leaving the state of Kentucky, and he wanted to
Speaker 1: come back to the state of Kentucky. So I couldn't
Speaker 1: blame him for taking a Louisville job, and he didn't
Speaker 1: take it. He didn't leave Lexington for Louisville, obviously, But
Speaker 1: what do you make of the fact that it's almost
Speaker 1: like with UK fans, he's had an image change, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean?
Speaker 7: M h, Well, you know he's getting coaches getting older now,
Speaker 7: and when you get older, you start to appreciate things
Speaker 7: that you didn't you know when you were younger. You know,
Speaker 7: when you were younger, you were chasing everything. You were
Speaker 7: chasing success, you were chasing your legacy, you were chasing money,
Speaker 7: you know.
Speaker 2: What I mean.
Speaker 7: Now he's made enough money, he's getting enough accolades, he's
Speaker 7: had enough success to where Saint John's is. He's always
Speaker 7: been a New Yorker, so it's either New York or Kentucky.
Speaker 7: And what be way to end your career going back
Speaker 7: to where it started at? You know, you're not the
Speaker 7: New York Nick coach, but you can play all your
Speaker 7: home games in Madison regard, which turns him on. And
Speaker 7: as you can see, he still dresses dapper with those
Speaker 7: Harmoni suits more so than any coach in the country.
Speaker 7: Everybody else has gone to the sort vest and you know,
Speaker 7: zip up tops and things like that. He's still wearing
Speaker 7: the suits, acting like he's coaching with the New York
Speaker 7: Knicks or back when he was coaching Kentucky and so
Speaker 7: on and so forth. So coaches in his element, and
Speaker 7: that's why he's still one of the best coaches out there,
Speaker 7: because that's what's made him great.
Speaker 2: He's learned to.
Speaker 7: Adjust and move on and still be him. You know,
Speaker 7: there's not that many coaches who can still coach the
Speaker 7: way he coaches.
Speaker 2: You know, he's very demanding.
Speaker 7: He's very upfront and straightforward, which that's who I am
Speaker 7: and that's who I learned from.
Speaker 2: But you know, young men nowadays can't take it.
Speaker 7: And how he still gets across and still stay successful
Speaker 7: man is a triumph to him.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean and exactly.
Speaker 4: You know, I just remember it. You were a suit guy,
Speaker 4: shoot and tie guy. As a college coach. What about
Speaker 4: high school? What are you going to be?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 7: I told I told everyone that, you know, there's gonna
Speaker 7: be some games where I'm gonna wear a red a
Speaker 7: red jacket unfortunately, not unfortunately, but you know it's gonna
Speaker 7: be different. It's different, you know, to honor Billy Hicks.
Speaker 7: You know, to honor Billy Hicks. So you know, I'll
Speaker 7: do that every time, you know, every now and then.
Speaker 7: But other than that, I'll stay casual and loose and uh,
Speaker 7: you know, comfortable on the sidelines. But there will be
Speaker 7: some particular games where I get suited and booted, you
Speaker 7: know what I mean. But for the most part, I'll
Speaker 7: stay relaxed as much as possible.
Speaker 1: I don't know what is gonna happen, but the first
Speaker 1: time you take a team to the Sweet sixteen, I
Speaker 1: guarantee you you're gonna be suited and booted. A few
Speaker 1: minutes later, Sean Woods, the head coach of Scott Gunny
Speaker 1: Heidie Unforgettable Guard, we talked about the portal. We always
Speaker 1: talk about it, it seems like, but do you think
Speaker 1: it's ever going to be possible for the top level
Speaker 1: teams to crew back the way they used to and
Speaker 1: sort of get away from the cycle of going through
Speaker 1: the portal.
Speaker 4: Or is it just too tempting.
Speaker 7: Let me tell you something, the portal is the safest
Speaker 7: way at least you know, you got that kid for
Speaker 7: that year, maybe two or but if you get a
Speaker 7: high school kid, shoot, those are the ones who are
Speaker 7: more vulnerable to transfer.
Speaker 2: Yeah you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: So you know, at any level, you know, keeping the
Speaker 7: kids for four years, even if he's a four year kid,
Speaker 7: it's rare nowadays. So you much rather get somebody who's
Speaker 7: already transferred, and you know it's kind of you know,
Speaker 7: on their.
Speaker 2: Last leg a little bit. And you know, because you know.
Speaker 7: You've got kids now, it's transferred three times out of
Speaker 7: a four year career. And some of these four year.
Speaker 2: Careers are turning in the six year careers in college athletics,
Speaker 2: So you know, you know, when is it going to end?
Speaker 2: And when is there gonna be a cap? Who knows?
Speaker 7: You know, the NT double As doesn't have a cap.
Speaker 7: You know, schools don't have a cap. I mean, you
Speaker 7: got kids, now, make us six million dollars you know,
Speaker 7: oh yeah, thread.
Speaker 2: To six million dollars for top being guys.
Speaker 7: So I mean, look, if Oldway comes back, he's asking
Speaker 7: for the bank.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, look at she Way when he left,
Speaker 7: he left money on the table going to the NBA.
Speaker 1: Final question for Sean Woods kids when they need help
Speaker 1: with decisions. Oftentimes maybe not as much as they used
Speaker 1: to unfortunately, but a lot of kids, and I've had
Speaker 1: coaches tell me this, they come back, they come home
Speaker 1: to the parents, but also to the high school coach
Speaker 1: if they had a good relationship with him. And I
Speaker 1: know that in your role as the college coach, it
Speaker 1: was different now than it's going to be as a
Speaker 1: high school coach. You're gonna be on the kind of
Speaker 1: the receiving end trying to help kids make those those
Speaker 1: life decisions. Are you looking forward to that?
Speaker 7: That's why I'm here, That's what God got me here
Speaker 7: for because I can help these kids make great decisions
Speaker 7: because I've been there. I know what these guys are
Speaker 7: looking for. I know you know, I can, I can
Speaker 7: I can figure you out a mile away, and I'll
Speaker 7: be able to help my guys, you know, kind of
Speaker 7: navigate through that because I've lived it. And that's an
Speaker 7: advantage coming to play for us here. You know at
Speaker 7: Scott County is you know you're planning for a guy
Speaker 7: who's done it, you know, at the highest level, and
Speaker 7: know exactly what's a great fit for my guys. And
Speaker 7: also It's a great situation because if I call a coach,
Speaker 7: or a coach finds out that a kid and he
Speaker 7: saw on the summers playing for me, he knows what
Speaker 7: type of kid he's getting just because he knows, you know,
Speaker 7: how I do things and what's they be successful. So
Speaker 7: you know you're getting something if you do get a
Speaker 7: kid from you know.
Speaker 2: A Shawn Worst coach, uh person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you're gonna shoot him straight and I know that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you also got to tell him at times what
Speaker 1: they don't want to hear.
Speaker 4: Uh. And that's that's got to be a tough part
Speaker 4: of coaching.
Speaker 2: It is, you know what I mean. But my credibility
Speaker 2: along way more.
Speaker 7: Than others because they know I'm coming from a from
Speaker 7: a great place and I'm coming from a great experience.
Speaker 7: So you know, in order for them to get to
Speaker 7: where they need to go, they need to do things
Speaker 7: they never done. And they're getting it earlier than most
Speaker 7: most kids because you're getting a guy who's been there,
Speaker 7: done that at that level that they're trying.
Speaker 2: To get to.
Speaker 1: Are the kids going to know from you or the parents.
Speaker 1: Are the parents going to tell them what Sean Wood's playing.
Speaker 7: Career was all about I'm sure that their parents who
Speaker 7: know more than them, but you know, these kids now
Speaker 7: are finding out, you know, just doing their homework because
Speaker 7: of all the hype about around me coming to Scott
Speaker 7: County gets created a major buzz and uh.
Speaker 4: They all got phones. They can look it up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt about it.
Speaker 4: They already know all about you, don't they.
Speaker 2: Yes, they do.
Speaker 4: Well, that's that could be a blessing and a curse. Coach,
Speaker 4: Thanks so much about it. Always fun talking basketball. We'll
Speaker 4: chat again next week.
Speaker 2: Are appreciate you man, talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see that. And I would bet
Speaker 1: by that I mean Sean Woods in a red jacket
Speaker 1: to honor Billy Hicks, which would be a great move
Speaker 1: And it wouldn't surprise me at all if he came
Speaker 1: out in the red jacket his very first game as
Speaker 1: the head coach at least home game of Scott County.
Speaker 4: So that's going to be interesting to see. But imagine
Speaker 4: stepping into those shoes. Wow.
Speaker 1: And I know Sean's not the first head coach to
Speaker 1: come after Billy Hicks, obviously, but every head coach at
Speaker 1: Scott County for decades now will be compared to the
Speaker 1: late great Billy Hicks.
Speaker 4: Coming up next, it's our West.
Speaker 1: End bureau chief, Gary Moore, and a reminder of that.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow night, we've got Kentucky Baseball at seven o'clock, six
Speaker 1: to forty five pregame as the Wildcats open up a
Speaker 1: Thursday Saturday series at Vandy.
Speaker 4: Here on six thirty WLAP. Welcome back to the Big
Speaker 4: Blues Sider. It is Wednesday. That means we look west.
Speaker 1: We cast our eyes to the west down I sixty
Speaker 1: four to our West End bureau chief, Gary Moore. He
Speaker 1: has been with us since he was our West Coast
Speaker 1: bureau chief when he worked with KLOS Radio in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: but now in LA the Louisville area, and it has
Speaker 1: some thoughts on his mind.
Speaker 8: Boy, we got a good one to the day. We
Speaker 8: got a spicy one of the day, Dick. We got
Speaker 8: some hot button issues coming up here and something really
Speaker 8: cool to end it all up with. But first here
Speaker 8: on two guys in a six pack. Our first twigged
Speaker 8: is a question you know the answer to only too
Speaker 8: well because you've seen it all season. I'm gonna ask
Speaker 8: it anyway. What would happen say if you had a
Speaker 8: team in the College World Series one year. Then the
Speaker 8: next season that team lost their starting first basement and
Speaker 8: second basement and shortstop and third baseman, and a left
Speaker 8: fielder and centerfielder and weekend rotation and two main relievers. Well,
Speaker 8: you'd probably have a team struggling to get back to
Speaker 8: that level that they had before, and you'd have, of course,
Speaker 8: this year's Kentucky Wildcats baseball team. But maybe, just maybe
Speaker 8: those struggles and the season long search for an identity
Speaker 8: are in the rear view because, as the great UCLA
Speaker 8: coach John Wooden said, be at your best when your
Speaker 8: best is needed. And the Cats were certainly at their
Speaker 8: very best this past weekend sweeping then number fourteen and
Speaker 8: now unranked Oklahoma at Kentucky Proud Park. Their best will
Speaker 8: be needed definitely again tomorrow night, Friday and Saturday in
Speaker 8: Nashville against number ten Vandy. You like that kind of
Speaker 8: tune up before the SEC Tournament next week.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, whether you like it or not, welcome
Speaker 1: to the SEC brother And it just seems like Kentucky
Speaker 1: is always running into Vandy when it needs to be
Speaker 1: at its best, just as it was last year when
Speaker 1: it played the Commodorees. But beat them to win a
Speaker 1: share of the SEC championship. Yeah, you're right. I mean
Speaker 1: it took a while. The other thing too, that while
Speaker 1: they were trying to figure this out and move all
Speaker 1: these puzzle pieces to the right places, injuries began to
Speaker 1: pile up. You know, they've lost two or three position players,
Speaker 1: they lost two or three more pitchers to injury.
Speaker 4: And that's all part of it.
Speaker 1: Everybody deals, right, agree, But point to plug that into
Speaker 1: a scenario where you've already got all.
Speaker 4: These new faces. Yeah, it's it makes it more challenging.
Speaker 1: But as we saw last night in the win over
Speaker 1: Northern Kentucky, they just got to keep grinding till they
Speaker 1: figure out how to win games. They can do it
Speaker 1: with bunch, they can do it with hit and run.
Speaker 1: They can do it with a home run, as they
Speaker 1: did last night. So things seem to be falling into place.
Speaker 1: But man, going to Nashville then going to Hoover, the
Speaker 1: SEC tournament, some believe, and I agree, could be tougher
Speaker 1: to win than the NCAA Championship.
Speaker 4: It's a good point.
Speaker 8: I agree with that second swig. How about the other
Speaker 8: three D one schools in the Commonwealth, keep an eye
Speaker 8: on baseball wise, well, something kind of weird last night.
Speaker 8: You're number twenty three. Louisville of course beat Vandy last week,
Speaker 8: but then lost two out of three to unrank Georgia Tech,
Speaker 8: and then inexplicably lost ten to nine Crosstown Bellerman last night.
Speaker 8: I mean, at one pointing it was like nine to
Speaker 8: three carts hosts three. With wake Forest starting tomorrow night,
Speaker 8: they better get their stuff together, I mean down I
Speaker 8: sixty five. You got my Hilltoppers. Well, they swept New
Speaker 8: Mexico State last weekend and if not only won seven
Speaker 8: in a row. But the Topper is only one of
Speaker 8: ten teams in the country with forty or more wins.
Speaker 8: Toppers have officially clinched the top three seed in next
Speaker 8: week's Conference USA Championship done at Liberty and don't sleep
Speaker 8: in my hometown Murray State Racers. They won their sixth
Speaker 8: consecutive Missouri Valley Conference series last weekend at Belmont. Play
Speaker 8: for the regular season championship against Missoo State and Murray
Speaker 8: starting tomorrow night. And remember Murray has beaten UK there
Speaker 8: at UK and Western in Murray should have beaten number
Speaker 8: seventeen old miss down in Oxford back in March. Here's
Speaker 8: hoping that all four Kentucky teams will find a way
Speaker 8: to the postseason. That'd be pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I was witnessed Toded Murray win over Kentucky. That was
Speaker 1: a bit of a shocker, although we saw how well
Speaker 1: Murray played. Murray's got a good team. Obviously, Western Kentucky.
Speaker 1: Now you need to explain it to me, sir, Western
Speaker 1: Kentucky with the forty wins and a series win over
Speaker 1: Dallas Baptist, which has an excellent program. Dallas Baptist is ranked.
Speaker 1: Western Kentucky is not. Try to explain that one to me.
Speaker 1: I know you cannot. And if you haven't seen it yet,
Speaker 1: folks get to the innerweb and find the last play
Speaker 1: at the Louisville Bellerman game, and Bellarman's had some decent
Speaker 1: teams in the past, not this year. Not a good
Speaker 1: Bellerman team, but UFL had at least the tying run
Speaker 1: on base and a guy hits a moonshot to the
Speaker 1: deepest part of the ballpark. The Bellerman center fielder slams
Speaker 1: into the wall, making the catch.
Speaker 4: Game over.
Speaker 8: It was as dramatic a play as you'll see all week.
Speaker 8: They did not play the Bellerman played great in that game.
Speaker 8: The Cards did not either. There's a lot of mistakes
Speaker 8: that they made too, errors and walking a lot of
Speaker 8: guys and stuff like that. They were kind of asking
Speaker 8: to get beat and they got it. And by the way,
Speaker 8: you were asking about the Toppers, they lost three in
Speaker 8: a row to unrank Florida International now knocked them out
Speaker 8: of the twenty five. I should have never happened, So
Speaker 8: that's kind of hurt them in the RPI Okay, third swig.
Speaker 8: Last year in the majors, we had the Chicago White
Speaker 8: Sox setting a new club record for futility, losing one
Speaker 8: hundred and twenty one games, one more than the halpless
Speaker 8: nineteen sixty two Mets. This season, Colorado Rockies are telling
Speaker 8: the Socks hold our cours light for a second. Colorado
Speaker 8: currently seven and thirty five worse than the White Sox
Speaker 8: were at this point last year. Rockies have the worst
Speaker 8: ERA in baseball, the third lowest batting average, and are
Speaker 8: the second worst fielding team in baseball. They've been called
Speaker 8: not only a Triple A team in the Majors, but
Speaker 8: allows the triple A team at that already they've lost
Speaker 8: three dick, they've already had three eight game losing streaks
Speaker 8: and it's only May the fourteenth. They finally fired beleaguered
Speaker 8: manager Bud Black on Sunday, after the dreaded vote of
Speaker 8: confidence on Saturday from the general manager who constructed this
Speaker 8: triple awful debacle, and after the Padres eviscerated the Rockies
Speaker 8: twenty one to nothing on Saturday. So here's my one
Speaker 8: hundred and twenty five million, five hundred and thirty seven,
Speaker 8: two hundred and fifty six dollars question to you. That's
Speaker 8: the Rockies payroll this season. How how I ask you,
Speaker 8: in this day and age of advanced analytics, supposedly superior athletes,
Speaker 8: supposedly know it all Ivy leaguers running things, and definitely
Speaker 8: more money than ever thrown in all the teams, how
Speaker 8: do we end up with those Socks and these Rockies
Speaker 8: and in consecutive years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question. That's a fair question. And
Speaker 1: I heard somebody dismiss Colorado as well.
Speaker 4: That's in there.
Speaker 1: You're never going to have a good team there. That's nonsense.
Speaker 1: There have been good teams in Colorado.
Speaker 8: That's got into the World Series.
Speaker 1: But exactly exactly, you fired a manager because somebody has
Speaker 1: to be punished, and the people who actually construct these
Speaker 1: teams don't fire themselves.
Speaker 4: Tell me someone who's going to come in there, Maybe
Speaker 4: you'll win a few more games.
Speaker 1: If these guys have stopped playing for a manager, maybe
Speaker 1: so many needs come in and kick them butt. That's temporary,
Speaker 1: but they got to tear it all down and start over,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to do when you're carrying that kind
Speaker 1: of price tag.
Speaker 8: True that fort swigg in two guys in a six pack.
Speaker 8: So we'll stay with baseball here one more time. I
Speaker 8: don't know about you, but I've got a like dislike
Speaker 8: relationship with a Baseball Hall of Fame. I really like
Speaker 8: that there is one first of all, honoring players who
Speaker 8: played this extremely difficult game the right way, surrounded by
Speaker 8: historical artifacts we can all go and see in Cooper's
Speaker 8: town and enjoy. But I really dislike the mindless voting
Speaker 8: it's involved with getting guys in there. Players such as
Speaker 8: Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, even Jackie Robinson didn't
Speaker 8: receive one hundred percent unanimous votes by some of these
Speaker 8: genius writers. And then there's the politics, including now president
Speaker 8: Presidential politics have entered into this because we have Pete Rose,
Speaker 8: Joe Jackson, and some other dead guys who are eligible
Speaker 8: after apparently not playing the game the right way. We
Speaker 8: know we've talked about it before. Rose bet on baseball
Speaker 8: as both a manager, and this is kind of underreported.
Speaker 8: According to ESPN's Outside the Line Show, he also bet
Speaker 8: as a player.
Speaker 4: Ye.
Speaker 8: Rose denied it for fifteen years, and he copped to it,
Speaker 8: and he also did some prison time, and he also
Speaker 8: had a relationship with an apparently underage girl while he
Speaker 8: was married. Pete said in his book My Prison Without Bars, quote,
Speaker 8: I'm sure I'm supposed to act all sorry or sad
Speaker 8: or guilty now that I've accepted I've done something wrong,
Speaker 8: But you see, I'm just not built that way unquote. Well,
Speaker 8: in my opinion, he's not built for the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 8: But he's already in the Hall of Fame. Hall of
Speaker 8: Fame has had for years many of his items artifacts
Speaker 8: from his big red machine days when he became the
Speaker 8: hit King of all time and then wound up being
Speaker 8: and breaking baseball's cardinal rule number one, tainting his legacy.
Speaker 8: You think he gets in, And how about the steroid
Speaker 8: boys too?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think if you take one, you take them all now.
Speaker 1: But just to be clear, and I think everybody probably
Speaker 1: understands this, it's not the writers who decided not to
Speaker 1: take Pete. Pete wasn't eligible, nor was Joe Jackson, because
Speaker 1: they had been banned by Baseball.
Speaker 4: You had to be in a good standing with Baseball.
Speaker 1: But as I mentioned earlier on the show, I had
Speaker 1: dug in against Pete and didn't change my mind until
Speaker 1: I read the letter that he sent less than a
Speaker 1: year before his death to the commissioner, fully copying and
Speaker 1: apologizing for everything. What held me back was the fact
Speaker 1: that he had never apologized to his teammates, not so
Speaker 1: much fans and the rest of baseball. But once he
Speaker 1: finally did, I said, okay, he's paid his dues.
Speaker 4: Shoeless.
Speaker 1: Joe Jackson never should have been banned in the first place.
Speaker 1: They never proved that he was involved in point shaving
Speaker 1: and game fixing, and they duped him into putting an axe.
Speaker 1: He was illiterate on a confession. Go back and look
Speaker 1: at his stats. He had an incredible.
Speaker 4: World Series in nineteen nineteen, so that was unfair all along.
Speaker 1: But yeah, if if now, I think, if you take one,
Speaker 1: I think you got even if it's what a huge
Speaker 1: asterisk or in a section that says these guys were
Speaker 1: part of the steroids era.
Speaker 4: I think you take the rest of those guys.
Speaker 8: Fitzwig and a six pack. Okay, you've talked earlier about
Speaker 8: the one hundred and fiftieth Preakness coming up at old,
Speaker 8: worn out Pimlico this Saturday. No Derby winner running, but
Speaker 8: Derby runner up Journalism will be there eight five odds
Speaker 8: as the favorite so far, and Derby favorite Sandman will
Speaker 8: also be there four to one odds. Only nine horses
Speaker 8: for Saturday's race post time seven oh one on NBC Saturday,
Speaker 8: and with no Sovereignty running means that no junior Alvarado
Speaker 8: will be riding in the big race. Of course, you've
Speaker 8: also talked about this. Alvarado is fine. Sixty two grand
Speaker 8: by Heiza suspended for two days for excessive whip use.
Speaker 8: Blood Horse Magazine says today's riding crops aka whips are
Speaker 8: kinder on horses than in previous eras they have poppers
Speaker 8: for people who don't know that produce a loud sound,
Speaker 8: but are less likely to produce welts. So, as always,
Speaker 8: I defer to you anything about racing, because I know
Speaker 8: how passionate you are and how knowledgeable about it you are.
Speaker 8: Number One, do all the jockeys use these kinder quote
Speaker 8: unquote whips? And what would happen? People wonder about this
Speaker 8: that aren't into that, aren't racing efficientados, What would happen
Speaker 8: in a race if no whips were ever used?
Speaker 1: I've never thought about that. That's very interesting. They'd find
Speaker 1: a way, but and again I'm not certain. I would
Speaker 1: imagine most riders do use the new and improved whips,
Speaker 1: anything that would give you an advantage. Yeah, I've talked
Speaker 1: at length to different horse people about whips. It's more
Speaker 1: about the optics. Yeah, it can leave it welt, I
Speaker 1: know here and there.
Speaker 4: But the most part I've.
Speaker 1: Been told it's basically like somebody whacking you in the
Speaker 1: rear end, you know, to get your attention, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. And there are riders who go too far
Speaker 1: with those whips and the optics are terrible. There was
Speaker 1: one rider who used to ride a lot of Churchill downs.
Speaker 1: I won't say his name, but his nickname was the
Speaker 1: slasher No, which is just a terrible, terrible image. But
Speaker 1: I don't think they'll ever outlaw the whips, but to
Speaker 1: expect a rider to keep track, to keep a number
Speaker 1: in mind of how many times he or she has
Speaker 1: whipped a horse. I don't think that that's realistic, but
Speaker 1: just planning the seed I think can help a little bit.
Speaker 8: Sixth and final swig in the six pack. One wee
Speaker 8: could go to night, Dick. I saw the coolest thing
Speaker 8: I've seen all year and maybe for the rest of
Speaker 8: this year. The biggest rock band on the planet and
Speaker 8: a band that I've seen and worked with many times.
Speaker 8: We did some incredible promotions with them while I was
Speaker 8: at k Loos, Los Angeles. Metallica played a college town
Speaker 8: of about eighty thousand people a week. Could go tonight Lynchburg, Virginia.
Speaker 8: Why when they could play huge, gargantuan metropolitan Aians Because
Speaker 8: for the past twenty five years, that town's university, Virginia Tech,
Speaker 8: has used Metallica's Inner Sandman, as we've talked about before,
Speaker 8: is the electrifying intro music for their football team at
Speaker 8: Lane Stadium. For me, it's the greatest most geeked up
Speaker 8: crowd in all of football, college or pro. But it's
Speaker 8: not always the whole stadium. Last Wednesday, the entire stadium,
Speaker 8: sixty five thousand plus not only saw Metallica play a
Speaker 8: full set, but when they ended up playing Sandman, the
Speaker 8: crowd jumped and stomped and were in such a collective
Speaker 8: frenzy that it registered a small earthquake on Virginia Tech
Speaker 8: seismograph a mile away. Write it Down. Wednesday, May seventh,
Speaker 8: twenty twenty five, the day the Earth didn't stand still
Speaker 8: thanks to Metallica.
Speaker 4: You know, I really really love seeing the video.
Speaker 1: That is one of the great and organic Yeah intros,
Speaker 1: and you know, you can't manufacture something like that. And
Speaker 1: on the flip side is South Carolina, which plays that
Speaker 1: song non stop Yeah, which to me kind of ruins it.
Speaker 1: It grinds it into the earth. If they like it,
Speaker 1: that's fine, good on you. But I like the fact
Speaker 1: that Virginia Tech now is probably better known for that.
Speaker 8: Oh, they're definitely better known for it, And it makes
Speaker 8: me want to go. I just want to go to
Speaker 8: a game just to be the crowd with I'll leave,
Speaker 8: you know, like I don't care about seeing the rest
Speaker 8: of the game. I just want to be a part
Speaker 8: of the crowd that's jumping up and down, like Okay,
Speaker 8: did that.
Speaker 1: Everybody I know who's ever been on that campus raves
Speaker 1: about it. I hear two things. It's one of the
Speaker 1: great campuses you'll ever see, and it's hard to get there.
Speaker 1: You really gotta want to get there. Get in the
Speaker 1: car and go. Gary Moore is our Western Bureau chief.
Speaker 1: We'll come back with some hot region just a minute.
Speaker 1: They're on six thirty WLAP.
Speaker 8: Welcome back.
Speaker 4: We're talking with our West n Bureau chief, Gary Moore.
Speaker 4: We have heard two guys in a six pack. Now
Speaker 4: befow a couple of hot reads at Gary.
Speaker 1: This number pops up every now and then, Gary, and
Speaker 1: it just blows my mind. And you're you're a baseball wonk.
Speaker 1: Max Schurzer, great pitcher. I've heard him described as a warrior,
Speaker 1: no question about it. Also maybe the most astute businessman,
Speaker 1: or at least his agent is, in the history of
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball. He's making this year fifteen million.
Speaker 4: Dollars from the Nationals.
Speaker 1: Fifteen and a half million from the Blue Jays and
Speaker 1: that's American money, folks, twelve point five million from the Rangers,
Speaker 1: and thirty point eight million from the Mets for not pitching.
Speaker 1: Everybody gets their boxers and a bunch. When Bobby Bonilla
Speaker 1: day comes and goes, because for the next however many years,
Speaker 1: the Mets have to pay him a million dollars part
Speaker 1: of the deferred contract. Nobody bats an eye at Max
Speaker 1: Schurzer is nuts.
Speaker 8: Well, that's kind of lazy reporting. It's like, yeah, Bobby
Speaker 8: ban another million dollars today. Well, go down the list
Speaker 8: and find the shirt. There's more than sures. Or there's
Speaker 8: a bunch of guys that are on some other extended
Speaker 8: pay payrolls that are going on there. You can look
Speaker 8: it up and they dwarf what Bobby Benia gets every year.
Speaker 8: It's what do you tell it. Look, if you've got
Speaker 8: kids coming up and you want them to be some
Speaker 8: sort of professional athlete, MLB guaranteed and that's all the
Speaker 8: money you just talked about, that's all guaranteed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they've got the best.
Speaker 8: They probably the best union period in the entire country,
Speaker 8: no question, not just sports, but just the way that
Speaker 8: they you know, they've they've made sure that these that
Speaker 8: you're paid well, you've got great benefits, great retirement benefits,
Speaker 8: and guaranteed money on top of it all.
Speaker 1: Maybe the umpire union might be the only one that's better.
Speaker 1: You've got guys there are horrible at their job and
Speaker 1: they're untouchable.
Speaker 4: So too.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Our second hot read involves the NBA Draft lottery. It
Speaker 1: is coming gone. I call them my Dallas Mavericks. I
Speaker 1: still root for the MAVs. I was a season ticket
Speaker 1: holder when I lived down there. My buddy's a play
Speaker 1: by play guy. But I reeled in horror at the
Speaker 1: terrible trade that has still has Mavericks fans up in arms.
Speaker 8: But now now.
Speaker 1: They win the lottery with a one point eight percent
Speaker 1: chance unbelievable of winning that number one pick, and of
Speaker 1: course they're going to take Cooper flag and they have
Speaker 1: said Gary they will not trade the pick for giannis
Speaker 1: Ante to Kompo, which a lot of people are lobbying
Speaker 1: for that. But my question to you is I love
Speaker 1: a good conspiracy. Part of me believes, honestly, you know,
Speaker 1: no pun intended that the lottery, if not this year,
Speaker 1: has been fixed in the past, simply because so many
Speaker 1: teams have gotten the precise player they needed at the
Speaker 1: exact time. Magic Johnson to the Lakers, Larry Bird to
Speaker 1: the Celtics, Patrick Ewington the Knicks, and now Cooper flag's
Speaker 1: going to the MAVs.
Speaker 4: What say you?
Speaker 8: Reception is reality, as I said before, and I perceive
Speaker 8: this to be definitely fixed.
Speaker 4: It's fixed, Dick.
Speaker 8: None of the top three teams are the best chances
Speaker 8: to get the first lottery pick. Utah, Washington, Charlotte didn't
Speaker 8: even end up in the final three draft positions. Dallas,
Speaker 8: San Antonio and Philly got those that you tell me
Speaker 8: that's not fixed. One of those should have been at
Speaker 8: least second or third or at you know, why not
Speaker 8: first Dallas with a one point eight Are you kidding me? No,
Speaker 8: you're not kidding me, because it kind.
Speaker 4: Of brings me back a little bit.
Speaker 1: Is when Rick Bettino went to Boston, and he freely
Speaker 1: admits now and he did then that what tempted him
Speaker 1: the most was the fact that Boston had the best
Speaker 1: chance statistically of winning the lottery and therefore Tim Duncan,
Speaker 1: which would have been perfect for the Celtics, the storied
Speaker 1: franchise on the East Coast for the NBA, and yet
Speaker 1: with a minuscule chance of winning it, the Spurs get
Speaker 1: Dunk and put him with David Robinson and a dynasty
Speaker 1: is born. Now, maybe if you want to take the
Speaker 1: conspiracy a step further. Maybe the NBA powers would beat
Speaker 1: didn't like Rick Beatino, didn't want him to get Tim Duncan.
Speaker 4: There you go. It's certainly fun to discuss.
Speaker 8: I think that I think this is one conspiracy theory
Speaker 8: that's got us got some legs to it. I certainly
Speaker 8: feel that there's something going on there.
Speaker 4: We'll get stone, we'll get it.
Speaker 8: Good idea.
Speaker 1: He is Gary Moore Western Burea too. We visit with
Speaker 1: him every week and we also follow him on x
Speaker 1: or Twitter.
Speaker 8: At if you got no extra time, I got too
Speaker 8: much extra time, try nine to five to five Gary,
Speaker 8: same place you're at at.
Speaker 1: Big Boo Insider one. See you next week, see it
Speaker 1: and that'll do it for now. Thanks to Gary, Thanks
Speaker 1: to Sean Woods, Aron Gershawn that said good night from
Speaker 1: the garage.
Speaker 4: And Lexington that Frog really tied the room together, did it?
Speaker 6: Not?
Speaker 9: Hey suchet such stake.
Speaker 6: Taking the sin anything anything only.
Speaker 2: Such?
Speaker 4: I think the.
Speaker 6: Tap don don don don do