Speaker 1: Twelve thirty three, Matt and Ross with you here on
Sports Talk seven A. Let's go to a city I've
been to I don't know thirty times in the last
ten years, Joseph Torte in Oklahoma City, where he will
watch the Aggies and the Cougars play a five to
ten game tomorrow inside the pay Comm Center. Joseph, first
of all, good afternoon, Thanks for joining us. Anything catch
your eye yesterday? Forgetting about the score, forgetting about the
hot start they had and they really wasn't even a
contest in the second half. Anything surprise you keen your
interest in that first round game against Vandals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd start off with the we've seen the freshman
play this year, and we know what Kingston Flemings is
capable of. A All American I thought Chris Sanak coming
in and I mean, good god, eighteen eighteen rebounds. I
don't care if you're freshman, saw for junior senior, that's
pretty impressive. So I think getting the first game Jitters
out of the way was important. I thought that Emanuel Sharp,
for all that he's done in the score that he's done,
you know he's he's kind of struggled a little bit
try fighting through some things the last couple of weeks
for him to trigger that that big run in the
first half. You know, those are things that you want
to see. But by no means is this team played
a complete game yet last night was pretty close to
it except for that slow start, but you know, you
see them trending and as we get into March here,
that's typically what Kelvin Sampson seems have done. So you know,
it was just little things like that. I don't know
how much you can gauge because it was Idaho, but
certainly moving forward beginning Saturday against Texas A and M
it's the road gets much tougher, and that's kind of
what you expect. You want to see that that gradual
improvement as you move along in.
Speaker 1: The turn Joseph. The game obviously nationally televised, and there's
still gonna be a large segment of the population that
didn't see the Cougars at all this year. So there
was a little bit of a storyline, not much of it,
but at least a little bit of the you know,
this is em Manual Sharp gets one more chance to
kind of write the pathway of towards the national championship,
has been with the team forever, and obviously the last
few seconds of his career last year was not going
the double dribble call. You've obviously talked to him about it,
but you've been with those guys almost from the not
almost from the jump. How much has that entered his mind?
To say it hasn't entered his mind about where he
needs to be, where he wants to go would be ridiculous.
But how much has it been a theme at any
point during the course of the back of the college
basketball season.
Speaker 2: Well, if you're a college basketball fan in Houston, you
know your generation in mind, Generation Matt was the Lorenzo
Charles moment in the state. You know, I'm watching the
game last night, but I also have the TV monitors there,
and you know they're they're replaying that play, that moment
in the final seconds against Florida where he didn't get
the shot off and they turned the ball over. So
you know, that's sort of this generation's bad heartbreak situation,
and you know he talked about it at the beginning
of the year. You know, there was a story in
The Athletic by CJ. Moore that he went on a
trip with Ramon Walker and Jamal Shedd in the offseason
to I forget where turks and caicos may be, and
one night they're sitting at the table and finally it
was like the moment to bring it up to a
mango sharp and he so it was sort of therapeutic,
and he talked to us back in Houston about it
right before the season, so it was there. I think
it's more of a not to redeem himself from that
particular moment, but sort of the get back to the
National championship game and finish that job that they did
not get to complete.
Speaker 1: The best thing about last night for me was that
box score and donder minutes played. And look, you just
finished playing off three games in canvas, say the week before.
There's a lot of intensity you're playing there the other day.
To have some guys get some downtime in that second
half had to be a huge benefit for the squad,
especially in the first round matchup or teams like Duke
and some others did not have a chance to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there was no no suspense and no drama.
You know. Mercy Miller I thought, gave them some really
good minutes. He's a here guy that last year at
this time, he wasn't even on the radar. He was
gonna get mop up time if that he was in
a shooting slump. So it was good to get guys
like him, you know, said lot, who's number fourteen or
so on the on the bench. He got in with
about three minutes stuff. So that kind of gives you
an idea how things are going. But you're you're right
this type of time of year, if you can get
your starters out, you know, get them to keep them healthy,
it goes a long way. And now Chase McCarty was
one that a lot of people were concerned about. He
took a hard fall in the first half, came back
and played, talked to him after the game, said it
was his calf. He's fine. But you know, if you
can get guys out of the game and keep them fresh,
that's huge because you never know what you're going to
run up into. And you know, I think a lot
of U of AH fans will hope that the second
matchup with A and M in three years doesn't go
to us a type of overtime thriller as we saw
in Memphis a few years ago.
Speaker 1: This Aggie basketball team took care of business, beat Saint
Mary's by thirteen. I don't know how much you witnessed
it personally. This age kid did a lot of heavy
lifting for them yesterday film.
Speaker 2: You know, the first possession of the game, they forced
a ten second violation and just went downhill for Saint
Mary's from there, A and M forced eighteen turnovers. You're right,
the ag Kid guy, you know, he had twenty two
and eight, I believe, and he's a leading scorer, rebounder.
But you know, it was interesting because A and MD
not in the regular season. Well, they got beat by
twenty against Oklahoma in the first round of the SEC tournament,
So it's kind of like, what which Aggie's team was
gonna show up? And and I thought they did a
really nice job. They went with a different lineup than
they had all year, but it's sort of the same
guys between Griffin, Demingaz. You know, I thought Pop Isaac's,
you know, had a good game. They're they're gonna be formidable.
They're they're undersized, but they're scrappy. They can sort of
bring the game down in terms of tempo. So I mean,
this could be one of those you know, sixty something
fifty something games that that sort of also plays into
Houston's wielhouse. So, uh, two sort of similar styles, so
it should be a good one in the second round.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Cougar size advantage is significant. But isn't Bucky
ball meant to run and try to run teams out
of the gym? And I'm curious if you if that's
a can sort of effort for them. They're gonna have
such a size disadvantage against the Cooders.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't know much about the Bucky ball
since I've focused on Kelvin ball from the most of
the years. But just when when you look at it,
you know, there have been teams that have tried to
that their style is based off of that fastive. Now
Houston can push the tempo when it needs to. Flemings alone,
it helps them do that. But I've seen more times
than not that Kelvin teams, uh, and the way that
they gain plan and prepare, they sort of will you
to have to play their style. And that's where Houston
becomes really good when you have to play their ball.
And uh, you know, I just I just think from
a matchup, you know, Houston should be, you know, the
considerable favorites in this game. There's a lot on the line, Matt.
You know, if you win this one, you were playing
a de facto home game in the Toyota Center and
of two wins away for playing, you know, in the
final four. So there's the motivations there. They they quickly
turned the page last night and they're they're all They're set,
you know, on on A and M and Saturday.
Speaker 1: Joseph Torte from Oklahoma City, Uh, let me ask you
about just the Houston angle of going back here. It's
been a topic of conversation, but I feel like there's
at least one team that would have this kind of
advantage and so I'm not going to apologize for it.
University of Houston should not apologize for it. And ultimately,
it was the committee's decision to put these teams in
the South because they deserve to be there, being the
sixth best team going to the tournament.
Speaker 2: Right. These things are planned out in terms of who's
hosting regionals for years in advance, and you just happen
to have another year that Houston was in positions, uh
for a number one seed, and they you know, they
were the fifth team just outside of that. And so
they got the A two in a in a very
favorable region. You know, they've seen it, you know since
I've been on the beat. You know they've had Purdue
last year in Indianapolis. Uh, you know, they've had some
some other schools that have that played relatively close. So
you know, I don't I don't really get in the
buy into that argument. It's it wasn't set up this
way it was. There was no conspiracy. This thing was
planned out. But you you have to take advantage of it. Now.
A couple of years ago, when the final four was
in Houston, that was all the talk. Could they get
to a hometown final four? They ended up getting upset
in the sweet sixteens. You gotta go in, you gotta
take you gotta take care of business. Uh. The interesting thing,
Matt is, if this region holds, you have the defending
national champion, Florida the one seed that would be coming,
you'd have Houston as the two, you'd have Illinois as
the three coming, and then the four seed Nebraska. Nebraska
has taken over Oklahoma City. There's some concern that if
Nebraska is in that South region, their fans will travel,
So it's going to be really impaired that the Houston
fans show up and buy tickets because there could be
RED in that stand, but it may not necessarily be
Houston Red.