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Speaker 1: Twelve thirty three, Matt and Ross with you here on

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Sports Talk seven A. Let's go to a city I've

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been to I don't know thirty times in the last

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ten years, Joseph Torte in Oklahoma City, where he will

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watch the Aggies and the Cougars play a five to

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ten game tomorrow inside the pay Comm Center. Joseph, first

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of all, good afternoon, Thanks for joining us. Anything catch

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your eye yesterday? Forgetting about the score, forgetting about the

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hot start they had and they really wasn't even a

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contest in the second half. Anything surprise you keen your

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interest in that first round game against Vandals.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd start off with the we've seen the freshman

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play this year, and we know what Kingston Flemings is

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capable of. A All American I thought Chris Sanak coming

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in and I mean, good god, eighteen eighteen rebounds. I

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don't care if you're freshman, saw for junior senior, that's

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pretty impressive. So I think getting the first game Jitters

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out of the way was important. I thought that Emanuel Sharp,

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for all that he's done in the score that he's done,

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you know he's he's kind of struggled a little bit

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try fighting through some things the last couple of weeks

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for him to trigger that that big run in the

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first half. You know, those are things that you want

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to see. But by no means is this team played

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a complete game yet last night was pretty close to

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it except for that slow start, but you know, you

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see them trending and as we get into March here,

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that's typically what Kelvin Sampson seems have done. So you know,

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it was just little things like that. I don't know

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how much you can gauge because it was Idaho, but

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certainly moving forward beginning Saturday against Texas A and M

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it's the road gets much tougher, and that's kind of

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what you expect. You want to see that that gradual

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improvement as you move along in.

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Speaker 1: The turn Joseph. The game obviously nationally televised, and there's

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still gonna be a large segment of the population that

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didn't see the Cougars at all this year. So there

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was a little bit of a storyline, not much of it,

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but at least a little bit of the you know,

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this is em Manual Sharp gets one more chance to

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kind of write the pathway of towards the national championship,

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has been with the team forever, and obviously the last

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few seconds of his career last year was not going

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the double dribble call. You've obviously talked to him about it,

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but you've been with those guys almost from the not

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almost from the jump. How much has that entered his mind?

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To say it hasn't entered his mind about where he

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needs to be, where he wants to go would be ridiculous.

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But how much has it been a theme at any

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point during the course of the back of the college

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basketball season.

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Speaker 2: Well, if you're a college basketball fan in Houston, you

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know your generation in mind, Generation Matt was the Lorenzo

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Charles moment in the state. You know, I'm watching the

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game last night, but I also have the TV monitors there,

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and you know they're they're replaying that play, that moment

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in the final seconds against Florida where he didn't get

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the shot off and they turned the ball over. So

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you know, that's sort of this generation's bad heartbreak situation,

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and you know he talked about it at the beginning

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of the year. You know, there was a story in

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The Athletic by CJ. Moore that he went on a

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trip with Ramon Walker and Jamal Shedd in the offseason

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to I forget where turks and caicos may be, and

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one night they're sitting at the table and finally it

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was like the moment to bring it up to a

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mango sharp and he so it was sort of therapeutic,

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and he talked to us back in Houston about it

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right before the season, so it was there. I think

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it's more of a not to redeem himself from that

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particular moment, but sort of the get back to the

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National championship game and finish that job that they did

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not get to complete.

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Speaker 1: The best thing about last night for me was that

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box score and donder minutes played. And look, you just

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finished playing off three games in canvas, say the week before.

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There's a lot of intensity you're playing there the other day.

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To have some guys get some downtime in that second

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half had to be a huge benefit for the squad,

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especially in the first round matchup or teams like Duke

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and some others did not have a chance to do that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there was no no suspense and no drama.

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You know. Mercy Miller I thought, gave them some really

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good minutes. He's a here guy that last year at

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this time, he wasn't even on the radar. He was

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gonna get mop up time if that he was in

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a shooting slump. So it was good to get guys

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like him, you know, said lot, who's number fourteen or

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so on the on the bench. He got in with

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about three minutes stuff. So that kind of gives you

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an idea how things are going. But you're you're right

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this type of time of year, if you can get

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your starters out, you know, get them to keep them healthy,

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it goes a long way. And now Chase McCarty was

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one that a lot of people were concerned about. He

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took a hard fall in the first half, came back

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and played, talked to him after the game, said it

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was his calf. He's fine. But you know, if you

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can get guys out of the game and keep them fresh,

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that's huge because you never know what you're going to

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run up into. And you know, I think a lot

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of U of AH fans will hope that the second

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matchup with A and M in three years doesn't go

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to us a type of overtime thriller as we saw

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in Memphis a few years ago.

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Speaker 1: This Aggie basketball team took care of business, beat Saint

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Mary's by thirteen. I don't know how much you witnessed

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it personally. This age kid did a lot of heavy

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lifting for them yesterday film.

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Speaker 2: You know, the first possession of the game, they forced

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a ten second violation and just went downhill for Saint

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Mary's from there, A and M forced eighteen turnovers. You're right,

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the ag Kid guy, you know, he had twenty two

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and eight, I believe, and he's a leading scorer, rebounder.

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But you know, it was interesting because A and MD

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not in the regular season. Well, they got beat by

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twenty against Oklahoma in the first round of the SEC tournament,

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So it's kind of like, what which Aggie's team was

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gonna show up? And and I thought they did a

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really nice job. They went with a different lineup than

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they had all year, but it's sort of the same

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guys between Griffin, Demingaz. You know, I thought Pop Isaac's,

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you know, had a good game. They're they're gonna be formidable.

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They're they're undersized, but they're scrappy. They can sort of

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bring the game down in terms of tempo. So I mean,

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this could be one of those you know, sixty something

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fifty something games that that sort of also plays into

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Houston's wielhouse. So, uh, two sort of similar styles, so

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it should be a good one in the second round.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the Cougar size advantage is significant. But isn't Bucky

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ball meant to run and try to run teams out

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of the gym? And I'm curious if you if that's

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a can sort of effort for them. They're gonna have

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such a size disadvantage against the Cooders.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't know much about the Bucky ball

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since I've focused on Kelvin ball from the most of

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the years. But just when when you look at it,

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you know, there have been teams that have tried to

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that their style is based off of that fastive. Now

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Houston can push the tempo when it needs to. Flemings alone,

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it helps them do that. But I've seen more times

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than not that Kelvin teams, uh, and the way that

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they gain plan and prepare, they sort of will you

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to have to play their style. And that's where Houston

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becomes really good when you have to play their ball.

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And uh, you know, I just I just think from

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a matchup, you know, Houston should be, you know, the

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considerable favorites in this game. There's a lot on the line, Matt.

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You know, if you win this one, you were playing

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a de facto home game in the Toyota Center and

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of two wins away for playing, you know, in the

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final four. So there's the motivations there. They they quickly

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turned the page last night and they're they're all They're set,

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you know, on on A and M and Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Joseph Torte from Oklahoma City, Uh, let me ask you

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about just the Houston angle of going back here. It's

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been a topic of conversation, but I feel like there's

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at least one team that would have this kind of

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advantage and so I'm not going to apologize for it.

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University of Houston should not apologize for it. And ultimately,

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it was the committee's decision to put these teams in

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the South because they deserve to be there, being the

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sixth best team going to the tournament.

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Speaker 2: Right. These things are planned out in terms of who's

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hosting regionals for years in advance, and you just happen

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to have another year that Houston was in positions, uh

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for a number one seed, and they you know, they

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were the fifth team just outside of that. And so

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they got the A two in a in a very

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favorable region. You know, they've seen it, you know since

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I've been on the beat. You know they've had Purdue

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last year in Indianapolis. Uh, you know, they've had some

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some other schools that have that played relatively close. So

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you know, I don't I don't really get in the

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buy into that argument. It's it wasn't set up this

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way it was. There was no conspiracy. This thing was

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planned out. But you you have to take advantage of it. Now.

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A couple of years ago, when the final four was

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in Houston, that was all the talk. Could they get

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to a hometown final four? They ended up getting upset

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in the sweet sixteens. You gotta go in, you gotta

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take you gotta take care of business. Uh. The interesting thing,

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Matt is, if this region holds, you have the defending

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national champion, Florida the one seed that would be coming,

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you'd have Houston as the two, you'd have Illinois as

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the three coming, and then the four seed Nebraska. Nebraska

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has taken over Oklahoma City. There's some concern that if

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Nebraska is in that South region, their fans will travel,

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So it's going to be really impaired that the Houston

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fans show up and buy tickets because there could be

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RED in that stand, but it may not necessarily be

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Houston Red.