Speaker 1: All right, let's get it drives high Thursday afternoon, seven.
Speaker 2: Minutes past the hour, two o'clock. How do you like?
Speaker 2: Seventy seven degrees and mostly sunny.
Speaker 1: The clouds have settled in a little bit this afternoon,
Speaker 1: But man, did we have a beautiful, beautiful morning on
Speaker 1: this beautiful Thursday afternoon, this March Thursday afternoon. As we
Speaker 1: are getting ready to turn our calendars to April coming
Speaker 1: up next week, and as it is every single day.
Speaker 2: It's gonna have you along for the ride.
Speaker 1: Spend seconds beyond the mic, Porter Larsen behind the glass
Speaker 1: today producing the program. Got some really good guests, some
Speaker 1: good guests to talk uts, some good guests to talk NBA,
Speaker 1: some good guests to talk men's college basketball. The madness
Speaker 1: of March gets back underway tonight. You know, it's this
Speaker 1: it's interesting thing with this tournament. It's so much fun
Speaker 1: right out of the gates, and you're inundated with basketball
Speaker 1: for like four days.
Speaker 2: Then you got to take a bit of a break.
Speaker 1: But it's back tonight, starting with the BYU Coubers taking
Speaker 1: on the Alabama Crimson Tie at the Crudential Center, Newark,
Speaker 1: New Jersey for five h nine tip time, so we'll
Speaker 1: be on air as they get going. Then following Byubama,
Speaker 1: it is Maryland, Florida.
Speaker 2: Maryland's head coach is.
Speaker 1: Taking another job, but he's still coaching the game tonight
Speaker 1: Arizona Duke seven thirty nine CBS Cooper Flag in Action.
Speaker 1: For all you Jazz fans wondering why the Jazz are
Speaker 1: doing what they're doing, you should watch this game tonight
Speaker 1: and see what Cooper Flagg has to offer. And then
Speaker 1: the late game is going to be Arkansas, Texas Tech
Speaker 1: Chase Center, San Francisco, California. So excuse me. The madness
Speaker 1: of March continues tonight. The Utah Jazz are at action
Speaker 1: tonight as well. They welcome in the Houston Rockets to
Speaker 1: the Delta Center for a seven o'clock tip time. Jazz
Speaker 1: doing the best they can to make sure that their
Speaker 1: odds of grabbing the number one pick is intact. Houston's
Speaker 1: an interesting case study. We've talked throughout the show this
Speaker 1: season about teams in the NBA that were where the
Speaker 1: Jazz were at not too long ago and how they've
Speaker 1: made their way back to relevance. Houston's an interesting team
Speaker 1: to talk about because and we'll get into this a
Speaker 1: little bit on the show today. We'll do some NBA.
Speaker 1: We've got a good NBA guest later on. There are
Speaker 1: certain case studies like Detroit or Orlando, just to name
Speaker 1: a few, But where it falls short to try to
Speaker 1: draw parallel with our local basketball team is Orlando has
Speaker 1: Polo van Carrol and quite frankly, Franz Vadner might be
Speaker 1: better Larry marketing as well. You know, you might be
Speaker 1: rolling your eyes, go look at his numbers. And then
Speaker 1: Detroit has Kate Cunningham. But Houston doesn't really have a
Speaker 1: franchise type guy. They've got some really good players, some
Speaker 1: really good young players, They've got a really good coach.
Speaker 1: They're the number two seed in the West RDE now
Speaker 1: they're one point five point game. They're one point five
Speaker 1: games ahead of Denver and then two point five ahead
Speaker 1: of the Lakers and the Grizzlies. Lakers got to win
Speaker 1: last night, but if you've been following the news cycle,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't even know the Lakers played, because apparently ESPN
Speaker 1: is now WWE where basketball players go on dopey shows
Speaker 1: to talk smoke about other media members. And then that's
Speaker 1: what we're supposed to talk about. I guess kind of
Speaker 1: a weird news cycle for the Worldwide Leader. We're there,
Speaker 1: affiliate in the markets all be nice, but it's just
Speaker 1: it's lame.
Speaker 2: What they've become, is how I'll put that.
Speaker 1: So Jazz basketball, college basketball Opening day in Major League Baseball,
Speaker 1: and it's baseball weather outside. Even though it's a little windy,
Speaker 1: a little cloudy right now, it's still really warm. Yankees
Speaker 1: and the Brewers going on right now. The Yankees have
Speaker 1: a two to one lead middle to fourth. Utah hockey
Speaker 1: clubs in action tonight as well. It's a busy, busy
Speaker 1: night in local sports. It's also an early tip or
Speaker 1: an early drop of the puck, is what I should say. Basketball.
Speaker 1: In the mind, Utah is taking on Tampa Bay. Tampa
Speaker 1: Bay's a really good team hockey club clinging to the
Speaker 1: potential of qualifying for the wild wild Card. I've been
Speaker 1: talking about it now for a few weeks. Not sure
Speaker 1: that it is going to be a reality this year,
Speaker 1: but nonetheless, it has been a lot of fun to
Speaker 1: have hockey in our market, so a lot to do
Speaker 1: on the program. Ralph Salt Lake takes their act on
Speaker 1: the Road to Ali ouncefield in Minnesota see if they
Speaker 1: can get a.
Speaker 2: Result on the road.
Speaker 1: We're still awaiting word as to whether or not reinforcements
Speaker 1: on the way, namely a number nine.
Speaker 2: They need help up top badly.
Speaker 1: Pablo Pablo mas Johnnie on the show yesterday and we
Speaker 1: talked about that dynamic. Pablo dropped the timeline of like
Speaker 1: four to five days before we can hear some news
Speaker 1: about the hockey club potentially. Excuse me about this. I've
Speaker 1: got the hockey club, I score in front of me,
Speaker 1: about the soccer club, about RSL adding some reinforcements. So
Speaker 1: if anything comes down, of course while we're on air,
Speaker 1: we will bring it to you. On this busy Thursday afternoon,
Speaker 1: good guest list, Ute fans. Right out of the gates,
Speaker 1: the athletic director for the University of Utah makes his
Speaker 1: triumpher return to the program. His name is Mark Harlan.
Speaker 1: He'll be our first guest today on this Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 1: We go from the ad to the voice, the Voice
Speaker 1: of the Utes, Bill Riley.
Speaker 2: He stops by.
Speaker 1: We'll do some spring football with Ryle's. We'll do some
Speaker 1: big twelve pro day as we are less than one
Speaker 1: month away from the NFL Draft. Latest on the NFL
Speaker 1: draft rumors with some signings that could throw a little
Speaker 1: bit of a monkey wrench in things, namely Russell Wilson.
Speaker 2: To New York. But we'll bring Bill in today to
Speaker 2: do a little football.
Speaker 1: In some basketball in an hour long conversation with Richard
Speaker 1: Smitty Smith forty years with the.
Speaker 2: Jazz front office.
Speaker 1: We'll do some college basketball, we'll do some draft, we'll
Speaker 1: do some jazz. We'll do some NBA with Smitty on
Speaker 1: the program today, as we are often wont to do
Speaker 1: on a Thursday afternoon. We'll bring in our friends Garrett
Speaker 1: and Preston Handy from the law firm of Handy and
Speaker 1: Handy for the latest in the legal side of things
Speaker 1: in the world of sports. So that's what we do
Speaker 1: pretty much every Thursday. So busy, busy show. Good to
Speaker 1: have you guys with us. We'll go Mark carl and
Speaker 1: Bill Riley, Richards Smith, Sports court, Mee Spence, Jeckets, all
Speaker 1: of you, the great listeners, and Porter Larson producing the
Speaker 1: program on a Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 2: It's always weird, you know.
Speaker 1: The Thursday and Friday of the NC DOUBLEA Tournament are
Speaker 1: insanely entertaining it's jam packed Waaldwall hoops morning tonight. Then
Speaker 1: you get you know, games over the weekend. Then there's
Speaker 1: this like four five day break. But the madness begins
Speaker 1: again tonight. Are you ready for it? I think tonight
Speaker 1: it's gonna be I think we have four really good
Speaker 1: college basketball games ton.
Speaker 3: I know this is a me problem, and I say
Speaker 3: it when we talk about like hockey intermissions. I say
Speaker 3: it when we talk about the the kind of weird
Speaker 3: four days between the nc Double a college football playoff
Speaker 3: that they made. But I'll say it again here. The
Speaker 3: time off really hurts me as a sports fan. I
Speaker 3: think that they could bring it together just a little bit.
Speaker 3: I know it's a lot of basketball. I know it's
Speaker 3: a it's a lot of hoops. But yeah, I'm more
Speaker 3: than ready for the Sweet sixteen. It feels like we've
Speaker 3: been waiting like a year for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'll be fun tonight and we'll see if by
Speaker 1: you can get it done. They're gonna be the first
Speaker 1: game right out of the gates, so by U Bama tonight.
Speaker 1: But like I said, I think we have four really
Speaker 1: good college basketball game tonight.
Speaker 2: So let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Mark Harlan Will be our first guest on this Thursday
Speaker 1: afternoon before we catch up with the ad himself. Courtesy
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Speaker 4: Welcome to the Drive with Spence Check its on Utah's
Speaker 4: number one sports talk. Now into the studios of ESPN
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Speaker 1: Prize Picks run your game all season long. The madness
Speaker 1: of March returns tonight. It is time for the Sweet Sixteen.
Speaker 1: BYU has the record as far as college basketball history
Speaker 1: with thirty two NCAA tournament appearances without making a final four. Now,
Speaker 1: is this the year where they can break that? Honestly, No,
Speaker 1: And it's not about tonight. It's more about what they
Speaker 1: would face should they win tonight. If BYU is able
Speaker 1: to get by Alabama, then most likely they are going
Speaker 1: to face Duke in the next round. So I'm not
Speaker 1: knocking on BYU as far as you know my belief
Speaker 1: as to whether or not they can win the game tonight.
Speaker 1: I actually think they can win the game tonight. We'll
Speaker 1: give you picks before we sat off air. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying they're going to win the game tonight. I'm saying
Speaker 1: I think that they can based off of recent form. Now,
Speaker 1: Alabama the Crimson tither a five point five point favor tonight,
Speaker 1: and the line's been a little bit interesting to follow
Speaker 1: because it opened up at five point five and it
Speaker 1: moved on two separate occasions towards BYU, and for about
Speaker 1: twenty four hours or so, it was Alabama minus four
Speaker 1: point five, and then it's shot back up, which is
Speaker 1: interesting to consider. So it has settled as of now
Speaker 1: at five and a half. We'll see if it moves
Speaker 1: prior to the start of the game tonight. The over
Speaker 1: under is one hundred and seventy six point five, which
Speaker 1: is a massive number for a college basketball game. So
Speaker 1: Alabama number seventeen in a country, BYU number seventeen in
Speaker 1: a country, Sweet sixteen tonight. So as far as the
Speaker 1: way these two teams match up, it's kind of interesting
Speaker 1: because they're very similar, and Alabama is also very similar
Speaker 1: to Wisconsin. Okay, so if you're a BYU fan, that
Speaker 1: should give you some hope. It should give you some faith.
Speaker 1: This is not a Houston Cougar. Physical We're gonna beat
Speaker 1: you up and we're gonna guard you ninety four feet.
Speaker 1: We're gonna bring pressure and we're gonna make your guards,
Speaker 1: you know, break pressure and.
Speaker 2: Dare them not to turn the ball over.
Speaker 1: Alabama wants to get up and down the floor on offense.
Speaker 1: They're the number one team in the country as far
Speaker 1: as pace goes. Natos is a really good coach. He's
Speaker 1: been in the college game for a long long time.
Speaker 1: And Alabama was in the Final Four a year ago
Speaker 1: and return a grip of players that were on that team,
Speaker 1: namely theyir two headed monster that you need to get
Speaker 1: to know.
Speaker 2: If you're a BYU fan Mark Sears.
Speaker 1: The easy comparison for Mark Sears is Jalen Brunson because
Speaker 1: Mark Sears is a left handed point guard that's very
Speaker 1: ball dominant, and Alabama runs basically I was looking at
Speaker 1: this this morning. Basically all of their half court sets
Speaker 1: is with Mark Sears having the ball in his hand
Speaker 1: as the primary initiator and decision maker. And he's a
Speaker 1: really good ball handler. He's an excellent passer. He's first
Speaker 1: team All American. He will be the best player on
Speaker 1: the floor tonight, including anyone Brigham Young has. Okay, So
Speaker 1: Alabama's offense starts and ends with Mark Sears as the
Speaker 1: primary initiator. But they also have a player named Grant
Speaker 1: Nelson who had some injury issues year ago. He's been
Speaker 1: healthy this year and he's a tremendously skilled big that
Speaker 1: can step out and shoot it from three, and he
Speaker 1: can also handle it on the wing. Okay, So Mark
Speaker 1: Sears the year we're talking about nearly nineteen points, five assists,
Speaker 1: three boards, shoots forty percent from the floor, eighty five
Speaker 1: percent from the line.
Speaker 2: He's just an okay three point shooter.
Speaker 1: He shoots thirty three percent from three grat Nelson on
Speaker 1: the other hand, twelve points, eight boards, a couple of assists,
Speaker 1: forty ft CE, fifty three percent from the floor, sixty
Speaker 1: seven from the line, twenty seven percent from three, and
Speaker 1: then they've got four shot makers from the outside. They're
Speaker 1: like BYU this way, they want to shoot the three.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: One of the dynamics of this game that's going to
Speaker 1: be interesting is the defensive metrics will ultimately favor Alabama overall,
Speaker 1: but not by much. And if you kind of sort
Speaker 1: the metrics on Basketball reference dot Com to favor BYU
Speaker 1: over the past twelve games when they're eleven to one,
Speaker 1: BYU's defensive metrics lately are actually superior Alabama in one category,
Speaker 1: which is the outlier here that could be interesting. So
Speaker 1: outside of Sears and Nelson, Aiden Holloway is a knockdown
Speaker 1: Cheery shoots forty two percent from three. They bring the
Speaker 1: Cris young Blood kit on and off the bench. He
Speaker 1: shoots forty percent from three. They want to spread the
Speaker 1: floor with Mark Sears. They do a lot of one
Speaker 1: four flat and a lot of pick and roll, a
Speaker 1: lot of isolation and let Mark Siars and Grant Nelson
Speaker 1: create and then they've got a bunch of shooters that
Speaker 1: they can kick out to and guard the three. Alabama
Speaker 1: here's your outlier on defense, though, which is interesting. Alabama
Speaker 1: is the twenty eighth best defensive team guarding the three
Speaker 1: in America BYU last check, two hundred and twenty eighth
Speaker 1: in the country. BYU does not guard the three that well. Okay,
Speaker 1: so when you look at Mark Siars and Grant Nelson,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be interesting to see what Kevin Young decides
Speaker 1: to do with those matchups. My guess is moet mag
Speaker 1: will get the assignment right out of the gates to
Speaker 1: guard Grant Nelson, and then I think they'll probably utilize
Speaker 1: Trey Stewart, a player that Kevin Young has relied upon
Speaker 1: during the final portion of the season in the way
Speaker 1: that he didn't prior to So Jegor Demon, who's got
Speaker 1: great length and is a really intriguing pro prospect. He
Speaker 1: does not have the lateral quickness to keep up with
Speaker 1: Mark Spears. I would Mary, you know, Mark Mark Spears
Speaker 1: is an NBA rid. I would be surprised if Mark
Speaker 1: Sears sees jeg Or Demon outside of switches, of course,
Speaker 1: and BYU likes to switch sometimes they switch one through five.
Speaker 1: But BYU is gonna have to guard the three in
Speaker 1: a way that this season they have not been able
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: It's not one of their their strengths.
Speaker 1: The other thing Alabama does is they crash the offensive glass.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I often talk.
Speaker 1: About this in the prism of what BYU looks like
Speaker 1: when they play against elite athletes that have speed in physicality,
Speaker 1: and that means Caba, Cata and Fos Traiori are going
Speaker 1: to have to have good games. CABA's they're starting center,
Speaker 1: of course, former ute who's comes in off the bench.
Speaker 1: And Fus isn't the athlete the Keba is, but he's
Speaker 1: a big, you know, big dude with a big bass
Speaker 1: who can box out and get boards. They're gonna have
Speaker 1: to protect the glass. They're gonna have to protect the glass.
Speaker 1: They're gonna have the defensive rebound.
Speaker 5: It.
Speaker 1: I wonder if Kevin's gonna send four guys to the
Speaker 1: glass on both sides of the floor. And therefore you
Speaker 1: gotta be careful because Alabama will get out in transition
Speaker 1: if you only you have one player back Alabama if
Speaker 1: they get a rebound on the defense is end of
Speaker 1: the floor, and if it's yegor demon back and everyone
Speaker 1: else crashes the glass because you have to get rebounds.
Speaker 2: Alabama will have a lot of sprintouts.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the elite athletes that BYU has, they are
Speaker 1: going to have to step up because Alabama simply has
Speaker 1: more athletes across the board. So elite athletes on BYU.
Speaker 1: It's certainly Kavakat, who is one of the most elite
Speaker 1: athletes in the entire country. Richie Saunders has great athleticism
Speaker 1: in size. Who's Treori coming in off the bench and
Speaker 1: mawap mag as the defensive stopper in addition to Trey Stewart.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is a Trevan Nell game.
Speaker 1: You know, Trevin's such a knockdown shooter, even though he's
Speaker 1: like two years older than Luka Doncicch. You keep him
Speaker 1: in the game with the opportunity to knock down shots.
Speaker 1: But there's nobody on Alabama who you can hide anybody
Speaker 1: on BYU defensively, so that goes for Trevin.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if Dawson Baker gets more minutes
Speaker 1: than Trevin ne Dawson simply a stronger, better athlete than
Speaker 1: Trevin is okay. If Yegor Demon, who's had a really
Speaker 1: really good NCAA tournament, starts to show his tendency, which
Speaker 1: we've seen quite often in the past against Houston and
Speaker 1: Iowa State. Specifically, if the speed and pressure of Alabama
Speaker 1: starts to disrupt BYU's attack because Jegor kind of cowers.
Speaker 2: Away from it, then this is a down Hall game.
Speaker 1: Down Hall A seasoned veteran point guard who has a season.
Speaker 2: Of Big twelve basketball under his belt is the answer.
Speaker 1: It is the anecdote if a young player and Jegor
Speaker 1: Demon is not ready to handle the speed and the
Speaker 1: pressure that Alabama brings them. These are two good coaches
Speaker 1: that run very similar offensive styles. You know, even though
Speaker 1: Natoates does not have the NBA background Kevin Young does,
Speaker 1: he runs a similar style, a similar NBA style that
Speaker 1: Kevin does. Both these coaches have been asked about it,
Speaker 1: and both of them have kind of alluded to the
Speaker 1: point that it kind of it's kind of like look
Speaker 1: in the mirror and when you dig in the tape,
Speaker 1: dig into the tape with both these two teams. If
Speaker 1: you're a BYU fan, I think the good news is
Speaker 1: there are a lot of similarities because you're not running
Speaker 1: into a team like Houston that simply has undressed you
Speaker 1: twice in fights that have not been fair. And ultimately,
Speaker 1: if BYU wants to break this historic streak, if never
Speaker 1: going to the final four, they're going to have to
Speaker 1: beat a physical team at some point like Houston. But
Speaker 1: this is not that team. Alabama doesn't play like that.
Speaker 1: Alabama plays a lot like Wisconsin. Like I said, there
Speaker 1: Wisconsin on steroids and they play a lot like BYU. Now,
Speaker 1: for BYU to beat Wisconsin, they literally had to be
Speaker 1: historic with their splits. I mean the splits that we
Speaker 1: saw BYU put up offensively against Wisconsin were literally historic,
Speaker 1: literally as far as we've never seen it in the
Speaker 1: NCAA tournament before. Over forty nine percent from two, over
Speaker 1: forty six percent from three, over ninety three percent from
Speaker 1: the line. Putting up ninety or more points with eleven
Speaker 1: or fewer turnovers and twenty or more assists has never happened.
Speaker 2: And you needed every point because you only won by two.
Speaker 1: Okay, And let's make no mistake here, Alabama is a
Speaker 1: better team than Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: They have up upper class leadership.
Speaker 1: They just made a run to the final four year ago,
Speaker 1: so BYU had to make history to win by two
Speaker 1: over Wisconsin. I have a hard time seeing them winning tonight,
Speaker 1: but it's the NCAA tournament. Players get hot, players spraint ankles,
Speaker 1: you never know. And if you're BYU, you certainly have
Speaker 1: enjoyed this run. And we'll see what they're able to
Speaker 1: do against a really good NATO's coached Alabama Crimson Tide
Speaker 1: team tonight at five oh nine Mountain Time on CBS. Well,
Speaker 1: if you listen to the show, you know by now,
Speaker 1: once I start a bit, I can't quit it. So
Speaker 1: we can't quit the bit with Mark Harlan athletic director
Speaker 1: from the University of you Tom making his triumpher return
Speaker 1: to the radio program on this beautiful Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 2: Mark howerd you, sir, thank you for the time, Spence.
Speaker 6: I'm doing great, man, Always good to talk to you
Speaker 6: and get caught up in all things Utah a plitics.
Speaker 6: But hope you're doing great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, all good here, all good here. I know
Speaker 1: you've been busy, so let's get to it. And it's
Speaker 1: been a minute since you and I have been able
Speaker 1: to catch up, so I know it's not day's news.
Speaker 2: But we'll start with the process.
Speaker 1: It landed you on one of the greats to play
Speaker 1: at the University of You taught a former mister basketball
Speaker 1: in the state in high school, and a guy that
Speaker 1: seems to have been the hire. Seems to have been
Speaker 1: celebrated by everybody who has reacted to it. No matter
Speaker 1: what part of the ecosystem you're in, if you run
Speaker 1: the show like you do, if you played up there
Speaker 1: like a lot of the former players, if you cover
Speaker 1: the team like we do, it seems like this has
Speaker 1: been a higher that certainly has been celebrated. So tell
Speaker 1: us about this process, Mark, that you went through after
Speaker 1: deciding to move on from Craig Smith and landing on
Speaker 1: Alex Jensen.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was something that kind of has evolved over time.
Speaker 6: You know, it was getting to know Alex, you know,
Speaker 6: prior to even the last time we discussed about this possibility.
Speaker 6: You know, I'd gone to breakfast with him a few
Speaker 6: times when he was working with the Jazz and just
Speaker 6: really enjoyed being around him. In just a great intellectual
Speaker 6: thinker and just just fun you know, have him walked
Speaker 6: me through the time that he was here, and so
Speaker 6: just always kind of remained in that kind of contact
Speaker 6: with him, and then when I elected to make a
Speaker 6: change here, obviously it's not hard to figure that he's
Speaker 6: someone that I, you know, very much wanted to dig
Speaker 6: in with, and we were able to connect early on
Speaker 6: in the process, and I could see his excitement for
Speaker 6: the opportunity. I walked him through it. You know, you
Speaker 6: got to catch him up and all the things college
Speaker 6: athletics that are going on with you know, this transition
Speaker 6: from the nil to revenue share, walk through what that
Speaker 6: looked like. Because whenever you talk to someone that's got
Speaker 6: a great job, right, you just really have to explain,
Speaker 6: less selling and just explaining, you know, everything that's going on.
Speaker 6: And then he went about thinking about the opportunity, and
Speaker 6: we had some other great folks that we talked to.
Speaker 6: But eventually, you know, after a lot of conversations with
Speaker 6: me and certainly the president and trustees at Revolving Process,
Speaker 6: he elected to go. And it was exciting. I was excited,
Speaker 6: we all were excited, and you know, you were just
Speaker 6: alluding to the public being really excited. So it's been
Speaker 6: fun to see that. A lot of work going on
Speaker 6: as he builds his staff at the same time, we
Speaker 6: have Josh who's just done a remarkable job as interim
Speaker 6: head coach, getting our team ready to go down to
Speaker 6: Vegas on Saturday to start that tournament. On Monday, matter
Speaker 6: of fact, it was just down at basketball practice checking
Speaker 6: in with everybody. So a lot going on, a lot
Speaker 6: of work, but a lot of really good work as well.
Speaker 1: I want to go back a little bit further, And
Speaker 1: you know, when it comes to a position like yours, Mark,
Speaker 1: I'm sure some of the decisions you have to make
Speaker 1: are difficult, and there's a personal side to all these things.
Speaker 1: And yes, I know that contracts in college sports include
Speaker 1: buyouts that allow coaches a bit of a soft landing
Speaker 1: while they're figuring out their next move. But you know me,
Speaker 1: I'm a child of an NBA executive and we moved
Speaker 1: multiple times throughout the course of my father's career and
Speaker 1: I had to say goodbye to friends and family and
Speaker 1: all the things, and Craig had to do that. I
Speaker 1: wonder if you could illuminate us on some of the
Speaker 1: dynamics you considered before electing to Landing on moving on
Speaker 1: from Craig.
Speaker 6: Well, I think what I'll say, out of respect for
Speaker 6: Craig is that he's just a wonderful man. I really
Speaker 6: enjoyed working with him, joined his family. I thought he
Speaker 6: got here at a time where, you know, the world
Speaker 6: was changing, and you know, it's always hard to take
Speaker 6: a new job coming off COVID, you know everything that
Speaker 6: he had to manage, you know, I just came to
Speaker 6: the determination that we needed to go in a different direction.
Speaker 6: I've also had some time for for myself to look
Speaker 6: in the mirror and figure out what we could do
Speaker 6: better in terms of the administration. I mean, I think
Speaker 6: you have to when you when you have to make
Speaker 6: these kind of changes, if you don't look at yourself
Speaker 6: as a leader, I don't think you're you're serving you know,
Speaker 6: the institution. Well, so you know, we we have been
Speaker 6: going through that process. Obviously, we are going to manage
Speaker 6: basketball differently, and I think he's seen by by one
Speaker 6: of Alex's hires. That's a big part of what Alex
Speaker 6: and I talked about. But as far as Craig goes,
Speaker 6: you know, I know he'll land on his feet. He's
Speaker 6: too good of a coach, not too and I wish
Speaker 6: him truly the very best.
Speaker 1: Let me let me follow up with something you just
Speaker 1: alluded to, Mark because you know, you obviously have had
Speaker 1: an interesting year with everything that happened after the BYU
Speaker 1: Utah football game. And I don't want to re litigate
Speaker 1: things that are months and months and months in the past.
Speaker 1: But you just alluded to wanting to look in the
Speaker 1: mirror yourself. And you know, you're a guy that's achieved
Speaker 1: a lot of success, and you're an athletic director at
Speaker 1: a major college institution, a P four program, And as you.
Speaker 2: Know, you forgot my birthday last week. I forgive you.
Speaker 1: But as you age, certainly as I age, I look
Speaker 1: at certain things that I've done a little bit differently
Speaker 1: and wish that I maybe have done this or that
Speaker 1: or what have you.
Speaker 2: But you got to move on. You got to learn.
Speaker 2: What have you learned this year? Personally?
Speaker 6: Well, if you're are you specifically talking about the by
Speaker 6: you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Basketball, everything, everything that involves your job.
Speaker 1: Everything that involves your job, Mark, We all have to
Speaker 1: learn and grow and evolve.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Sure, you know, I've been an athletic director for
Speaker 6: now eleven plus years. I've been in the business for
Speaker 6: there'll be thirty actually coming up, which is probably why
Speaker 6: I forgot your birthday. You know, I'm starting to get
Speaker 6: up there. You know, I think you always learn and
Speaker 6: you try to grow from the good from the bad.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, you go back to back Rose
Speaker 6: Bowl games. That doesn't mean we're doing things, you know,
Speaker 6: every way that we should. In my job, in anybody's job,
Speaker 6: you always have to you always have to grow and
Speaker 6: figure out different ways to do that, especially in this
Speaker 6: environment that we are in where it's just different. Right.
Speaker 6: I mean, this job, along with so many others here
Speaker 6: in elsewhere in college athletics, have dramatically changed. I mean,
Speaker 6: I'll put it as simple as this. Our compliance department
Speaker 6: are the people that negotiate our contracts over here. Now
Speaker 6: think about that for a second, right, that's our compliance
Speaker 6: office negotiating contracts for student athletes. It's great, right, you
Speaker 6: got to evolve, you got to something differently. But I
Speaker 6: think for me personally, I would say after the BYU incident,
Speaker 6: it was a time to reflect because I think that
Speaker 6: obviously I have such great respect for Kilane and Tom
Speaker 6: and everything that they do. It wasn't I didn't say
Speaker 6: the right day. And I've said that since and I
Speaker 6: continue to mean that. So you learn and you grow
Speaker 6: how do you handle stress? How do you how do
Speaker 6: you how do you handle things that don't go your way?
Speaker 6: It's all the things that you got to learn in
Speaker 6: your role. So I think I've grown from it. I've
Speaker 6: learned from it, And as far as just everything else
Speaker 6: going on in our industry, I do think we've built
Speaker 6: such a great team here administratively in our coaches that
Speaker 6: I am excited as we go into this new era
Speaker 6: where we're going to be and where we can go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mark, and we all deserve grace for moments that
Speaker 1: we wish we could have back, and we all have
Speaker 1: those moments, so you know, I know you understand the
Speaker 1: spirit of the question, and it's an ever changing landscape
Speaker 1: and you're under a lot of pressure, and sometimes pressure
Speaker 1: can cause us to say and do things.
Speaker 2: That we wish we would not have done.
Speaker 1: So I wonder, though, I'll stick with this theme for
Speaker 1: a little bit, when you went through the process of
Speaker 1: hiring Alex, what did you learn from the process you
Speaker 1: went through last time around that landed you on Craig.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think I was probably a lot more open
Speaker 6: to NBA background. I think if you look at how
Speaker 6: much things have changed and you've got locker rooms with
Speaker 6: different pay scales, and you know how you distribute funds.
Speaker 6: You know, that's something that someone like Alex has tremendous
Speaker 6: experience with, you know, every night, including his experience in
Speaker 6: the G League. And so you take that combined with
Speaker 6: his incredible acumen in what he runs in basketball defensively, offensively,
Speaker 6: and just who he is as a person, much less
Speaker 6: the fact that he that he you know, wore the
Speaker 6: colors here, which is a great additive, but I would
Speaker 6: suggest even if he didn't, he'd be an incredible candidate here.
Speaker 6: So you throw all that together and I think that,
Speaker 6: you know, he just made perfect sense for where we're
Speaker 6: in and as we talk, you know, three or four
Speaker 6: times a day, which we've been doing, as we build
Speaker 6: the team together, the folks that are around him, you know,
Speaker 6: that's a real key thing that we're looking at the
Speaker 6: folks that have just really a mixture of experience. I
Speaker 6: think you're going to see less people on the bench
Speaker 6: because I think we're going to really look at, you know,
Speaker 6: just extreme quality of everybody that is sitting next to him.
Speaker 6: And I you know, quality and quantity don't mean the
Speaker 6: same thing all the time. So we're just like I said,
Speaker 6: we're willing to try different things to turn this thing
Speaker 6: around ahead in the right direction.
Speaker 1: Were you, and I don't want to imply the last
Speaker 1: time around, after you were looking for Larry's replacement, you
Speaker 1: were not open to former utes and I'm not implying
Speaker 1: that at all, but were you more open to that
Speaker 1: dynamic this time around?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, certainly open to it last time, but
Speaker 6: I think now way more assured that this can work right.
Speaker 6: And I just again the experiences of where we were
Speaker 6: four years ago and where the game is now, it
Speaker 6: has literally changed, not just you know, a little bit,
Speaker 6: but a lot. And you know, the portal is different now,
Speaker 6: the the the money that's involved, and so much more,
Speaker 6: much more believing that someone with this type of background
Speaker 6: can be very, very highly successful.
Speaker 1: You referenced something earlier, and you know, I've known Alex
Speaker 1: and his wife Natalie for a number of years, and
Speaker 1: I know that they were happy in Dallas, and I
Speaker 1: know that Dallas very much liked Alex, and I know
Speaker 1: that they very much wanted him to stay. So you
Speaker 1: know this to your point, this was not a guy
Speaker 1: that needed a job.
Speaker 2: This was a guy that had a job.
Speaker 1: And this was a guy that had been in pro
Speaker 1: basketball for a number of years, And I honestly thought
Speaker 1: and still wonder at some point and hopefully Alex coaches
Speaker 1: Utah basketball for twenty five years. I always thought he
Speaker 1: was an NBA head coach with how much I saw
Speaker 1: him develop players and how impressed I was with his
Speaker 1: communication style. But what did it make it a little
Speaker 1: bit more difficult to kind of make the sell?
Speaker 2: And was there a little bit.
Speaker 1: Of a push and pull because he did have a
Speaker 1: good gig and they lived in a place that they liked.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, when you get a chance to talk
Speaker 6: to him, I think that he's better served to answer that.
Speaker 6: I just think you nailed it when when you're talking
Speaker 6: to someone that has a really good job and in
Speaker 6: a great situation, and he really liked living in Dallas,
Speaker 6: and he really liked Jason Kidd and the folks there.
Speaker 6: I just think that that when he was able to
Speaker 6: process how things were changing here in terms of rev
Speaker 6: share and how that would work, and explained to him
Speaker 6: how we're going to do that and the money that
Speaker 6: he would have, which it's not everything, but it's extremely important.
Speaker 6: When he had a chance to talk to President Randall
Speaker 6: and his incredible support of athletics. I think he just
Speaker 6: all came together for him. I you know, again, you'd
Speaker 6: have to ask him directly. I think there was a
Speaker 6: series of things. But what I loved talking about him,
Speaker 6: and I've always with him, I should say I've always
Speaker 6: enjoyed this with him anyway, but in this particular instance,
Speaker 6: it was just how thoughtful he was, the kind of
Speaker 6: questions that he asked, and because I think with Alex
Speaker 6: what is probably a little under said is he is
Speaker 6: extremely competitive and he wants to come here and win.
Speaker 6: He's and he's really serious about it, and he's very
Speaker 6: strategic in his thinking about it. So once he believed
Speaker 6: that everything kind of lined up, you know, he strongly
Speaker 6: believed it was time to come home.
Speaker 1: So of course, whether it was Alex Jensen or whether
Speaker 1: it was the ghost of Rickmanjeris or Phil Jackson, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter who the Canada was, Mark, I'm sure they
Speaker 1: all would have asked you the same question, and that is,
Speaker 1: what is the finance infrastructure of the program? What is
Speaker 1: the what are the economics surrounding what we're able to
Speaker 1: do based off of how I can pay players or
Speaker 1: how I can pay staff. Where we at with boosters,
Speaker 1: where are we at with the Crimson Collective, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. My takeaway is simply because Alex took the job,
Speaker 1: he must have liked the answers you gave him.
Speaker 2: Can you shed any light on those conversations?
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, I think the key thing and we're going
Speaker 6: to do some town halls on this for everybody in
Speaker 6: the community that wants to engage with this on this
Speaker 6: because it's a complicated time. But quickly on your radio show,
Speaker 6: you know, July one is another monumental day in the
Speaker 6: history of college athletics. You know, when the settlement's approved,
Speaker 6: and by all indications it appears it will be. We'll
Speaker 6: find out sometime after April seventh. Then everybody gets to
Speaker 6: that cap of twenty million. I think we've talked about
Speaker 6: this before on your show. So what I explained to
Speaker 6: him is how we're going to handle that cap. We're
Speaker 6: certainly going to be at the full amount for the
Speaker 6: University of Utah letics that's allowable with the settlement, and
Speaker 6: obviously our two major revenue sports are going to get
Speaker 6: a majority of that money based on what the settlement's
Speaker 6: all about so, you know, I walk through that number
Speaker 6: with him. We're not going to go public with that
Speaker 6: just yet, but I walk through that number with him.
Speaker 6: And then I also explained this interim period between now
Speaker 6: and you know July one is a period where we
Speaker 6: can call it the wild wild West, can call whatever
Speaker 6: you want, but it's this period that we've kind of
Speaker 6: been in, and so we still can work with the
Speaker 6: Crimson Collective until we move on from that that model. Again,
Speaker 6: always forever grateful for the Garths for setting that up
Speaker 6: for us. And so we have the combination of pretty
Speaker 6: healthy revenue share number after July one, and we've had
Speaker 6: some unbelievable people really lean in, some that have been
Speaker 6: leaning in. I mean, this narrative that we didn't have
Speaker 6: anything is just false. We've been pretty healthy. We could
Speaker 6: always be healthier, I admit that. But so we've got
Speaker 6: a combination of the two for him to build this
Speaker 6: roster going forward. And he was really excited about that.
Speaker 6: And you know, where a revenue share number is going
Speaker 6: forward in the Big twelve is very healthy.
Speaker 1: So there are several wealthy folks who have gone on
Speaker 1: record publicly, whether it's venture capitalist, private equity. I think
Speaker 1: it's Mark Lazri who talked about his desire to potentially
Speaker 1: buy into college football program specifically where we'll use a hypothetical.
Speaker 1: They write you a check for five hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: or whatever the number is, and in exchange, you sell
Speaker 1: them forty nine percent of your football team. Then you
Speaker 1: have five hundred million dollars to play with. And then
Speaker 1: they owned, you know, a good portion of your properties.
Speaker 1: And once college football moves into whatever it's going to
Speaker 1: move in and nobody knows, then obviously they're going to
Speaker 1: make a lot of money. Is that anything you guys
Speaker 1: have considered up with you Well.
Speaker 6: I'll tell you what what I've said on this matter
Speaker 6: before is if we're not looking at anything that makes
Speaker 6: sense for us, then we're not doing our jobs. Certainly,
Speaker 6: coming into the Big Twelve, Commissioner, your markets brought forward
Speaker 6: opportunities in private equity for the conference, different folks that
Speaker 6: would come and invest, summer operators some or not, but
Speaker 6: you know, learning about that has been great. Whether or
Speaker 6: not the Big Twelve decides to do, some of that
Speaker 6: will play out over time, but it's also allowed Taylor
Speaker 6: and I to consider, you know, what would that look
Speaker 6: locally and so you know, as we talk today, no
Speaker 6: one in our space has gone that direction because it's
Speaker 6: very very complicated, right where state institutions and how would
Speaker 6: that all work, and et cetera, et cetera. But when
Speaker 6: you go into a situation where you're going to have
Speaker 6: to now use twenty two to twenty nine percent of
Speaker 6: your revenue student athletes, you have to start thinking differently
Speaker 6: and you have to start doing things differently. So it's
Speaker 6: something that I think that that vetting out makes a
Speaker 6: lot of sense. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 6: it has to make sense, right because if you give
Speaker 6: up forty nine percent of your revenue and you're supporting
Speaker 6: twenty plus sports, you can have a big lump sum.
Speaker 6: But you know that'll go away pretty quick if you're
Speaker 6: not careful in what what can change with the folks
Speaker 6: coming in. But there will be institutions that will do
Speaker 6: it if it makes sense for us, we'll certainly take
Speaker 6: it very seriously.
Speaker 1: News broke a few weeks ago the Huntsman Center, which
Speaker 1: is fifty five years old and a place, I mean,
Speaker 1: I walked in to do my show last Monday, prior
Speaker 1: to AJ's presser, and I've just flooded with great memories,
Speaker 1: and there are other memories that I'm not old enough
Speaker 1: to remember.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is such a historic building.
Speaker 1: But I think it is safe to say a facelift
Speaker 1: or something more certainly could benefit the community. Can you
Speaker 1: illuminate us a little bit on this process and what
Speaker 1: you hope to see once it comes to fruition.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's kind of this alignment of a few things, right,
Speaker 6: I think the president's vision of what he wants to
Speaker 6: do with the campus overall, and encourage people to go
Speaker 6: online and look at that, I mean college Town Magic,
Speaker 6: which he's named it. You know, it would be incredible.
Speaker 6: You know, you talk about restaurants and shopping opportunities on
Speaker 6: campus and a refresh to the student union and all
Speaker 6: of those things. At the same token, we have this
Speaker 6: incredibly awesome arena that does need work, There's no question
Speaker 6: about that. And some of our early looks start to
Speaker 6: suggest you start getting close to what a refurbishment would
Speaker 6: be compared to a new arena. And when those numbers
Speaker 6: start to look similar, of course they wouldn't be totally
Speaker 6: the same, then it starts making you think, Okay, you know,
Speaker 6: we really look at opportunities and options ahead. So we're
Speaker 6: going to follow the president's lead on this and our
Speaker 6: trustees who voted for this. We're going to work really
Speaker 6: hard with our campus partners to look at places we
Speaker 6: could go. A lot of work ahead, nothing imminent, but
Speaker 6: certainly something that we're really excited to examine. And people
Speaker 6: ask me what size or where it would go. Those
Speaker 6: are the questions that we have to dive into and
Speaker 6: really study. At the end of the day, what we
Speaker 6: want to have happened is just a fabulous arena that
Speaker 6: has the type of customer experience that you want, what
Speaker 6: people expect these day days. It has more accessible parking,
Speaker 6: it has ada stand that has all those things at
Speaker 6: the same time provides the very best student athletic experience
Speaker 6: to compete here along with fans that come. So that's
Speaker 6: the work gets ahead and we're really fired up about it.
Speaker 1: So I've known the name Wes Wilcox for a long time,
Speaker 1: and when Pete Thamil reported this as a possibility, I went, wow,
Speaker 1: like that would be a big hire. Wes is very
Speaker 1: well respected, been in the NBA for twenty plus years.
Speaker 1: He's filled a myriad of different roles, including being the
Speaker 1: general manager of an NBA team. He hired Alex and
Speaker 1: Cleveland around the G League team. He's coming from a
Speaker 1: Sacramento team that right now is a little bit of
Speaker 1: a mess. But he becomes the highest ranking NBA official
Speaker 1: to take a college job.
Speaker 2: This is not nothing.
Speaker 1: Of course, a lot of the attention is on Alex,
Speaker 1: but you do have a new general manager, which is
Speaker 1: a new role in the world of sports. I believe
Speaker 1: you referenced this being Alex's higher Is that accurate?
Speaker 6: Well, it's first of all, been great to get to
Speaker 6: know Wes his family. We stuck him out here because
Speaker 6: you know, someone like you would recognize him, and we
Speaker 6: stuck him out here and I got a chance to
Speaker 6: really visit with them. We walked around and was able
Speaker 6: to you know, I got friends in the NBA too,
Speaker 6: was able to learn more about him, and you know,
Speaker 6: he and Alex are very close. So Alex and I,
Speaker 6: you know, we talked about it and I just thought
Speaker 6: it made so much sense. And going back to where
Speaker 6: we started the interview, you know, it was Georg I
Speaker 6: should say it is in the game right now about
Speaker 6: roster management. I mean, whether you're Duke, whether you're anyone
Speaker 6: else in between, or down below. You know, you're building
Speaker 6: these rosters every year. You know this fifty eight to
Speaker 6: sixty two percent turnover every year, So you need extreme organization.
Speaker 6: You got to be in contact with all the agents,
Speaker 6: know them, and it's a lot like again, what they're
Speaker 6: doing in the NBA. You know, I would say even
Speaker 6: more roster movement as you would know. So I'm just
Speaker 6: really excited to have him. His family are just awesome people.
Speaker 6: He'll be out here, I believe as early as tomorrow.
Speaker 6: Can't wait to see him. And give Alex so much
Speaker 6: credit for you know the fact that he's got these
Speaker 6: kind of contacts, but most importantly that they want to
Speaker 6: work with him because the kind of person Alex is,
Speaker 6: so it's just great for the youth. When we got
Speaker 6: the word that he was coming, might.
Speaker 1: Have to knock the NBA knowledge out of my mind, Mark,
Speaker 1: because in the NBA, the coach reports to the GM.
Speaker 1: How does this work with your hierarchy? Do they both
Speaker 1: report to you?
Speaker 5: How's this going to work?
Speaker 7: It's a great question, man, because you're seeing more of
Speaker 7: that right Like at USC, the general manager there has
Speaker 7: got the joint report to Lincoln and to Jim, my friend,
Speaker 7: the ad there.
Speaker 6: I'm not ready for that. You know, I have such
Speaker 6: high belief in our head coaches. So it's set up
Speaker 6: that Alex reports to him. But it's going to be
Speaker 6: a partnership. I should say that he's reporting Alex, and
Speaker 6: that's the way it is. You know, down the line,
Speaker 6: we could see certain changes like that, but I, you know,
Speaker 6: I want this to be the traditional way. We'll see
Speaker 6: if we can still go that way.
Speaker 5: But I.
Speaker 6: He definitely reports to Alex as well the other assistant
Speaker 6: coaches as we continue to fill out the staff. But
Speaker 6: the work that Wes will do working with Alex with
Speaker 6: my team getting into resources they need. Those things all
Speaker 6: have to align. That's our goal, so that we aren't
Speaker 6: watching this tournament, rather we're participating in it.
Speaker 1: Just checking my sen items in my email here, did
Speaker 1: you receive my resume for consideration for the general manager
Speaker 1: of SPOT?
Speaker 2: I believe I sent it over.
Speaker 6: Did you receive the invoice from the Crimson Club and
Speaker 6: the Crimson Collective?
Speaker 2: Well played? Well played? All right? Mark?
Speaker 1: Before I say you lose, I have one spring football question.
Speaker 1: I mean spring football. I mean, it's fun to have
Speaker 1: football back. But here's what has struck me. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you listen to coaches and players and mostly
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, it's going to be back. You know,
Speaker 1: we're positive, we're happy, blah blah blah. But coach Wit
Speaker 1: on a number of different occasions already has said that
Speaker 1: there's more positive energy in the building and surrounding the
Speaker 1: team than there has been in years past, which it
Speaker 1: just struck me because Kyle doesn't suffer fools. He's going
Speaker 1: to tell you what it is, and he's going to
Speaker 1: tell you the truth. I don't know if that's an
Speaker 1: indictment on anyone or anything or the teams in the past.
Speaker 1: Maybe if it was the ambiguity of quarterback and all
Speaker 1: the health issues. But what do you make of Kyle
Speaker 1: saying on multiple occasions already there's just more positive energy
Speaker 1: in the building.
Speaker 6: Well, first of all, it's absolutely accurate. You can feel
Speaker 6: it when you're over there, and you know. So the
Speaker 6: question that you have is why you know I could?
Speaker 6: I could? I could guess, And that's all I can
Speaker 6: do is that the season was hard. It was a
Speaker 6: slog It was filled with injuries and close losses and
Speaker 6: just wasn't us Well, you pull the car back in
Speaker 6: the garage, you make changes, you go out and find
Speaker 6: some new guys on the offense, and it's just it's
Speaker 6: just a different feeling, right. I Mean, you got a
Speaker 6: bunch of leaders on the team that that have been
Speaker 6: to rose bulls and championship games, and they're just the
Speaker 6: taste is there. So you combine the desire of the
Speaker 6: guys along with the staff and and there's a there's
Speaker 6: a lot of mojo. You know, we know there's a
Speaker 6: ton of work ahead. I'm gonna end this in a
Speaker 6: in a bit to get down to practice. But the
Speaker 6: energy out there is is it's it's pulpable. I mean,
Speaker 6: it's it's real, and I think it's gonna bode well.
Speaker 6: And then lastly, you know, it's kind of like we
Speaker 6: know we're not gonna be picked to win. We'll be
Speaker 6: wherever we get picked, and and you know, maybe that's
Speaker 6: not a bad thing for the use, you know, a
Speaker 6: pick against us and we'll see what happens.
Speaker 2: You having any fun with all this going on?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I appreciate that. I got asked by a buddy
Speaker 6: the other day. Listen, it's it's uh, it's still an
Speaker 6: incredible thing to be around young people.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 6: I mean, whether they're getting paid a block or more.
Speaker 6: There's still people pursuing their dreams and you're fostering that
Speaker 6: environment to make sure they can do it. I mean,
Speaker 6: I'd say the best moment I've had is when we
Speaker 6: got worded about our ninety five percent graduation rate, as
Speaker 6: despite two years of transferring in, transferring out and this
Speaker 6: money going there, we're still graduating these incredible people. And
Speaker 6: I think that puts us right up there first or
Speaker 6: second with public schools in the country. And so that's cool, right,
Speaker 6: That's the kind of stuff that when you call it
Speaker 6: a day, that's the stuff you lean on. So still
Speaker 6: loving it. Great interview here, and you know, can't wait
Speaker 6: to see what happens next.
Speaker 1: All right, before I set you loose, you alluded to
Speaker 1: this earlier, and a assistant coaching hire has been made,
Speaker 1: Raphael Chilius, who's very well known and both pro and
Speaker 1: college basketball circles. Of course, a lot of rumors about
Speaker 1: Andre Miller as a gen xer and a ute student
Speaker 1: in the nineties. You bring Andrea into a gym, you
Speaker 1: get instant credibility. You reference the process of filling out
Speaker 1: Alex's staff. Last question for today, where are we at
Speaker 1: in that process.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he's you know now that I think that Wes
Speaker 6: has been secured, you know, Alex, now get on to
Speaker 6: the rest of the group, which he's he's he's he's
Speaker 6: working on you know, he's as I mentioned earlier, he's
Speaker 6: he's kind of not just looking at a typical model
Speaker 6: of kind of what a lot of folks are doing.
Speaker 6: He's more looking at what's gonna work best for him
Speaker 6: and what do you think is going to work best
Speaker 6: for our program. So he's working really hard, you know,
Speaker 6: Like I said, I'm on the phone in them all
Speaker 6: the time. He's got incredible contacts, not only locally here obviously,
Speaker 6: but all over the world. So you know, I anticipate,
Speaker 6: as we've done over the last week or so, we'll
Speaker 6: have we'll have more names coming, whoever they might be.
Speaker 6: I want to protect the process. But what's great is
Speaker 6: watching how thoughtful he's being what he truly believes we
Speaker 6: need going forward, and I have no doubt he'll come
Speaker 6: up with some great guys.
Speaker 1: Mark, thank you, sir for the time. I always appreciate it.
Speaker 1: If we can be of any assistance over this way,
Speaker 1: please let us know.
Speaker 6: Okay, all right, Svince, thank you say hello to poorer for.
Speaker 2: Me, We'll do anybody order.
Speaker 1: Mark says hello, Hey, Mark, all right, Mark Carlin, athletic
Speaker 1: director at University IF brought to you today by if
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Speaker 1: by one of their neighborhood stores.
Speaker 2: Today we got Smitty.
Speaker 1: Live in studio for an entire hour coming up in
Speaker 1: just about I'll call it twenty five minutes right now,
Speaker 1: especially thanks to Mark Harlan athletic director from the University
Speaker 1: of Utah stopping by.
Speaker 2: In the first hour.
Speaker 1: We go from the ad of the utes to the
Speaker 1: voice of the Utes, Bill Riley Thursday Afternoon, Ryle's happy Thursdayuddy, how.
Speaker 2: Are we doing?
Speaker 8: Sorry about the down great spence, Not at all big,
Speaker 8: but you had the big boss on.
Speaker 9: That's good.
Speaker 8: I'm fow tough fact to follow here, Not at all,
Speaker 8: not at all.
Speaker 2: Ryle's always good to have you on?
Speaker 1: You know, I realize I've never asked you the following question,
Speaker 1: what landed you on where the streets have no name
Speaker 1: on your for the intro for show? We had that
Speaker 1: inthrow together for years. I've just never asked you. The
Speaker 1: question just dawned on me.
Speaker 8: Well, I love you too, big U two fan, And
Speaker 8: it's one of those It's got a great build up,
Speaker 8: so you could you know, it's kind of a build
Speaker 8: into the show type. You can play some highlights over
Speaker 8: it or voice track stuff over it. So it was
Speaker 8: one of the few songs that had like a decent build.
Speaker 9: Up to it. Plus I always liked the song too.
Speaker 1: So that's a great song. There's no doubt. There's no
Speaker 1: doubt you've seen you two live.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I've seen them seven times.
Speaker 2: Well, don't be that guy, Bill. You know you don't
Speaker 2: have the brass.
Speaker 8: I've heard you talking about seeing Dave Matthew's band like
Speaker 8: fifteen thousand times.
Speaker 2: You know what, It's funny you bring that up.
Speaker 1: When I was young, I thought it would be cool
Speaker 1: to be the guy that's seen Dave a million times.
Speaker 1: And now that I'm old, when people ask me, I
Speaker 1: truly get embarrassed. I don't like to say the number.
Speaker 8: Okay, well seven, I won't say it again. But the
Speaker 8: last time I saw them was at the Sphere last
Speaker 8: year and it was pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Okay, Bill, you live a life that the rest of
Speaker 2: us dream of. We get it, well, you know.
Speaker 8: I just I've had great seats to see him before.
Speaker 8: But the Sphear thing, it's really really cool. I don't
Speaker 8: I don't know if you if you've been down there yet,
Speaker 8: have you seen anything?
Speaker 2: No, some of us still have to do radio every day.
Speaker 6: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 9: This is when I was still doing radio every day.
Speaker 9: That's when I was still working with you every day.
Speaker 2: I'm just messing with you. Somebody has to I know
Speaker 2: you missed this.
Speaker 9: I do, I do, all right.
Speaker 1: We have the banter, yeah, indeed, and we have a
Speaker 1: lot to get to because I haven't spoken to you
Speaker 1: since the news became official.
Speaker 2: I did see you up at the Huntsman, but you
Speaker 2: were busy with the MC duties.
Speaker 1: So it's Alex, Alex Jensen, it's AJ, it's youte legend,
Speaker 1: it's mister basketball in nineteen ninety four of you Mont High.
Speaker 1: So what's the reaction and what also is your reaction?
Speaker 1: Of the process that unfolded and landed Mark Harlan I
Speaker 1: Alex Jensen.
Speaker 8: Well, I just you know, I mean, you know Alex.
Speaker 8: I know him in passing. You know, we know of
Speaker 8: each other and we chatted a little bit and we
Speaker 8: had a chance to sit down. But you've known him
Speaker 8: for a long time of Spence, he just he checks
Speaker 8: all the boxes of what you want, both as a
Speaker 8: basketball coach but as a representative of a school in
Speaker 8: a university. And then when you factor in the guy
Speaker 8: is from the state of Utah, He's a legend at
Speaker 8: the school. He ties to the golden years, he ties
Speaker 8: to the greatest coach in school history, and he wanted
Speaker 8: to be a head coach, and the opportunity presented itself.
Speaker 8: I just everything fits the boxes. All check here for
Speaker 8: the Alex Jensen higher it's a slam dunk for this program.
Speaker 8: It may not have been a slam dunk if Marquette
Speaker 8: wanted him, or if Villanova wanted him, there might have been,
Speaker 8: but for here and for now, everything checks both the
Speaker 8: basketball side of it and the non basketball side of it.
Speaker 8: So I think it was a really easy hire for
Speaker 8: Mark to make. And the fact that I think Alex
Speaker 8: is ready to make that jump now too, makes it
Speaker 8: even better. And I think he's because of where he's
Speaker 8: been and what he done on the pro level, and
Speaker 8: because of the way collegiate athletics is becoming so much
Speaker 8: more a pro game. I think it's a great hire
Speaker 8: on that side of it too, And I think the
Speaker 8: two hires you've seen him make from Rafael Chilius, who's
Speaker 8: got so many ties to both the NBA college and
Speaker 8: high school, and then the hire yesterday of the general manager,
Speaker 8: to me, I think Alex has had a plan in mind,
Speaker 8: and I think he kind of knew what he wanted
Speaker 8: to get accomplished when he took this job.
Speaker 1: So I asked Mark this question when he joined us
Speaker 1: last hour. I wonder what you believe or perceived to
Speaker 1: be the main difference between because we know, and it's
Speaker 1: really no secret that after Mark elected to move on
Speaker 1: from Larry, he did speak with Alex before landing on Craig,
Speaker 1: and this time around, there are a lot of differences
Speaker 1: on both sides. Quite frankly, it's not just the differences
Speaker 1: on Utah side, it's the differences on Alex's side, who
Speaker 1: probably did the calculation and said you know, there's a chance,
Speaker 1: so maybe I'm not going to be an NBA coach,
Speaker 1: even though I think he'd be a damn good one.
Speaker 1: What do you think the differences were this time around
Speaker 1: that ended up with Alex getting the gig?
Speaker 8: Well, clearly more you know, four more years of experience
Speaker 8: on Alex's side. But I think, go back to what
Speaker 8: I just talked about a minute ago, the way the
Speaker 8: college game has changed and evolved, the way that it's
Speaker 8: now much more a pro hybrid than it is the
Speaker 8: college game that you and I grew up with. And
Speaker 8: I think Alex's experience in that world, both in the
Speaker 8: D League now G League obviously, and in the NBA,
Speaker 8: I think it lends him even more so to today's game.
Speaker 8: I just think that the college game has gotten so
Speaker 8: much closer to the game that Alex has been coaching
Speaker 8: for the better part of, you know, the last seventeen
Speaker 8: eighteen years.
Speaker 9: Then I think I think it would have been a
Speaker 9: good fit.
Speaker 8: I do. I think he would have been a good
Speaker 8: fit four years ago, but I think now even more so,
Speaker 8: with his experience, it makes all the sense in the world.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of conversation, a lot of which has
Speaker 1: happened on this little radio program about people in the
Speaker 1: community believing that former utes need to be the answer
Speaker 1: almost across the board. Now we'll get to Wes Wilcox
Speaker 1: and you reference Rafael chilias neither of who are former utes.
Speaker 1: And you know, Mark was good last hour to kind
Speaker 1: of illuminate us on the process that's going on to
Speaker 1: fill out the rest of the bench. But as somebody,
Speaker 1: I mean, I know you're a transplant, but you've been
Speaker 1: here forever. It's essentially home now, and so you know
Speaker 1: the market and you understand what you need to do
Speaker 1: to traverse the space that sometimes can be a little
Speaker 1: bit complex, but ultimately it's a great place to live.
Speaker 2: Are you one that believes that in order.
Speaker 1: To be on the staff or coach at Utah you
Speaker 1: really need to understand this market?
Speaker 8: No, I don't. I think you have to have people
Speaker 8: on the staff that do understand the market, but I
Speaker 8: don't think the entire.
Speaker 9: Staff has to.
Speaker 8: I think you have to have somebody that understands, whether
Speaker 8: it's an assistant. Alex clear he does because he grew
Speaker 8: up here, went to school here, lived in the market
Speaker 8: even when he wasn't coaching here. But I think people
Speaker 8: can be educated on that. I didn't know this market
Speaker 8: spence when I moved here twenty four years ago. It's
Speaker 8: not that weird to say twenty four years ago now,
Speaker 8: but you adapt quickly, and now I know it as
Speaker 8: well as I think anybody that's probably grown up here,
Speaker 8: because you've got to educate yourself on that. So I
Speaker 8: think people can do that. I think if you can
Speaker 8: find good Utah people to put on your staff, you
Speaker 8: do that. But you have to find good coaches and
Speaker 8: people that fit your philosophy. Alex knows what he wants.
Speaker 8: He didn't really tell me what that was. I kind
Speaker 8: of picked his brain and he kind of gave me
Speaker 8: an idea, but he didn't get into specifics. He did
Speaker 8: tell me that hiring a GM was a top priority,
Speaker 8: and clearly he got his GM yesterday. But I don't
Speaker 8: think that.
Speaker 9: You know, if you can find guys that have ties.
Speaker 8: To the program, whether they were players or staff members
Speaker 8: or whatever that might happen to be, I think that's great.
Speaker 8: But I think in today's day and age, people are
Speaker 8: a lot more adaptable now than they've ever been. I
Speaker 8: think our society in general just moves so fast and
Speaker 8: if you're successful in life, whether it's as a radio host,
Speaker 8: a coach, an attorney, a salesperson, whatever that might happen
Speaker 8: to be, you learn to adapt in assimbily pretty quickly.
Speaker 8: So if there are some people out there with Utah
Speaker 8: ties that Alex wants to bring on the staff, hey,
Speaker 8: that's great. But I don't think that that is a
Speaker 8: prerequisite for joining this. But I do think having somebody
Speaker 8: that has lifetime knowledge and such a feel for the program,
Speaker 8: I think that certainly helps, and I think Alex fills
Speaker 8: that role, But I don't think you have to have
Speaker 8: a staff full of that.
Speaker 1: Reference Raphael Chilias or coach chill as his nickname is
Speaker 1: on Twitter. What Ryles is a good nickname. But build
Speaker 1: a chill? I mean, is there anything there.
Speaker 2: Can we roll with? Bill the chill?
Speaker 8: Would build a chill?
Speaker 9: Or will the chill? Better?
Speaker 2: Well? Will the chill? Isn't that?
Speaker 1: Wasn't that the third basement from the Giants back in
Speaker 1: the day?
Speaker 8: That was will? That was will the thrill? Will the
Speaker 8: thrill the first basement?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I will say, you're you're more chill as you've I
Speaker 1: think Bill the chill actually works because you are more
Speaker 1: chill than you used to be.
Speaker 2: Is that fair?
Speaker 8: I don't know if that we can have two guys
Speaker 8: working in the same department that have the chill as
Speaker 8: a nickname. So I think Coach Chill's probably got that
Speaker 8: over me.
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll stay with Ryles.
Speaker 1: Who was it when you and Donny were calling RSL
Speaker 1: games who said they were gonna nickname you the Killer Bees?
Speaker 2: And I had to put an end of that?
Speaker 9: Was he you?
Speaker 1: No, I was the one that said we're not doing that.
Speaker 1: I just can't remember who it was that just came
Speaker 1: to my mind. But the reason I bring him up
Speaker 1: is I don't know him. We've had some guests on
Speaker 1: the show that do and apparently, you know, like for instance,
Speaker 1: Sharif Shah right, Sharif up with the Football Program is
Speaker 1: known for his front facing, outward personality and apparently Coach
Speaker 1: Chill is kind of like that.
Speaker 2: And I don't know him, so I mean anxious to
Speaker 2: get to know him.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that I just wonder about
Speaker 1: Alex and I don't think this is a bad thing,
Speaker 1: I want to be clear, but he is introspective. He's
Speaker 1: a bit of an introvert. If you want the personality
Speaker 1: that lies with his bride. Okay, that's kind of how
Speaker 1: it goes. And so I wonder if the fact that
Speaker 1: coach Chill happens to be more of like a front
Speaker 1: facing more of I don't want to say affable.
Speaker 2: Alex is a sweet guy. He just is more of
Speaker 2: an introvert.
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's a little bit of a yin
Speaker 1: and a yang there, because Rafael Chilius is thought to
Speaker 1: be more of an extra extrovert as opposed to the
Speaker 1: introverted nature of AJ Well.
Speaker 8: I think every good staff has to have some different
Speaker 8: personalities on it, you know. Sometimes you have a fiery coach,
Speaker 8: you have to have that buffer assistant coach that can
Speaker 8: kind of be in between there. Alex, as you said,
Speaker 8: is a very introverted, kind of introspective, a little more
Speaker 8: soft spoken guy. Maybe I've only met Rafael once. I
Speaker 8: met him in the hallway the day he was hired
Speaker 8: up here, and we talked for about.
Speaker 9: Five to five minutes.
Speaker 8: But then once I met him, I made some calls
Speaker 8: around the basketball world, and everybody thought it was a
Speaker 8: slam dunk higher from some NBA people I talked to
Speaker 8: to some college people that I talked to, So that
Speaker 8: might that might be that your your point, he might
Speaker 8: be that bigger personality out on the recruiting trail. I mean,
Speaker 8: you've read the resume, You've seen some of the guys
Speaker 8: that he's both coached and recruited and developed. Uh, there's
Speaker 8: a lot of guys from you know, from from the
Speaker 8: Yukon Days and beyond. Did you, by the way, in
Speaker 8: high school ever play North Kenth Prep?
Speaker 2: I did not, but I spent a summer at Saint
Speaker 2: Thomas Moore.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: And when I was at St.
Speaker 1: Thomas Moore, we did play with players that played up there.
Speaker 1: Like the prep school scene in Connecticut is insanely competitive.
Speaker 2: When I was at Saint Thomas.
Speaker 1: Moore, the other guard was Ed Coda, who was the
Speaker 1: starting starting point guard of Carolina. So, you know, not consistently,
Speaker 1: but I'm familiar with the school because a lot of
Speaker 1: players end up going because when you go up to
Speaker 1: southern Connecticut for prep school, you just can't get any trouble.
Speaker 1: So I go up there, you know, just play basketball,
Speaker 1: get your grades up. So it's not uncommon to have
Speaker 1: tremendous talent besides me up there, you know, playing for
Speaker 1: those Connecticut prep schools.
Speaker 8: Well, I mean you of course you know ed code
Speaker 8: all right. He had an okay go of it, but
Speaker 8: you know, he coached Alan Wright's brother, Durrell Wright.
Speaker 9: He developed a lot of those Yukon gas.
Speaker 8: I just I think it's a great hire because he's
Speaker 8: got ties in all places, from the prep school area
Speaker 8: to the college area to having been in the know.
Speaker 8: He came to Utah from Memphis, where he was a
Speaker 8: personnel guy. I'm very curious to see and I didn't
Speaker 8: hear your interview with Mark because I was tied up
Speaker 8: with something. I'm you know, like everybody, I'm just kind
Speaker 8: of curious to see who some of the other staff
Speaker 8: hires are here in where they're at, because you know,
Speaker 8: the head coach is one thing, but you've got to
Speaker 8: surround yourself with a good staff, and if you surround
Speaker 8: yourself with a good statf you're going to be in
Speaker 8: pretty good shape.
Speaker 1: Are you hearing anything about Andre specifically on his way
Speaker 1: potentially to beyond Alex's bench.
Speaker 8: No, I've not heard anything different than some of the
Speaker 8: rumors that you got as have heard out there. I'd
Speaker 8: heard that he had interest in coming here, but it's
Speaker 8: I've not heard anything different from that recently. So there
Speaker 8: was a lot of chatter about it when Alex first
Speaker 8: got the job, but I haven't heard anything further from that,
Speaker 8: so I don't have anything to add to that. I
Speaker 8: know that a year ago Andrea was very interested in
Speaker 8: just joining the staff in any way, shape or form,
Speaker 8: and that didn't happen. Then you would think that there
Speaker 8: might be an opportunity with obviously him and Alex having
Speaker 8: been teammates, But I've not heard any news on that front.
Speaker 1: So while I was unfamiliar with Raphael chilias certainly familiar
Speaker 1: with Wes Wilcox. I mean when I saw the Pete
Speaker 1: Dama report, I went, wait, wats I mean, he's been
Speaker 1: a general manager, He's run an NBA team. He ran
Speaker 1: the Hawks for three years, he was their assistant GM
Speaker 1: prior to that. He's been a high level executive and
Speaker 1: has served a bunch of different roles in the NBA
Speaker 1: for basically twenty two years. Like you, fans need to
Speaker 1: know like this, this is a good hire that signals
Speaker 1: intent the same way the Alex hire signals intents. I
Speaker 1: don't know what they're paying him, Bill, but I know
Speaker 1: what NBA gms make and I wouldn't be stunned if
Speaker 1: this is close to a seven figure deal.
Speaker 2: I don't know that.
Speaker 1: I want to be clear, so I know this is
Speaker 1: a name that's unfamiliar in the market, but I can
Speaker 1: promise you this is a good hire with a smart
Speaker 1: basketball executive and mark last Hour reference that Wes will
Speaker 1: report probably to Alex. In the NBA, the coach reports
Speaker 1: to the GM, but this is kind of going to
Speaker 1: be an opposite thing there. So tell me your thoughts
Speaker 1: on this new general manager that's going to roll into
Speaker 1: town and help Alex build this thing.
Speaker 8: When I talked to Alex today, he was here for
Speaker 8: the press conference and everything he's hit. My top priority
Speaker 8: is getting a general manager in place. What I didn't
Speaker 8: know at the time was Wes was here. Wes made
Speaker 8: the trip. I saw him at lunch with Alex and
Speaker 8: a big group of people, and I wasn't sure who
Speaker 8: he was, to be fair, at the time, I thought
Speaker 8: at first it might have been Alex's agent, because sometimes
Speaker 8: sometimes your agent will come on a trip. That it
Speaker 8: was Wes, and when when Alex told me that that
Speaker 8: was a priority, I knew he was very serious about it.
Speaker 8: And Spence this is the way now, whether it's football
Speaker 8: or whether it's basketball, you have to have somebody because
Speaker 8: it's it's as we've talked about, there's there's this is
Speaker 8: a real money deal.
Speaker 9: Now you're not just.
Speaker 8: Talking about scholarships anymore. You're talking about, you know, negotiating
Speaker 8: with agents. You're not negotiating with somebody's uncle or their
Speaker 8: AAU coach anymore. You're now negotiating with agents and you're
Speaker 8: managing in essence, a salary cap that you have, So
Speaker 8: you need to have somebody on that. But but I
Speaker 8: think on the other side of it too, because as
Speaker 8: you just said, he's had so many jobs in the NBA,
Speaker 8: I think a guy like Wes is going to be
Speaker 8: able to also help out on the personnel side because
Speaker 8: we all know this. Now you're going to be looking
Speaker 8: at international players, You're going to be looking at players
Speaker 8: that are are for potential portal bounds. You're gonna you're
Speaker 8: gonna be evaluating talent year round. This is not a oh,
Speaker 8: we're going to recruit in the spring and summer anymore.
Speaker 8: So to have this position with somebody with his credentials,
Speaker 8: to me is a huge thing. And much like you,
Speaker 8: I reached out to a couple of people, including Bobby Marx,
Speaker 8: who you know I used to have on my show
Speaker 8: quite a bit. And Bobby said, this is a great
Speaker 8: hire for Utah basketball. So I'm sure you've I'm sure
Speaker 8: you Smitty will talk about it as well. But I
Speaker 8: think this is another one. You know, there's people that
Speaker 8: are like, well, they're getting serious about this. I think
Speaker 8: when you make hires like this, that really shows, Okay,
Speaker 8: we're in this game now, we're serious about upping our
Speaker 8: level and upping our game to match what some of
Speaker 8: the big boys are doing around college basketball right now.
Speaker 1: And maybe Ryle's like, we can't ignore the fact that
Speaker 1: the team about forty miles down south who's going to
Speaker 1: play tonight has a model in place that so far
Speaker 1: has proven to be proof of concept.
Speaker 2: And I don't know.
Speaker 1: And Mark actually said, and let me repeat this for
Speaker 1: listeners that the Mark Harlan interview, he referenced to town
Speaker 1: Hall that they're going to hold after the house settlement
Speaker 1: is expected. They're going to learn the details in April
Speaker 1: and then July first is when they expect to have
Speaker 1: everything done. And after that, Mark reference to town Hall,
Speaker 1: he's going to hold to answer more specific questions.
Speaker 2: But if BYU's paying a j.
Speaker 1: Debants is seven million bucks for five months of basketball
Speaker 1: and the reports are cannon catchings and jegor demon or
Speaker 1: seven figure players, they're obviously spending a lot of money
Speaker 1: down South to build a roster, and they're obviously doing
Speaker 1: it in a way that has shown that it's the
Speaker 1: right way, at least so far. How much of this
Speaker 1: do you think is a reaction to what's happening down
Speaker 1: in Provo.
Speaker 8: I don't think the people have been you know, you've
Speaker 8: heard the same conversation, Oh, they've hired a pro coach
Speaker 8: because BYU did now they hired a guy that was
Speaker 8: a really good coach that's got ties to the program,
Speaker 8: who just so happened to be in the pros. But
Speaker 8: I think the other stuff, and the hiring of the
Speaker 8: GM and some of this, some of this stuff, I think,
Speaker 8: I don't know that it's a direct reaction necessarily to BYU,
Speaker 8: but BYU might be the closest school when they happen
Speaker 8: to be a rival that is now kind of, you know,
Speaker 8: kind of doing what college basketball is trending in the
Speaker 8: direction what some of the other people in college basketball
Speaker 8: are doing and you might say that they were maybe
Speaker 8: a little bit of ahead of the curve a year
Speaker 8: ago when they decided to do this. More and more
Speaker 8: people are jumping on board with this now. I don't
Speaker 8: know that it's a direct reaction to say BYU though
Speaker 8: they're close, But I just think it's a reaction to
Speaker 8: really what it's going to cost to do business now
Speaker 8: in the big time world of college basketball.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this.
Speaker 1: You know, the Big Twelve wasn't the best conference in
Speaker 1: college basketball this year.
Speaker 2: That was clearly the SEC.
Speaker 1: But every single year the Big Twelve will be top
Speaker 1: two or three, and some years it will be back
Speaker 1: at the top. I mean, you're a Kansas guy, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've heard about their incoming recruiting class, like they're
Speaker 1: going to be stacked next year and Houston's not going
Speaker 1: anywhere if BYU gets the bulk of their roster back,
Speaker 1: and I do think they will. Outside of Yegor, I
Speaker 1: think gone, they're probably gonna be preseason top fifteen, maybe
Speaker 1: even higher.
Speaker 2: Then there's Arizona. I could keep going, and.
Speaker 1: I've talked to a lot of people, like what's reasonable
Speaker 1: expectations in your opinion year one for Utah basketball under
Speaker 1: Alex in the Big twelve. And I've had a few
Speaker 1: people say, well, maybe top six or seven. Guess what
Speaker 1: if your top six or seven in the Big twelve,
Speaker 1: you're an NCAA tournament team. Right So we don't know
Speaker 1: who's gonna play for Alex. It's impossible to accurately analyze
Speaker 1: right now. But what's a Bill Riiley reasonal expectation? You're
Speaker 1: one in the Big twelve under Alex Jensen?
Speaker 8: Well, yeah, I think you know, it would be unheard
Speaker 8: of to go and win the league next year, but
Speaker 8: who knows. I think we'll have a better feel for this.
Speaker 9: When we see how they fail out the roster.
Speaker 8: But you know, I think it's realistic to say, and
Speaker 8: we've seen other teams do this. Iowa State didd with
Speaker 8: tj Otselberger. If you're able to identify the right talent
Speaker 8: to bring them in, you don't have to have ten
Speaker 8: all stars in the first year, So you don't what
Speaker 8: you need to have this two or three difference makers
Speaker 8: to go with a good corps of guys, and you
Speaker 8: have two or three difference makers. And to be fair,
Speaker 8: Utah hasn't had a lot of difference makers in the
Speaker 8: last couple of years. But if you can find a
Speaker 8: couple of those guys to go with a good core,
Speaker 8: that's what BYU has, you know, by you have, I'll
Speaker 8: be honest. I mean Yegor Demon if he's drafted, is
Speaker 8: a lottery pick.
Speaker 9: It's on potential. He's had games.
Speaker 8: Where he has he's looked very much like a freshman.
Speaker 8: But Richie Saunders is the star of that team. But
Speaker 8: what they've found is they found two or three really
Speaker 8: good players and surrounded them with a terrific cast. If
Speaker 8: Utah is able to go out and find two or
Speaker 8: three difference makers and surround them with a good supporting cast,
Speaker 8: to your points, Spence, I don't think it's out of
Speaker 8: the realm of possibility to say you could be a
Speaker 8: top six or seven team, maybe eight team in the
Speaker 8: league next year, and you could be certainly competing for
Speaker 8: NANCAA Tournament Berth next year.
Speaker 2: I rose before I say you lose.
Speaker 1: You know, spring football is an excuse just to talk
Speaker 1: about football, and it's good for the Attics to get
Speaker 1: there fix and to be reminded that yes, football will
Speaker 1: return and you're gonna be okay. So most of the
Speaker 1: things I hear report like of Nate Johnson's fast you
Speaker 1: don't say like okay, like most of the stuff I
Speaker 1: hear reported, I've just kind of let let go. But
Speaker 1: I'll listen to coaches, I'll listen to players, and when
Speaker 1: something kind of piques my interest, and as my intennas
Speaker 1: go up, I do pay attention. And on more than
Speaker 1: one occasion, coach Witt has said there's more positive energy
Speaker 1: in this building than there has been in a while.
Speaker 1: And Kyle doesn't suffer fools. He's a straight shooter. He's
Speaker 1: gonna tell you the truth. And to me, that's not nothing.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to make anything out of it as
Speaker 1: far as blaming certain elements in the past, as far
Speaker 1: as ambiguity the quarterback position, or injuries all over the place.
Speaker 1: But when Kyle has said on multiple occasions there's just
Speaker 1: more positive energy in the building than in years past,
Speaker 1: to me, that does say something, even though most spring
Speaker 1: football storylines are a whole lot of nothing.
Speaker 2: Tell me what you make of.
Speaker 8: That, Bill, No, I think it's I've been out to
Speaker 8: practice three time spence and I'm in the building all
Speaker 8: the time, because that's one of you know, I split
Speaker 8: my time between the Huntsman and the football building, and
Speaker 8: there is a different energy and vibe this spring around
Speaker 8: the program. Maybe it's just, you know, Kyle coming back.
Speaker 8: Maybe there's something to that that's settled down. I think
Speaker 8: a lot of it has to do with the new
Speaker 8: offensive staff. Not completely new, but you've got a new
Speaker 8: offensive coordinator Jason Beck.
Speaker 9: You've got a new running.
Speaker 8: Backs coach, and Mark ottawaya mikeah Simon's coaching wide receivers.
Speaker 8: When you're at practice, it's a different energy and a
Speaker 8: different vibe than it's been the last couple of years.
Speaker 8: There's some new play You've got a new quarterback who's
Speaker 8: an energetic, big personality guy who will chirp back and
Speaker 8: forth with some of the defensive guys from time to time.
Speaker 8: So I think that's a lot of it.
Speaker 9: I just think there's some newness in there.
Speaker 8: And again it goes back there was nothing wrong with
Speaker 8: Andy Ludwigs offense or any of that, but just sometimes
Speaker 8: when you freshen things up a little bit, it brings
Speaker 8: a little bit of a new energy, and I think
Speaker 8: we're seeing a lot of that, at least some of
Speaker 8: the practices I've been out to this spring.
Speaker 2: My guy, appreciate the time, always illuminating the way.
Speaker 8: Who do you got tonight? Do you have BYU or Alabama?
Speaker 1: You know, ultimately I think Bama gets it done. Look,
Speaker 1: BYU holds the record thirty two NCAA appearances with no
Speaker 1: Final four. That's not going to end this year because
Speaker 1: if they beat Bama, they get Duke. But they you know,
Speaker 1: Alabama plays a lot like they do, and Alabama plays a.
Speaker 2: Lot like Wisconsin does.
Speaker 1: Okay, and you know by you needed a borderline historic
Speaker 1: performance to be Wisconsin. But ultimately I wouldn't touch the line.
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be a great game and it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a shootout. But Alabama went to the Final
Speaker 1: four last year. The series kid is an All American
Speaker 1: and BYU when they have struggled this year, it's been
Speaker 1: against elite athleticism and speed and Bama has that, so
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be stunned it's a one off. BYU's playing
Speaker 1: so well. But I do think Bama wins a high scoring,
Speaker 1: close game. What about you?
Speaker 9: I think so too.
Speaker 8: But I think it's a game in the eighties, maybe nine,
Speaker 8: maybe the first team to ninety wins tonight. I'll tell
Speaker 8: you the team that I love. I just I saw
Speaker 8: him in person this year, and I think this is
Speaker 8: the year for this guy.
Speaker 9: I think Houston. I think this is the year for
Speaker 9: Kelvin Samson. Those guys. I've never seen anybody.
Speaker 8: Warm up harder or play harder than that team. And
Speaker 8: they've got some guys who can shoot it and score
Speaker 8: the basketball, not just guys that are great athletes.
Speaker 9: I think Houston's they.
Speaker 8: May cut down the net. So I don't know, but
Speaker 8: there's something about that team that I really like, and
Speaker 8: I love the way they play.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. Man, they're really really good. Bill,
Speaker 1: I appreciate the time.
Speaker 5: Man, be good.
Speaker 9: Okay, Well, Julius Fence.
Speaker 1: Voice of the You. It's Bill Riley brought to you today.
Speaker 1: But I love volleyball. Love volleyball is back with games
Speaker 1: on April fourth and fifth at the Bruins Arena. Our
Speaker 1: next guest is definitely dangerous. He's definitely honest. The question
Speaker 1: is does he know what he wants? He is Richard Smith.
Speaker 1: He's live in the studio for the next hour. Smitty dangerous, honest.
Speaker 1: I know that about you. But do you know what
Speaker 1: you want?
Speaker 10: These these are all major questions that people have been
Speaker 10: asking about me.
Speaker 5: For most of my life. Oh yeah, this is nothing new.
Speaker 2: Where are we at today?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 10: Hey, by the way, like I thought, I thought my
Speaker 10: so called intro song was was where the Streets have
Speaker 10: No Name? And then I hear Bill Bill Riley gets it,
Speaker 10: and then I hear, well, this is what we used
Speaker 10: to use or whatever. And so obviously Porter just elbows
Speaker 10: me right to the side, into the gutter and he
Speaker 10: goes with something else, and and I got you know,
Speaker 10: I see, I see what's going on here now?
Speaker 2: Porter, you want to stand up for yourself.
Speaker 5: I'm out, I'm out.
Speaker 10: Of town for a couple of weeks, and all of
Speaker 10: a sudden, it's just you know, bing bang boom.
Speaker 2: I don't think he gets the context, but I'll let
Speaker 2: you go first.
Speaker 11: I mean, a man wants his walk up song, You
Speaker 11: want his walk up song?
Speaker 2: That was? That was the intro to Bill's show for
Speaker 2: the years.
Speaker 5: I know, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You know what, if you want, we got one more
Speaker 1: segment with you. We can bring a little the Streets
Speaker 1: out No Name if you want. But my question remains
Speaker 1: still on this day, do you know what you want.
Speaker 1: We know you're honest, we know you're dangerous, But do
Speaker 1: you know what you want?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 10: I always know what I want, Spencer. Right now, what
Speaker 10: I want I want to be able to spend a
Speaker 10: good solid hour getting education. You all things utes, basketball,
Speaker 10: youte football, by U basketball, jazz. I know you have
Speaker 10: all the answers for the jazz. You know that's what
Speaker 10: we've been waiting for all year long.
Speaker 2: S Matty, you're the one that educates. I just asked
Speaker 2: the questions, No.
Speaker 10: This is If this is the premise, then we're in
Speaker 10: a lot of trouble. Let me tell you.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you what you're uniquely qualified to talk
Speaker 1: about the UH and we'll do mostly college hoops here
Speaker 1: and I don't know, maybe we'll do some jazz. Alex Jensen,
Speaker 1: it is official. Since you and I last spoke last Monday,
Speaker 1: we were up at the Huntsman Center doing the show,
Speaker 1: which was a lot of fun. You worked with Alex
Speaker 1: Jensen closely with the Utah Jazz for a number of
Speaker 1: years and we have discussed this. But now that the
Speaker 1: news is official, Smitty, what should Ute fans know about
Speaker 1: the seventeenth head coach in Utah men's basketball history.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 10: Well, well Alex is obviously everybody one of One of
Speaker 10: the key things I think right right off the bat,
Speaker 10: Spence is that for just for Utah fans, is that
Speaker 10: there's no acquainted period. There's no like, Okay, who's this guy,
Speaker 10: what's he about? What's what?
Speaker 6: What?
Speaker 10: What is this going to look like? Everybody in this community.
Speaker 10: Everybody who's a Utah fan knows Alex Jensen, knows who
Speaker 10: he is, knows what he's about.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 10: They know his lineage, they know his background, they know
Speaker 10: all the experience he's had as both a player collegiately
Speaker 10: and professionally overseas and then in his coaching career and
Speaker 10: so so none of that is is uh is they
Speaker 10: get to know me period. So so everybody's hitting the
Speaker 10: ground running in that regard. You know, he knows what
Speaker 10: he's doing. It's just you know again, Uh, it's just
Speaker 10: it's just going to be a question for the utes
Speaker 10: of you know, how long it takes them on the
Speaker 10: recruiting trail to start getting guys uh that can compete
Speaker 10: you know, the big twelve level and uh and be
Speaker 10: able to go to war night in the night out
Speaker 10: and I'll tell you what. They got two great people
Speaker 10: working with him right off the bat in Raphael Chilias
Speaker 10: and Wes Wilcox. Those are two guys I know, and
Speaker 10: two guys who are really big gets for Alex, and
Speaker 10: so I'm excited for them because that is a good
Speaker 10: start to building a great foundation in terms of your staff.
Speaker 5: And your programs.
Speaker 1: See this is good because I don't think there's anybody
Speaker 1: else in the market that knows Raphael Chilias and Wes Wilcox.
Speaker 2: I certainly don't.
Speaker 1: I know Wes's pedigree more than I know coach chills pedigree.
Speaker 1: But let's start with Rafael Chilias, who is the first
Speaker 1: assistant that Alex has hired. And when you read through
Speaker 1: his background, he's done a lot of different jobs at
Speaker 1: a lot of different levels, high school, college, and pro
Speaker 1: very well known in circles that you run in. So
Speaker 1: what should you fans know about this new assistant coach.
Speaker 10: Well, he's first and foremost, he's a top flight recruiter,
Speaker 10: and he's a guy who knows all the grassroots. He
Speaker 10: knows all the AAU people, he knows all the guys
Speaker 10: around the country West coast, East coast, in the South.
Speaker 10: He knows how to get into homes into with with
Speaker 10: agents now that that that are working a lot for
Speaker 10: these high school kids and even the portal kids. And
Speaker 10: you know, he's a guy who knows the landscape. He
Speaker 10: knows all the levels. Spence, you're talking about the prep level,
Speaker 10: which is you know for people around here. I'm familiar
Speaker 10: with that and it's a big thing on the East Coast.
Speaker 10: But the prep level is the high school level. So
Speaker 10: you talk about the top of kids who want you know,
Speaker 10: Donovan Mitchell was a prep, prep school kid, you know,
Speaker 10: from from New England. You know all these these this level.
Speaker 10: He knows those guys. He knows everybody in college. He
Speaker 10: was a great recruiter for Lorenzo Romar in two different
Speaker 10: stints when he was at the University of Washington and
Speaker 10: had it rolling up there for a while. And and
Speaker 10: of course he's been working in the NBA and in
Speaker 10: a couple of different stints with player development, so he's
Speaker 10: got the full scope of the landscape of what you
Speaker 10: need to do and who you need to get in with.
Speaker 10: So now he's the guy who can can get into doors,
Speaker 10: can get the ear of some kids, some agents, and
Speaker 10: then you know from there, you know, what the what's
Speaker 10: the U offering, what's their program, what it's what's it
Speaker 10: gonna look like? Or how's Alex gonna coach him? All
Speaker 10: that kind of stuff. But uh, Chill will be a great,
Speaker 10: a great resource for him in that regard.
Speaker 8: Uh.
Speaker 10: And then Wes Wilcox, of course is uh you know,
Speaker 10: is a proven veteran NBA guy who's worked his way up,
Speaker 10: you know, from a college and the intern you know,
Speaker 10: to a video coordinator, through being an assistant coach on
Speaker 10: the staff, to being to being in the front office
Speaker 10: with player uh play a personnel uh and being a
Speaker 10: GM in Atlanta.
Speaker 5: And now assistant gym and in Sacramento.
Speaker 10: So they've got they've got two main guys in key
Speaker 10: positions who are top flight guys that you would want
Speaker 10: when you're trying to retool in a situation like the
Speaker 10: U is. So I'm not sure that you can have
Speaker 10: a better start to assembling a staff than getting guys
Speaker 10: like coach Jill and like Wes Wilcox.
Speaker 1: You know what, Porter, I've decided something. I need a
Speaker 1: cool nickname, like everybody has. We just had Bill on Ryles.
Speaker 1: We got Smitty coach chill ll cool tray ll cool
Speaker 1: Tray maybe the coolest nickname? Do you have a cool nickname?
Speaker 1: Because I think I need a cooler nickname than than
Speaker 1: what I have. I don't really all right, we need
Speaker 1: to work on that. You and I coach chill, Smitty Ryles.
Speaker 1: My grandpa did nickname me Doobie when I was young.
Speaker 1: He called me Spencer Dooby.
Speaker 3: See that That's where we had our issue is because
Speaker 3: that's literally what my family has called me since I
Speaker 3: was a baby.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so Porter and I have the same nickname,
Speaker 1: but but Dooby has double meanings. My grandfather certainly had
Speaker 1: no context for what doubey meant. When I got into
Speaker 1: high school, my brother DearS.
Speaker 3: Did so my my family called my dad. No one
Speaker 3: knew his real name. It was Doobie because when he
Speaker 3: was a baby be he was wrapped up in a
Speaker 3: little thing and his his aunt, who they left called
Speaker 3: him made him said he looked like a little Doobey
Speaker 3: because he was wrapped up in a white blanket.
Speaker 11: I see you as Doobie.
Speaker 2: Forever, I still, Smitty.
Speaker 1: You knew my mother's father, my grandfather, There's no way
Speaker 1: he knew what a Doobie was I can promise you
Speaker 1: that I have no idea why he decided to call
Speaker 1: me Spencer Dooby. And then I get in a high school,
Speaker 1: I'm like, you want me to smoke a what? What
Speaker 1: are you talking about? So Smitty, we need to work
Speaker 1: on this. I need a cooler nickname than what Hey.
Speaker 10: I think you guys could could easily go around with
Speaker 10: matching t shirts that say Doob one and Doob two,
Speaker 10: Like I think I think that's something that you guys
Speaker 10: could roll with.
Speaker 1: But we could be sued because the Doobie brothers might
Speaker 1: take issue.
Speaker 5: You spell it differently. You know you spell it do ob.
Speaker 5: Why you spell it do ob?
Speaker 2: I so you're an idea like that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, you do some trick thing with it, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me but let me ask you about coach
Speaker 1: Chill's personality, because you know, Alex is a little reserved
Speaker 1: and he's a little more introverted.
Speaker 2: And it's not a bad thing. I mean, it's just
Speaker 2: is a thing.
Speaker 1: So when it comes to kind of that yin and
Speaker 1: the yang, is he the type of person that's a
Speaker 1: little bit more front facing than Alex tends to be.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and and and and Uh.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 10: Coach Chill is is. Uh, he's a great gregarious person.
Speaker 10: He's an outgoing guy.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 10: That's how you get to uh be able to be
Speaker 10: sustained in this business, if that's what your niche is, Uh,
Speaker 10: being able to get into into homes relative to recruiting,
Speaker 10: being able to make get relationships and sustain them with agents,
Speaker 10: with coaches, you know, in the grassroots level. Uh, that's
Speaker 10: what he's been able to do, you know, for a
Speaker 10: long long time. He's well known, he's he is the
Speaker 10: kind of guy who will be outgoing more so than Alex.
Speaker 10: He'll be a kind of guy who, you know, maybe
Speaker 10: on the bench, you know, and Alex is more of
Speaker 10: a subtle, you know, quiet leader, and and Chill will
Speaker 10: be the kind of guy who's you know, ranting and
Speaker 10: rais being on the sideline yelling at the kids or something,
Speaker 10: and Alex may just be there pointing to a spot
Speaker 10: or two or say, you know, get over here, whatever,
Speaker 10: and uh, you know, in the heat of the battles,
Speaker 10: so to speak. But uh, he'll serve as a great
Speaker 10: counterbalance uh to Alex in that regard, you know, which
Speaker 10: is I don't know if that's planned, if that if
Speaker 10: that just happens to be, you know, part of the makeup.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 10: I think I think coach Chill's uh track record and resume,
Speaker 10: you know, is what really got him in the in
Speaker 10: the his foot in the door in terms of being
Speaker 10: considered for a job like this, and and in the
Speaker 10: conference like the Big Twelve where you have to go
Speaker 10: against you know a lot of heavyweights, and in the
Speaker 10: recruiting battles, you know, and so so that's that's that's
Speaker 10: a big time get in my opinion, you know, for
Speaker 10: the you No.
Speaker 1: It's really good to know, it's really good context. You're
Speaker 1: the guy that knows a lot of people in this
Speaker 1: ecosystem that most do not, So that's good to know.
Speaker 1: And you know, coach Wait has Shreef Shaw, who's more
Speaker 1: of like a front feet seen kind of our word.
Speaker 1: Funny dude, didn't I was trying to think of like
Speaker 1: the Jerry phil dynamic. I mean, Jerry was the guy
Speaker 1: that was kind of firing and Phill is the one
Speaker 1: that's trying to make sure he doesn't get ejected. But
Speaker 1: in coaching staffs, it does help to have different types
Speaker 1: of personality.
Speaker 10: Of course, you know, in the early years of the
Speaker 10: jazz you know, Frank Frank Layden was the gregarious, outgoing guy.
Speaker 10: Jerry Sloan, you know, was the hard nose you know,
Speaker 10: a teacher, a former player guy, and and and that
Speaker 10: balanced off, you know, at that time Scott Leyden was
Speaker 10: on the bench, and Scott was a studious guy, you know,
Speaker 10: and and was really involved in the UH in the
Speaker 10: scouting and and the the pro scouting advanced scouting game
Speaker 10: planning that consot say had a balance around a lot
Speaker 10: of that. Now, one thing I was interested to hear
Speaker 10: from Mark Harlan in your interview earlier with him where
Speaker 10: where I think he said it. I don't know if
Speaker 10: it was you. I think he here's what who mentioned
Speaker 10: that they maybe, uh, they may end up with a
Speaker 10: smaller staff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I thought you would like that.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 10: I just think that that, you know, I think if
Speaker 10: they're looking at things, I think it's you know, you know,
Speaker 10: you can have in my opinion, you know, there is
Speaker 10: such a thing as too many cooks in the you know,
Speaker 10: totally agree with you, and and you know, staffs have
Speaker 10: grown over the years and people have different responsibilities. But
Speaker 10: but I do think there's been a wave and this
Speaker 10: isn't isn't new you know, last ten, fifteen, even twenty years,
Speaker 10: and in both college and the NBA, where where organizations
Speaker 10: are afraid that they're missing something if they don't have
Speaker 10: somebody who fits the role that the other guys have,
Speaker 10: and if the other guys are having any success, then
Speaker 10: it's a copycat situation. Right, So you get you get
Speaker 10: staffs where there's you know, seventeen guys in the in
Speaker 10: the in the pullovers and in the half zips, on
Speaker 10: the on the on the bench, and you're going, well,
Speaker 10: they have more coaches than they have players on the
Speaker 10: thing and whatever. Both yeah, both collegeen and pro you know,
Speaker 10: and it's uh, and it's overkill, you know. I mean, Uh,
Speaker 10: Gary Briggs are great trainer for the jazz and the
Speaker 10: in the in the two thousands. You know, he used
Speaker 10: to do the job when he was in Cleveland. We
Speaker 10: were talking one night about this where uh he did
Speaker 10: the job uh in the early days where now there
Speaker 10: are literally six other full time people doing the different
Speaker 10: responsibilities that he used to do by himself.
Speaker 2: And Gary probably didn't get six the money.
Speaker 5: No, that's exactly right.
Speaker 10: And so you know, these things can be done if
Speaker 10: you're smart, if you're efficient, if you know what you're doing, Uh,
Speaker 10: you can do it, you know more is it always
Speaker 10: more to coin the phrase?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 10: You know, if you're smart about who you have on
Speaker 10: your staff and what they're about and what they're trying
Speaker 10: to do, you know, then sometimes that can be a
Speaker 10: benefit to you so that you don't have too many
Speaker 10: voices in the room and too many conflicts going on
Speaker 10: and you know, in terms of what you're trying to
Speaker 10: get across and.
Speaker 5: Work with with your team.
Speaker 1: So let's move over to Wes Wilcox now. And when
Speaker 1: I first saw the Pete Themill report, I went, man,
Speaker 1: that would be a be a really good hire. Leg
Speaker 1: Wes has been a GM. He ran the Hawks, he
Speaker 1: was the director of player development in Cleveland and then
Speaker 1: the GM of the G League team. And Wes hired
Speaker 1: Alex to coach the Canton Charge where Alex won G
Speaker 1: League Coach of the Year D League back then and
Speaker 1: won the D League championship thirty nine years old. From
Speaker 1: what I understand, very analytically driven, and Mark actually referenced
Speaker 1: that Wes most likely will report to Alex now. In
Speaker 1: the NBA, the coach reports to the general manager. At
Speaker 1: least historically speaking, coach wit Bleckin is the general manager
Speaker 1: who reports to Kyle. So maybe this is a new
Speaker 1: college model. But tell me what you make of this,
Speaker 1: and also what should we know about Wes Willcox.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I think that I think that model Spence is
Speaker 10: what's taking place in college is that the head coach
Speaker 10: is really the guy who's who's the point per for
Speaker 10: the whole program. So he's gonna he's going to hire
Speaker 10: a person to serve in the GM role, the GM role,
Speaker 10: you know, maybe you know in the NBA, we're used
Speaker 10: to the coach reporting to the GM, the GM reporting
Speaker 10: to the owner kind of thing. In the college, they're
Speaker 10: they're kind of reversing that. They're having the head coaches
Speaker 10: the main guy, the GM reports to him, and then
Speaker 10: the head coach in turn reports to the athletic director.
Speaker 10: And so, uh, this won't be an unusual setup if
Speaker 10: that's what they're what they're doing, because most of the
Speaker 10: college setups are are doing that now. So that so
Speaker 10: that there's no miss misperception about who's who's reporting to
Speaker 10: the athletic director or who's reporting to you know, the
Speaker 10: main booster group or whatever it is.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 10: The general manager is going to be the person who
Speaker 10: comes in and keeps everything in in ther in the uh,
Speaker 10: within the program organized heads up, the people who are
Speaker 10: doing the recruiting up the overseas, the NIL stuff or
Speaker 10: whatever it's going to be, the revenue sharing stuff going forward,
Speaker 10: however that falls out through the NCAA. They're going to
Speaker 10: be like the guy who keeps everything organized so that
Speaker 10: the head coach can spend a good chunk, not all
Speaker 10: and maybe not even majority sometimes, but a good chunk
Speaker 10: of their time actually coaching basketball, actually trying to get
Speaker 10: their players better, to be more competitive on the floor,
Speaker 10: and to leave the so called day to day business
Speaker 10: stuff to the guy who's the GM. And so Wes
Speaker 10: Wilcox is perfectly situated for that great resume, a great experience,
Speaker 10: really an organized guy and and will be really good
Speaker 10: for Alex. And again, those guys know each other. Alex
Speaker 10: reported to Wes when they were in a part of
Speaker 10: the Cleveland Cavaliers organization, you know, almost twenty years ago
Speaker 10: now and then uh, and now it's come kind of
Speaker 10: full circle and uh, Wes is going to be part
Speaker 10: of his staff and uh, you know again a nice
Speaker 10: balance because while alex can can concenter in the basketball part.
Speaker 10: Wes will concentrate on organizing the office, the people who
Speaker 10: work there, how they're doing all their their stuff on
Speaker 10: a day to day basis, recruiting, n I L blah
Speaker 10: blah blah, all those kinds of things, and and what's
Speaker 10: is very uh he's a very organized, very streamlined type
Speaker 10: of guy. And so that's uh again another great get
Speaker 10: for them now they have they're getting a good staff
Speaker 10: in place. They're getting a good core of the guys
Speaker 10: that that that you like to see and and what
Speaker 10: their what their skill sets are, and what they can do. Now,
Speaker 10: what's the bottom line, spets? You gotta get horses. Yeah,
Speaker 10: So so that's what it's gonna be. All these guys
Speaker 10: can do what they want to do. And you know,
Speaker 10: the great lesson I learned way way way back when
Speaker 10: the Jazz were playing the Lakers and Lakers eighty eight
Speaker 10: playing with pat Riley, and pat Riley's in an interview
Speaker 10: with the press and they're talking about this new stuff
Speaker 10: they were doing at the time with video stuff, and
Speaker 10: the press was asking, do you think that gives you advantage?
Speaker 10: And he said, I don't know, Well, you're using this technology,
Speaker 10: which at that time was new, using plays and watching
Speaker 10: video halftime, which teams didn't do at that time, And
Speaker 10: finally they were pressing him on it, and pat Riley
Speaker 10: finally said, well, and I don't know if it helps
Speaker 10: us that much or not. He said, I think I
Speaker 10: think the better advantage we have is that we have
Speaker 10: Kareem and magic. And to me, you know, at that moment,
Speaker 10: I remember thinking, and I thought about that ever since. Specias, Yeah,
Speaker 10: we can do all this other stuff behind the scenes,
Speaker 10: and we can dance around, and we can spend money,
Speaker 10: and we can have seventeen coaches and we can do
Speaker 10: whatever whatever we need magic and Kareem on the floor,
Speaker 10: and if that's what we have, then we're gonna be okay.
Speaker 10: And I was the recipient of that because, you know,
Speaker 10: my basically my first eighteen twenty years in the NBA,
Speaker 10: you know, I was riding on the coattails with John
Speaker 10: and Carl and that's that's how that went. Everybody was
Speaker 10: and that's why everybody looked good and whatever it was
Speaker 10: they did because John and Carl were there and we're
Speaker 10: playing every night, and so okay, thank.
Speaker 5: You very much.
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty eight was I think probably my first real
Speaker 1: indoctrination in a playoff basketball right. And I just remember
Speaker 1: that Jazz Lakers series. Remember going every home game, I
Speaker 1: did a little project Wassatch Elementary Missus Farman shout out
Speaker 1: fifth grade, I did a little Jazz Lake and I
Speaker 1: remember when I'll say we lost Game seven, how gutted
Speaker 1: I was as a ten year old, and I think
Speaker 1: I was just hooked for life. I'm like, man, playoff
Speaker 1: basketball rules because that was so fun. And that was
Speaker 1: kind of like, uh, okay, you know, the Jazz aren't
Speaker 1: not some little team out in saut Lake anymore. Like
Speaker 1: the Jazz actually are building something. It felt like that
Speaker 1: was a and then was it the next year where
Speaker 1: the Warriors got pretty Yeah?
Speaker 10: The next year was it was the Yeah, the fame,
Speaker 10: the famous sweep you know, was you know, but but yeah,
Speaker 10: eighty eight was really the you know, from a historical perspective,
Speaker 10: the way I see it sought then now even more
Speaker 10: so in my mind was the coming out party was that, well,
Speaker 10: these guys are for real, you know, and uh and
Speaker 10: then you know, hey, during the nineties, what they what
Speaker 10: the Jazz did, And then like in ninety eight, you
Speaker 10: know Lakers with Shaq and Kobe and oh oh those
Speaker 10: guys are pretty good. The Jazz going and whack them
Speaker 10: forth straight yep, you know, to get back to the finals,
Speaker 10: and you know that was you know, that's you know,
Speaker 10: all all that's time in between, that's when you knew,
Speaker 10: you know that your team was was competitive and was
Speaker 10: able to fight with anybody night in the night out,
Speaker 10: and that that's really what will be the test for
Speaker 10: the you know, going forward, as all this other stuff will,
Speaker 10: we'll obviously play major roles in it behind the scenes,
Speaker 10: but at the end of the day, you know they're
Speaker 10: gonna have to get players there and gonna have to
Speaker 10: figure out a way to be competitive on the floor
Speaker 10: in the Big twelve.
Speaker 2: You have to have talent.
Speaker 1: I mean, just while we're in the space, I can remember, man,
Speaker 1: you reference Scotty. My freshman year at the U, professor
Speaker 1: gave us an assignment. You need to go out and
Speaker 1: find somebody in the field you want to work in
Speaker 1: and go interview them. That was kind of the deal.
Speaker 1: And Scott was the GM of the Jazz when I
Speaker 1: was at the U, and so I sat down with Scott.
Speaker 1: One of my first questions was, and I thought he
Speaker 1: was gonna say Larry. Thought he was gonna say Larry Miller.
Speaker 1: I said, who is the most important person in the
Speaker 1: jazz organization? Scott didn't hesitate. He says, there's two. It's
Speaker 1: John and Carl in the whole organization including I thought
Speaker 1: he was gonna say ownership, and he said John and Carl.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 10: Well, you know, the most popular people during the so
Speaker 10: called heyday was hot Rod and the Bear. Those are
Speaker 10: the two most popular, uh in the organization with the fans.
Speaker 10: And then but the most important you're you're you know,
Speaker 10: Scott's exactly right, is is because when you have players
Speaker 10: and they're driving, winning and you can do that, that's
Speaker 10: that's what trickles down to everything else in the organization.
Speaker 5: That's that's where it comes from.
Speaker 10: Uh. That's why you know the current iteration of the
Speaker 10: jazz where they're trying to you know, get some traction
Speaker 10: and and uh really you know, slipping and sliding so far.
Speaker 10: You know in this uh, this new approach that they
Speaker 10: that they they've chosen to take. It's it's surprising that
Speaker 10: they chose to get rid of players who were main
Speaker 10: guys who were in their prime. You know and under contract,
Speaker 10: you know, for whatever the reasons were, uh, and and
Speaker 10: to let them go because because those things are hard
Speaker 10: to find as they're as they're they're finding out there
Speaker 10: in the middle of and and when you have those
Speaker 10: you try and hold on to them as long as
Speaker 10: you can to make sure that you can sustain success
Speaker 10: and have everybody else do what they do to the
Speaker 10: best of their ability.
Speaker 1: I can't remember what year it was, but at some
Speaker 1: point in the nineties when Riley had gone to Miami
Speaker 1: and Jeff took over for Pat in New York Van
Speaker 1: Gutn he was the head coach of the Knicks in
Speaker 1: New York. It was after a game and I can't
Speaker 1: remember if they played the Bulls. It may have been
Speaker 1: the game where Jordan came back and dropped fifty five
Speaker 1: with the Garden the double nickel, the famous game. And
Speaker 1: Jeff was getting ready to address the media and Phil
Speaker 1: Jackson had just released a book I think they called it.
Speaker 1: I think it was Sacred Hoops, and Frank I saw
Speaker 1: last Jeff. He said, Jeff, have you read Phil's new book?
Speaker 1: I may have told you this, and Jeff said, oh,
Speaker 1: I actually have a copy of her write here and
Speaker 1: he took a blank piece I think it was a statuet,
Speaker 1: turned it over and he wrote number twenty three on
Speaker 1: it and handed it to Frank Iola because obviously Phil
Speaker 1: wrote sacred hoops after a great run coaching somebody named
Speaker 1: Michael George.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 10: And Phil Jackson a very smart guy and a good
Speaker 10: basketball guy. But what was he even smarter at He
Speaker 10: knew that he had the run in the nineties with
Speaker 10: the Bulls, had a couple of years off, and then
Speaker 10: he had other opportunities, and then he looked around and go,
Speaker 10: maybe I'll go coach the Lakers.
Speaker 5: They got Shaq and Kobe, right, Yeah, maybe I'll do that.
Speaker 10: Yeah, you know, yeah, I mean that's the smart park,
Speaker 10: because you know, if you got him in place, then
Speaker 10: you just you know, you you do a little dressing
Speaker 10: around the edges and then you let those guys go
Speaker 10: to work.
Speaker 1: Richard Smith forty years in the NBA with Utah Jazz
Speaker 1: is Live and Studio on a beautiful Thursday, mischiet Bonnie
Speaker 1: this morning.
Speaker 5: I know, I know, I'm sorry about that, man.
Speaker 2: How'd you do forty one thirty nine?
Speaker 5: Did you really? Really?
Speaker 1: And I didn't make any putts. I don't know why
Speaker 1: I was. My ball striking was both surprising and very pleasing.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, I played well Wow, but no putts, Smitty,
Speaker 1: I gotta start making putts.
Speaker 2: Let's get out soon. Huh.
Speaker 5: All right?
Speaker 1: Coming up next BYU with a big one tonight Alabama.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll do some jazz. I don't know, but Smittye
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Speaker 1: the Brewers for one Bottom of the Eighth more with
Speaker 1: Smitty coming up next. Right here on ESPN seven hundred,
Speaker 1: Richard Smith live in studio, so we've hit our YouTube
Speaker 1: quota for the day.
Speaker 2: I will not knock on Porter.
Speaker 1: For giving the people what they want. Little streets have
Speaker 1: no name with Ryles. Have you seen you two in
Speaker 1: person and live.
Speaker 5: In person several times?
Speaker 2: And Bill okay, yeah and go yeah, it's you know,
Speaker 2: they put on quite a show.
Speaker 5: That's great, terrific. Yeah, all right, we.
Speaker 1: Got the Madness of March resumes in one hour from
Speaker 1: now as Breagham Young will take on Alabama and the
Speaker 1: Sweet Sixteen.
Speaker 2: We've got four.
Speaker 1: If you're a college basketball fan, I cannot wait to
Speaker 1: go home, and just I will marinate on the couch
Speaker 1: tonight for hours.
Speaker 2: I've got all of them recorded.
Speaker 1: Because if you've been paying attention between commercial breaks and
Speaker 1: video reviews, oh my gosh, man, can we please play basketball?
Speaker 10: This is this is this is what's driving It's this
Speaker 10: whole thing, the whole thing. I think if you really
Speaker 10: taken a thirty five thousand foot view of the whole thing,
Speaker 10: it's really kind of funny. Like you know how much
Speaker 10: money they pull in and how much they market all
Speaker 10: this and and you know what used to be amateur sports, right,
Speaker 10: it's is a whole different thing, and it doesn't it
Speaker 10: doesn't matter. All that stuff's out the window.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but spitty, like, I'm a grown up. I know
Speaker 1: they're making money, play your ads, but the reviews, like, dude,
Speaker 1: we can all see what is going on. We do
Speaker 1: not need a ten minute stoppage to decide whether or
Speaker 1: not the ball went off the player.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's always it's always that that that that stuff
Speaker 10: in this sport and also in football, you know, in
Speaker 10: the NFL. It just it drives me crazy when they
Speaker 10: you know, I don't know, I always think, you know,
Speaker 10: I don't know what they did in the old days,
Speaker 10: the old days. Uh spence, Spence, check its was the line, judge.
Speaker 10: You just said it was this or that and you
Speaker 10: went on like, well, you know, now everybody's got a
Speaker 10: way in they scrutinized. Of course they're afraid if they're
Speaker 10: wrong that that, you know, millions of people are going
Speaker 10: to get on them because they they saw the tape
Speaker 10: and everything.
Speaker 5: It's just it's awful.
Speaker 1: But before we get to the games tonight, you were
Speaker 1: good enough to remind me during the break commutual friend
Speaker 1: of ours and the man who was the original jazz
Speaker 1: Bear and the jazz Bear for two decades plus, I
Speaker 1: mean more than twenty years, and just the sweet guy.
Speaker 1: His name is John Apsey. We got some bad news
Speaker 1: about John and we're all here to support him. So Smitty,
Speaker 1: for our listeners that are not familiar with the news
Speaker 1: that came down over the past week or so, why
Speaker 1: don't you fill us in?
Speaker 10: Yeah, John, John Absey, the longtime bear for the Utah Jazz,
Speaker 10: has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer stage three. Talked with
Speaker 10: him last night. I asked him if if he was
Speaker 10: okay with me just mentioning it on the air today,
Speaker 10: and he said, of course. His His goal is more
Speaker 10: to educate the public and to try and help people
Speaker 10: who might find themselves in similar health situations, who feel,
Speaker 10: you know, when they get a shot to the to
Speaker 10: the gut like this, and and all of a sudden
Speaker 10: it comes out of the out of left field, Adam
Speaker 10: that that you not only get staggered, but you also
Speaker 10: sometimes your head is spinning about, Okay, how do I
Speaker 10: handle this? How do I systematically go about getting the
Speaker 10: proper care, getting my insurance stuff lined up, making sure
Speaker 10: I can try and and and deal with whatever my
Speaker 10: health issue is. And and and John really wanted to
Speaker 10: just get the word out that, you know, while he
Speaker 10: fights his own individual battle, that that he's trying to
Speaker 10: put together information that will help other people who get
Speaker 10: you know, similar type diagnoses during their lives to maybe
Speaker 10: have a starting point of of a how to how
Speaker 10: to start looking for care, how to start doing this
Speaker 10: thing that that might that might help them. So he's,
Speaker 10: he said, along his journey that's still in front of him,
Speaker 10: he's going to be trying to put together a guide
Speaker 10: book of sorts or or a blue book, so to speak,
Speaker 10: to try and help people. You know, these are the
Speaker 10: steps you should be taking. This is the stuff you
Speaker 10: should do, you know, when the if if in one
Speaker 10: you or some loved ones, uh find yourself in this
Speaker 10: kind of a situation to try and help you more organized,
Speaker 10: because I can tell you, Spence, nobody has done more
Speaker 10: in this community, not only in their job, which which
Speaker 10: was his job with the Jazz for over two decades,
Speaker 10: and in that regard in terms of charitable efforts, but
Speaker 10: John did so much stuff outside of the Jazz on
Speaker 10: his own, for groups, for kids, for disadvantage people that
Speaker 10: I can't even tell you, you know how many people
Speaker 10: you'll really owe a debt to him, just in terms
Speaker 10: of how he has lived his life to this point
Speaker 10: in service of others. And it's you know, he wants.
Speaker 10: He's not putting all this stuff out there to to
Speaker 10: get people to be feel sorry for him. He's trying
Speaker 10: to put it out there to get people to rally
Speaker 10: around others and to help other people, you know, find
Speaker 10: their way through whatever their challenges are, to help them
Speaker 10: to to get to get better, to get the kind
Speaker 10: of care and support that they need, and whatever their
Speaker 10: individual challenges are. So so we we love John and
Speaker 10: and we hope the best for he and and Sean
Speaker 10: and their girls and in this fight and we're with
Speaker 10: him on.
Speaker 1: So John Absey, the original Jazz Bear, is fighting pancreatic cancer.
Speaker 2: Okay, So that's the diagnosis.
Speaker 1: There is a go fund me and I would just
Speaker 1: encourage you to google John Absey, which is spelled j
Speaker 1: O N then A B S E Y. You can
Speaker 1: include go fund me and your Google search and the
Speaker 1: link will come up.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 1: These types of things, uh you know, the cruel reality
Speaker 1: is they cost a lot of money and even if
Speaker 1: you have insurance, oftentimes it only covers a portion of it.
Speaker 1: I will not give you a commentary on my take
Speaker 1: on the social uh you know, situation regarding medical care
Speaker 1: in America and how many I think it's twenty million
Speaker 1: plus US Americans per year go bankrupt as a result
Speaker 1: of the inability to pay for medical care, which is
Speaker 1: pathetic in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: But let's just leave that there because we won't get political.
Speaker 1: But John Apsey, Original Jazz Bar fighting pincreatic cancer. If
Speaker 1: you're able to donate to the GoFundMe, they are trying
Speaker 1: to raise money to help John fight this this horrible disease.
Speaker 1: So there you go, smitthe I appreciate that reminder. I
Speaker 1: was going to bring that up, and I'm glad you
Speaker 1: brought it up. And to your point, the sweetest guy around,
Speaker 1: you know, and for so many years nobody knew who
Speaker 1: the jazz bear was, right because you weren't supposed to do.
Speaker 1: And then you know, now we know that it was
Speaker 1: John who I thought among, if not the best mascots.
Speaker 2: And I'm dead serious, I'm not just saying that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been so of you, how many NBA arenas,
Speaker 1: probably all of them. When John was doing the John
Speaker 1: stuff at the top of his game, I don't know
Speaker 1: that there was anybody better.
Speaker 10: Well, they have a thing that you know, most people
Speaker 10: don't know about. It's probably more of an internal organization anything,
Speaker 10: but the mascots community, you know, both on the collegiate
Speaker 10: level and the professional level across all sports, they they
Speaker 10: have their own community. And John, while he was doing it,
Speaker 10: he was he was the seventh time Mascot of the Year.
Speaker 10: Whoever votes on that and however that's decided. You know,
Speaker 10: he's considered a pillar in that, in that community, and
Speaker 10: it's in the in the Mascot Hall of Fame again
Speaker 10: whatever however that's decided. But but you know, he's just
Speaker 10: he's been seen over the years by those people who
Speaker 10: are inside of that that that business as one of
Speaker 10: the best to ever do it and one of the
Speaker 10: kindest guys to ever do it, and that's that's why
Speaker 10: he's so highly thought of by the people in the
Speaker 10: sporting community.
Speaker 1: Well said, all right, last segment, If you missed it,
Speaker 1: really good insight. Smitty is one of the very few
Speaker 1: people in the basketball ecosystem that is familiar with both
Speaker 1: Wes Wilcox and Raphael Chilas. So we did some Utah
Speaker 1: basketball talking about the Alex Jensen Higher becoming official. If
Speaker 1: you missed any of that, go to the podcast page
Speaker 1: and hear what Smidia had to say about coach chill
Speaker 1: and Wes Wilcox hired by the U. Tell if Alex
Speaker 1: build this thing, how much middy before you give the
Speaker 1: games tonight? Kevin Young, former NBA coach, You guys can
Speaker 1: go look at his staff. They're all former NBA G
Speaker 1: League guys. There's a little bit of a BYU flavor,
Speaker 1: but not much. Charles Abuo is on his staff, but
Speaker 1: it's mostly x NBA guys or X G League guys
Speaker 1: and Bringham. Young is reported to have two seven figure
Speaker 1: players on the roster this year, and if the reports
Speaker 1: are true, they're paying aj The bands is seven million
Speaker 1: dollars to play five months of basketball next year in Provo.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people that are doing the
Speaker 1: narrative like Utah is just ripping off the BYU model
Speaker 1: to try to build their program. Certainly BYU is not
Speaker 1: the only only program in the country that as XNBA
Speaker 1: guys are a grip of NIL support. But things are
Speaker 1: happening down in Provo on the basketball side of things
Speaker 1: that are hard to ignore, right, I mean, as far
Speaker 1: as the money they have and the NBA model they
Speaker 1: put in place.
Speaker 5: Well, they have a lot.
Speaker 10: You know what BYU has to my understanding, I don't
Speaker 10: know this you know firsthand, but I believe that they
Speaker 10: with the new NIL influence in college athletics now, BYU
Speaker 10: has been able to tap into their donor base and
Speaker 10: their support base, which involves a lot of people through
Speaker 10: this tech corridor if you will, spend between Salt Lake
Speaker 10: and Prova Silicon the Silicon Slopes, and there's a lot
Speaker 10: of BYU people involved in that. And my understanding is
Speaker 10: that there's a lot of them who have chosen to
Speaker 10: get involved on a financial level for the program. They
Speaker 10: don't want a lot of publicity. I know a lot
Speaker 10: of them saying hey, look, I'll get involved, I'll donate,
Speaker 10: I'll do this or whatever it is.
Speaker 5: But I don't want to be that guy.
Speaker 10: I'm just you know, I just want to do my
Speaker 10: part and you know, slide in the side door and
Speaker 10: sit down in my seat, watch the game and go
Speaker 10: home whatever. So there's a lot of those people. I
Speaker 10: think Ryan Smith, the owner of the Jazz uh you know,
Speaker 10: is a big b YU booster. You know, he's right
Speaker 10: front and center. You know, he kind of gets a
Speaker 10: lot of the attention, you know, for what's going on.
Speaker 10: You know, whether that's accurate or not, I don't know.
Speaker 10: I do know he's a he's a terrific uh b
Speaker 10: YU supporter, and he's had a lot of the games
Speaker 10: with his family and and and they're big boosters there.
Speaker 10: But there are a lot of other people involved also
Speaker 10: that have helped by you in that regard. And and
Speaker 10: we've mentioned before Spence on on this show, there's there's
Speaker 10: you don't normally get if you're you're if you're a
Speaker 10: church related school located in Provo, Utah, you don't normally
Speaker 10: get into the living room of the top A national
Speaker 10: recruit who happens to be from Boston Massachusetts. You know,
Speaker 10: without something going on, you know that that that attracts
Speaker 10: that individual will to to a program like b YU
Speaker 10: and so uh and and and look it's it's all,
Speaker 10: it's all above board, it's all. That's what it is now,
Speaker 10: that's what's going on. And so uh until that changes, uh,
Speaker 10: you know with the revenue sharing or how they're gonna
Speaker 10: how that's all gonna play out in college athletics. You know,
Speaker 10: the you know b YU has uh has figured out
Speaker 10: how to do that. To this point, they're on a
Speaker 10: nice little run here. I love how people always you know,
Speaker 10: these things get amplified this time of year, right or wrong, Uh,
Speaker 10: based on how you you play one game or or
Speaker 10: a particular game.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 10: Colorado State, you know, maybe should have could have won
Speaker 10: their game last week against Maryland. They hit a game
Speaker 10: winning shot with six seconds left. Maryland comes down, the
Speaker 10: guy hits a floater, you know, fallaway shot at the buzzer,
Speaker 10: and they end up winning instead in Colorado State goes home.
Speaker 10: But Colorado State would be a nice story if they
Speaker 10: had that shot hadn't gone in and and and they're
Speaker 10: in the sweet sixteen. But b YU played two good games.
Speaker 10: Shot the ball well. Played well against Wisconsin and was
Speaker 10: able to hold on at the end even though they
Speaker 10: tried to lose the game the last couple of minutes
Speaker 10: the way they played, but they had enough of a
Speaker 10: cushion to survive and then had to stop right at
Speaker 10: the end to win the game. So they're in a
Speaker 10: great position tonight playing a tough Alabama team that is
Speaker 10: really athletic, and it's gonna test BYU's ability to match
Speaker 10: up to be able to defend them and to be
Speaker 10: able to be able. They're going to have to be
Speaker 10: able to shoot the way that they're capable of doing
Speaker 10: if they're going to have a chance to be in
Speaker 10: it at the end.
Speaker 1: So that brings us to tonight, And before we get
Speaker 1: to BYU Alabama smiddy, there are sixteen teams left in
Speaker 1: college basketball and zero Cinderellas. Don't tell me Arkansas of
Speaker 1: Cinderella Cal has like three or four pros. They were
Speaker 1: just hurt to start the year and they didn't play well.
Speaker 1: And when I watch them play Kansas, you could tell
Speaker 1: that the talent on that roster did not actually reflect
Speaker 1: the ten seed. Only four conferences represented seven teams from
Speaker 1: one conference. Is this the new re I mean, I
Speaker 1: know you don't though out of bracket and I fill
Speaker 1: one out and like an idiot, I picked Cinderella's because
Speaker 1: you know, I've watched the thing my entire life. Is
Speaker 1: it the new reality of college basketball where we're just
Speaker 1: going to see more separation from the top to the bottom.
Speaker 10: Yeah, well, I think I think for two reasons, Spence.
Speaker 10: One is is it the nil stuff Until they get
Speaker 10: a handle on that, until there's some form of so
Speaker 10: called salary cap like they have in the pros, programs
Speaker 10: are going to be able to get the top players.
Speaker 10: And no matter what you say, how you phrase it,
Speaker 10: how you approach it. You know kids who are juniors
Speaker 10: and seniors in high school who have aspirations to, you know,
Speaker 10: maybe play someday as a professional, or even if they
Speaker 10: don't get there, maybe their college experience will end up
Speaker 10: being their professional experience in terms of financial reward. So
Speaker 10: they're looking at schools that are going to give them
Speaker 10: an opportunity to earn some money right out of the gate.
Speaker 10: And then the other the other equation is the fact
Speaker 10: that you have this open transfer portal process. So you know,
Speaker 10: Randy Ray, you know, the great weaver state coach who
Speaker 10: retired a couple of years ago, and by his own admission,
Speaker 10: probably the three or four years earlier than he wanted
Speaker 10: to or had originally planned to. He got out because
Speaker 10: he said, I can see it coming. I don't want
Speaker 10: to have to deal with it because if I get
Speaker 10: fortunate enough in the recruiting process to get another Damian
Speaker 10: Lillard to come to Weaver State and play well my
Speaker 10: fresh his freshman year, he doesn't come back his sophomore
Speaker 10: year because he's going to Kansas. So he's going to Texas.
Speaker 10: So he's going to use CLA or whoever has the money.
Speaker 10: And I would not want to stop them, because that's
Speaker 10: what it's all about, right, Yeah, I mean so uh,
Speaker 10: you know, so that's what's gonna happen. So you're you're
Speaker 10: seeing the so called cream rising to the top. All
Speaker 10: the big boys are going to continue to be the
Speaker 10: bigger boys because as long as they have those kind
Speaker 10: of financial resources and the situations that they're in, you know,
Speaker 10: to to attract collegiate players, that's what's gonna happen. And
Speaker 10: and you know this thing like you know, going up
Speaker 10: to the U this year, and I'm an you but
Speaker 10: I like all the teams in the state. I go
Speaker 10: to the U Games because there are five minutes from
Speaker 10: my house and I and I support I've supported the
Speaker 10: program for a long time. But I go up there
Speaker 10: this year, and you know, they were competitive. Craig Smith
Speaker 10: is a good coach. He knows what he's doing on
Speaker 10: x's and o's stuff. He just didn't have the horses.
Speaker 10: And and if you looked at that roster, all these
Speaker 10: guys who came from different schools from last year other
Speaker 10: than the Madson kid, you know, we're from different schools
Speaker 10: that they plucked from the transfer portal. And you don't
Speaker 10: have any connection to these guys. They're not the kids
Speaker 10: who are freshmen and sophomores now. They're your juniors and
Speaker 10: seniors who you've been rooting for and that's my guy
Speaker 10: and whatever. You don't see him grow up. They're just
Speaker 10: passing through because as soon as they get a different thing,
Speaker 10: they're gone to the next thing, whatever that is. And
Speaker 10: that was born out last year when when Utah had
Speaker 10: the Devin Smith kid who came in Davon and and
Speaker 10: and uh and he played well enough and boom boom,
Speaker 10: he's off to Saint John's you know, this year, and
Speaker 10: so that's just going to continue to happen. And unless
Speaker 10: you have you know, some unusual, you know, magic potion
Speaker 10: that gets your kids to want to play for good
Speaker 10: old you know state to good old University and be
Speaker 10: part of that fabric for three or four years, like
Speaker 10: the old Alex Jensen days and Michael Doliacs and Andre
Speaker 10: Miller's and Keith Van Horns and all these guys who
Speaker 10: stayed four years, and we're part of the fabric of
Speaker 10: that that that's everything's just gonna be a revolving door.
Speaker 5: And so how do you root for them?
Speaker 10: In fact, I asked I was on a trip last
Speaker 10: week with a bunch of BYU fans and and and
Speaker 10: as we were visiting, I just asked them casually, Hey,
Speaker 10: I'm just curious now that this whole landscape has changed,
Speaker 10: and we know kids are getting paid, and we know
Speaker 10: what's going on, you know, in that regard you as
Speaker 10: a fan, do you find your fandom having changed at
Speaker 10: all in terms of how you think about the kids
Speaker 10: you're coming to root for every night. Has that changed
Speaker 10: your the way you look at it, or it just
Speaker 10: doesn't matter to you as long as they're winning.
Speaker 5: That that kind of thing.
Speaker 10: And everyone I asked, you know, individually, they they said, nah,
Speaker 10: you know, I know it's changed and whatever. But you know,
Speaker 10: I go with my family because it's a good time
Speaker 10: and you know, we can root to something we can
Speaker 10: do together as a family or as friends going to
Speaker 10: a game. But obviously if they're winning, that makes it
Speaker 10: much more fun, right And the other part how they're winning,
Speaker 10: Why they're winning. They're paying the guys the most money,
Speaker 10: so they got the better guys.
Speaker 5: Whatever.
Speaker 10: I really don't think about it, you know, I just
Speaker 10: think about they're wearing. You know, it's the old Jerry
Speaker 10: Seinfeld bit about laundry, you know, laundry. I'm not really
Speaker 10: rooting for my guys. I'm rooting for laundry because whoever's
Speaker 10: wearing the shirt of my school, that's who I'm rooting for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, yeah, I wonder one more thing here
Speaker 1: that I do want to get your thoughts on what
Speaker 1: we could see tonight. B Why you getting going just
Speaker 1: about forty minutes from now. But my listeners are probably
Speaker 1: sick of hearing me say this. I just think it's
Speaker 1: the only solution, and I think it needs to happen sooner.
Speaker 2: Rather than later, which is simply.
Speaker 1: Leaning more into the model allowing the players to unionize
Speaker 1: and collectively bargained.
Speaker 2: And therefore.
Speaker 1: Gabe Mattson signs a three year contract with a fourth
Speaker 1: year option to play for the Utes, which means you're
Speaker 1: here for three years and then or whatever two years
Speaker 1: third year option. At least you've got the guy for
Speaker 1: two years, and if he's a pro after that, the
Speaker 1: third year options is and he leaves, or if he's
Speaker 1: not that good, the third year option is ours.
Speaker 2: So your ours for three years. I don't see any
Speaker 2: other way around it. Smitty to me, that's the only solution.
Speaker 10: Well, they have to have some kind of cap or
Speaker 10: ceiling on what they do. In other words, it's got
Speaker 10: to be some kind of stability. Right now, it's a
Speaker 10: revolving door for both. Look look at the coaches. Look
Speaker 10: at just in the last week. It's a good point
Speaker 10: the coaches who have moved on, you know, whether it
Speaker 10: was and how about the guys who were involved in
Speaker 10: the NCAAA scandal.
Speaker 1: And the Maryland coach took the Villanova job, but he
Speaker 1: is coaching tonight.
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right right, I mean, you know, but
Speaker 10: I mean it seems like most people involved don't really
Speaker 10: care as long as you somehow have a formula that allows.
Speaker 5: You to have some level of success.
Speaker 10: Okay, whether it's a Sean Miller who got run out
Speaker 10: of Arizona because and in part because of that that
Speaker 10: bribery scandal, or Will Wade LSU who got run out
Speaker 10: because of the same thing.
Speaker 5: And they go to lesser.
Speaker 10: Schools, do do do do they have a couple of
Speaker 10: good years? Here we are back in the line light
Speaker 10: at the big schools, you know, with Sean Miller going, uh,
Speaker 10: going to Texas and and and and Will Wade going
Speaker 10: n C State. I mean, you know, like to me
Speaker 10: my opinion, you're like, you got to be kidding me,
Speaker 10: Like this is it's so blatant about how schools are
Speaker 10: handling their business now and uh, but who's on the
Speaker 10: other end of the spectrum. Somebody like Saint Francis of Pennsylvania,
Speaker 10: Scott Layden's old school, who decides last week they get
Speaker 10: in the the the first four right because they won
Speaker 10: their league tournament.
Speaker 5: They lose.
Speaker 10: A couple of days later, they announced that they're moving
Speaker 10: next year to Division III, that they're getting out of
Speaker 10: this scrum. They'd say, we can't do it. It's not
Speaker 10: gonna work for us the way everybody else is doing it.
Speaker 10: We understand what's going on. We can't compete in that regard.
Speaker 10: So we're going back to what everybody was originally supposed
Speaker 10: to be forty fifty sixty years ago, right, which was
Speaker 10: which was a student activity and the process of being
Speaker 10: a program on campus where the students came and they
Speaker 10: got scholarships to go to school and then they played
Speaker 10: for good Old U. And now it's not that. Now
Speaker 10: it's a big time business and it's really a professional
Speaker 10: sports business that colleges are running. And it's interesting that
Speaker 10: how many schools are just you know, just chasing that
Speaker 10: that dollar down that rabbit hole. And it's it's really
Speaker 10: interesting to me that that more presidents of high schools,
Speaker 10: of higher institute higher learning aren't looking at that and going,
Speaker 10: wait a minute, do we do we need to have
Speaker 10: a meeting about this, like what are we doing?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 10: And whether it's the Ivy League schools or whether it's
Speaker 10: other smaller schools who know they can't compete and they
Speaker 10: are getting out of it like that, So that's interesting
Speaker 10: to me. And that's but this whole march madness thing.
Speaker 10: This thing is like, this is some beast that's out
Speaker 10: of out of whack, and everybody, everybody goes along with it. Spence,
Speaker 10: It's interesting. It's like Mark Cuban said years ago in
Speaker 10: interview about copyright infringement copyright laws, and the biggest copyright
Speaker 10: infringement company going is YouTube because YouTube uses everybody else's contact.
Speaker 5: They have nothing that's the wrong.
Speaker 10: They they use everybody else's stuff and they don't pay them,
Speaker 10: and everybody acknowledges it, and everybody goes whatever, all right,
Speaker 10: and they.
Speaker 5: Shrug, right.
Speaker 10: I mean that's and and we all fall into it
Speaker 10: because we all use YouTube right to look at something
Speaker 10: or whatever, and YouTube wouldn't have it if they had
Speaker 10: to pay copyright and image blah blah blah, And so
Speaker 10: we all fall into it.
Speaker 5: We're all part of it.
Speaker 10: We're all as guilty as the next guy for participating
Speaker 10: and being part of it. And it's it's just interesting
Speaker 10: that that's that's what we find in college athletics, and
Speaker 10: it's getting more so that way, right, That's that's the
Speaker 10: direction that's going.
Speaker 1: As we currently have this conversation live on our YouTube
Speaker 1: streaming channel, you can subscribe to the ESPN seven hundred
Speaker 1: YouTube channel. All Right, somebody, before I say you lose.
Speaker 1: BYU struggles this year. For the most part, they've had
Speaker 1: some outliers. They lost to the U, they got smoked
Speaker 1: by Cincinnati randomly. Their struggles this year have been when
Speaker 1: they ran up against a team that has elite physicality, athleticism,
Speaker 1: speed and strength. That's kind of who Bama is. Bama's
Speaker 1: not Houston. Excuse me, Bama's not Houston physical, but they're
Speaker 1: faster than Houston. They play with the best pace in
Speaker 1: college basketball. They're the fastest team in college basketball. I
Speaker 1: don't know you think about the Sears kid, but he's
Speaker 1: a really seasoned veteran college basketball point guard. They were
Speaker 1: in the final four year ago. They lost a great
Speaker 1: game to Yukon. When you look at the numbers, these
Speaker 1: two teams are similar. They want to get up and down,
Speaker 1: they want to score. Alabama is a five point five
Speaker 1: point favorite. Where Alabama excels where BYU does not is
Speaker 1: Alabama guards the three a little bit better than BYU.
Speaker 1: BYU is one of the worst defensive teams of guarding
Speaker 1: the three. In Bama lets to shoot the three. Bama
Speaker 1: is a great offensive rebounding team. Okay, but Canada fus Treori.
Speaker 1: BYU's got some athletic bigs might be able to hang.
Speaker 1: How do they get it done? And you think they
Speaker 1: can as BYU takes on Bama in just about forty minutes.
Speaker 10: Right, yeah, I think Well, if BYU is going to
Speaker 10: win and they're going to be in it at the end,
Speaker 10: they're going to have to They're gonna have to shoot
Speaker 10: the balls. That's what they rely on well the whole season.
Speaker 10: So they can't get away from that.
Speaker 6: That.
Speaker 10: You can't shy away and try and change your game plan. Now,
Speaker 10: this is what got you here, this is what you know.
Speaker 10: The girl you brought to the dance, that's who you're
Speaker 10: dancing with. So they've got to be able to shoot
Speaker 10: the three. They've got to be able to get good
Speaker 10: looks that they're comfortable with, and they've got to make
Speaker 10: their share. They've got to make eleven, twelve, thirteen threes
Speaker 10: during the course of the game and get in a
Speaker 10: flow that they feel comfortable doing that with. The Other
Speaker 10: thing for them is, you know, Alabama is so athletic,
Speaker 10: can attack them. They've got to have a better transition
Speaker 10: defense to slow it down to get in some kind
Speaker 10: of a rhythm defensively for BYU. But then if they
Speaker 10: get into a clutch game, which is in the college
Speaker 10: three three points or less or two minutes to go,
Speaker 10: b YU has to handle it better than they did
Speaker 10: against Wisconsin. They did not do a good job at
Speaker 10: the end. Wisconsin, they had a big enough cushion they
Speaker 10: were able to survive it barely. But they have to
Speaker 10: be able to handle it better and they're gonna have
Speaker 10: to rely on their key guy Saunders and Demon And
Speaker 10: then usually when you have a game like this, this
Speaker 10: deep in the tournament, Spence, someone else shows up and
Speaker 10: has the game of the year for them.
Speaker 5: Who is that? I don't know.
Speaker 10: Is it Trey ri who comes in and gets twelve
Speaker 10: rebounds and it goes six for six from the field
Speaker 10: because he keeps getting.
Speaker 5: Duck ins and dunks or whatever.
Speaker 10: Or is it Trevinnell who gets free because Alabama doesn't
Speaker 10: respect him quite as much on the weak side and
Speaker 10: he's able to drill four threes in the second half
Speaker 10: or something like that. That comes out of the woodwork
Speaker 10: that helps you to get over the hump. But I'm
Speaker 10: excited for the game It's gonna be fun to watch a.
Speaker 1: Lot of good basketball tonight. Good night if you're a
Speaker 1: college basketball fan. Smitty, Great to see my friend, and
Speaker 1: we'll see you.
Speaker 5: Next weekk neks Man, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Richard Smith brought to you today by IFA Country Stores.
Speaker 1: The weather is warm, which means you need to start
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Speaker 1: with the first step on the court. That's the ultimate
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Speaker 2: The neighbors will be green with envy.
Speaker 1: SHOPIFA online, at IFA dot co op, or stopped by
Speaker 1: one of their neighborhood stores. Today a lot of speculation
Speaker 1: about whether or not Dion Sanders is going to get
Speaker 1: involved in the landing spot for his son Shadoor. Dion
Speaker 1: gave an interview today where he said he will be
Speaker 1: happy with wherever Shador Sanders is drafted NFL Draft less
Speaker 1: than a month away. Skip Bayless is still doing media.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that it was on the Skip Bayless
Speaker 1: show today.
Speaker 9: Quote.
Speaker 1: Shador has told me he's talked to me intently about
Speaker 1: all the visits he's had with all the teams, so
Speaker 1: I know where his heart is.
Speaker 2: I know where he wants to go.
Speaker 1: If it's New York, if it's New York, if it's Tennessee,
Speaker 1: Cleveland Raiders, if it's New Orleans, any.
Speaker 2: Of these teams that are seeking a quarterback.
Speaker 1: I'm happy with it because I know he's going what
Speaker 1: he's going to mean to the organization.
Speaker 2: Does that mean he wants to go to New York.
Speaker 11: I'm still stuck on the Skip still do a media thing.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that Skip Bayless was doing media, but
Speaker 1: I saw the the Dion Sanders story and I clicked
Speaker 1: on it, and Skip is still doing Skip stuff.
Speaker 11: Yeah, he's still doing stuff. I don't know, man. I
Speaker 11: think that.
Speaker 3: We hear a lot about this pre draft, not every year,
Speaker 3: but most years, and then it's only really come to fruition.
Speaker 3: I want to say, like Philip Rivers, Eli Manning scenario. Yeah,
Speaker 3: John Elway for sure. But I feel like we have
Speaker 3: a conversation every year. I don't know when the next
Speaker 3: time we see one of those types of power moves happen,
Speaker 3: but if it were anybody, it might be a Dion
Speaker 3: and uh Dion's kids to make it happen. But I
Speaker 3: I ultimately think that Shador is going to get drafted.
Speaker 3: He's gonna go to that team, and hopefully it's in
Speaker 3: a situation where he can sit for a year or so,
Speaker 3: and then I think he might be a pretty talented player.
Speaker 1: Speaking yeah, I mean the talent's there, but speaking of
Speaker 1: an obnoxious media members, I was honestly not gonna mention this.
Speaker 1: And for years, you know, because we like to cover
Speaker 1: the NBA on the show, wish we could cover the
Speaker 1: jazz more, but they're just not interesting.
Speaker 2: I've always fought the narrative like that.
Speaker 1: The NBA feels scripted in the league feels like the WWE.
Speaker 1: But what ESPN has pulled over the past twenty four
Speaker 1: hours where Lebron went on the McAfee show to take
Speaker 1: a shot at steven A and then steven A this.
Speaker 2: Blowhart the media.
Speaker 1: The way media members have ruined this business, namely Skip
Speaker 1: baylists and steven A Smith are so so exhausting, and look,
Speaker 1: I'm not a hater. Go get your bag, go get
Speaker 1: your money, but this feels scripted to me. You know,
Speaker 1: steven A comes out, he's claiming that he would throw
Speaker 1: hands at.
Speaker 11: Lebron so embarrassing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole thing is embarrassing. I did think that
Speaker 1: Lebron actually handled himself really well for the most part.
Speaker 1: On the McAfee show. I thought his Windhorse stuff was
Speaker 1: a little cheap. I thought that was a little unnecessary.
Speaker 1: I think, for my prison, Brian Windhorst has done nothing
Speaker 1: but stand up for Lebron over the course of their
Speaker 1: relationship in his media career, I thought that was a
Speaker 1: little cheap. But I don't watch the McAfee show. I
Speaker 1: did end up watching that, and then all that does
Speaker 1: is allow Steven A. Smith to do his YouTube thing,
Speaker 1: and then he's complaining and then he goes on first take.
Speaker 1: This feels very wwe ish to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you mentioned it, the stephen A stuff, that
Speaker 3: the Skip Bayless stuff. For me, that's where sports media
Speaker 3: has gone wrong in a big way when we engagement
Speaker 3: farm rather than just analyze right. That to me is
Speaker 3: something I've never had any interest in. The first take stuff,
Speaker 3: the back and forth stuff where you argue two sides
Speaker 3: of an argument that you don't even agree with. That
Speaker 3: to me is something that I have zero interest in
Speaker 3: when it comes to covering sports. When it comes to
Speaker 3: why I'm in this business, But when it becomes the story, worry.
Speaker 3: I guess we talk about it and yeah, man, it
Speaker 3: seems contrived. It seems like something that they're they're pushing.
Speaker 3: Of course, Lebron goes on and hits a game winner
Speaker 3: on ESPN that night, which which only adds to it.
Speaker 3: But for me and and you're a you're you know,
Speaker 3: you don't hesitate to maybe critique Lebron here and there.
Speaker 3: I think you're you're fair in saying that this has
Speaker 3: been ugly in a lot of ways, but more so
Speaker 3: on the ESPN side. Man, to have one of your
Speaker 3: lead broadcasts, your lead analyst, who is getting paid I
Speaker 3: want to say, one hundred million dollars. Steven A Smith
Speaker 3: going on and talking about putting hands like fighting a player,
Speaker 3: going on and talking about the the late Kobe Bryant.
Speaker 3: For some reason, he mentioned Gloria James this morning. Steven
Speaker 3: A did like he is just going on like this
Speaker 3: hall of fame tour of hater uh and it's it's
Speaker 3: kind of a bad look if you if you ask me,
Speaker 3: I don't like steven A's approach in general, but this
Speaker 3: last has been a really bad look in general, the
Speaker 3: wind Horse stuff. We haven't heard his name brought up
Speaker 3: in those scenarios at all, because for twenty years he
Speaker 3: just goes about covering Lebron and doing his job and
Speaker 3: we don't get the pushback because there's none there. I
Speaker 3: will say I watched First Take the other day and
Speaker 3: it was the first time in my entire life, following Braun,
Speaker 3: following Windhorse, that I heard Brian kind of maybe step
Speaker 3: into that realm a little bit. He was kind of
Speaker 3: speaking for Lebron and in some weird ways on First
Speaker 3: Take yesterday morning. So to hear Lebron go and mention
Speaker 3: Brian by name, I think it was directly connected to
Speaker 3: the interview he did on ESPN the other morning. But Yeah,
Speaker 3: like you said, I think a lot of it's contrived,
Speaker 3: a lot of it's seems like an ESPN thing, And
Speaker 3: I know that's our the flagship, we have broadcast partnerships there,
Speaker 3: But I just I hate it. I think it's something
Speaker 3: we have to get away from it. Unfortunately, we're not
Speaker 3: getting away.
Speaker 1: From nothing about it feels real unfortunately. So if you're
Speaker 1: an adult with internet act with internet access, chances are
Speaker 1: you heard about this. It was just dumb, all right,
Speaker 1: fun show, fun show, A lot of good stuff today
Speaker 1: Porter before we get out of here, what comes our
Speaker 1: way out of Friday edition of the radio show.
Speaker 3: On a Friday edition of The Drive, Howard Beck stops
Speaker 3: by the program talks some MBA with Howard, of course,
Speaker 3: but we just were discussing it was a lot of
Speaker 3: college hoops on the show today. Andy Larson stops by
Speaker 3: for a little jazz basketball, maybe some RSL as well.
Speaker 3: Are you went to golf? PGA Tour Leaderboard update on
Speaker 3: a Friday with our friend Paul Pugmeyer as we do
Speaker 3: each and every week. And then the final hour of
Speaker 3: the show Josh Eilert, who of course is prepping for
Speaker 3: a Monday college basketball Crown matchup, and then we'll chat
Speaker 3: with Larry Fulmer also got a pretty busy weekend ahead
Speaker 3: with the Golden Gloves at the Fulmer Boxing Academy which
Speaker 3: is just opening. So some fun stuff on the show
Speaker 3: show tomorrow, a lot of NBA, a lot of college hoops,
Speaker 3: and we'll go from there.
Speaker 1: Good stuff on a Friday, Get your weekend started out
Speaker 1: the right way with us, and we will say good
Speaker 1: night with a special thank you to Mark Harlan, Bill
Speaker 1: Riley and Richard Smith for any of the sound you
Speaker 1: may have missed from the show. ESPN seven hundred Sports
Speaker 1: dot Com is where you go download our.
Speaker 2: Mobile app, take us on the go. It's very easy.
Speaker 1: It's the way I listen to our radio station. It's
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Speaker 1: what we do in our space, specifically four hours every
Speaker 1: day in the afternoon, the podcast page is the way
Speaker 1: to do it because you can consume whichever part of
Speaker 1: the show you want to on your time. Podcast is
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Speaker 1: in the comments, give us all the stars. Also, we
Speaker 1: got our book today. Our February ratings. We're smoking our competition.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your years. We don't take
Speaker 1: any of you for granted. He's Porter, I'm Spence, Sagan
Speaker 1: and I have a great Thursday evening. We'll tatch you
Speaker 1: out a Friday drive as always, you can catch that
Speaker 1: right here on ESPN seven hundred.
Speaker 8: Mm hmm