Speaker 1: Welcome to the Big Blue Insider Day. Gabriel with you
Speaker 1: on April Fool's Day. That's right, April first, and we
Speaker 1: should still be talking about Kentucky basketball. But you know,
Speaker 1: of course that the season ended prematurely in the minds
Speaker 1: of many, in the minds of most. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: that tonight. We'll also hear from the players here from
Speaker 1: Mark Stoops and Cameron Mills is going to join us
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the hour. He will be here
Speaker 1: in the garage to talk of course about high school
Speaker 1: basketball and UK basketball in the sweet sixteen. But I
Speaker 1: keep reminding myself that preseason, me, media, people, fans, we
Speaker 1: all tried to figure out what this team would do,
Speaker 1: where it would go, how it would finish, and what
Speaker 1: might be as satisfying ending to this year given the
Speaker 1: misery in their quotes of the last two or three seasons.
Speaker 1: And I think we all kind of agreed that if
Speaker 1: this team could break even in the SEC and win
Speaker 1: an NCAA tournament game. Now, once we saw how good
Speaker 1: this team could be, Hey, they beat Duke, right, they
Speaker 1: beat Florida, right, final four teams. Now the ceiling rises,
Speaker 1: the floor rises, everything grows, Expectations and hopes and all that,
Speaker 1: and I've kind of adjusted myself to where when this
Speaker 1: team was at its best, I thought this team could
Speaker 1: get to the second weekend. Then the injuries started to come.
Speaker 1: So now if we backtrack, and if I had told
Speaker 1: you when you were trying to figure out your expectations
Speaker 1: and your hopes for this team, realistic hopes. And I
Speaker 1: know that's a fluid term in the Big Blue Nation,
Speaker 1: really in all the sports, But if I told you
Speaker 1: going in, Okay, you've got this roster capable of winning
Speaker 1: any game it's in. But for significant stretches of the season,
Speaker 1: you will be without your three of your top four
Speaker 1: perimeter players. You'll be without Lamont Butler, You'll be without
Speaker 1: Jackson Robinson, You'll be without Kerr Kriesa. Okay, Butler will
Speaker 1: come back, but he won't be one hundred percent. The
Speaker 1: other two will not. So that means there are going
Speaker 1: to be times when Otago Olway has to play the point,
Speaker 1: or the freshman Colin Chandler comes in. And if I
Speaker 1: had told you that first of the year, you would have
Speaker 1: what you know, what about Travis Perry, Well, he got hurt.
Speaker 1: Now Chandler of course started really showing what he's going
Speaker 1: to be toward the end of the year. But you
Speaker 1: didn't know that because he was coming off a two
Speaker 1: year mission. So if I told you all that, oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, you're seven foot center, he's going to
Speaker 1: have to play a little point forward, you would have thought, Man,
Speaker 1: if this team can be five hundred, that would be outstanding.
Speaker 1: And what we saw was outstanding, and the way they
Speaker 1: got there, to me, I still can't get over it.
Speaker 1: And I was, I know, I'm always pessing a miss
Speaker 1: going into the nca tournament Sometimes, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the teams you can't help but think they're
Speaker 1: gonna kick butt. But going into this tournament, I liked
Speaker 1: their draw up until Tennessee. I picked wins and everybody
Speaker 1: did up until Tennessee. And we had that debate for
Speaker 1: several days about a team that's beating a team twice
Speaker 1: beating them a third time, and there were stats that said,
Speaker 1: more often than not by a significant margin, the team
Speaker 1: that won the first two will win the next the
Speaker 1: third game, that's fine, but I think in the NCAA
Speaker 1: tournament a lot of that goes out the window. And
Speaker 1: I do think that Tennessee was probably a better team
Speaker 1: this year than Kentucky. It just was. But Kentucky was
Speaker 1: better on those first two nights. Tennessee helped by jacking
Speaker 1: up forty five threes. They lost their minds trying to
Speaker 1: beat Kentucky at its own game. I still can't believe
Speaker 1: that Rick Barnes let that happen. And again, if you
Speaker 1: listen to me, thank you. You know I'm not one
Speaker 1: who puts everything on a coach and worships a coach,
Speaker 1: and oh, you know, the coach can do anything, knows all, sees,
Speaker 1: all does all no. But in a game like that,
Speaker 1: I've got to think that Barnes could have and should
Speaker 1: have pulled his team together, said, fellas, we're not a
Speaker 1: great three point shooting team. Knock it off, just like
Speaker 1: John Caliperry should have done that against West Virginia back
Speaker 1: in twenty ten against that one to three to one, guys,
Speaker 1: stick to the game plan. That's not the game plan,
Speaker 1: stop jacking up threes. Otherwise he would have won a
Speaker 1: national title with that team. But the next time they
Speaker 1: played Tennessee, and again Kentucky was never a full strength.
Speaker 1: The balls didn't help him like that, and Kentucky still
Speaker 1: won but this day Tennessee was better. Tennessee just beat
Speaker 1: Kentucky on the boards physically. That had so much to
Speaker 1: do with why Kentucky lost that game, and that's been
Speaker 1: a problem all year rebounding. So maybe the kid from
Speaker 1: Julane who comes through the portal will be a big
Speaker 1: help there. Malachi Moreno should be a big help there.
Speaker 1: Got to see him in the Sweet sixteen. I'll give
Speaker 1: you two thumbs up on him. And I'm a little
Speaker 1: prejudiced or a little biased because he does go to
Speaker 1: Great Crossing where my daughter has interacted with him for
Speaker 1: a couple of years. Now. She's a special needs teacher
Speaker 1: and Moreno and his buddies, his teammates and other kids
Speaker 1: come to her class and help her with the kids,
Speaker 1: you know, pushing wheelchairs and things like that. So and
Speaker 1: they do it voluntarily, they like doing it. So anyhow,
Speaker 1: it's going to be fun to see how they come
Speaker 1: together next year. But now he've got a sneak preview
Speaker 1: of what kind of offense they run, and now I
Speaker 1: think Pope more than likely. And now I don't know
Speaker 1: what was his mindset when it came to when and
Speaker 1: how he taught defense this year, but they were a
Speaker 1: late it, weren't they But once they did, they locked
Speaker 1: it down and they were so much better. It was phenomenal,
Speaker 1: how much better they were defensively. The key is crafting
Speaker 1: another roster the way he did it. And he's got
Speaker 1: more time now, clearly, but the way he did it
Speaker 1: this time, pulling this team together, meeting the needs of
Speaker 1: what he had to have to run his stuff, his offense,
Speaker 1: his defense, but also the personality, the meshing that went on.
Speaker 1: He got such great guys, He got the right guys.
Speaker 1: Could have used one more, maybe two, but given how
Speaker 1: little time he had to do it. And so after
Speaker 1: the game, you may have heard little bits and pieces
Speaker 1: of this, but I'm gonna share a couple of comments
Speaker 1: with you. The players were asked first question, and I
Speaker 1: think it was a student from Indiana University asked about
Speaker 1: being a part of Kentucky basketball with Mark Poemm. We'll
Speaker 1: start with you.
Speaker 2: I'll say it's incredible, man. We were you know, we
Speaker 2: came in nobody, not knowing each other, you know, really
Speaker 2: no coaching staff, and you know we built something that
Speaker 2: was you know, really great, really inspiring you know for
Speaker 2: other people, you know, just even to play at Kentucky
Speaker 2: as a dream come true for myself and a lot
Speaker 2: of us guys up here. So we're really grateful for
Speaker 2: him to bring us here and able to experience something
Speaker 2: that you know, we we may have not experienced before
Speaker 2: before this year. And I really just really grateful, honestly.
Speaker 3: Kobe, Yeah, I say, I think the University of Kentucky
Speaker 3: is in great hands. Like I mean, just to see
Speaker 3: what he's done this year, his first year, and not
Speaker 3: only that, but he's a life changer, you know, to
Speaker 3: like to just our group. I feel like he's helped
Speaker 3: has grown so much off the court and on the court,
Speaker 3: and it's going to be really special to see what
Speaker 3: he continues to do for this team and for his
Speaker 3: own university.
Speaker 4: Andrew, Yeah, I just definitely agree with what those guys said.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of us never, you know, even
Speaker 4: just one year ago, even thought that we'd be at Kentucky.
Speaker 4: So for Coach Pope to believe in everybody who is
Speaker 4: on the team, you know, believing myself is really special
Speaker 4: for for all of us. And it's pretty you know,
Speaker 4: super proud of the team and and everybody. This season,
Speaker 4: we were able to make history at the mecca of
Speaker 4: college basketball. And so for us to uh, you know,
Speaker 4: be able to come in here and coach Pope's first
Speaker 4: year and be able to do that has been you know,
Speaker 4: nothing short of amazing, and I'm super excited to see
Speaker 4: for the next you know, ten fifteen years, what kind
Speaker 4: of dim and run coach Coach Pope can start back here.
Speaker 1: So those are the players on the podium after the
Speaker 1: loss to Tennessee. And there was the next question I
Speaker 1: believe came from Darryl Bird. Darryl always asked really interesting questions.
Speaker 1: But Daryl, of course has been here from day one
Speaker 1: with his team, and he took them back to one
Speaker 1: first got here and then asked them, with the season
Speaker 1: behind them, to reflect on what it was like to
Speaker 1: be a part of UK basketball from day one.
Speaker 4: And start with you, Yeah, it's certainly very difficult. Don't
Speaker 4: wanna untie my shoes, don't want to take off this jersey,
Speaker 4: you know, definitely shout out a BBN and and all
Speaker 4: of the fans. It's like nowhere I've ever experienced, and
Speaker 4: really have just had the most fun playing basketball this season,
Speaker 4: and you know, I really appreciate them welcoming all of
Speaker 4: us in with with open arms and really caring about
Speaker 4: all of us more than than just a basketball player
Speaker 4: and being a fan. They really you know, you're welcome
Speaker 4: into the Kentucky family and it's a family for a reason.
Speaker 4: So definitely is is an amazing experience that you know
Speaker 4: right now, But as we continue to get older, just
Speaker 4: look back and be more and more proud as time
Speaker 4: goes on.
Speaker 3: Kobe, Yeah, I don't know who's in charge of the
Speaker 3: jerseys and all that, but they're gonna go through some
Speaker 3: trouble to get mine. It's still like, it's still surreal
Speaker 3: every time, you know, I walk in the locker room
Speaker 3: and I'm able to put this jersey on, just just
Speaker 3: from everything I've dealt with, everything I've been through, where
Speaker 3: I come from. Just to be able to put it on,
Speaker 3: it's just super special. And then you know, just to
Speaker 3: have my brothers and you know, we were all strangers
Speaker 3: when we first got here and we didn't have a
Speaker 3: lot of time to really to bond and get to
Speaker 3: know each other, and you know, make this possible what
Speaker 3: we just did. So like we're all a big family
Speaker 3: now and BBN has made an amazing they made this
Speaker 3: dream like a reality for real for me, Like just
Speaker 3: ever since I stepped into campus, everybody's greeting me with
Speaker 3: open arms, and they've been amazing to me and my family,
Speaker 3: and it's been everything I've wanted to be in more so,
Speaker 3: I'm just happy with my experience here for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is is just a special place where it
Speaker 2: was special people around.
Speaker 1: It, you know, the whole program.
Speaker 2: You know, the fans, they're out there, you know every day,
Speaker 2: even when I first got here just you know, just
Speaker 2: greeting me with love and greeting everybody with love. It
Speaker 2: was the first time we people were coming up to
Speaker 2: our dorm and getting autographs and stuff like that. So
Speaker 2: it was kind of surreal when we got here. The
Speaker 2: you know, the fan love, but you know, just the
Speaker 2: bond that we were able to create this year was
Speaker 2: just amazing. You know, in one year, usually don't get
Speaker 2: teams that are able to you know, really get connected
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 5: Usually it's like two or three years.
Speaker 2: But you know, we we kind of bonded really quick.
Speaker 2: You know, this coach Pope brought some really good guys
Speaker 2: that I'll call brothers for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: And I'm really just.
Speaker 2: Really grateful that God gave me this opportunity.
Speaker 5: To be around these people.
Speaker 1: And as you probably heard on the Mark Pope Show,
Speaker 1: Tom Leach talked about it again. This morning, these guys
Speaker 1: went back to the hotel or back to the dorm.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't entirely sure where they were, but they got together.
Speaker 1: They kind of drifted into the same room later that
Speaker 1: evening and sat and talked and reminisced and shared stories
Speaker 1: about the season. And they didn't break up until six am.
Speaker 1: And this is gonna sound a little odd, but I
Speaker 1: flashed on a documentary I just watched on the making
Speaker 1: of We Are the World, the video that that you know,
Speaker 1: that was back in the eighties, but I happened to
Speaker 1: watch the video and one of the last parts of
Speaker 1: that video was somebody retelling the story when everybody left,
Speaker 1: they all kind of left a little at a time,
Speaker 1: and finally they were just a, you know, a Quincy
Speaker 1: Jones and I can't remember who else, but all the
Speaker 1: artists were gone except for one. And they heard a
Speaker 1: sound in the sound studio and they walked in and
Speaker 1: it was Diana Ross and she was weeping. She was crying,
Speaker 1: and she said, I just don't want this to be over.
Speaker 1: It was such a special experience and it had to
Speaker 1: feel the same way for these guys. I just don't
Speaker 1: want this to be over same way for the UK fans.
Speaker 1: But imagine being one of the ballplayers and knowing this
Speaker 1: is it. You know we're never gonna play together again
Speaker 1: as a team, This entire team. Every team goes through that,
Speaker 1: but imagine what this team went through. Hi, my name
Speaker 1: is nice to Meetia. Where are you. Oh you're the
Speaker 1: guy from Drexel. Oh, okay, you're the guy from Fairleigh Dickinson.
Speaker 1: All right, good to Mitia. Let's go play. Let's go
Speaker 1: see what we can do. And they did up Next
Speaker 1: with it from Mark Stoops, his team scrimmaged over the weekend.
Speaker 1: Back in a minute on the Big Boon Sider and
Speaker 1: a little bit later on Cameron Mills joins us here
Speaker 1: in the garage six point thirty WLAP Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the Big Bluon Sider. Coming up in a few minutes.
Speaker 1: Cameron Mills joins us here in the garage. The chaos
Speaker 1: will ensue, but seriously, we will talk to Cameron about
Speaker 1: this year. Cameron, of course, part of our pregame coverage
Speaker 1: of Kentucky basketball on the UK network, and he and I,
Speaker 1: along with Jody Dummling and Greg Stottomeyer worked the boys
Speaker 1: Sweet sixteen this past week, so Cameron got a good
Speaker 1: look at so many of the great teams in the
Speaker 1: state of Kentucky, including the eventual champion, Great Crossing. He
Speaker 1: and Greg worked the championship game featuring future Wildcat. Now
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know if he's signed yet, but
Speaker 1: his high school career is over, so now he's a
Speaker 1: Kentucky Wildcat. Malachi Moreno, whose high school career ended on
Speaker 1: the same court where he will begin his college career,
Speaker 1: and it's coming up fast. So that comes up here,
Speaker 1: coming up fast as well. At the bottom of the hour,
Speaker 1: Mark Stoops and his team worked on Saturday. We get
Speaker 1: a chance to watch them practice tomorrow, so I'll be
Speaker 1: reporting on what I saw, you know, I mean, what
Speaker 1: can I tell, But I'm going to watch the quarterbacks.
Speaker 1: You better know that. However, Stoops after the scrimmage on
Speaker 1: Saturday wasn't specific about names that he wasn't going to
Speaker 1: be or what happened within the scrimmage, but somebody said
Speaker 1: what group stood out? And he said the D line,
Speaker 1: which I guess is to be expected.
Speaker 6: You know, if I gave a shout out to any
Speaker 6: would probably be defensive line. I think you know that
Speaker 6: group is you know, really the defense in general is
Speaker 6: flying around and this time of year, you know, traditionally
Speaker 6: defense is a little bit ahead anyway. But they're playing
Speaker 6: really hard. It's a very united group and playing very tough,
Speaker 6: and so I appreciate their effort for sure.
Speaker 1: Naturally, somebody asked about quarterbacks. Again, no names, but stoops
Speaker 1: like what he saw.
Speaker 6: You know, I'm not going to talk about any individual.
Speaker 6: I think they're you know, during the spring, They're each
Speaker 6: going to have their moments, you know. And what I
Speaker 6: like is I feel like we got better the last
Speaker 6: you know, several practices early on coming off spring break
Speaker 6: and having that early practice is going to be a
Speaker 6: little rough at times. But I feel like these last
Speaker 6: two practices in particular, were making some jumps.
Speaker 1: I will tell you is during spring break, I bumped
Speaker 1: into a Kentucky assistant and I just said, a's it going.
Speaker 1: We were chit chatting. At at one point he mentioned
Speaker 1: to me that he liked and this was not the
Speaker 1: O line. I can't stress that enough, but he said
Speaker 1: he liked what he saw in the old lineman the
Speaker 1: guys who have transferred in. They look good, they're athletic,
Speaker 1: They've got a chance to really be good. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to tell exactly what he said, but he was
Speaker 1: incredibly optimistic. Now it's got to happen. They got to
Speaker 1: got and put in the work, and Stoop said, that's
Speaker 1: happening right now.
Speaker 6: I love what I'm seeing as far as the question
Speaker 6: that you're asked from the leadership, from the effort, you know,
Speaker 6: from the continuity, we have big bodies. You know, they're
Speaker 6: working very hard, and I love the group. You know,
Speaker 6: we're definitely you know, making progress, and as long as
Speaker 6: they keep that same attitude and work ethic, you know,
Speaker 6: will be significantly improved. And you know that's the goal
Speaker 6: across the board. But again, I just like where they're at,
Speaker 6: you know, I like I like the group. I like
Speaker 6: coach them. They take coaching, and they're working really hard.
Speaker 1: We still don't know yet what is going to happen
Speaker 1: with the open practice for the fans or won't be
Speaker 1: a spring game per se, but there will be something
Speaker 1: on the last day of spring practice. So obviously we'll
Speaker 1: let you know as soon as we know one other
Speaker 1: note about UK baseball. You may have seen this on
Speaker 1: social media, but Tyler Bell is the SEC Freshman of
Speaker 1: the Week. This is one of the weeks where the
Speaker 1: Wildcats play on Thursday. Generally in the past, now generally
Speaker 1: it was in the past it was the last week
Speaker 1: of the season when teams played Thursday through Saturday, but
Speaker 1: that happens now a lot because of TV. So it's
Speaker 1: Kentucky's turn this week and the Thursday game will be
Speaker 1: on the SEC Network. Friday Saturday will be on SEC
Speaker 1: Plus with Yours Truly and Doug Flynn. The Wildcats play
Speaker 1: Ole Miss, coming in a team that a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago won the national championship and has been struggling
Speaker 1: ever since. But you got to expect anything and everything
Speaker 1: when an SEC team comes to town. And think about that.
Speaker 1: If you're an A and M fan, your team was
Speaker 1: number one in the country preseason, how excited were you?
Speaker 1: And it just fell off the edge of the earth
Speaker 1: and Kentucky, which had been struggling a bit, went into
Speaker 1: college station and took two out of three. Tyler Bell
Speaker 1: was one of the big reasons he had a great weekend.
Speaker 1: He had multiple hits all three games, a total of
Speaker 1: eight for the series. He had won base hit in
Speaker 1: the midweek game, so nine all week long, in seventeen
Speaker 1: at bats in College Station, at the double in each game.
Speaker 1: Homered Saturday during a four to four performance, drove in
Speaker 1: seven and it was unbelievable the way Kentucky just kept
Speaker 1: coming back, coming back, and he was a huge part
Speaker 1: of it. So was bad and pitching. Kentucky's pitching wasn't
Speaker 1: much better. So it had to be that kind of
Speaker 1: weekend where the offense came through, and it did. And
Speaker 1: Tyler Bell right now, he's only hitting three forty seven
Speaker 1: true freshman, leads a team in doubles, has five home runs,
Speaker 1: leads to the team in RBI, has stolen five bags,
Speaker 1: and pretty good defensively too. So Wildcats need more of
Speaker 1: that when the Rebels come to town. Up next, Cameron
Speaker 1: Mills of the UK and net Work. We're back in
Speaker 1: just a minute on six thirty WLAP Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the Big Blue Insider and joining us now. I spent
Speaker 1: much of last week with Cameron Mills because we worked
Speaker 1: the Sweet sixteen together the high school version while the
Speaker 1: NCAA tournament was going on. We will talk about both
Speaker 1: So let us start with your beloved Wildcats, and you are,
Speaker 1: as well as being a veteran of the Sweet sixteen
Speaker 1: as a player, also a Wildcat, but also a teammate
Speaker 1: of Mark Pope, and you are an unabashed fan and
Speaker 1: you made no bones about that as you worked a
Speaker 1: pregame show with Dave Fan and a friend and all that.
Speaker 5: Oh Mark, yeah, Mark Yeah, I mean cut you back
Speaker 5: your teammates, of course.
Speaker 1: But I talked in the opening segments tonight about the
Speaker 1: fact that I do believe this team surpassed the expectations
Speaker 1: of most Kentucky fans back in the summer, but once
Speaker 1: the season began, I said, the ceiling was elevated. The
Speaker 1: floor was elevated because the team, the team played so well.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, I know you don't like playing on it.
Speaker 5: The death sentence floors, yes, or the broken leg floors.
Speaker 1: We've talked about it, but no. I mean, once we
Speaker 1: saw what they were capable of doing, and then we
Speaker 1: all started thinking, hum, you know, but then the injuries occur.
Speaker 1: It was that kind of year. There were so many
Speaker 1: ups and downs, and somebody pointed out to me within
Speaker 1: a week span they never won two straight games. You know,
Speaker 1: they win a game, lose a game, win a couple,
Speaker 1: then going into the next week.
Speaker 5: Once I mean we got into SEC play, maybe and
Speaker 5: I'm saying that once we got SEC played, that happened.
Speaker 1: But if they'll never put together a long winning streak.
Speaker 5: No, I know, well, they definitely didn't put together I
Speaker 5: don't think six games in a row. And that's kind
Speaker 5: of to me personally, like, i't what part of the
Speaker 5: season you're in. That's kind of like indicator number one
Speaker 5: you can do it. Yeah, even though yeah, no, I think.
Speaker 5: I think because you've got to put together six games,
Speaker 5: you're on the tournament and I don't care if you're
Speaker 5: playing Little Sisters of Marcia at the beginning the season, exhibition, whatever.
Speaker 5: You got to put six games a row into six
Speaker 5: games in a row together. But I'm not saying a
Speaker 5: team couldn't do it otherwise.
Speaker 1: Let me back yeah, let me back up a little bit.
Speaker 1: If I had told you your your basketball knowledge, Yeah,
Speaker 1: going into the season, all right, they're going to do
Speaker 1: X y Z, but at some point they will be
Speaker 1: without the services of three of their top four perimeter players,
Speaker 1: two of them forever, one of them off and off.
Speaker 1: I gotta think you would have adjusted your expectations. Am
Speaker 1: I right?
Speaker 5: I have I think a logical person wonder yes. But
Speaker 5: and I say this with respect, BBN is not logically true.
Speaker 1: What families is well true?
Speaker 5: And look, my, my, My total experience since I was
Speaker 5: zero has been BBN. So I've I have no I
Speaker 5: have no expectation or h or or.
Speaker 1: You know, I should I should take that back, because
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of fan bases when it comes
Speaker 1: to askabab whatever, I look, if.
Speaker 5: You're outside the blue bloods of Carolina, Duke Kentucky, Kansas
Speaker 5: formerly Indiana, who I'm living out at U c l A. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I think I think Louisville belongs in there. Yeah, I
Speaker 5: don't know. I mean you could have like what Florida
Speaker 5: had a couple of years. What they may have this
Speaker 5: year where you know, all of a sudden they jump
Speaker 5: up and but remember Billy Donovan left Florida because he's like,
Speaker 5: nobody cares, we want two back to backs, nobody cares.
Speaker 5: Everybody was worried about football. Even even in my press conferences,
Speaker 5: I'm getting asked with the football team, what is this?
Speaker 5: I would have left too, well, and that's why I like,
Speaker 5: what's funny is? And I get and I always completely
Speaker 5: changed this and I have to just my expectations for
Speaker 5: because I look at the kid from New Mexico and
Speaker 5: New Mexico State Dent is it Dent? And I'm thinking, okay,
Speaker 5: it was apparently it was down to us in UCLA,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, okay, this is a no brainer. I mean,
Speaker 5: what Cronin is a great coach. He definitely comes from
Speaker 5: the Rick Patino school of coach ology. But over here,
Speaker 5: if that's what Didn't wants, you know, you know, it
Speaker 5: depends on what d it wants. But over here you've
Speaker 5: got a guy that actually played for coach and is
Speaker 5: far surpassed Cronan as far as in his first year.
Speaker 5: What Cronin has done in his completeness at UCLA, I
Speaker 5: think unless and I'm like, okay, so a no brainer.
Speaker 5: And then someone reminded me or someone that video I
Speaker 5: was watching it was mentioning oh and they were saying, well, yeah,
Speaker 5: in UCLA is not going to have you know, as
Speaker 5: far as nil, they're not going to have what what
Speaker 5: Kentucky has. And I was in there thinking, well, number one,
Speaker 5: why wouldn't UCLA have it? But At the same time,
Speaker 5: UCLA is one of those schools where, even though I
Speaker 5: would consider them a blue blood, what have they done recently,
Speaker 5: I mean consistently recently. And I was shocked when he
Speaker 5: went to UCLA because I've been I've been told, and
Speaker 5: I say, I've been told. This is not inside information.
Speaker 5: I think I saw it on a public forum. But like, apparently,
Speaker 5: you know, our nil money this year is obscene. I
Speaker 5: don't know if that's true, but I would. I was
Speaker 5: shocked that he didn't come here. So I just I
Speaker 5: just think as far as the expectations of what Kentucky
Speaker 5: does or what Kentucky did this year, and I have
Speaker 5: to it's hard for me. I have to separate my
Speaker 5: biasness because I know I am biased towards Mark Sure,
Speaker 5: and because I don't care what teammate. I mean, you
Speaker 5: take the teammates I had that I didn't like, which
Speaker 5: at the time, which now I love. But now but look,
Speaker 5: when I was a freshmen, I was being hazed by
Speaker 5: by Roger Groase and Tony Dalk. I mean, you know
Speaker 5: when Antoine walk Girls one of my least favorite people
Speaker 5: on earth, when I played with him. Now, I just
Speaker 5: every time I see him. It's a bear hug and
Speaker 5: I love him to death.
Speaker 1: Was it Ane the one who told you his camraon you.
Speaker 5: Just need to leave you just no, no, no no no
Speaker 5: no no no, you are underplane what he said? Oh
Speaker 5: you are you? You are censoring what he said. Antoine
Speaker 5: is the one to help listen this.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 5: I love this story because because Antoine was so and
Speaker 5: he'll tell you now, and that's what I love. That's
Speaker 5: my favorite part of watching my teammates, including myself, grow old. Yes,
Speaker 5: is because like God, we were arrogant, mother he just.
Speaker 1: We just I mean yeah.
Speaker 5: And then the documentary documentary that we did on the
Speaker 5: ninety sixteen, I mean, the guys even admitted, now there's
Speaker 5: the time they were in their you know, they're in
Speaker 5: their forties and there even menu man, we were so men.
Speaker 5: We thought we were the Beatles. I remember Walter saying
Speaker 5: that we thought we were the Beatles, and I'm like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: we did. We didn't realize we did, but maybe we
Speaker 5: realized we did. But Antoine was the most like the Beatles. Well,
Speaker 5: and here's the thing is what I told this is
Speaker 5: what I told people. I tell people to say because
Speaker 5: a lot of times in in my ministry stuff, I'm
Speaker 5: talking about humility and different between confidence and and arrogance,
Speaker 5: and why humility draws people to you and and cockiness
Speaker 5: or arrogance expels people from you. So I tell people
Speaker 5: all the time the story about how you know, I thought,
Speaker 5: I know we're getting off topic here, but this is
Speaker 5: this is what we do. So I don't I don't
Speaker 5: feel bad. But I thought that during my time at UK,
Speaker 5: I was the outlier. Chep was an outlier too, Mark
Speaker 5: was an outlier, right that, uh that the three of
Speaker 5: us and I thought, you know, we're going to you know,
Speaker 5: our faith is important to us, Our faith should make
Speaker 5: us be different.
Speaker 1: And then because of your faith. So what you're saying,
Speaker 1: what you felt like an outlier because you're of your faith.
Speaker 5: Yes, I know what I'm saying. I thought we were
Speaker 5: outliers because of our behavior and our and I and
Speaker 5: and I think our faith is what motivating motivator. Yeah,
Speaker 5: well so motivated our behavior. But anyway, I'm going so
Speaker 5: off topic here, I'm sorry, But anyway, so, but Antoine
Speaker 5: was the guy who I thought I would compare myself
Speaker 5: to arrogance wise, not basketball, there's no reason to do
Speaker 5: that whatsoever, but arrogance, because I would tell myself, okay,
Speaker 5: so like if I felt like, or imagine in my
Speaker 5: head that I had treated a fan less than an equal,
Speaker 5: which there were moments where I was told that I had,
Speaker 5: not by the fan, but by my people, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean, like the people that should have told
Speaker 5: me that, right, my accountability people. I would just brush
Speaker 5: it off as you don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 5: Let's go home and hang out with a guy named
Speaker 5: Antoine Walker and you tell me if you think I'm cocky.
Speaker 1: But that's not what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 5: I mean, comparing yourself to another human being. Again, in
Speaker 5: in my world, you know you don't do that. You
Speaker 5: compare yourself to Christ and you see where you bounce out,
Speaker 5: how how you bounce out with that, and then that proves, oh, well,
Speaker 5: here's your shortcomings. But Antoine was the one that I
Speaker 5: always compared myself to when it came to arrogance, because God,
Speaker 5: I mean he he and Coach p Even We're in
Speaker 5: Cincinnati and the two of them are having a yelling
Speaker 5: I mean they're yelling at each other at a team meeting.
Speaker 5: We're watching film at a team yelling at each other.
Speaker 5: Coach Pte ends it by saying, you will never be
Speaker 5: as big as me.
Speaker 1: I've heard about that. You will never be I am huge.
Speaker 1: It was will never be as biddy.
Speaker 5: I mean the old team is like it's a cross
Speaker 5: between do we laugh or do we cry? I mean, well,
Speaker 5: what do we do here? This is the I mean,
Speaker 5: because no one has ever yelled at coach P and
Speaker 5: now Coach P'm back and he ends it with you'll
Speaker 5: never be as big as me.
Speaker 1: Anyway, just the fact that Antoine would he listen that
Speaker 1: kind of response, well from Rick Bettino. Now and I'm
Speaker 1: thinking ahead.
Speaker 5: To the Scions, which which was this was Antoine's freshman year.
Speaker 5: That was antoine senior year. A right, I'm sorry, sophomore year.
Speaker 1: Do you remember what was said in the huddle when
Speaker 1: when Antoine was benched?
Speaker 5: Nothing was said?
Speaker 1: So why did he mention him?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 5: Oh it wasn't It wasn't so much. Oh okay, yeah,
Speaker 5: I see you. Sam. My recollection of that was you've
Speaker 5: got me part of this is your fault. Now you've
Speaker 5: got me in middle eight stories here, it's what I do.
Speaker 5: That's what I do, which is you're doing it to
Speaker 5: me is not helping this this segment. I thought you No,
Speaker 5: I haven't even told it yet. Remember you asked me
Speaker 5: about all right, so let me finish that. So what
Speaker 5: do you so? So we're playing pick up immemorial hit
Speaker 5: for his freshman year, my freshman year before the season starts.
Speaker 5: Neither of us have had a freshman year. We're doing
Speaker 5: preseason conditions. We're playing pick up and I got to play.
Speaker 5: I got to play with the guys. And I only
Speaker 5: say that because when I took my official visit to Georgia,
Speaker 5: the walk Ons never played. We're never allowed. I mean
Speaker 5: they were treated like like, I mean, just terrible and that,
Speaker 5: and that, honestly is what turned me off from Georgia. Now,
Speaker 5: I didn't want to go there anyway, but I did
Speaker 5: take an official visit and I'm sitting there like I'm
Speaker 5: not turning down an SEC scholarship. Look, I want to
Speaker 5: go to Kentucky. If they don't want me, then I
Speaker 5: gotta go here. And the one thing that I kept
Speaker 5: going back to is but I'm embarrassed at how they're
Speaker 5: treating their walk on. Wow, and this was before I
Speaker 5: was a walk on. So I'm gonna I mean it's
Speaker 5: just I mean they were and it's not just that
Speaker 5: they didn't let them play pick up. They just mocked them. Wow,
Speaker 5: it was embarrassing. I mean I was. I was embarrassed
Speaker 5: for the program at that point. And what I love
Speaker 5: about is eventually Tubby would be there next. And I
Speaker 5: promise you that crap wasn't going on then. Right, So
Speaker 5: we're playing pickup, and I, of all people, it's a
Speaker 5: game point, right, it's we would always play to eleven. Now,
Speaker 5: there were no threes, right, so it was just points,
Speaker 5: eleven points and there were no twos. Everything's a point.
Speaker 5: It's like ten, ten, ten, nine, something like that. And
Speaker 5: somehow I get the ball the ball. Look, it's not
Speaker 5: like I didn't get a steal. The ball bounced to me.
Speaker 5: I picked it up at on my defensive end, right
Speaker 5: around free throw line. And I'm leading the break. Now
Speaker 5: I shouldn't be leading the break my senior year, I
Speaker 5: shouldn't have been leading the break. But I was leading
Speaker 5: the break. And Antoine was with me on the break
Speaker 5: because probably because he was snowbirding. But it's me, it's
Speaker 5: me and him. It's two on one, right, and so
Speaker 5: and I remember who's on defense. It didn't matter. It
Speaker 5: ultimately didn't matter anyway, because as I reached a three
Speaker 5: point line on other end of the court, somehow I
Speaker 5: bounced the ball off my off both knees, one foot
Speaker 5: and it just trails out of bounce. So we've got
Speaker 5: a chance to win the game, and I blow it,
Speaker 5: and I blow it Antoine immediately, and of course the
Speaker 5: next possession they come back, they score, they win, and
Speaker 5: Antoine's just furious. So he's cussing me out out on
Speaker 5: the court. And as he leaves, oh no, this happened
Speaker 5: in the locker room. So he's cussed me on the court.
Speaker 5: That was the last game we played. We get in
Speaker 5: the locker room. He is still on fire, I mean
Speaker 5: still just just yelling and and I'm like, dude, this
Speaker 5: is like twenty minutes ago. Now I didn't say it
Speaker 5: because I'm only going to say a thing to him.
Speaker 5: But so he finally turns to me in the middle
Speaker 5: of locker room and this this thing. Everyone's still around,
Speaker 5: we all had it, we'd all showered, everybody's getting their
Speaker 5: clothes back on to go to the Lodger class or whatever.
Speaker 5: He is just still and he finally looks at me
Speaker 5: and says Cam. And I don't even know if he
Speaker 5: called me Cam. He may have called me, he may
Speaker 5: have called me another name. You look right now, get
Speaker 5: all your crap, put it together and leave. You are
Speaker 5: off this team, and I don't want to see you
Speaker 5: back in here. And I am such a nube because
Speaker 5: I'm a freshman. I'm looking around at like Walt Tony,
Speaker 5: like can he do this?
Speaker 4: Is this?
Speaker 5: Am? I am? I off the team? And I swear
Speaker 5: to you it is my Every time I see Antoine,
Speaker 5: I bring it up every time I've ever told me that.
Speaker 5: I swear I've told you that story. Thousands you told me.
Speaker 1: You've told me he told you you should leave, but
Speaker 1: you not in that context.
Speaker 5: Oh he threw me off the team. You are terrible.
Speaker 5: You are the word. You have no business being here.
Speaker 5: You need to get your and get out of here
Speaker 5: right now and don't come back. And I'm like, I
Speaker 5: don't know what to do. I just don't know what
Speaker 5: to do. And now and now that man, because of
Speaker 5: life and circumstances which a lot of people would look
Speaker 5: at as bad, which they were, but overall they have
Speaker 5: humbled that guy. And now of all my teammates other
Speaker 5: than maybe Shep and Mark and the guys that I
Speaker 5: was close to because of our faith. I mean, Antoine
Speaker 5: is the guy that I'm like, Man, I just want
Speaker 5: to hang out with Antoine because he is so humbled and.
Speaker 1: We all do some of us do it very in
Speaker 1: different ways.
Speaker 5: Yes, and for different reasons. Yes, but man, you hit
Speaker 5: your forties almost fifties now for all of us. When
Speaker 5: we had our ninety six autograph session a few weeks ago,
Speaker 5: the first question is we sat down and started talking
Speaker 5: to each other. Is all right? Who turns fifty first?
Speaker 5: And Anthy goes, I'm already fifty. Wow, yeah, all right
Speaker 5: to take a We got that? Well, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5: Eight more stories I'm in the middle of here.
Speaker 1: Gamera Mills in the garage. Up next on six thirty
Speaker 1: w l A P. He's giggling already, Camera Mills here
Speaker 1: in the garage. What was said?
Speaker 5: This is our our times on show time. All right,
Speaker 5: I'll save the gratitude for later.
Speaker 1: Okay, great, Uh, anyway, let's wrap real quickly the Antoine
Speaker 1: Walker portion of our program. What was said in the
Speaker 1: huddle issue this?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know that anyone has because what I
Speaker 5: SEC Tournament nineteen ninety six. We're playing Mississippi State and
Speaker 5: Antoine does not play the second half.
Speaker 1: I don't people think Patino threw the game on purpose.
Speaker 5: Well, I will tell you this, I don't know that
Speaker 5: he didn't throw it on purpose, because there's no guarantee
Speaker 5: that you take Antoline out that we still don't win.
Speaker 5: That's right, he didn't throw it on purpose. But what
Speaker 5: he did do is admit in our documentary not to
Speaker 5: bring it up twice in a row, that I knew
Speaker 5: we needed a loss. Yeah, he said that. He said that,
Speaker 5: And this is why go to people all the time
Speaker 5: and say, I don't think you all understand the benefits
Speaker 5: of a late season loss, especially if you've run off
Speaker 5: as we did twenty six in a row, exactly back
Speaker 5: to the arrogance, arrogance hubility thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he kind of pounced on this opportunity.
Speaker 5: Maybe, Yes, that's what it is. He had been Antoine
Speaker 5: and him had been button heads all year, back to
Speaker 5: the you'll never be bigger than me comment, which was
Speaker 5: earlier that season. And and so I don't remember what
Speaker 5: Antoine said. I don't remember that it was something Antoine
Speaker 5: said in the huddle, and that's probably that, that's probably
Speaker 5: what happened. But because you're saying that makes me believe,
Speaker 5: because you know, you remember stuff that I don't remember,
Speaker 5: even though I was actually in the huddle. I was
Speaker 5: overwhelmed with a lot of things. Oh yeah, but what
Speaker 5: I what my My my remembrance of that was Antoine
Speaker 5: was Jack and shots was playing outside the game plan
Speaker 5: and Coach had just had enough. That's my recollection of it.
Speaker 5: I'm sure in a timeout Coach was just letting him
Speaker 5: have it, and Antoine may have just, you know, just
Speaker 5: blew him off or something, and Coach might have said
Speaker 5: that's it and just said him. What I love is
Speaker 5: that recently coach did the same thing with a star
Speaker 5: at Saint Josh. Sure, and there's a different, different response
Speaker 5: from the kid now and and now that that apparently
Speaker 5: I don't know, sure not, but based on a graphic
Speaker 5: I saw on YouTube that kid may we may be
Speaker 5: interested in him because he's in the transfer portal, which
Speaker 5: will be It seems that would seem awkward for coach
Speaker 5: being coached in March's relationship.
Speaker 1: And if he were, if he was a problem child
Speaker 1: of Saint John's.
Speaker 5: Well, here's the question. Here's the question though, here's the
Speaker 5: question though, was he or was it something in the moment,
Speaker 5: I would say.
Speaker 1: Probably watching this documentary series.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, how is that?
Speaker 1: By the way, excellent?
Speaker 5: I got to watch that. I have to I have
Speaker 5: to wait till season goes.
Speaker 1: Yes, and combine the insights you can glean from that
Speaker 1: with your personal It's.
Speaker 5: Like that one thing. I'd love to hear what you
Speaker 5: have said, that one thing they released of him in
Speaker 5: the locker room. Oh yes, and everybody. I'm getting text
Speaker 5: from people saying was he really this bad? And I
Speaker 5: was like, hang on, let me watch it. I'm like, bad,
Speaker 5: this is I'd run through a brick. Waf this dude,
Speaker 5: because this dude. Number one, he's right, yeah. Number two
Speaker 5: he is saying it in an amazing way. And number three,
Speaker 5: that's l like coach Patina that his diet Coach Patino.
Speaker 5: That is nothing I told you. I told that was
Speaker 5: my coach.
Speaker 1: I told her about Seawan Wood's story about when he
Speaker 1: and I were in the locker room after they had
Speaker 1: won an nca tournament game in rough and one of
Speaker 1: the UFL players hollered over at him, Hey, coach, what
Speaker 1: times a bust leave and Sean ducked just instinctively flinched, like,
Speaker 1: oh then he felt, I felt so bad for the guy.
Speaker 1: He was gonna get it both barrels, and he said.
Speaker 1: Rick Patino looked up and said, now about fifteen.
Speaker 5: Minutes, I know it's just like so for what Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's like.
Speaker 1: And Sean almost made it sound like, you know, he
Speaker 1: was relieved for the kid, But then he thought, wait
Speaker 1: a minute.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's not fair. Yeah, that's you don't get to
Speaker 5: play for him, this version of him, because none of
Speaker 5: the rest of us did.
Speaker 1: And what's the funniest thing to me was that version
Speaker 1: of Rick Bettino also won a national title at Louisville.
Speaker 5: That and look he's easier, and look.
Speaker 1: And Mike well a one one of Saint John's with
Speaker 1: better shooters.
Speaker 5: May still win one at Saint Johns.
Speaker 1: Might he might? I mean what I mean, if you
Speaker 1: saw them lose, you could you knew why they couldn't
Speaker 1: hit a shot when.
Speaker 5: They had to three years he's been there or two?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Three two three? No, I think he's three two. He's
Speaker 5: not been there long, and he's already he's already got
Speaker 5: them right on the version of the Final four.
Speaker 1: So Cammeron Mills is in the garage. We have many
Speaker 1: more stories to go. We will so many talk more
Speaker 1: about the wildcast, but I just needed to put a
Speaker 1: bow on the Antoine Walker affair. We'll talk about the
Speaker 1: Sweet sixteen high school tournament because Cam got a great.
Speaker 5: That's what we said.
Speaker 1: We were going to talk sure why we will future
Speaker 1: Wildcat I like Ti Marino, All of that ahead coming
Speaker 1: up on the big womside around six thirty w lap.
Speaker 7: Any such such statuta anything, do anything only.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Big Moon Saturday. I number two
Speaker 1: here in the garage with Cameron Mills. He is here
Speaker 1: to talk UK basketball and the high schools the Sweet sixteen.
Speaker 1: Cam and I worked it for the khs A radio network.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, we got off on a little tangent.
Speaker 5: Little in the first two segments. It took me two segments.
Speaker 1: We did touch on on Mark Pope and his team
Speaker 1: and the first cameraon part of our pregame coverage on
Speaker 1: the UK radio network. But now that team, you know,
Speaker 1: is off in the ethernet. It's it's you know, the
Speaker 1: guys have come and gone.
Speaker 5: Which is just sad it is, But because this team.
Speaker 5: I'll say, it's real quick, so we don't get from
Speaker 5: another changent to me not knowing what's going to happen
Speaker 5: in the future, but thinking, I know this team is
Speaker 5: a not as not as important in the UK lore.
Speaker 5: But what we had this year, this is this is
Speaker 5: unforgettables too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because from whatever happens now in a good way
Speaker 1: in the Mark Pope era, they stand on their shoulders.
Speaker 1: That's exactly an the way that team came together, that's exactly.
Speaker 1: And I was so moved when Mark Pope was talking
Speaker 1: on his last Coaches show the year about the fact
Speaker 1: that these guys went from the media interviews, from the
Speaker 1: from the table, the big table, which I think you
Speaker 1: may have gotten to do.
Speaker 5: I got to do.
Speaker 1: Once, or the locker room or whatever, back to the
Speaker 1: either the hotel or the doing whatever. They didn't break
Speaker 1: up until six am. They sat around just talking telling
Speaker 1: stories until.
Speaker 5: Six as fellas just wait for twenty years to go by,
Speaker 5: and those stories are not going to go away, and
Speaker 5: you will tell them over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: But the fact that they just didn't want they want
Speaker 1: to leave this season, didn't want to leave each other.
Speaker 5: And you know, what Mark said this during one of
Speaker 5: his coaches shows mid season maybe even no, I think
Speaker 5: it was right as we started sec play and this
Speaker 5: wasn't something he said, Well he did say it on air,
Speaker 5: but he also said it, you know after as he
Speaker 5: was kind of mingling before he left, because but he
Speaker 5: definitely on air, which was I mean, he almost got
Speaker 5: teary eyed mid season just saying, I can't believe we're
Speaker 5: already here.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't want to too fast.
Speaker 5: I don't. I mean, I don't want this season to end.
Speaker 5: And it was because it was in context of these guys,
Speaker 5: because you imagine how much research can you put in.
Speaker 5: And I'm not talking about film, I'm talking about did
Speaker 5: I recruit any cancers? Did I recruit any is I
Speaker 5: recruiting any disruptors? Or any guys on this team not
Speaker 5: going to get it?
Speaker 4: Yea.
Speaker 5: And not only were there no bad eggs, I mean
Speaker 5: these guys that this was eggs Benedict that we got.
Speaker 5: I mean these guys, these thank you, These guys, I
Speaker 5: mean they're just good to And here's how I knew
Speaker 5: they were good dudes my very first day.
Speaker 1: And you get to go to practice a lot.
Speaker 5: So that's where this is. So I'm at practice, my
Speaker 5: very first practice, maybe the second time I've seen Mark
Speaker 5: since he became coach, showed up to practice in the
Speaker 5: capacity of my JMI job of doing these practice reports
Speaker 5: that I did all season, which was funny because Mark thought.
Speaker 5: Mark was like, now listen, I know you have to
Speaker 5: be unbiased, and I'm like, no, I don't. I said.
Speaker 5: First of all, I said, Mark, I can't be unbiased
Speaker 5: with you. I just can't. I mean, I mean, I
Speaker 5: am going to root for you. I mean I was
Speaker 5: reading for you your Utah Valley, you know. And so
Speaker 5: I show up and he sees me and immediately we're
Speaker 5: getting ready to have, you know, pre pre practice huddle.
Speaker 5: Immediately says hey Cam, because I'm sitting on the sidelines,
Speaker 5: Hey Cam, come here. So he brings me over, puts
Speaker 5: his arm around me, introduces me to the team, points
Speaker 5: to the two ninety six ninety eight banners, say guys,
Speaker 5: this guy is partly responsible for those that one which
Speaker 5: ninety six and all wasn't but.
Speaker 1: Still were there.
Speaker 5: I was there.
Speaker 1: I was there.
Speaker 5: I had a uniform on, but I did not sweat,
Speaker 5: not even a warm up. So East pointed that one
Speaker 5: pointed and goes and he's definitely responsible in part again
Speaker 5: for that one. And so yeah, not any of them.
Speaker 5: And so I had some some more very kind things
Speaker 5: to say about me in front of the team, and
Speaker 5: and then I walked back. They start practice after practice,
Speaker 5: with the exception of the guys I already knew Derbyshire
Speaker 5: and Horne walk on. Yeah, Which that's my meeting absolutely
Speaker 5: the entire team, every every new player. Oh, when Travis
Speaker 5: and Trent, I had met Travis and Trent, and but
Speaker 5: they came over anyway. So they all came over one
Speaker 5: by one and and introduced themselves to me. I know
Speaker 5: who these guys are. I followed their recruiting or off
Speaker 5: the portal or in Trent's cases, you know, recruiting from
Speaker 5: South Carolina. And I've never I've never experienced that. And
Speaker 5: this is this is not a slight in any of
Speaker 5: Cal's teams, because in part they were freshmen, and I did.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't have done that as a freshman. I was
Speaker 5: I was terrified. I mean, why would you, why would you?
Speaker 5: Whoever you are sitting over here in the middle of
Speaker 5: practice as a guest. You don't even know my name,
Speaker 5: And I don't think you want to. And it wasn't
Speaker 5: like I was I was being rude. It was like
Speaker 5: I just they don't care about who I am, and
Speaker 5: so I wouldn't. Never, as a senior, I wouldn't do that.
Speaker 5: I should have, but I didn't. And these guys came
Speaker 5: over and entered, I mean again, as as men. I
Speaker 5: to eye contact, heads up, hand extended. My name's Andrew Carr.
Speaker 5: Nice to meet you or no. Actually, what most of
Speaker 5: them said was it's an honor to meet you. And
Speaker 5: they emphasized honor because Mark had made such a big
Speaker 5: deal about those banners, and as already and all year
Speaker 5: had been Hey, look this is this is not about
Speaker 5: winning the SEC. This is not about going to sweet sixteen.
Speaker 5: We're here this year to hang a banner.
Speaker 1: Oh listen, I heard and witnessed some of these guys
Speaker 1: when they found out who Jack Gibbons is and what he.
Speaker 5: Accomplished, you know, And so when you're a freshman and
Speaker 5: you're here only only to put in your year to
Speaker 5: get to the league, yep, And look, they don't owe
Speaker 5: us anything. They don't. I'm gonna take former players and
Speaker 5: I'm actually gonna amend that they actually do. They don't
Speaker 5: know us anything in the time other than the respect
Speaker 5: of knowing that in part this building that they're practicing in, sure,
Speaker 5: the arena that they're going to play.
Speaker 1: In, those scoculation of fans, those.
Speaker 5: Twenty two thousand idiots, and I say that respectfully, idiots
Speaker 5: BBN that are going to show up and treat you
Speaker 5: like gods for this year. That's in part because we've
Speaker 5: kept it going. Did it started? We kept it joing. Absolutely,
Speaker 5: that's what they think.
Speaker 1: That's what I loved about this team as a media member,
Speaker 1: but someone who grew up in the state of Kentucky,
Speaker 1: these it was such a unique situation and that these
Speaker 1: guys had begun. We all know they had begun their careers.
Speaker 1: But the exception to the freshmen and at other schools
Speaker 1: where basketball would be what are you doing tonight? I
Speaker 1: want to go to the game? You know, all right,
Speaker 1: let's go for the first half or whatever. Compared to
Speaker 1: foreign to me that thought exactly compared to what they
Speaker 1: dropped into. Well, what I absolutely loved was because they
Speaker 1: were connoisseurs of the game, of the culture of college basketball,
Speaker 1: they had such an app and at all fairness, no
Speaker 1: incoming freshmen could ever have that kind of appreciation except
Speaker 1: for a kid who grew up in the state of Kentucky.
Speaker 1: But that's going to be.
Speaker 5: Rare, well, you know, or even the occasional Jeff Shepherd,
Speaker 5: wh grew up in Peachtree City, Georgia, who had the
Speaker 5: appreciation of Kentucky basketball.
Speaker 1: Wa And why was that? Do you remember?
Speaker 5: He told? You know what, it's funny.
Speaker 1: And Sean Woods, whose grandmother lived here, Shawn had lived here,
Speaker 1: so that was Sean spent childhood here.
Speaker 5: Shep had no connection here at all, and yet but
Speaker 5: he there is a reason. And he told it recently
Speaker 5: actually to me, not just to me. He was he
Speaker 5: was he was preaching at a he was preaching at
Speaker 5: a church here in Lexington for a men's group. And
Speaker 5: it's the church that my mom and dad go to.
Speaker 5: And so my dad, who never does this, my dad
Speaker 5: called me and said, hey, would you would you go
Speaker 5: with me? And which was awesome because it was like,
Speaker 5: I mean, it's like, hey, I want to go here, SHEP,
Speaker 5: I want you to go with me here? Shep. It's
Speaker 5: like okay. So we went and and Shep actually told
Speaker 5: that story of how he went from because I didn't
Speaker 5: know this like I just studied grew up in Peach
Speaker 5: Tree City. He actually grew up in like southeast Georgia,
Speaker 5: like down near the like on the coast, and I
Speaker 5: guess somewhere outside of Savannah and so and then they
Speaker 5: moved to Peach Tree City. But my understanding of him
Speaker 5: telling the story was that his love for Kentucky basketball
Speaker 5: was not when he was in Peachtree City, was when
Speaker 5: he was in this other town in southern Georgia. And
Speaker 5: and that was what we're talking about. When he's five
Speaker 5: years old that time. I don't know what happened. I
Speaker 5: cannot remember the details his story, but something and there
Speaker 5: is a story, is there's something happened, and something happened
Speaker 5: is in like he he may have watched us play
Speaker 5: on TV.
Speaker 1: Or something to get him back on the show and
Speaker 1: ask him he's not hard.
Speaker 5: Well, he is hard to get back on a show,
Speaker 5: but he's not. He's not hard to get ahold of.
Speaker 5: He works here, he works here in town, but he
Speaker 5: does work here.
Speaker 1: Well. Just stories like that always fascinated me.
Speaker 5: So we were the only reason I do the show
Speaker 5: is to tell stories.
Speaker 1: That's true, and you do it so well, all right,
Speaker 1: Cameron Mills. He's in the garage. I would disagree with
Speaker 1: Kentucky basketball. After the break here on six Welcome back
Speaker 1: to the Big Moon Sider Dick Gabriel. Cameron Mills in
Speaker 1: the garage talking Kentucky basketball. We've looked back on this
Speaker 1: last season somewhat. Uh, truth be told, Cameron did not
Speaker 1: watch the Tennessee game. I know you've seen highlights. I
Speaker 1: went back and watched it because I watched.
Speaker 5: Like a like a fifteen minute you know, on those
Speaker 5: things where well, we were we.
Speaker 1: Were busy working the boys high school tournament, which we'll
Speaker 1: talk about shortly.
Speaker 5: It's hard to watch the last game of any season
Speaker 5: unless it's the game it is.
Speaker 1: Uh. And I almost felt better in that they didn't
Speaker 1: lose on a last second shot. I know that sounds odd,
Speaker 1: No it doesn't, but Tennessee, you would It would have
Speaker 1: been heartbreaking.
Speaker 5: It would have more so more so than this was buttend. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and not to finish you since, but Tennessee went out
Speaker 5: there improved. Well, here's what Tennessee did. They went out
Speaker 5: there and took their vengeance.
Speaker 1: Yes, what they did they did, uh, And that's that's
Speaker 1: the thing.
Speaker 5: They came out much more focused much more ready to
Speaker 5: play and with a chip on their shoulder because we
Speaker 5: had shown them after two games that we were a
Speaker 5: better team. They didn't believe it. They came out and
Speaker 5: improved it in that moment that they were the better team.
Speaker 1: Somebody em on me and said that they were more
Speaker 1: ready to play, and that's Mark Pope's fault. Now, I yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't go with that.
Speaker 5: Well, no, it is Mark's Pope's fault in that he
Speaker 5: beat this team twice this year. That's coach Pub's fault.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there is that emotional edge, which is a
Speaker 1: great advantage.
Speaker 5: And you know, it's funny. I have arguments with people
Speaker 5: who say, you know, because I talk about billboard material,
Speaker 5: do not give your opponent billboard.
Speaker 1: Material, board material whatever.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, billboard would be Yeah, it'd
Speaker 5: be different thing billtimboard material. Don't give him anything to
Speaker 5: add motivation to what you can do. And I people say, look,
Speaker 5: if you have to have added motivation to play a
Speaker 5: college basketball game, I'm like, okay, then you've never played
Speaker 5: a college game. You probably never played a game in
Speaker 5: your life because you don't understand how this works psychologically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, you you.
Speaker 5: Got I mean, coach p was a master at it.
Speaker 5: I think he made stuff up sometimes.
Speaker 1: You know what they said about you all, you know
Speaker 1: it was the master Michael Jordan.
Speaker 5: See.
Speaker 1: And that's the point. Yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 5: If the best player of all time needed add a
Speaker 5: motivation exactly, why wouldn't the idiots in college need it exactly?
Speaker 1: And the best example of that came at the expense
Speaker 1: of a former Louisville player. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: ever know this story. The Bradford Smith was playing for
Speaker 1: the Washington I think they were still the Bullets back then.
Speaker 1: They and for whatever reason, Michael Jordan had it in
Speaker 1: his mind. I think he had one good game against
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan, and Jordan had put it in his own
Speaker 1: mind that this guy was was smack talking about that game,
Speaker 1: which he wasn't. So the next time he faced him,
Speaker 1: he just made mincemeat out of it. Was talking to
Speaker 1: him about it throughout the game, and le Bradford Smith
Speaker 1: was like, what did I do? What did I say?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 5: There are so many great and and I love watching
Speaker 5: them because man, they just Kobe was the same way
Speaker 5: where Bryant, Oh yeah of course, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: Cobe Cobe. Oh absolutely, I mean he would he. I mean,
Speaker 5: the worst thing you could do is open up your
Speaker 5: mouth to them. Just leave them alone and let the sleep.
Speaker 1: And clearly Kentucky this was not a smack talk thing,
Speaker 1: but it was Tennessee all they heard about going in. Well,
Speaker 1: Kentucky beat him twice.
Speaker 5: Do you remember this would have been under Tubby when
Speaker 5: we played Duke at Duke and I actually actually wasn't
Speaker 5: it do?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And this was team turmoil, that's right. And Rashad Caruth
Speaker 5: Jay Williams up in the first half, yes, and what
Speaker 5: is he remember Jay Williams number one player of the
Speaker 5: year that year in college basketball and we were supposed
Speaker 5: to lose that game and we were killing them. Rashaw
Speaker 5: Caruth specifically killing Jay Williams in that first half, and
Speaker 5: I mean about five minutes left in the half. He
Speaker 5: hast has had his way with Jay. And you can
Speaker 5: see it so many times. He's Jawn to Jay and
Speaker 5: I and I'm I am wincing at home watching the
Speaker 5: game and I'm like, dude, dude, just stop it. No
Speaker 5: mean wanted to just stop it. That second half came
Speaker 5: out and Jay Williams destroyed the team, and I'm like,
Speaker 5: that is for Shaka's fault.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you do not you know what else he did?
Speaker 5: You do not open your mouth against careers.
Speaker 1: Not only did that during the game, but during warm
Speaker 1: ups he kept throwing in and I didn't know what
Speaker 1: was happening because I was there, but I was up
Speaker 1: in the boonies, up in the rafters, and I could
Speaker 1: see him warming up, and it was in front of
Speaker 1: the Duke bench and he kept throwing in three pointers
Speaker 1: like two or three steps beyond the arc. I uh huh, yeah,
Speaker 1: And each time he would turn to Skrzyzewski. Should have
Speaker 1: recruited me, bang see, that should have should have taken me.
Speaker 1: You know, that's just that that I just realized. I
Speaker 1: should have known that it extended through the game. So
Speaker 1: now let us bring it back.
Speaker 5: Well, let me real quick and this will be relevant
Speaker 5: to this year's teams. Okay, so this back talking before
Speaker 5: the Tennessee game, was there, well number one, there was?
Speaker 5: When was it Ziggler? When Ziggler was here right for
Speaker 5: the because Tennessee played their preliminary game, preliminary games, first
Speaker 5: round games here. Did you not see the picture of
Speaker 5: Ziggler flipping off a picture of him. I mean it's
Speaker 5: like it's like one of his teammates took it of
Speaker 5: him flipping off the UK logo back in the hallway
Speaker 5: at RUP. You didn't see that. Yeah, not only that,
Speaker 5: but then apparently the UK then this is our fault.
Speaker 5: The Tennessee players were basically saying that in the first
Speaker 5: two games, yeah, that we we That wasn't you know that?
Speaker 5: First of all, that's not and I'm paraphrasing, that's not Kentucky, right,
Speaker 5: They played out of their minds and we didn't play well,
Speaker 5: and we're a better team than them. Our response, and
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna mention which Kentucky which Kentucky players said this,
Speaker 5: but it made me cringe. A reporter asked them about
Speaker 5: those comments, and he said that's cute, and I'm like,
Speaker 5: oh my.
Speaker 1: God, oh dude, yeah, let's just just shut up.
Speaker 5: I don't understand this generations, and I hate to be
Speaker 5: the old man here, but just just here's here's here's
Speaker 5: how you become a national champion. In part. Every team
Speaker 5: you play, they can talk all the trash they want.
Speaker 5: Your response always is, look, they're a great team and
Speaker 5: we've got to play our best basketball. Tonight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I I that can't be your on core.
Speaker 1: I need I need why because you got to meet
Speaker 1: force with.
Speaker 5: Four No, you do not smack for is scoreboard.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying, I know. I mean by playing
Speaker 1: your best, your best in and that's all you need
Speaker 1: and they're coming to you with everything that God, you
Speaker 1: gotta do the same thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Now, uh, that might involve a little bit of attitude
Speaker 1: on the court, Brandon attitude, but that doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: talk it agreed. Brandon Garrison is up the line every
Speaker 1: now and then steps over it.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: Well, I think sometimes what he does is Oklahoma game
Speaker 5: stands out where he just gets so excited, yes, and
Speaker 5: gets so pumped that, yeah, it kind of spills over sometimes.
Speaker 5: But I would argue that getting excited, getting pumped is fine,
Speaker 5: but don't let us spill over.
Speaker 1: Going back to your team, your ninety sixteen, which was
Speaker 1: in my mind, the greatest team in the history of
Speaker 1: modern dating back to of course.
Speaker 5: Yeah absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 1: Sorry.
Speaker 5: Somebody asked me, like to rank the championships of Kentucky
Speaker 5: and I put ninety eight dead last, and they thought, really,
Speaker 5: I'm like, yes, no one outside the team, even the
Speaker 5: diehard Kentucky fans truly expected us to do anything.
Speaker 1: That Anyhow, there was a nasty streak in that ninety
Speaker 1: sixteen I mean.
Speaker 5: But it wasn't a trash talking streak, no.
Speaker 1: No, but it was because you all were the Beatles,
Speaker 1: you know, Walter and all of them. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: and if you guys had the confidence, you knew how
Speaker 1: good you were.
Speaker 5: But remember, it was the reason we felt we were
Speaker 5: treated like the Beatles. Wasn't our UK fans because they're
Speaker 5: showing up no matter what, because they're just amazing. It's
Speaker 5: when the other team. Look. Caliperry noted this, and the
Speaker 5: and the media just got tired of hearing of it.
Speaker 5: I don't care. He's right. It is a super Bowl
Speaker 5: when Kentucky shows Sure it is. And it's still yeah,
Speaker 5: under the Gillespie era, it was still a super Bowl
Speaker 5: because and as they weren't playing that team, the Fantom
Speaker 5: Show were not necessarily because oh Mississippi State or Ole
Speaker 5: miss whoever, or Gardener, No, it's not. They're playing the
Speaker 5: tradition of Kentucky basketball.
Speaker 1: That's right. And as you all said in the dock,
Speaker 1: and the same thing happened with this Kentucky team just
Speaker 1: not as much. But no, you guys would show up
Speaker 1: on somebody else's court and we're gonna beat you, and
Speaker 1: you said it as well, we're gonna beat you and
Speaker 1: there's nothing you can do about it. But now this
Speaker 1: Kentucky team this year wasn't good enough to do that, right,
Speaker 1: But here's the thing.
Speaker 5: You got to aspire to that, yes, and and we
Speaker 5: did and we were able to and I think in part, look,
Speaker 5: talking trash comes comes solely from insecurity, solely from insecurity.
Speaker 5: If you know you're the better team, then just prove
Speaker 5: you're the better team.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 5: I mean, look, we literally had chance in high school.
Speaker 5: And I wasn't a part of him because I was
Speaker 5: playing ball, but it was it was basically and this
Speaker 5: was a student section, but they're their their their disrespectful
Speaker 5: chant was to have this rhyming thing where it was like,
Speaker 5: hey you talking about the other fans over there? Hey
Speaker 5: you over there to forward there it is check it out.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 5: That was it. That was all it was, and it
Speaker 5: was because that's all that matters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I loved Alan Edwards talking about how I was
Speaker 1: really was talking about ninety eighteen, but I'm sure they
Speaker 1: did in ninety six where they'd all be standing next
Speaker 1: to the opponents on the free throw line and someone
Speaker 1: would look up and say, God, you guys are still
Speaker 1: pressing no matter what the score.
Speaker 5: And uh and and ila, yep, I told you the
Speaker 5: story where a guy in this my senior year, we
Speaker 5: had runned in through their offense so many times they
Speaker 5: could and they yeah, and he's like doubled over, exhausted,
Speaker 5: and I'm standing up fresh as a dazy, which for
Speaker 5: me was crazy, but that's all due to Cutch FTEENO
Speaker 5: coach Smith, And I mean he's just exhausted because we
Speaker 5: ran them through their defense so many times that they
Speaker 5: could not get a shot. And he's like, you'll know
Speaker 5: our place better than we do. And I'm sitting there like, yeah,
Speaker 5: we studied him for three days.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and again, Pope can get to that.
Speaker 5: It's non intentional.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 5: You disrespect them by outplaying, That's right.
Speaker 1: We'll take it right. Come back and talk more Kentucky
Speaker 1: basketball with camera Mills here in the garage on six
Speaker 1: thirty wlap. Welcome back to the garage. Camera Mills is here.
Speaker 1: He popped on down the street and we're talking Kentucky basketball.
Speaker 1: Coming up in a few minutes, we'll talk about the
Speaker 1: boys sweet sixteen and future Wildcat Malachai Moreno. But as
Speaker 1: we kind of put a bowl on this season, we
Speaker 1: don't know right now. We know some of the portal
Speaker 1: traffic and things like that. But Pope's got to uh,
Speaker 1: not necessarily rebuild, but just kind of reconfigureous team. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of openings on this roster.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was gonna say he's got a not rebuild
Speaker 5: in the sense of this is a rebuilding year because
Speaker 5: at Kentucky.
Speaker 1: But it's not an empty it's not a blank got
Speaker 1: to rebuild. It's not a blank slate. He's got that
Speaker 1: we know of Chandler, Noah Harry coming back. He's got
Speaker 1: the three freshmen coming in.
Speaker 5: Three freshmen with now, I mean a lot of freshmen
Speaker 5: experience that they that not that they that they shouldn't
Speaker 5: have gotten, not that they didn't deserve true if that
Speaker 5: makes sense, but that they were lucky to get because
Speaker 5: of Lamont's injuries.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because of circumstance. And tonight nine pm you can
Speaker 1: watch Malechi Moreno and the McDonald's all American. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but we'll double back to him in a moment. What
Speaker 1: do you think Mark Pope learned this year putting a
Speaker 1: team together that will serve him next year because he's
Speaker 1: had to coach and put a roster together at Kentucky.
Speaker 5: He never had to do this in Jutah Valley State
Speaker 5: or bring him up right, Well, I hadn't thought about that,
Speaker 5: and that being the case, it just just one more
Speaker 5: We're so freaking lucky to have this guy that he
Speaker 5: did that in first of all, not only that he
Speaker 5: did that, that he was able to hit the road,
Speaker 5: make evaluations, decide who he wanted not just basketball wise,
Speaker 5: but headspace wise, and banned with wise who's best for
Speaker 5: my offense? He did that seven days behind every other
Speaker 5: coaching division at least. And that's where look, and I
Speaker 5: never had a problem with Cali Perry anything he did
Speaker 5: other than greatest night of college basketball or Kentucky history
Speaker 5: when they got six guys drafted. That that rubbed me wrong.
Speaker 1: That was his first what about we don't care about
Speaker 1: the SEC champion.
Speaker 5: I don't care about this SEC champions. I mean, I look,
Speaker 5: I know fans do, and I want if we're going
Speaker 5: to go, we better win. But okay, we don't hang
Speaker 5: banners for SEC championship games, So explain to me how
Speaker 5: it really matters. So anyway, the the fact that he
Speaker 5: was able to do that, calib Perry left a week
Speaker 5: after he say he was gonna stay basically, and now
Speaker 5: we got to go hire a coach. That takes what
Speaker 5: a week? Then we got to go that coach has
Speaker 5: to get here, do his press conference, hire his staff.
Speaker 5: That's that has to get to work as a team.
Speaker 5: Let's evaluate who we want, who's in the portal. Then
Speaker 5: we gotta go get them, get who we want and
Speaker 5: then have our secondary options, our tertiary options, and then
Speaker 5: put together this team and then in one year get
Speaker 5: them to understand he infigures offense, he and coach Brooks
Speaker 5: defense and just and then gel them. I mean, this
Speaker 5: was his learning year, right, and it seems to me
Speaker 5: he hates to test. Yes, I mean, so I'm not
Speaker 5: saying he didn't learn things from last year, because that's
Speaker 5: that's to me, that's what a Mark Pope would do
Speaker 5: in his genius is you learn from your past. I mean,
Speaker 5: I know it's a simple thing to say, but a
Speaker 5: lot of people, including myself sometimes don't do that. So
Speaker 5: I think, I think there's a lot and I think,
Speaker 5: and this is what I love. And I wanted to
Speaker 5: tweet this the night of the of the Tennessee loss,
Speaker 5: but I wasn't one hundred percent sure it was happening,
Speaker 5: because how would I know. But I wanted to tweet
Speaker 5: something to the fact of And I did this, you know,
Speaker 5: to the guys, to the team. They're never gonna read.
Speaker 5: It doesn't matter, but thank you all for giving us
Speaker 5: a year that we fairly fairly should never have expected.
Speaker 5: And uh. And then I wanted to add on there
Speaker 5: uh something to Mark, which again that would have been
Speaker 5: for just you know, I could have texted Mark and
Speaker 5: said this if I wanted to, but but I believed
Speaker 5: at the time, and I just knew this was true.
Speaker 5: The next day after Tennessee loss, maybe even that night
Speaker 5: he was on the phone with portal. Sure, yeah, didn't
Speaker 5: take And and to be fair to a lot of
Speaker 5: college coaches, this is this is look I want. I
Speaker 5: wanted the portal, but we got to fix the portal
Speaker 5: because we cannot have h we can't have guys just
Speaker 5: every year. I mean, it's just there's there's Basically, it's
Speaker 5: it's what Kentucky fans were frustrated by under Cali Perry.
Speaker 5: I don't feel like we ever get to know these players.
Speaker 5: No one's going to get to know their players. Which
Speaker 5: is it ultimately well, I guess it would be in
Speaker 5: partly important college basketball. But you just can't have the
Speaker 5: free for all because here's the deal, the coaches. The
Speaker 5: reason I wanted, the reason I wanted the portal to
Speaker 5: exist is I wanted the players to have the freedom
Speaker 5: to move the way the coaches do. However, the coaches
Speaker 5: aren't changing schools every year, correct, So the players need
Speaker 5: to have one free transfer and then after that, Yes,
Speaker 5: now you're sitting out a year. I agree because the
Speaker 5: curR thing. And I get why chrisa. I get I'm
Speaker 5: surprised to going back to a team he's already been to, right,
Speaker 5: But and I get why because he's probably feeling because
Speaker 5: the first thing we think is, oh, you don't like us.
Speaker 5: It becomes high it becomes playground stuff you don't you
Speaker 5: don't like, you didn't like it here? But no, I mean,
Speaker 5: it's it's all right. Look at coach. Look who coach
Speaker 5: is going to go? Get off the portal, Am I
Speaker 5: gonna and then we got freshman that got playing time
Speaker 5: this year that we're in his position. Am I going
Speaker 5: to be the point guard next year?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: He's got to be looking at that and saying, I
Speaker 5: don't know now. In the old days, that was and
Speaker 5: it still is a good thing, but we don't see anymore.
Speaker 5: The old days, you'd have a player that said, Okay,
Speaker 5: if I want to be the guy next year, I
Speaker 5: better be in the gym every day this summer. And
Speaker 5: now you can just say I'll find a team that
Speaker 5: will now.
Speaker 1: Where I will be somebody who likes me, or someone
Speaker 1: who will.
Speaker 5: Play me more, or someone who, yeah, like me more.
Speaker 5: Is your coach better not like you? He better love you,
Speaker 5: but he shouldn't like you? Oh wow, Well, I mean
Speaker 5: you think coach p liked me? No, first of all,
Speaker 5: I thought he hates I just.
Speaker 1: Don't see Mark Polpe coaching that.
Speaker 5: Well. Oh no, No, it's not a matter of how
Speaker 5: you know. It's what I'm saying. It's not a matter
Speaker 5: of how the coach coaches you. It's a matter of
Speaker 5: how you feel about how the coach coaches you. So again,
Speaker 5: I thought, and I told you this off air, a
Speaker 5: few minutes ago. I truly this is this is not exaggeration, Okay,
Speaker 5: I truly thought that this Italian from New York was
Speaker 5: gonna kill me in my sleep one night. I mean
Speaker 5: he was so angry at me sometimes in practice, and
Speaker 5: I had to learn, as we all had to learn
Speaker 5: that the genius of Rick Patino is that he will
Speaker 5: scuer you in thirty seconds, undress you in thirty seconds,
Speaker 5: which is particularly hard when you're in the locker room
Speaker 5: after a shower and you're already undressed, and then he
Speaker 5: undresses you more in front of your teammates. And let
Speaker 5: me look, it is hard to take that. I mean,
Speaker 5: you just no choice. Well, there's a choice. You can quit,
Speaker 5: which I tried to five times my freshman year. But
Speaker 5: you learned very quickly. The genius of Rick Patino is
Speaker 5: that he has no doghouse, which means one memory. Oh
Speaker 5: my gosh, it's so short.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Now, some stuff comes up later, but it's not about you.
Speaker 5: It's about another player in that sense. But he has
Speaker 5: no doghouse, and the moment he's done yelling at you,
Speaker 5: he will forget about it. Yeah, and expects this is
Speaker 5: the more important part. Expects you to forget about it.
Speaker 5: Learn the lesson here here the message. Don't worry about
Speaker 5: how it was said, because how it was said is
Speaker 5: not intentional. It might be intentional, but it's not personal.
Speaker 1: Camera Mills in the garage. When we come back, we
Speaker 1: will talk about future Wildcat, Malachi Moreno and others as
Speaker 1: we wrap up this Kentucky basketball season. I mean, it
Speaker 1: never fully is wrapped up, but it just ended a
Speaker 1: little too soon for us for our liking. But oh yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's more to come on the Big Boone Sider
Speaker 1: six thirty. Welcome back to the garage where we find
Speaker 1: Camera Mills of the UK network, the ex Wildcat. Well,
Speaker 1: once a wildcat, always a wildcat. But I'm just wonder
Speaker 1: when that's right wandering down the street. So, as promised,
Speaker 1: we will talk about Malachi Moreno and the yeah scene.
Speaker 1: I've been to the Sweet sixteen off and off for
Speaker 1: the last many years. Haven't had a chance to work
Speaker 1: it in so long. You have been a part of
Speaker 1: the radio network now two. That's amazing.
Speaker 5: I think so too.
Speaker 1: I thought this one was particularly good because there was
Speaker 1: a dearth of blowouts. There were a couple, I'm sure
Speaker 1: dearth yes, not many. Uh so, not a plethora, correct,
Speaker 1: there you go another good one.
Speaker 5: The opposite of a player, correct, because the three of
Speaker 5: me goes let's that's true.
Speaker 1: But one of the players that that of course we
Speaker 1: all eyeballed. And you worked the championship game with Greg Stottleman.
Speaker 5: I worked like three of his games.
Speaker 1: You sure did, crossing, well, you and I did. One
Speaker 1: of them, that's right. Was was Malchi Moreno, who I
Speaker 1: believe has improved from last year to this massively. All right,
Speaker 1: tell me why? Massively?
Speaker 5: He's stronger, he's smarter around the basket, still with some
Speaker 5: things to work on. Which stupid thing?
Speaker 1: Smarter? How how do you see that?
Speaker 5: Well, one of the things I wanted so so. First
Speaker 5: of all, he can shoot from the outside.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, free.
Speaker 5: And it was just that he hit a three, because
Speaker 5: really he's only taken three all year, eleven all year
Speaker 5: only hit Maybe it can be right three for eleven,
Speaker 5: trust me, okay, all right, you would know. But in
Speaker 5: sweet sixteen he shows up good and and you I
Speaker 5: think you had just interview him because I think it's
Speaker 5: one of the games we called. Maybe it's just early
Speaker 5: in the first quarter and the ball's rotated he's coming
Speaker 5: back trailing, his man hadn't picked him up. His man's
Speaker 5: way down in the lane where he expected Malachi to be,
Speaker 5: and and the ball swings. Malachi doesn't have a dude
Speaker 5: within twenty feet of him, and he's at the top
Speaker 5: of the key and without hesitating or even thinking about it,
Speaker 5: catches shoots splash money. I mean, just you know, so
Speaker 5: he's improved that, so he is stronger, and this, this
Speaker 5: is what I like. Now, this is one thing that
Speaker 5: he still can improve on. But I noticed a big
Speaker 5: difference in this particular part from last year this year,
Speaker 5: and that is he's not trying to block every shot.
Speaker 5: Because if you go up as a as a seven
Speaker 5: foot one playing playing a bunch of guys that are
Speaker 5: six foot one at the most six foot five, I
Speaker 5: think maybe it's a field day in your mind. Especially
Speaker 5: it's a field day. I can block any show anybody
Speaker 5: comes in this lane. I got this right. But what
Speaker 5: he didn't understand, and I make this part of what
Speaker 5: he didn't understand last year. What I presumed to understand
Speaker 5: is that dude, you're seven foot one, you don't have
Speaker 5: to even block a shot without massively affecting.
Speaker 1: To show yourself.
Speaker 5: Walk on the court.
Speaker 1: That's right. And you know what, that's what happened with
Speaker 1: Bowling Green and those kids had made a living and
Speaker 1: did a superb job of getting to the championship game
Speaker 1: by getting to the rim.
Speaker 5: Yes, by straight long, straight line drives, which they used
Speaker 5: that all the time. And I was sorry and my
Speaker 5: stupid I say, what do you mean straight long drive?
Speaker 5: Well it means you go buy your mane, you go
Speaker 5: right to the basket. Well we called we called that
Speaker 5: body to body like when you're when you're going against
Speaker 5: the defender. What most people do before they learned this
Speaker 5: this lesson is you drive you in order to get
Speaker 5: by your man on a one on one move. You
Speaker 5: wind up because you don't want to draw charge or
Speaker 5: because it's not just innate, and you you drive, you
Speaker 5: angle yep, and then try to turn back to the basket. No, no,
Speaker 5: you go you rub your shoulder directly off their shoulder
Speaker 5: and they're in jail now and you're done. The game's over.
Speaker 1: So that's that's how they got to the championship game.
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, nobody could stop them until now they
Speaker 5: know in their head, if we get to the lane,
Speaker 5: we got another problem. We can have our man in
Speaker 5: jail behind us, but we've got we got somebody else
Speaker 5: in front of us. And Malachi just I mean he
Speaker 5: picked his moments like, look, if if he had to
Speaker 5: block a shot and could block a shot, he not
Speaker 5: only blocked it, he volleyballed into the backboard.
Speaker 1: Kept it alive.
Speaker 5: He had I mean, he had seven blocks in the
Speaker 5: first half of one of the games. I think you
Speaker 5: wound up with seven for the game because they didn't eat.
Speaker 5: There's altered twice as many that and not just and
Speaker 5: and then affected the mentality of the whole game because
Speaker 5: I every game I called guy, the ball would get
Speaker 5: in the lane, and and however I got in the lane,
Speaker 5: whether it was passed, whether it was you know, fumbled
Speaker 5: and then an offensive got picked it up, or whether
Speaker 5: it was passing the lane. And almost every time ninety
Speaker 5: percent of the time, the guys wouldn't even look at
Speaker 5: the basket because they knew what was standing behind them.
Speaker 5: So it was like, all right, well we got the
Speaker 5: ball in the lane. So here's the difference. So when
Speaker 5: you've got somebody like Malachi and the ball gets in
Speaker 5: the lane, the defense doesn't collapse, right, So when the
Speaker 5: defense doesn't collapse. Doesn't do you a lot of good
Speaker 5: to get in the lane unless you're gonna get a shot,
Speaker 5: and you're not gonna get a good shot because you're
Speaker 5: afraid it might get pitched three feet out of bounds
Speaker 5: or three rows out of bounds. And so I think
Speaker 5: he needs I think he can needs to continue learn
Speaker 5: about that. You do not have to block every shot. Now,
Speaker 5: next year it'll be different, but at this level, dude,
Speaker 5: just just stand back there. And the other thing is
Speaker 5: in the same vein, is that a lot of times,
Speaker 5: even this year, he would go after shots he had
Speaker 5: no chance of blocking. And the problem with that is
Speaker 5: is that that puts you in a poor position of
Speaker 5: rebounding the ball. And Malachi obviously gathered up the line's
Speaker 5: share of the rebounds that were available. So there were
Speaker 5: so many times when I saw him pursue a ball
Speaker 5: and that puts him out of the lane or out
Speaker 5: of position when that shot because they knew you were
Speaker 5: back there, there was a little chance that shot was
Speaker 5: going in anyway, right, And I know in the game
Speaker 5: you don't want to take that chance. I get it,
Speaker 5: But they're throwing up bad shots because you're standing there,
Speaker 5: so if you go up and try to block it, well,
Speaker 5: Now the biggest rebounding factor in this game is not
Speaker 5: in a position to rebound, and it happened so many
Speaker 5: times and not only.
Speaker 1: Lost to Lion County last year in a semi final.
Speaker 5: There's the improvement. I just so, I think that's smarter.
Speaker 5: Now again, it's still an issue, but I think it's smarter.
Speaker 5: Here's the best thing about Malachi. And I don't know
Speaker 5: if this is an improvement because I think this is
Speaker 5: just who the Merinos are because Michael his brother, Yes,
Speaker 5: exact same way, excellent player, Yes, oh yeah, he went
Speaker 5: went to the Sweet sixteen final final game two years
Speaker 5: in a row and lost. I mean I fill a
Speaker 5: kinship with him for that reason. Two of the kindest,
Speaker 5: nicest young people I think I've ever met. Malachi in particular,
Speaker 5: was frustrating as a You'll be proud of me as
Speaker 5: a media member because we could not get him postgame interviews,
Speaker 5: you know that kind of stuff. Could not get him
Speaker 5: talking about himself. No, he will not talk about himself.
Speaker 5: I mean, he's got this thing he kept saying, and
Speaker 5: I kept I got tired of hearing this. Everybody everybody's
Speaker 5: got to eat. Yeah, I want to feed everybody.
Speaker 1: And that they ran their offense.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Malachi didn't need the ball in his hands
Speaker 5: because because what I think, what Malachi knew is number one.
Speaker 5: I don't think he cared and and his coach even
Speaker 5: said this, and I truly believe this is true for Malachi.
Speaker 5: I don't care if I scored zero points, get zero rebounds,
Speaker 5: zero sists, do nothing. I want my team to win.
Speaker 1: And what did he do the moment the game was over.
Speaker 1: He celebrated on the court briefly with his with his team. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I didn't catch this because we were still wrapping up.
Speaker 1: Oh you were stilling there this right? Yeah, he ran,
Speaker 1: I mean sprinted right past me and climbed up and
Speaker 1: there were stairs, but climbed up and celebrated.
Speaker 5: And with the students.
Speaker 1: With the students, I posted a photo.
Speaker 5: What's funny is is that we saw that happening. I
Speaker 5: at the time, when I looked up, I didn't see Malachi. Now,
Speaker 5: I had no doubt Malachi was on his way, because that,
Speaker 5: of course is something Malachi would do.
Speaker 1: But I've never seen that. I've never in the sweet sixteen,
Speaker 1: I've seen I've seen kids celebrate with people. I've seen
Speaker 1: you know, I've never seen it seen a kid. I've
Speaker 1: seen a kid go for his parents. I thought that's
Speaker 1: what he was doing. No, he was in the middle
Speaker 1: of the student body.
Speaker 5: You're the one that told me, and you know this
Speaker 5: because of Kate, my daughter, is that that team and
Speaker 5: the key members of that team, Malachi and Dawson.
Speaker 1: Then thank you.
Speaker 5: See I forget, forgot what do they what?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 7: What?
Speaker 5: What is one of their what is one of their hobbies?
Speaker 1: Hobbies? Are activities?
Speaker 5: Same thing?
Speaker 1: Well, I know that that they help out with my
Speaker 1: daughter's special children.
Speaker 5: That is their thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, and I'm saying so, but anyway, activity.
Speaker 5: My lack of vocabulary at the perfect time fails me sometimes.
Speaker 5: But you show me that picture of and you said
Speaker 5: that that that those dudes will go into Kate's special
Speaker 5: needs class and just hang out with the guys or
Speaker 5: hang out with the students, And I'm like, come on, man,
Speaker 5: stop being so perfect. I mean, just top it, because
Speaker 5: I mean one other thing that I noticed he did
Speaker 5: I know, we don't, we got plenty of time, is
Speaker 5: that there's a little guy, little little dude on their team.
Speaker 5: I mean I swear to you he is not more
Speaker 5: than three foot five, skinny, gotta be a freshman, might
Speaker 5: even be in fifth grade, don't know. He got in
Speaker 5: one of the blowouts, got his shot made a three, yes,
Speaker 5: and Maliki about imploded. I mean, just it's gonna make
Speaker 5: me cry, I know, because he just went nuts. And
Speaker 5: then after the game, Sorry so stupid, I'm crying about this.
Speaker 5: But after the game, Malick I ran up this little
Speaker 5: kid and folded in him half like a sandwich and
Speaker 5: just held him and was so excited about it.
Speaker 1: That was so great.
Speaker 5: He's just he's just a sweet dude. Now, all right,
Speaker 5: he's gonna have to get angry.
Speaker 3: He is.
Speaker 1: He will, all right, draw those tears. Thanks for coming by.
Speaker 1: We hope you enjoyed it. Camn'll be back sometime into
Speaker 1: their future. That's a good night from the garage and election.
Speaker 7: M bat Statutapenn doing anything to back out such SAPs
Speaker 7: them from time to tiptating to the