Speaker 1: Welcome to the Big Blue and Sider Dick Gabriel with
Speaker 1: you in a snowy, icy frigid Friday. And as we speak,
Speaker 1: as you know we pre record, we may be blanketed
Speaker 1: by snow again. But earlier today, before the snow fell,
Speaker 1: Cameron Mills made his way to the garage and you
Speaker 1: will hear that coming up the beginning of our conversation
Speaker 1: at the bottom of this hour. We'll talk some basketball,
Speaker 1: a lot of basketball before that, and of course we'll
Speaker 1: look ahead to Kentucky Mississippi State tomorrow night. That is
Speaker 1: going to be a really tough game. This is a
Speaker 1: really good Mississippi State team in a tough place to play.
Speaker 1: Stark Bill can be quite unforgiving and we'll ask Cameron
Speaker 1: about that. But we'll get his thoughts on what happened
Speaker 1: with the Georgia game as well. I know we'll get
Speaker 1: into officiating. Cameron loses his mind sometimes when we talk
Speaker 1: about referees, but we always have fun talking to Cameron.
Speaker 1: We'll try to stay on point, get off on some
Speaker 1: major tangents at times, but we'll we'll have some fun.
Speaker 1: But before we do that, and before we talk about
Speaker 1: the basketball, Wildcats, both men and women Women got a
Speaker 1: great win yesterday. Got to talk about that game last night.
Speaker 1: Penn State, Notre Dame and I had parenthetically, those were
Speaker 1: two teams that I really rooted for growing up. I mean,
Speaker 1: I grew up in Louisville, so you kept an eye
Speaker 1: on U of L. You kept an i on UK
Speaker 1: when Corso was a Louisville It was fun. They had
Speaker 1: some wins, but they were usually mediocre.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: The best Johnny and Nitis ever did at U of L.
Speaker 1: I think was five and five. Anyhow, in Kentucky was
Speaker 1: really struggling under John Ray, So I rooted for Notre Dame.
Speaker 1: Growing up Catholic, I rooted it for Penn State. That
Speaker 1: was my East Coast team. They were really good under
Speaker 1: Joe Pa and I really liked USC OJ and the
Speaker 1: traditional uniforms and all that stuff. And now here they
Speaker 1: are Notre Dame in Penn State playing last night. I
Speaker 1: got off Notre Dame. I wasn't a lou Holtz fan
Speaker 1: at all, and he had success there, but I just
Speaker 1: wasn't a fan. And you know, Penn State under Joe Pa,
Speaker 1: I felt bad, but he needed me fired and I
Speaker 1: said as much and wrote as much, but I just
Speaker 1: kind of lost interest. But here they were playing for
Speaker 1: a shot at the national championship, and I wound up
Speaker 1: rooting for Notre Dame.
Speaker 3: Part of it is I really.
Speaker 1: Like Marcus Freeman, but I'm just not a huge James
Speaker 1: Franklin fan either. And wouldn't you know, And by the way,
Speaker 1: what a great game, back and forth, back and forth.
Speaker 1: Penn State jumped out, looked like they were going to dominate.
Speaker 1: Notre Dame comes back at halftime, and I talk about
Speaker 1: the fact that quote unquote adjustments are always not always,
Speaker 1: but oftentimes overlooked and overblown, and this time Notre Dame
Speaker 1: adjusted whatever they were doing with their run game. It
Speaker 1: wasn't working in the first half. It worked beautifully in
Speaker 1: the second half. But one of the key elements of
Speaker 1: the game, and the TV announcers Sean McDonough and Greg McElroy,
Speaker 1: they made a great point of it before, during, and
Speaker 1: after the game. Then Notre Dame lost its starting quarterback
Speaker 1: for a while, they thought he might have a concussion,
Speaker 1: and their back came in and played extremely well, and
Speaker 1: in fact, he was going to be the starter till
Speaker 1: Riley larn came through the portal from duke and won
Speaker 1: the starting job, but the backup came in and moved
Speaker 1: at the end of the half Notre Dame to a
Speaker 1: field goal and made a ten to three and that
Speaker 1: ended up being huge, and Notre Dame wins on a
Speaker 1: forty one yard field goal at the end of the game.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Mitch Jeter, the kicker, was hurt
Speaker 1: much of the year and their kicking game was the
Speaker 1: worst in America, and ironically enough, a field goal sends
Speaker 1: them to the championship game. But Notre Dame played so well.
Speaker 1: Penn State made the crucial turnover late. Their quarterback in
Speaker 1: the final minute threw a pick. He threw late over
Speaker 1: the middle, and that's one of the mantras. McElroy beat
Speaker 1: it to death on the broadcast, and our own Jeppecoro
Speaker 1: on the UK Radio Network constantly reminds us that with
Speaker 1: an exception or two, because the net's only at the
Speaker 1: quarterback and someone make it work, never throw late over
Speaker 1: the middle because the defense will make you pay. And
Speaker 1: it cost Penn State the game. Notre Dame's kid made
Speaker 1: an incredible diving interception and the Irish moved the ball
Speaker 1: into field goal range and won it. But that game
Speaker 1: might have been decided, if you believe in such things.
Speaker 1: Earlier in the week, Notre Dame's coach.
Speaker 3: Freeman I mentioned, kind of.
Speaker 1: Felt disrespected by James Franklin apparently at the final news
Speaker 1: conference before kickoff and both teams were present, kind of
Speaker 1: a media gathering photo op, that kind of stuff. James
Speaker 1: Franklin kind of playfully asked Freeman how old he was,
Speaker 1: and then he complimented his hairline, and evidently that didn't
Speaker 1: set well with Freeman, Who's I think thirty nine today
Speaker 1: happy birthday, And the players were really ticked off about it,
Speaker 1: and one of their players, Xavier Watts, said coach was angry,
Speaker 1: said he was angry with the whole press conference thing.
Speaker 1: I said all the anger went toward us, and that
Speaker 1: anger went onto the field. So maybe that played a part.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but they're one of their star players,
Speaker 1: they're running back. Jeremiah Love, who played hurt, played with
Speaker 1: a brace on his knee, said, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: speak on their head coach. We felt like their team
Speaker 1: didn't really respect us. We wanted to come into this
Speaker 1: game make a statement. Be the aggressors dominate them physically.
Speaker 1: That's the message to be physical and play violent the
Speaker 1: whole game. Well they didn't. They only did in the
Speaker 1: second half, but that was enough. They wanted twenty seven
Speaker 1: to twenty four. Now they play the winner of tonight's game,
Speaker 1: Texas out of the SEC and Ohio State. I do
Speaker 1: like Ohio State in that one, but if it's anything
Speaker 1: like a last night's game, it's.
Speaker 3: Going to be a good one. And I urge you
Speaker 3: to keep an eye on it.
Speaker 1: By the way, all that' stuff, ugh that Jeremiah Love
Speaker 1: was saying, playing with a chip on the shoulder, that's
Speaker 1: sound familiar. The best Mark Stoops teams played that way.
Speaker 1: One other football note, Carson Beck says he will come back.
Speaker 1: He's not going to go to the NFL Draft, but
Speaker 1: he may not go back to Georgia. Pete Thamil of
Speaker 1: ESPN is reporting that Miami is the favorite right now
Speaker 1: to lead to land Carson Beck because his girlfriend, Hannah
Speaker 1: Cavender plays for the Miami basketball team, one of the
Speaker 1: Cavender twins, very attractive blondes who are hot property when
Speaker 1: it comes to nil dollars, and Carson Beck may be
Speaker 1: down in Coral Gables when the season begins next year.
Speaker 1: So stay tuned on that. Mark Pope and Wildcats are
Speaker 1: already in Starkfield. They got the game plan in place
Speaker 1: and they have been working on fixing things. Of course,
Speaker 1: somebody pointed out in the news conference yesterday that all
Speaker 1: three Kentucky losses were similar in the way the Wildcats
Speaker 1: were eating, you know, that they were having a hard
Speaker 1: time with physicality, that they weren't being consistent with the
Speaker 1: way they attacked. They kind of got away from what
Speaker 1: they were supposed to be doing.
Speaker 3: And Pope agreed that.
Speaker 1: The fact that they were also the losses were consistent,
Speaker 1: meant that it made it a little bit easier for
Speaker 1: the coaching staff to work on fixing things.
Speaker 4: Well, we love trends as coaches, right, You love trends
Speaker 4: because trends are easy to attack, you know, And there
Speaker 4: have been some trends in the three losses. But the
Speaker 4: trends get a little bit more murky when you include
Speaker 4: the wins, because some of the same things have happened
Speaker 4: in the winds, right, So so that's when it gets
Speaker 4: really interesting. But yes, for sure, we love trends. I
Speaker 4: love all the trends, except for any trend that has
Speaker 4: to do with els, right, so but you know that's
Speaker 4: what you do. Like we're patterned seekers. You want to
Speaker 4: go find patterns. You want to go things that wear
Speaker 4: their heads more than once because those are easy to
Speaker 4: they're more tangible, and they're more easy to address for sure,
Speaker 4: like because it gives you something that's, like I said,
Speaker 4: this tangible that you can really focus on.
Speaker 1: Well also said there were good things of course that
Speaker 1: they need to hang on too, that they notice in
Speaker 1: terms of trends. But yeah, you got to clean things
Speaker 1: up and we'll see how well they do it. You'll
Speaker 1: hear it tomorrow night right here, eight thirty tip off
Speaker 1: seven o'clock for UK Network, covered six o'clock for a
Speaker 1: KSR local coverage. So we'll have it for you with
Speaker 1: Tom and Jack and Cameron and Dave who and Cameron
Speaker 1: of course will join us coming up at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the hour. A note from UK Football which I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. Kentucky getting interest or at least is interested
Speaker 1: in a tight end from Montana State who has an
Speaker 1: offer from the Wildcats. Rohan Jones six ' three, two
Speaker 1: thirty five. His team played for an FCS national championship
Speaker 1: but lost to North Dakota State. Again Montana State won
Speaker 1: the title forty years ago and was fifteen and oho
Speaker 1: going into the game. North Dakota State was thirteen and
Speaker 1: two but won its tenth national championship. Montana State has
Speaker 1: lost each of the last six games against North Dakota State,
Speaker 1: all in the SCS playoffs since twenty to ten, and
Speaker 1: the final was thirty five to thirty two. Despite the
Speaker 1: fact that Montana State quarterback Tommy Malott, who was the
Speaker 1: Walter Payton Award winner as the best offensive player in
Speaker 1: the country at the FCS level, ran for one hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty five yards on fourteen carries and hit on
Speaker 1: thirteen to twenty four passing for one ninety five and
Speaker 1: two touchdowns, but they came up short, and now the
Speaker 1: Wildcats are interested in a Montana State tight end even
Speaker 1: though they got some talent at that position.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: Here from Kenny Brooks next year on six thirty WLAP
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Big Moon Sider coming up in
Speaker 1: just a few minutes. Cameron Mills of the UK Radio
Speaker 1: Network two time national champion joined us here in the
Speaker 1: garage as he often does, to talk about not just
Speaker 1: the Wildcats, but his former teammate Mark Pope, now the
Speaker 1: head coach, as you will know, and we'll talk about
Speaker 1: what he has seen so far. But we do get
Speaker 1: off topic. A warning if you've never heard one of
Speaker 1: our shows, welcome with Cameron and yours truly, but we.
Speaker 3: Often get off on some tangents.
Speaker 1: I don't think that'll happen much today because we have
Speaker 1: so much to discuss. So that's coming up in just
Speaker 1: a few minutes, starting at the bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1: The he'lp you with us till the end of the show.
Speaker 1: But we always have a lot of fun with Cameron
Speaker 1: and one of the things we will talk about is
Speaker 1: UK women's basketball man Kenny Brooks. He's got this team
Speaker 1: roll in fourteen and one, three and zero thanks to
Speaker 1: the win over Florida in conference play on the road
Speaker 1: last night, and if you heard it right here on
Speaker 1: six thirty WLAP, as Darren Hedrick called it, Wildcats raced
Speaker 1: off to lead the gru too as big as twenty
Speaker 1: four points. It got whittled down to about fourteen midway
Speaker 1: through the second half, but Kentucky hung on, didn't really
Speaker 1: hang on, just sort of re exerted itself and won
Speaker 1: seventy one to fifty five, and just another tremendous effort
Speaker 1: by Georgia Amore. She had eighteen points. She did have
Speaker 1: six turnovers, but four steals four assists. Kentucky had thirteen steals,
Speaker 1: forced a total of twenty turnovers by the Gators. Thirteen
Speaker 1: of them were Kentucky steals, and Kentucky points off turnovers
Speaker 1: twenty five to just seven for the Gators. Kentucky did
Speaker 1: turn it over thirteen times, as I said, anymore had
Speaker 1: almost half of those, but Florida only capitalized minimally with
Speaker 1: just the seven points. So in case you're wondering, by
Speaker 1: the way, because I was, Yeah, it's the SEC. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's tough, and the schedule's tough. Next up for the
Speaker 1: UK women is Sunday at Historic Memorial Coliseum, three o'clock
Speaker 1: taking on Auburn. It will be on the SEC network,
Speaker 1: but we urge you to tune in Darren two forty
Speaker 1: five pregame three o'clock tip. But then after that they
Speaker 1: go to Georgia to A and M before they come
Speaker 1: back with Arkansas Alabama. Skip ahead to the end of
Speaker 1: the schedule. That's what you're wondering about. I've got to
Speaker 1: think listen to the last three games for Kenny Brooks's
Speaker 1: team in the SEC Sunday, February twenty third, LSU here
Speaker 1: in Lexington, Tennessee here in Lexington. That's the following Thursday,
Speaker 1: and then on Sunday the last game of the year
Speaker 1: South Carolina, which has lost some games, but still by then,
Speaker 1: you know it's going to be playing its best. So
Speaker 1: the last three games and you know what, that's murderer's row,
Speaker 1: but it honestly it's probably for the best because, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're going to be the three toughest games, at least
Speaker 1: theoretically for the UK women, But they come at the
Speaker 1: end of the year and just think if they can
Speaker 1: pull off at least one win, how they'll position themselves
Speaker 1: for a run through the SEC and the NCA tournament.
Speaker 1: It's going to be interesting. And again, a couple of
Speaker 1: those games are in electioningon. And believe it or not,
Speaker 1: there was a good Kentucky crowd in.
Speaker 3: Gainesville last night. You might have been able to hear
Speaker 3: it if you watched or listened. I did both.
Speaker 1: Watched and then I pulled up Daron synced it up
Speaker 1: with the iHeart app and Kenny Brooks said the crowd
Speaker 1: definitely helped his team we heard him.
Speaker 2: And they gave us a little bit of a boost.
Speaker 5: Now it wasn't our best performance, but we got some
Speaker 5: juice from them. And even when Florida, you know, made
Speaker 5: a run, we were were.
Speaker 2: Aided by.
Speaker 5: Obviously weather in the storm, but also because you know,
Speaker 5: we had a big continuency here supporting it.
Speaker 2: So, you know, that's our goal.
Speaker 5: You know, Kentucky is, you know, a basketball state, and
Speaker 5: obviously there's a lot of history on the other side.
Speaker 5: We want to do our best to create some history
Speaker 5: on our side so people can be excited about it.
Speaker 1: So it helped Kentucky went on the road. Anytime you
Speaker 1: went on the road anywhere any sport, it's big. And
Speaker 1: think about this too. With the team that he had
Speaker 1: to cobble together almost from scratch, a lot like Mark Pope,
Speaker 1: Kenny Brooks and his players are experiencing the Southeastern Conference
Speaker 1: for the first time, especially on the road. Of course,
Speaker 1: he came from the ACC he knew that league inside out,
Speaker 1: had a lot of success there, took Virginia Tech to
Speaker 1: the Final four at one point. But now he's kind
Speaker 1: of starting over when he's learning, you know, some of
Speaker 1: the coaches of course, either he's played against them, knows.
Speaker 3: Them by rep or whatever. But when you go.
Speaker 1: On on the road, I mean, in a minute's first
Speaker 1: time he coached the team in Gainesville. That's pretty much
Speaker 1: the case throughout the Southeastern Conference.
Speaker 2: Obviously.
Speaker 5: Every time we go to a venue, I'm probably there
Speaker 5: for the first time. Its first time I've ever been
Speaker 5: to the University of Florida, and you know, we're just
Speaker 5: we're just trying to get used to it. You know,
Speaker 5: I think Georgia alluded to it a few games back,
Speaker 5: which we're almost naive. We're just okay, hey, let's go
Speaker 5: into this venue, and if we just focus on ourselves,
Speaker 5: then we focus on ourselves. It's not something that this
Speaker 5: group is doing a really good job of and just
Speaker 5: trying to continue to get better and better and better.
Speaker 5: That's the main That's the main thing. Make the main
Speaker 5: thing the main thing. But it's a She'll probably attest
Speaker 5: to this. It's it's a physical league.
Speaker 3: Just like a SEC men's basketball.
Speaker 1: Women's basketball is so much more physical now than it
Speaker 1: has ever been, and it is probably played at a
Speaker 1: higher level and that's ever been played. Because the sport
Speaker 1: is growing and the coaching is getting better, the facilities
Speaker 1: are getting better, so it's a pretty tough order to
Speaker 1: try to work your way up. Kentucky's done it before
Speaker 1: in the SEC. I'm talking about when Matthew Mitchell was
Speaker 1: the head coach. Yeah, the Cats won an SEC tournament
Speaker 1: championship under kyra Elzi won an SEC title back in
Speaker 1: the day with Valerie still but this league now is
Speaker 1: so much more athletic than it used to be. But
Speaker 1: this is an athletic Kentucky team that can make shots,
Speaker 1: has a lot of size, but quite frankly, it's not
Speaker 1: as physically strong I don't think as some of these
Speaker 1: other SEC teams I've seen on TV and women's basketball.
Speaker 1: But it's going to be interesting as this Kentucky team
Speaker 1: gets better and better under a pretty good coach and
Speaker 1: Kenny Brooks, and then finishes up with a run of
Speaker 1: what are going to be some really really interesting games.
Speaker 1: And by then, of course, those teams will have Kentucky
Speaker 1: scouted and figured out and vice versa. You know, the
Speaker 1: Kenny Brooks and his staff will have, you know, a
Speaker 1: huge mouth of information and video on those teams. So
Speaker 1: it's going to be fun. And the way this Kentucky
Speaker 1: team behind Georgia Amore is getting it done. But Amelia
Speaker 1: Hassett Georgia Amore was talking. She was interviewed on television
Speaker 1: after the game, and she said Amelia might be the
Speaker 1: biggest surprise. She only had five points, but five rebounds
Speaker 1: and a couple of assists yesterday in thirty one minutes.
Speaker 1: But Amore said, here, Amelia comes from junior college and
Speaker 1: she is starting for Kentucky and playing really, really well.
Speaker 1: And Dejah Lawrence four of eight from beyond Him Heart
Speaker 1: by the Arc, had a huge three pointer down the stretch.
Speaker 1: And of course Clara Strack, who came over from Tech
Speaker 1: at twelve points and eight rebounds, six foot five and
Speaker 1: four assists.
Speaker 3: By the way, how about that.
Speaker 1: Brought the ball up the floor at one point. Now,
Speaker 1: not a lot of depth. Two Kentucky's best players are
Speaker 1: injured out for the year, so a lot of minutes
Speaker 1: played by a very few. But they've just got to
Speaker 1: figure it out as they go along. But one final
Speaker 1: note on that game, twenty four point lead, almost got it, well,
Speaker 1: I will say almost got away, but Florida made a
Speaker 1: run and Aymore said later we knew they were going
Speaker 1: to because that's what they do. Kenny Brooks never called time,
Speaker 1: and I know a lot of fans out there they get.
Speaker 3: So narrow, aren't you calling time out?
Speaker 1: Kenny Brooks made it a point to say I didn't
Speaker 1: call time because I feel like when the other teams
Speaker 1: make it a run like that, we need to learn
Speaker 1: how to figure it out. The players on the floor
Speaker 1: need to learn how to figure it out on their
Speaker 1: own and stop it. And Kentucky did that. Wildcats got
Speaker 1: back into their stuff offensively, got a better shot and
Speaker 1: hit it and stopped the Florida run and rebuilt the lead.
Speaker 1: I thought that was pretty interesting. That's something we'll talk
Speaker 1: about with Cam, as well as a lot of other
Speaker 1: stuff on the other side of the break. Here on
Speaker 1: the Big Bloon Sider six thirty Welcome back to the
Speaker 1: Big Blue and Sider. We are here in the garage.
Speaker 1: As we said with Cameron Mills, who we thought if
Speaker 1: there was snow, a lot of snow, it's going to
Speaker 1: be here. Well, probably falling as we speak, but we
Speaker 1: pre record. Uh, it was going to be a zoom call.
Speaker 1: But no, the streak is alive.
Speaker 2: Here is cameronage even zoom. I mean it's better than
Speaker 2: just on the phone, but this is just better. I
Speaker 2: mean you and I. It's like doing zoom calls for
Speaker 2: business or if I'm there for I mean when I
Speaker 2: when I work from the healthcare company, I work for
Speaker 2: LC Group. I travel, thank you, try I travel well.
Speaker 2: I mean locally, it's care Tender's Home Health, Lifeline Home Health,
Speaker 2: and Commonwealth Home Health. If everybody's interested, I should have
Speaker 2: a sound effect ready for that. Yeah, we actually yeah,
Speaker 2: we actually have four agencies here.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: They can say that again.
Speaker 2: Uh, Lifeline home Health, care Tender's Home Health, Commonwealth Home Health.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you very much, or I could.
Speaker 3: Have gone yep.
Speaker 2: As right now, we're taking care of a very a
Speaker 2: very a very famous local person. But I'm you know, hippolos.
Speaker 2: I'm not allowed to tell you who, but.
Speaker 3: Checked in there. I'll get it out.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'll tell you checked in ut because it's it's
Speaker 2: it's it's it's known this person is uh is recovering,
Speaker 2: but very proud to be taking care of him or
Speaker 2: her good.
Speaker 3: But here you are.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: And before we go one nano second further, you were
Speaker 1: telling me right before we began to record.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think I knew this.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised I'm hurt you.
Speaker 1: We were talking about the media, but you didn't know
Speaker 1: how you and I are now good friends. But yes,
Speaker 1: I was covering your team. Obviously.
Speaker 3: I only knew you as a UK player.
Speaker 2: Right, and I only knew you all as the enemy.
Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, as it should be, totally wrong, as
Speaker 2: it should be. You all asked all these questions that
Speaker 2: are none of your business. You take it out of
Speaker 2: the world of sports. Question is rude?
Speaker 3: What is it going to take to be George? What
Speaker 3: I mean?
Speaker 2: That's Obie Braya're gonna play tonight?
Speaker 1: How's that you're all's business because we're covering the team anyway? Apparently,
Speaker 1: And I swear to you, I don't remember this all that.
Speaker 1: It was a long time ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, your parents, uh huh?
Speaker 3: After you all won the ninety eight champion.
Speaker 2: The week after what the week after my scene, the
Speaker 2: week after my career was over at the University Kentucky.
Speaker 2: My parents, unbeknownst to me at the time, they did
Speaker 2: not check with me. They did not ask me. They
Speaker 2: just they and and I look back on this not
Speaker 2: only with great fondness, but just thinking, God, leave my
Speaker 2: parents were smart and classy, because this is just one
Speaker 2: of that, because I've been told by several members of
Speaker 2: the local media that it was one that they've never
Speaker 2: had it happen before. Don't know if it's ever happened again,
Speaker 2: but it was one of the is one of the sweetest,
Speaker 2: classiest things they've ever had. Anybody ever to do. So
Speaker 2: my parents sent an enormous fruit basket to the Herald Leader,
Speaker 2: to Channel thirty six, Channel twenty seven, Channel eighteen. Don't
Speaker 2: know fifty six was around then, were they ninety eight? Okay,
Speaker 2: so probably would have sent one. I don't know if
Speaker 2: they were doing new and I can't remember, but any
Speaker 2: local media probably sent one to LAP, probably sent one
Speaker 2: to the other radio stations. But uh yeah, just in
Speaker 2: a big fruit basket. And if you want, if I'll
Speaker 2: tell you the person who remembers this the most is
Speaker 2: Ryan Lemon. Ryan Lemon reminds me of it all the
Speaker 2: light teen back then. Yes, he was at Channel eighteen.
Speaker 2: I don't see.
Speaker 3: I don't think I even knew that we were.
Speaker 2: Well, it was in part for you. There were pairs
Speaker 2: in there specifically picked out for you.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: But anyway, it was just a thank you, and I
Speaker 2: think the note basically said thank you for all the
Speaker 2: kind coverage of our son over the last really eight
Speaker 2: years because of you know, when I was at high
Speaker 2: school Drumbar and when I found that out, I was
Speaker 2: just like well, I mean, like well done. Like I mean,
Speaker 2: it was like because I didn't know, and I think
Speaker 2: I didn't know for like a year or so. I
Speaker 2: honestly feel like I honestly feel like Ryan Lemon may
Speaker 2: have been the person to tell me, like ten years later.
Speaker 3: You were you good with it when you found out?
Speaker 3: Or were you embarrassed? Oh?
Speaker 2: No, I was, Oh I was. I was, well, I'm
Speaker 2: I'm certainly great with it now. I assume I was
Speaker 2: great with it then because I just thought what a
Speaker 2: smart thing to do. I mean, because look good or
Speaker 2: bad coverage, Coverage is coverage, and you guys for them
Speaker 2: for them. I mean, honestly, I can't think of any
Speaker 2: anytime you weren't. But I mean I I personally don't
Speaker 2: think I ever had any what I would you know,
Speaker 2: truly negative coverage or anything like that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think what you were SA significant. I mean,
Speaker 3: with all due respect.
Speaker 2: I can't wait a minute landscape. First of all, I
Speaker 2: was not when I was a dunbar no, no, no, at
Speaker 2: Dunbar you were. Yes, I will I will agree that
Speaker 2: I was significant for two and a half years exactly.
Speaker 1: But what I was getting to was when you suddenly
Speaker 1: had your breakout.
Speaker 2: Moments exploded onto the scene.
Speaker 1: You absolutely did, Plus you also amplified that by doing
Speaker 1: what what.
Speaker 2: Do you mean?
Speaker 3: Remember?
Speaker 1: No, what you were not only making as well your
Speaker 1: play on the court. But there was a moment there
Speaker 1: and I think it might have been during the ninety
Speaker 1: eighth season.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you.
Speaker 3: Kind of got into the fans.
Speaker 2: A little oh yeah, that was ninety eight. That was
Speaker 2: that was a good copy for about four days. Well
Speaker 2: but what you yes, and we and we I'll talk
Speaker 2: about that because that was I don't remember.
Speaker 1: We were in the back hallway at the coliseum post
Speaker 1: practice or something.
Speaker 2: That was the day after I did that. Let me
Speaker 2: let me tell you this story. Then we'll get into
Speaker 2: that one.
Speaker 1: So at some point, folks, we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: this show.
Speaker 2: I doubt it. I doubt it. That's that's usually not
Speaker 2: what happens when you and I get together. But one
Speaker 2: of the smart things I did, and one of the
Speaker 2: one of the good I mean, even when I was
Speaker 2: insignificant as a player, I was not insignificant as a
Speaker 2: sound bite, true because and I always found it funny,
Speaker 2: though wonderful, that we would have just gotten done playing
Speaker 2: a game that I did not even play it, and
Speaker 2: I would have, you know, I wouldn't have the throng
Speaker 2: of all of the media around my chair asking me questions,
Speaker 2: but I would still have people, you know, I'd still
Speaker 2: be put on camera, people asking because and this is
Speaker 2: no offense to my teammates, and certainly not even all
Speaker 2: of them, but some of them struggled in front of
Speaker 2: the microphone, especially freshman year. I've never struggled in front
Speaker 2: of a microphone. At least I've struggled to be concise.
Speaker 2: I've struggled to get my point across. Sometimes I have
Speaker 2: not struggled to keep the words flowing. And for you all,
Speaker 2: especially in TV, I mean, you know, the more I talk,
Speaker 2: the more I mean, the less you all had to work.
Speaker 2: So I had people around me all the time and
Speaker 2: then and so that that was a good thing, and that,
Speaker 2: honestly is one of the things that kind of encouraged
Speaker 2: me to keep doing media when I got done playing
Speaker 2: and then adopt you as my media mentor, which I
Speaker 2: mentioned several times, and then yeah, So in ninety eight
Speaker 2: we were it was against Tennessee at home, and I
Speaker 2: think that I don't know what the date was, see
Speaker 2: I don't I'm not sure exactly what the date was,
Speaker 2: but I think it was after our last loss. So
Speaker 2: it was after the Old Miss game of Valentine's Day
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight, and it was one of these things where, Okay,
Speaker 2: we've we as a team are now sold out. So
Speaker 2: I mean we we are, we are in on Tubby
Speaker 2: Smith and what we need to do as a team. Now,
Speaker 2: I didn't know we were going to go undefeated the
Speaker 2: rest of the year, but what I did know is
Speaker 2: there had been a completely active commitment that we had
Speaker 2: made to a do guys, this is it and for
Speaker 2: guys like Alan Netwards and Jeff Shepherd and I this
Speaker 2: was it. Yeah. And then as it turned out, for
Speaker 2: nause Mohammad as well, who wound up going to the
Speaker 2: NBA after that. So it was it was we had
Speaker 2: sold out. And so we're playing Tennessee at home. We've
Speaker 2: got a I'm gonna guess I could be dead wrong
Speaker 2: on this, but I don't know, a ten point lead
Speaker 2: or something, and or maybe it's close to that, maybe
Speaker 2: it's four or five. Maybe I don't know, but I'm
Speaker 2: sitting on the bench. I'm standing on the bench. And again,
Speaker 2: this is when I was playing, so I was in
Speaker 2: and out of the game, but I'm over on the bench.
Speaker 2: And this was when the student section was directly behind us, right,
Speaker 2: and then they kind of went up on that on
Speaker 2: that corner piece, and then all the way up to
Speaker 2: the upp arena. The eruption zone did not exist yet,
Speaker 2: and I just I'm sitting there and I'm like, it
Speaker 2: is too quiet in here. And I know Rupp has
Speaker 2: that that reputation sometimes, but I was finished with it
Speaker 2: at that point. I was done. It looked if, yes,
Speaker 2: if we're gonna sell out and put our blood, sweat
Speaker 2: and tears on this court, then you'll have better put
Speaker 2: your blood, sweat and tears up there in that crowd.
Speaker 2: And if you're not going to, then stop complaining about
Speaker 2: us winning and losing games. And so I and I
Speaker 2: and I struggled with when I was going to do this.
Speaker 2: I remember sitting on the bench like, all right, am
Speaker 2: I gonna do this because I feel like I need
Speaker 2: to do this. Yeah, oh yeah, Oh no, no, no,
Speaker 2: it was. I thought about it for a good thirty
Speaker 2: in it thirty seconds to a minute, and then I decided,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm going for it. So I stood up on
Speaker 2: the chair on the bench. Immediately was worried about is
Speaker 2: that chair gonna fold in? And I'm gonna fall? Because again,
Speaker 2: last thing you wanna do is trip reparena.
Speaker 3: How did you get hurt?
Speaker 2: Yeall, well, I was gonna yell at a bunch of fans,
Speaker 2: which is always a smart thing to do. But anyway,
Speaker 2: so yeah, I stood up on the on the stands.
Speaker 2: I I I turned around, I dressed the students, and
Speaker 2: I said something in fact as loud as I could,
Speaker 2: because it's it's still repperena, twenty four thousand people in there.
Speaker 2: Hey y'all make some freaking noise. And I did, I
Speaker 2: did say freaking yeah. Uh well, I mean I wasn't
Speaker 2: gonna I was gonna yell the other word. And and
Speaker 2: even though I could use the occasionally, I usually didn't.
Speaker 2: And I remember one student, one student yelled back at me,
Speaker 2: or yelled yelled at everyone else, that's right. And then
Speaker 2: the student section kind of like slowly grew in in
Speaker 2: in in excited and the next day is what you're
Speaker 2: referring to, and the world call seem for media day
Speaker 2: because we won that game. I was, I mean, I
Speaker 2: had everybody around me because apparently that was a big deal, right,
Speaker 2: And so I was asked by everyone like it may
Speaker 2: have been even been you one of them. Do you
Speaker 2: regret what you said? And I said no, And then
Speaker 2: I went back into my tirade, like, don't come to
Speaker 2: the games to be quiet. If you want us to
Speaker 2: give all we have, then you give.
Speaker 3: All you have.
Speaker 2: This is a team, I mean, and Mark Pope made
Speaker 2: it clear. This is our team, not the team's team,
Speaker 2: not Mark's team, not this is all of our teams.
Speaker 3: So not back then Pope made Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he made he made it. H You're right, he
Speaker 2: made David hiding the treft parmers. So you know what,
Speaker 2: if this is all of our team and you expect
Speaker 2: us to give one hundred and ten percent, then you
Speaker 2: better if freaking give one hundred and ten percent when
Speaker 2: you come to rupt.
Speaker 1: I don't think you've ever told me that complete story.
Speaker 1: But I'm honored to have been a part of it.
Speaker 1: I'm honored to have camera Mills here in the garage
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about Pope and the team when
Speaker 1: we come back here in the Big Bloon Sider six
Speaker 1: thirty w LP.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Big Bloon Sider.
Speaker 1: Camera Mills is here in the garage, and we've been
Speaker 1: talking about Rapperina of the fans back when he was playing,
Speaker 1: and are are fans better now the same?
Speaker 2: I don't know from that perspective, because the thing is
Speaker 2: is that and we've seen it this year. There are
Speaker 2: sometimes the fans come in for a church service. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: and again not all of them. I mean I can
Speaker 2: always go to my upper deckers. My upper deckers, they're
Speaker 2: nuts because again they don't have the greatest seats in
Speaker 2: the house. A lot of them. Man, this is the
Speaker 2: only game they've ever come to, they'll ever gets come to.
Speaker 2: They'll sit up there and go crazy.
Speaker 1: But you know what's unfortunate about that is because of
Speaker 1: the height of the of the roof. Yeah, most of
Speaker 1: the most of the noise, but a great deal of
Speaker 1: that noise is lost.
Speaker 3: If you're downstairs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean everything rises, so you know there there
Speaker 1: are fourteen Yeah, when it was twenty four thousan ten
Speaker 1: thousand downstairs, fourteen thousand rushstairs. Yes, so there's more noise upstairs,
Speaker 1: but some of it doesn't make it down to the floor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of times the noise upstairs is louder,
Speaker 2: but I never thought of it that way. It never
Speaker 2: makes it down. But I do think overall the upper
Speaker 2: deck or the upper arena tends to be a little
Speaker 2: more raucous. Yeah, yeah, than the lower. But I'll tell
Speaker 2: you one thing that that UK not only that the
Speaker 2: UK fans, particularly of basketball fans at Rupperena, that I
Speaker 2: noticed as a kid attending games, that I noticed as
Speaker 2: a player attending games, and I noticed at the Florida
Speaker 2: game the other day, and it was a That's what
Speaker 2: I want to talk about because it was a reminder
Speaker 2: to me of you know what, they may not always,
Speaker 2: they may not always give the energy that as a
Speaker 2: player you want them to, all of them, but what
Speaker 2: they do do and this is this is why I
Speaker 2: have no problem saying they're the smartest basketball fans in
Speaker 2: the country because what they understand and they have understood
Speaker 2: again since I was a kid. They understood when I played,
Speaker 2: and they understand even today. During that Florida game, as
Speaker 2: an example, Florida went up eleven quick, because we are
Speaker 2: a team that just for whatever reason cannot get off
Speaker 2: to quick starts. And I'm standing in the corner with
Speaker 2: your son mocking me, and every time he walks by,
Speaker 2: and I'm noticing again I am frustrated by the fact
Speaker 2: that Da gon it. You know, I just like to
Speaker 2: have fans that we're down eleven, and I'm like, here
Speaker 2: we go. And then I'm reminding myself that we've come
Speaker 2: back several times. Why couldn't we come back here? And
Speaker 2: of course we came back within like three minutes. I mean,
Speaker 2: but what the fans do is when we go on
Speaker 2: a stretch, right, we talked about the runs in the
Speaker 2: Florida game sixteen ten and oh. When we go on
Speaker 2: the opposite kind of stretcher the other team goes on
Speaker 2: a run, That's when our fans will get loud. They'll
Speaker 2: get loud when we when they see some spectacular we
Speaker 2: go on a sixteen in oh run. That's as loud
Speaker 2: as rue we'll get. But they will also when Florida
Speaker 2: comes down and hits, you know, they go on a
Speaker 2: six to zero nine oh run, Our fans respond and
Speaker 2: instead of booing, which they have rarely rarely done. Instead
Speaker 2: of booing. That's when they stand up and start saying,
Speaker 2: all right, let's got And it's not one person, it's
Speaker 2: it's thousands of them.
Speaker 3: They trying to help.
Speaker 2: Yes, but they're the only one. I mean, as many
Speaker 2: places as I went to on the road and play,
Speaker 2: they're the only place I've ever seen that happen. Only
Speaker 2: place I've ever seen that happen. That's why people talk
Speaker 2: about all the time, what do you want to do
Speaker 2: when you're on the road. You want to immediately quiet
Speaker 2: that opposite you know, quiet that crowd because you can
Speaker 2: quiet them. Oh yeah, you can't quiet them at rup
Speaker 2: because they're smart enough to know that what our team
Speaker 2: needs now is not us booing them or sitting on
Speaker 2: our hands now. Our team needs us behind them. And
Speaker 2: as much criticism as rep gets for being loud enough
Speaker 2: for you know, the the old fuddy duds with all
Speaker 2: the money, you know, not cheering hard enough and getting
Speaker 2: you know, being too low. And it's not like Cameron Indoor.
Speaker 2: All of our fans understand that, you know what, when
Speaker 2: our team is struggling where we need, we need to
Speaker 2: stand up and start encouraging them then. And I have
Speaker 2: always thought that as the best one of the one of,
Speaker 2: if not the best things about BBN.
Speaker 1: I thought the Florida crowd was one of the best
Speaker 1: in a long time. Well it was palpable, man. I
Speaker 1: mean the moment you.
Speaker 2: Think about that Kenzagga game. If that Gonzaga game wow
Speaker 2: had been at Rough. Yeah, yeah, if that Duke game
Speaker 2: had been at Rough, which it should have been, instead
Speaker 2: of in Atlanta. So stupid.
Speaker 3: I'm good with the home at home? No, I get it.
Speaker 2: Why wouldn't anyone be good that look home. You have
Speaker 2: a huge game at home that all the home fans
Speaker 2: get excited about, and then you have to go into
Speaker 2: Cameron Indoor.
Speaker 3: The answer to all your questions is money.
Speaker 2: I know the reason. I'm not interested in the money.
Speaker 2: I'm interested in banners and the tougher you you make
Speaker 2: a team tougher about putting them.
Speaker 1: Mary's excuses basically about signing up for all these neutral
Speaker 1: set games, which was a recruiting ploy, which I understand.
Speaker 2: Why is that recruiting because you.
Speaker 1: Can tell kids we're gonna play Duke in Atlanta national television.
Speaker 2: We're gonna play Duke at Cameron Indoor on national television.
Speaker 3: That ain't gonna happen. I'm sorry, what that ain't gonna happen? Why?
Speaker 1: Because they don't agree to home and homes like that?
Speaker 2: Because coaches, because coaches don't, Cow didn't and Mark won't either, becauh.
Speaker 3: Why wouldn't he go back to Bloomington You might lose?
Speaker 2: We're not. We did not go to Bloomington because we
Speaker 2: might lose. No, No, we didn't go to Bloomington because they
Speaker 2: almost hurt people.
Speaker 3: Oh that was an that was one, absolutely not what. No, No,
Speaker 3: I even got storm. I remember that.
Speaker 2: I know that's why we didn't go back to Bloomington.
Speaker 3: No, I don't buy that.
Speaker 2: What are you talking about?
Speaker 3: I don't buy that.
Speaker 2: That is precisely why you think Cal didn't go back
Speaker 2: to Bloomington because we lost. So I guess we're I
Speaker 2: guess then we'll never go on another road game again.
Speaker 2: And Cal never went on. Cal never went on any
Speaker 2: road games after that.
Speaker 3: How many home and homes?
Speaker 2: Not nearly enough, but he did zero non conference home
Speaker 2: and home play schedule the Gonzaga you.
Speaker 3: Gotta play, Well, that was a special circumstance.
Speaker 2: Okay, but that's one. Yeah, And there were no other
Speaker 2: home and homes.
Speaker 3: I can't think of any right off the top of it.
Speaker 3: There might have been.
Speaker 2: Sighted and understanding.
Speaker 1: So I understand that coaches don't like to schedule games
Speaker 1: where there's a pretty good chance they're.
Speaker 2: Gonna lose, which is dumb. Yeah, I agree, that is absolutely.
Speaker 3: Do you know what the hell of it is about
Speaker 3: that game?
Speaker 2: And I guarantee you this, Mark, Mark might have re
Speaker 2: sent up for the Chase Bank State Farm whatever it is,
Speaker 2: he might have re sent up for it, But that
Speaker 2: is because of money. But you get better, and Mark this,
Speaker 2: You get better putting your team in hostile environments early
Speaker 2: and even to give you this, oh well, we wanna,
Speaker 2: we wanna, we want, we want tournament like atmosphere, good think,
Speaker 2: go to Cameron Indoor, go to the Dean. Don't I agree?
Speaker 2: Put your team where everybody hates them and makes them respond.
Speaker 3: Couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1: And that game they lost in Bloomington motivated those kids
Speaker 1: for the rest of.
Speaker 3: The years, exactly.
Speaker 1: And they told us that they kept going back to that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And part of that was ESPN had that game and
Speaker 1: that shot by Christian Watford was the greatest clip of
Speaker 1: videos ESPN owned, which they used to promote their college
Speaker 1: basketball covers, which was only smart so they sure saw
Speaker 1: it around the.
Speaker 2: Clock, which again I mean back to the point. It's
Speaker 2: why you don't talk trash before a game. It's why
Speaker 2: you don't talk trash during a game. It's why you
Speaker 2: don't talk trash after a game. You do not give
Speaker 2: your opponent any reason to hate you and to be
Speaker 2: refocused when they play you again, or to take what
Speaker 2: you did to them out on the rest of college basketball.
Speaker 3: You know what, I'll put some.
Speaker 1: Of this on our my media brethren, we go to
Speaker 1: the break. You know, I would be okay with a
Speaker 1: home and home Duke Kentucky or whatever. Say now, let
Speaker 1: me finish, because I would. I would not hold it
Speaker 1: against the coach if they lost the game.
Speaker 3: On the road.
Speaker 1: More so, Yeah, but people will I mean when people
Speaker 1: talk about wanting to see all these great football games
Speaker 1: by the Wildcats, are you okay? Are you willing to
Speaker 1: accept that Kentucky might lose at least half of those games?
Speaker 3: No? Big picture? You know, in the moment, sure, that's fine.
Speaker 3: Big picture, Now.
Speaker 1: Look at the guys overall record, Look at all the
Speaker 1: games he's lost. Can't win this game, can't win that game.
Speaker 1: It's a measurement of failure that coaches try to distance.
Speaker 2: Them, which is short sighted. And see, I.
Speaker 1: Couldn't agree more. For once we agree, we got to
Speaker 1: get to the break. More from Cameron Mills. In just
Speaker 1: a minute, we'll here from Mark Pope, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: take Cameron back down memory lane. He's already been down
Speaker 1: there once. Here in the garage on six thirty wag
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Big Blue Sider I renumber two.
Speaker 1: We're here in the garage with Cameron Mills. Of course
Speaker 1: we've been talking about everything but this year's team.
Speaker 2: That's true. We've kind of talked about it.
Speaker 1: We kind of talked about this year's team, but we
Speaker 1: have so much other ground to cover.
Speaker 3: Are you reaching for your phone?
Speaker 2: I'm reaching for my glasses and this is look look
Speaker 2: where I am in my life?
Speaker 3: Oh reading glasses all right, Welcome to my world.
Speaker 2: Man, I could I told you I could not believe
Speaker 2: how badly I wasn't seeing until I could see.
Speaker 3: All right. There's a parable somewhere in that.
Speaker 2: I think I actually, I think there's actually a Bible
Speaker 2: verse that says something to that effect. Uh, maybe a
Speaker 2: China Chinese proverb.
Speaker 1: Probably both Mark Pope talked to the media yesterday about
Speaker 1: mostly the Georgia game, but we're going to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit here about Mississippi State because he was asked about, uh,
Speaker 1: what he knows about the Bulldogs that.
Speaker 3: Talked about that earlier.
Speaker 1: But I asked him, what do you remember about going
Speaker 1: to Starkville back when he was a teammate of Camera Mills.
Speaker 3: Here's what he had to say.
Speaker 4: I actually remember very little. I remember Eric Dan Pierre,
Speaker 4: who was a you know, a terrific pro and a
Speaker 4: trific college player. And uh, I remember who was the
Speaker 4: really exploed most of his names gave me right now,
Speaker 4: really Dante Jones. Of course I remember Dante Jones. I
Speaker 4: remember going to Starkville and having a big, winning, really
Speaker 4: physical game, and you know, you know, I remember the
Speaker 4: vibe in the gym was electric like he usually is there.
Speaker 4: And I remember high level competition. You know, it was
Speaker 4: fun that year both of us were in the final four.
Speaker 1: And then, of course things worked out for the Wildcats
Speaker 1: in the final four, not so much for Mississippi's date
Speaker 1: with lost the Syracuse, But prior to that, Mississippi State
Speaker 1: handed the Wildcats a loss in the SEC Tournament Championship game,
Speaker 1: and I reminded Mark that Dante Jones had nine turnovers
Speaker 1: and the loss in Starkville, and then Pope jumped in.
Speaker 4: But then he blew us up in the SEC Championship. Man,
Speaker 4: he lost his mind, him and everybody else on the team.
Speaker 4: And I mean we had walk ons making one foot runners,
Speaker 4: you know, from seventeen feet. That's why this game is
Speaker 4: so beautiful. And it is beautiful.
Speaker 1: And of course he can say that now because all's well,
Speaker 1: that ended well for that Kentucky team. But like so
Speaker 1: many coaches, he admits and players too. I guess we'll
Speaker 1: cameraon to talk about this in a moment, but he
Speaker 1: remembers that loss to Mississippi State. The Starkville win was hazy,
Speaker 1: not that lost in the tournament.
Speaker 4: When you do it right, when you're built the right way,
Speaker 4: you know, I forcibly went to trying to remember our
Speaker 4: game at Mississippi State, which I remember somewhat that we won,
Speaker 4: but like all the stories I tell are from the
Speaker 4: SEC Championship when we lost to Mississippi State. And that's
Speaker 4: how you build a season, like that's what it is.
Speaker 4: And it's the same with fans, like you know, our
Speaker 4: run in ninety six in the n SIVY Tournament was
Speaker 4: probably more specially to our fans because we've been through
Speaker 4: it together. Also, Like if you ask him about that season,
Speaker 4: I remember a lot of games, but I really remember
Speaker 4: you masked that game of the season. I tell you
Speaker 4: of details from that. And it's it's it's these hard
Speaker 4: moments to make you grow too. And and that's I'm
Speaker 4: telling you. It's it's why basketball is special. And so
Speaker 4: when you can take the hard moments and turn them
Speaker 4: into something great, and you can take the great moments
Speaker 4: and continue along with them, that's when you have a
Speaker 4: That's when you're on a journey that you do in
Speaker 4: a locker room and with your fan base and with
Speaker 4: everybody else, and and and and the ballance. You know
Speaker 4: that the outcome holds it and hangs in the balance
Speaker 4: the whole way. And that's why it's so fascinating.
Speaker 3: All Right, you were.
Speaker 1: Nodding your head throughout all of that. Uh, do you
Speaker 1: have similar memories? And you played a Darkville twice or
Speaker 1: at least went there twice.
Speaker 2: I remember being there once. I guess we went. Maybe
Speaker 2: I have a vague breath every year. Maybe, Well, remember
Speaker 2: when we played Old Miss back then we had a
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, we played Old Miss. Uh. Their home
Speaker 2: game for us one year was in Memphis, and then
Speaker 2: our home game for them that next year was at
Speaker 2: the Freedom was at Freedom All. I don't know what
Speaker 2: that was about. Yeah, but I guess I did go
Speaker 2: to Starkville twice. I do. I do remember Starkville being
Speaker 2: aptly named as a town. But to be honest, this
Speaker 2: is about every SEC. That's all I love about the
Speaker 2: SEC is well now now, I guess it may be different.
Speaker 2: But other land grand institutions, Well, we're not in they're
Speaker 2: not in big cities, right, I mean, you know, you look,
Speaker 2: when we travel, we're used to eating at Ruth's Chris. Right,
Speaker 2: there's not a Ruth's Chris in Gainesville. There's an outback steakhouse,
Speaker 2: which just so happened to be coach Tino. I think
Speaker 2: had it's taken no no pun intended and uh so.
Speaker 2: But anyway, I I don't remember I remember Starkville once.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I remember it twice. Maybe it
Speaker 2: maybe maybe it was well, you know what I guess
Speaker 2: it was. It was Tubby's year. Tubby's first year may
Speaker 2: have been when we went back there. But anyway, what
Speaker 2: I remember the most about Starkville, I mean or or
Speaker 2: or the Hump, right, and they called the Hump and
Speaker 2: and I freaking yeah. And I say this understanding that
Speaker 2: every every fan base has their their their bad apples, right,
Speaker 2: But what I remember more than anything was being shocked
Speaker 2: at the things that the fans were yelling at our
Speaker 2: black Yeah. I mean, now I was a freshman and
Speaker 2: I was, I was, I was speechless. I mean I
Speaker 2: was like, And the thing that I remember thinking the
Speaker 2: most is do you all not think your black players
Speaker 2: are hearing what you're saying? And I'm like, I mean,
Speaker 2: I was just And again, it wasn't like the entire
Speaker 2: and it was mainly, as far as I could tell,
Speaker 2: the student section, but it wasn't like all of them.
Speaker 2: It was just like but it's like nobody was policing
Speaker 2: that nonsense. Like there wasn't and I mean like self policing.
Speaker 2: I don't mean like you know, like we're One thing
Speaker 2: I love about Mitch is is when because he stands
Speaker 2: down there every home game, right in front of the
Speaker 2: eruption zone and when he no, oh no, he get
Speaker 2: And I love that about him too, man every place.
Speaker 2: He lives and dies on every play and not just basketball,
Speaker 2: every tennis match. I mean, he just.
Speaker 1: He football, He stands in the ends.
Speaker 2: He's he's he is a mess. And I mean that
Speaker 2: in a wonderful complimentary way as far as what his
Speaker 2: teams are doing. But but he stays on the eruption
Speaker 2: zone and if he hears a bad word, if he
Speaker 2: doesn't like what they're chanting, he will tell them to
Speaker 2: shut up. And I've always I've always appreciated him for
Speaker 2: doing that. But yeah, I remember that. That's what I
Speaker 2: remember about Starkfield because it was just I was shocked.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, so this is what's gonna be
Speaker 2: like on the road in the SEC and it wasn't.
Speaker 2: He I mean that, I'm not saying it didn't have
Speaker 2: another place. That's the only place in the place. I
Speaker 2: really noticed it.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you can relate to what Mark said
Speaker 1: about remembering that loss in the SEC tournament more vividly.
Speaker 2: The whole the whole point according to coach Fatino, who
Speaker 2: I don't know is has he ever admitted that he
Speaker 2: wanted I mean, I know that's always a.
Speaker 1: But you guys talked about it on the party boat
Speaker 1: right in Miami when we were shooting the documentary The
Speaker 1: Party Vote.
Speaker 2: First of all, can we come up with a better
Speaker 2: name for it than that?
Speaker 3: I mean, it was a boat and the party that's true.
Speaker 2: But just called you know that party boat in Miami
Speaker 2: that that.
Speaker 1: Was and wasn't fit to go out on the ocean
Speaker 1: because it was too small.
Speaker 3: Somebody told yeah, well somebody told him. Uh, Betino told
Speaker 3: me this. Who owned it? Ron Mercer and a couple
Speaker 3: of other guys.
Speaker 2: I thought, I thought a partnership.
Speaker 1: And somebody told him, man, this boat is too you
Speaker 1: cannot take this out on the waves.
Speaker 3: It'll break apart.
Speaker 2: This is really anyhow, But no, what do I know
Speaker 2: about boats though?
Speaker 3: That's true? Uh?
Speaker 1: But anyhow, Yeah, he talked about the fact that he said,
Speaker 1: if we don't lose that game, no way we win
Speaker 1: the champions And you guys all agreed that doesn't But
Speaker 1: remember he benched antwine for half of that game. For
Speaker 1: the rest of the game, which and and Dante Jones
Speaker 1: went nuts. Uh, and it all came together. I will
Speaker 1: tell you this that coming off the floor, Huh. Steve
Speaker 1: Moss got a quick shot a little bit of video.
Speaker 3: Patino with just the.
Speaker 2: Time of an evil Well, and I can tell you
Speaker 2: this that locker room only time we've ever lost, and
Speaker 2: we weren't berated. He was in a good mood in
Speaker 2: that locker room. Literally said to us, we adjust, this
Speaker 2: is our second loss of the season. We are getting
Speaker 2: ready to go in to the if not already the
Speaker 2: most important well definitely the most important part. That we
Speaker 2: got six games to get it done. And you remember
Speaker 2: the documentary Mark even said in his interview in the
Speaker 2: documentary The Team by the Way, available on Vimeo, that
Speaker 2: Mark even said, it's this year, or it's not, It's
Speaker 2: gotta be this year. And so the pressure of going
Speaker 2: in to those six games knowing that, man, we just
Speaker 2: got beat by a team we got no business being
Speaker 2: beat by. As it turned out, they were much better
Speaker 2: than they'd been throughout the season.
Speaker 3: And you had beaten them by almost third.
Speaker 2: Here the crazy yeah yeah, well and then Starkville. But
Speaker 2: then you take one of our best players out. I'm
Speaker 2: just telling you, and just why I don't I don't
Speaker 2: know how to tell people any different, but I just
Speaker 2: don't think people believe me enough when I say you
Speaker 2: learn more from a loss than you do a win.
Speaker 2: You can learn from a win. But under the right coach,
Speaker 2: with the right players, which I believe we have now
Speaker 2: and I believe we've had before, you you can't argue
Speaker 2: with your coach mentally, even if you don't do it verbally,
Speaker 2: you can't argue with him. You can't look at him
Speaker 2: and say, dude, what are you griping about rebounding and
Speaker 2: free throws? For we won by forty. You can't do that.
Speaker 2: When you win by forty, you will listen when you've
Speaker 2: not made your foul shots and you've been out rebounded
Speaker 2: and you've lost a team you shouldn't have been beat by.
Speaker 2: So in that locker room, he not only was not yelling,
Speaker 2: not ranny and raving, he literally, with the smile on
Speaker 2: his face, said, guys, I want you to go out
Speaker 2: on Bourbon Street and have a fun night tonight. And
Speaker 2: we're looking around. I'm like, he's setting us up, right,
Speaker 2: this is a joke. This is a joke. He's gonna
Speaker 2: see who's gonna do it, and then they're gonna be
Speaker 2: up at five am running right, that's what's gonna happen.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're like even looking at these others, like
Speaker 2: are we going, are we going out tonight? What are
Speaker 2: we doing? Because he's there's no, this is not our coach,
Speaker 2: and it was our coach because what he knew was
Speaker 2: season reset. Yep. Now we had no excuses and he
Speaker 2: hopefully has just taught his six ' nine mouth of
Speaker 2: a power forward who wants to shoot threes all day
Speaker 2: and handle the ball at point guard. Maybe now he's
Speaker 2: going to listen for the six games. Yeah, yeah, he
Speaker 2: definitely did that. Angeline, come over here and sit and
Speaker 2: don't get up.
Speaker 3: He is Camera Mills. We're here in the garage.
Speaker 1: We'll come back and talk more about these wildcasts and
Speaker 1: more on The Big Blue Sider.
Speaker 3: Six thirty w LAP. Welcome back to the Big Blue Insider.
Speaker 1: Camera Mills here in the garage, and we have kind
Speaker 1: of circled the subjects of this shooting team. We've touched
Speaker 1: on it, but we haven't been super specific. But what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do is we are one more comment
Speaker 1: from Mark Pope with you, and that's about the fact
Speaker 1: that and we were talking about this in the last
Speaker 1: segment and you said learning from losses versus wins. Mark
Speaker 1: Pope agrees with you.
Speaker 2: Oh, surprise, surprise, maybe maybe maybe or you agree with him,
Speaker 2: maybe we both learned it at the same place.
Speaker 1: About that, and Pope talked about the fact that this
Speaker 1: group he believes can learn from losses.
Speaker 4: I do think we have a group that's capable of
Speaker 4: doing that. And I think we have tremendous resilience and
Speaker 4: tremendous resolve, and I think the guys have shown that
Speaker 4: a bunch this season already. And now we're facing the
Speaker 4: biggest challenge we have all year on Saturday, going on
Speaker 4: the road for this game, and and man, let's go
Speaker 4: roll that out and see what we can do.
Speaker 2: Let's go maybe a little.
Speaker 3: Bit of coach speak, their biggest game in the season,
Speaker 3: but coming but coming off a loss.
Speaker 1: I mean obviously it's it's, you know, bigger than it
Speaker 1: might have been.
Speaker 3: But they're all huge.
Speaker 1: Well, you were looking at the statue and I knew
Speaker 1: we'd get into this because of your irrational uh.
Speaker 3: Hate accurate officials.
Speaker 2: Okay, first of all, before you go any further, did
Speaker 2: you see the Tennessee Florida game?
Speaker 3: A little bit of it? What about it?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: I didn't?
Speaker 2: You? You and I? You and you and I are okay,
Speaker 2: fair enough? I because you consider yourself a journalist and impartial.
Speaker 2: Fair enough, Okay, I do not.
Speaker 3: I also officiated sporting events, so have I.
Speaker 2: I went middle school, elementary school. I mean I officiated
Speaker 2: a soccer game once got yelled at by a coach.
Speaker 2: I was only in middle school myself. Then I don't
Speaker 2: have it. I don't have a I don't have a
Speaker 2: dog in this fight. Florida Burst, Tennessee. The officiating was horrendous, horrendous.
Speaker 2: You saw the flop Kentucky, Georgia.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: You saw a dude just flail his arms and officials
Speaker 2: literally standing five feet blow his whistle. Explain to me how,
Speaker 2: And I know part of it's the rules, But you
Speaker 2: cannot touch a person on the perimeter. But you can
Speaker 2: elbow and swing and do all you want down in
Speaker 2: the low post. And the moment you get past the
Speaker 2: perimeter as a guard or as anyone in your dribble
Speaker 2: penetration doesn't matter what happens in there. It's all free
Speaker 2: for all. So we want to protect players out here.
Speaker 2: We don't give a whatever about what happens down here.
Speaker 2: It is horrible. It is the worst it's ever been.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry it is, and look I have I'll tell
Speaker 2: you what I have done. Doug Shows, who I used
Speaker 2: to detest, beyond belief I have I have fallen in
Speaker 2: love with that man I have, I have met I
Speaker 2: have no no, no, no, no no no no no no easy easy.
Speaker 2: He's not he's not lifting as much as he used to,
Speaker 2: and he's not wearing his mediums as much as he
Speaker 2: used to. But I have talked to too many people
Speaker 2: who I respect who have told me that Doug Shows
Speaker 2: is one of the best, not only one of the
Speaker 2: best officials, which I might have a little contention with,
Speaker 2: because there's no such thing as a best official, but
Speaker 2: as a person. And my thing with Doug was always
Speaker 2: personal in part.
Speaker 3: Because he wouldn't talk to you.
Speaker 2: Well, that's part of it. Yeah, Curtis Shaw as an official,
Speaker 2: my favorite. He's still an official, right, still going to hell,
Speaker 2: but he's but he was. He would not only talk
Speaker 2: to Shalls, wouldn't talk to anyone but the captains, right.
Speaker 2: Shaw would talk to everybody, yeah right, And he would
Speaker 2: look if you approached him with respect, he would treat
Speaker 2: you with respect, and that's how it should be. It's like, hey, Curtis, dude,
Speaker 2: he's grabbing me when I'm going off screens. Watch him,
Speaker 2: he's grabbing my shorts. I'll watch for it, Cameron. So
Speaker 2: it's like he even knew my name. It's like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, Doug. Doug Shalls almost teed me up down
Speaker 2: in Tennessee just because he did accurately catch me bouling
Speaker 2: somebody and I had a problem with it. But then
Speaker 2: he like, you know, showed me anyway. But officiating's getting awful.
Speaker 2: So yeah, what I was pointing out was the fact
Speaker 2: that and I know I'm sure a lot of fans
Speaker 2: have pointed this out as well, but thirty eight free
Speaker 2: throws to our what was it, nineteen thirty eight free
Speaker 2: throws for Georgia to our nineteen No, I realized part
Speaker 2: of that is the way we play. Yes, but did
Speaker 2: we did?
Speaker 4: Did?
Speaker 2: Did we? We? We fouled them enough to get them
Speaker 2: to the line thirty eight times.
Speaker 3: I thought they thought Kentucky did foul a lot.
Speaker 2: Well, I know one we didn't because I saw the
Speaker 2: replay of it. And okay, so you don't think that happened.
Speaker 1: More, I agree, But I just think you look at whatever.
Speaker 1: They were lucky to beat Florida because Florida missed free throws,
Speaker 1: including the front end.
Speaker 2: Again and we made three. So let's not exactly say lucky.
Speaker 1: No, I'm saying that when it came to free throw shooting,
Speaker 1: he had a ninety one percent or miss a couple
Speaker 1: for Florida.
Speaker 2: Saying is well, I wasn't prepared for the big moment.
Speaker 1: I'm saying is that this team has got a lot
Speaker 1: of work to do defensive where it has to be
Speaker 1: yes and stop fouling. Not only that, and this comes back,
Speaker 1: and this was a great topic for discussion. Yeah, with Pope,
Speaker 1: physical play, yes, because Kentucky is not used to dishing
Speaker 1: it out knowing how to be physical. Look, you may
Speaker 1: be right about officiating, but I am I contend that
Speaker 1: the play itself is not nearly as good as it
Speaker 1: used to be.
Speaker 3: I don't know why.
Speaker 2: Well didn't they change that perimeter rule where again you
Speaker 2: cannot put you can put one hand on a player
Speaker 2: on the perimeter two and that's an automatic foul. And
Speaker 2: they did that. Why Why did they do that?
Speaker 3: Because they were the hand checking was getting out.
Speaker 2: Of hand, and they did that. They did that because
Speaker 2: they wanted more penetration, they wanted more freedom, They wanted
Speaker 2: the offense to be better therefore they wanted a better product.
Speaker 2: And yet what did you just say?
Speaker 3: I think the inside play is worse.
Speaker 2: Because because they beat on each other, there's constant fouls
Speaker 2: and they're never called. And that's my problem is the inconsistend.
Speaker 2: One of my problems, the inconsistency between can't touch this
Speaker 2: dude here, I can elbow this dude in the face,
Speaker 2: and it's not a foul down here because you're a
Speaker 2: first I never wanted to be an inside player in
Speaker 2: my life, nor did I ever. I'm un jealous. Listen,
Speaker 2: I was yelled at when I got inside the three
Speaker 2: point line, as I should have been.
Speaker 1: I need to sit you down with Doug Hampton, the
Speaker 1: uh the time out coordinator and former D one referee
Speaker 1: sons are both.
Speaker 2: Uh do you want I know? I know John and
Speaker 2: uh yeah, I know John. John used to officiate our
Speaker 2: blue white games, among other things. And you know what
Speaker 2: I'll ask, y'all the first question ask every official is
Speaker 2: there such a thing as a makeup call? And you
Speaker 2: know John will say right, and you know what he's
Speaker 2: doing lying.
Speaker 1: I as someone who is officiated games, I will tell
Speaker 1: you I never made a makeup call. But there is
Speaker 1: a mental uh something mentally about pressure on you. If
Speaker 1: everybody's mad at you and you make a call that
Speaker 1: settles them down.
Speaker 2: A little bit, that's a makeup call.
Speaker 1: Not it to me, it's not a makeup call just
Speaker 1: because you do consciously, consciously say and I and I
Speaker 1: need to make a call to shut them up.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think you make a call to shut
Speaker 2: people up.
Speaker 3: That's why people say makeup.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no. A makeup call is when you
Speaker 2: know you've blown one against this team.
Speaker 3: You're always going to know you blew No, you're never perfect.
Speaker 2: No, you don't always know that you've blown one. No,
Speaker 2: you don't know until you're until. No, you don't know
Speaker 2: you've blown it. If you knew.
Speaker 1: People never talk to an official said yeah, man, I
Speaker 1: missed that one.
Speaker 2: Coach you know used to get Officials do it all
Speaker 2: the time. But there are also plenty of times where
Speaker 2: they clearly blew it and wouldn't admit it. You are
Speaker 2: they not admitting it?
Speaker 1: You can't admit every other call. I missed that one.
Speaker 1: But you're gotta believe in what you're doing. You gotta
Speaker 1: sell calls.
Speaker 3: We're getting off sell calls, we're getting off topic.
Speaker 2: This is perfectly an hour and a half to cover.
Speaker 3: I am going to not anymore halfway through it next time.
Speaker 3: And I've gone to Doug's place.
Speaker 1: He is a master pizza chef, really, and I've taped
Speaker 1: a show there with him, Billy Rutligion, and I did.
Speaker 1: And the next time I go, I'm taking you with me.
Speaker 2: That's fine.
Speaker 3: So we'll talk pizza, which you'll know.
Speaker 2: Is he he's a former official as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we'll talk pizza. And he was the best
Speaker 1: high school official I ever saw. And he also worked college.
Speaker 1: And then we'll talk officiating.
Speaker 2: Why don't we just talk officiating and then we'll and
Speaker 2: then we'll argue over pizza.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you, as you watch him make pizza, you're
Speaker 3: gonna want to talk about pizza. I promise you.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, does he have does he have a
Speaker 2: pizza oven?
Speaker 3: Yes, he does.
Speaker 1: He has a pizza pizza Rhea in his in his recreation.
Speaker 2: You see what happens. You can be official. All the
Speaker 2: money in the world.
Speaker 1: His wife gave it to him. All right, we'll take
Speaker 1: your break, come back and get back on the wild.
Speaker 2: Let's get back on six thirty.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the.
Speaker 1: Big Blue Sider Rear in the garage with Cameron Mills
Speaker 1: having his usually spirited discussion. But other than than free throws,
Speaker 1: rebound disparity rebounding, is that, is that what sticks in
Speaker 1: your cross?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think so, in spite of the fact that before
Speaker 2: the Florida game, at least we were like like Florida
Speaker 2: and I Flora, Florida and I Florida and Kentucky were
Speaker 2: like one in two in the country in defensive I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: in rebounding average per game. At least I read that.
Speaker 2: But you know, journalism is today, can't believe what t read.
Speaker 1: And talking about sid is you're calling Deadmore a liar.
Speaker 2: I would never call it Deadmore. Allied Deadmore is one
Speaker 2: of my favorites. But yeah, here's the thing. This goes
Speaker 2: back to the physicality thing as well. And I told
Speaker 2: this to somebody the other day. I can't rememberho it was,
Speaker 2: but one of the things that I've noticed is, and
Speaker 2: I noticed this in the Florida game, is the way
Speaker 2: Florida attacked the rim rebounding wise, and the way we
Speaker 2: attack the room, the way Florida boxed out, the way
Speaker 2: we box out we and and this is a physicality thing,
Speaker 2: and and I think honestly it's it's one of those
Speaker 2: things where the good news is it's learnable, and it
Speaker 2: is a requirement this year that it be learnable. Meaning
Speaker 2: Mark will make sure we're drilling right, just like he
Speaker 2: did with the You know that what we talked about
Speaker 2: before after the Ohio State game. How many times did
Speaker 2: they go over the high pick and roll right the
Speaker 2: high ball screens? So it's something that that that I
Speaker 2: would almost guarantee you he's seen enough film to notice,
Speaker 2: because I noticed it just on a couple of plays
Speaker 2: without the benefit of watching it over and over again
Speaker 2: on film. But I mean Florida would offensively the offensive
Speaker 2: last They would attack it with I mean reckless, abandoned.
Speaker 2: I mean they would sprint to the basket. They would
Speaker 2: throw you aside in a legal way. And again I'm
Speaker 2: not predisposed to see what Florida does in that game
Speaker 2: is legal meaning you know, and not against not against
Speaker 2: the rules and fouling. But I mean they would just
Speaker 2: I mean they would run at you. They would arm
Speaker 2: bar you right to get around you, right, which which
Speaker 2: look on the low post that that well, maybe not anymore,
Speaker 2: but it used to be a foul, right if you're
Speaker 2: using your arms and you're gaining advantage or you're wrapping
Speaker 2: your arm around the guy that's guarding. By this, I mean,
Speaker 2: they won't call that necessarily on a rebounding play. So
Speaker 2: if you're running in and you're actually efforting to get
Speaker 2: the ball, as coach p usould say, smell the ball.
Speaker 2: If that's what you're.
Speaker 3: Doing, he said, yeah, yeah, you got to.
Speaker 2: You gotta smell the ball, meaning no matter where the
Speaker 2: ball is, you better know where it is. Yeah, coach
Speaker 2: Coach used to talk about all the time. So we
Speaker 2: do a poor job, or we did in the Florida
Speaker 2: game of when that when when they took a shot
Speaker 2: we would turn and maybe hand check a guy instead
Speaker 2: of hip check box it, because look, I get it,
Speaker 2: you can't sit there and box out, box out, box out.
Speaker 2: You got to go get the ball at some point.
Speaker 2: But we would maybe and they just didn't go for
Speaker 2: the all five guys on the on the court. But
Speaker 2: you know, there's one person in particular I noticed, and
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna mention it by name, but just hand
Speaker 2: checked and then turned and I mean his guy got
Speaker 2: off asive rebound. So it's like at some point. Look,
Speaker 2: you got to get physically, you have, and not just that,
Speaker 2: You've got to hit them hard enough to discourage them.
Speaker 2: It's like running into a screen. Right. One of the
Speaker 2: one of one of my biggest faults as a defender,
Speaker 2: among many, was I would run into and Coach Bush,
Speaker 2: you got so mad at me over this, rightfully, So
Speaker 2: I would run into a screen and in my mind,
Speaker 2: well I'm out of the play. Wow, So I might
Speaker 2: as well just stay here. What sort of mentality is that?
Speaker 2: But the point is is to add one that could
Speaker 2: be your mentality is uh, all right, I'll just stay here.
Speaker 2: That you don't want me in there? Okay, I'll stay here,
Speaker 2: I mean I And that cannot be our mentality. Our
Speaker 2: mentality has got to be you hit me, I'm hitting
Speaker 2: you back. And look I'm not talking about throwing punches.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about going back, being physical and fighting around,
Speaker 2: in my case, fighting around a screen instead of just
Speaker 2: and we still we do that occasionally. You watch Guys
Speaker 2: last year in particular, but it's happened this year. You
Speaker 2: run into a screen. It takes physical exertion to get
Speaker 2: past it. So you just all right, hey, let's switch right, No,
Speaker 2: rebounding you've got he's gonna come block you out. You've
Speaker 2: got to fight like heck to get around him because
Speaker 2: you've got to go. You've got to want that ball
Speaker 2: more than he does. And so it's a question of effort.
Speaker 2: It's a question of physical But the physicality, to me,
Speaker 2: is more of a question of effort because look at
Speaker 2: a Mari. You don't think a Mari can be physical
Speaker 2: if he wants to and has been. Brandon can be.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, we all can. We got muscles on
Speaker 2: this team. We're now used to having muscles on this team.
Speaker 2: We're used to having string beings on this team. We
Speaker 2: got muscle. I remember, look at Sibwe that is a
Speaker 2: fifth year senior. We've got fifth year seniors. We've got guys.
Speaker 2: Because as I've said before, that that that that that
Speaker 2: freshman the sophomore year is so big for putting on masks,
Speaker 2: for putting on for getting that old man's strength, right yeah,
Speaker 2: and then the conditioning. I mean that freshman year, you
Speaker 2: are getting used to things. By the time you're where
Speaker 2: most of these guys are. You know what Division one
Speaker 2: is like, and you know what you have to do.
Speaker 2: And we've just got to do it corporately as a team,
Speaker 2: where we start to become the aggressors and not let
Speaker 2: other teams. Especially since we've got the reputation of being unphysical,
Speaker 2: that gives us a perfect opportunity to shock a few
Speaker 2: teams and start to grow our own reputation. As you
Speaker 2: don't mess with Kentucky. I mean, they will put you
Speaker 2: on your rear end.
Speaker 1: And now that's the blueprint. Run them off the three
Speaker 1: point line. Don't let them get comfortable out there. You
Speaker 1: can take thirty five threes, but if they're not good threes,
Speaker 1: we know what's gonna happen. But the other thing is
Speaker 1: body them up because they'll back away. Kentucky will shy
Speaker 1: away from contact. That might be what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: how people perceive Kentucky now. And if that's the case,
Speaker 1: maybe they can use that to their advantage.
Speaker 2: The funny thing is, yeah, no, I agree, I agree
Speaker 2: that can It's just a matter of will they And
Speaker 2: it's not a matter of will day as though will
Speaker 2: Mark tell them to or coach them to. It's a
Speaker 2: matter of look. And this is why I you know,
Speaker 2: I never It's one of the reasons that I never
Speaker 2: really got angry at cal for anything cal did. There's
Speaker 2: two reasons for that. Number One, John cali Perry never
Speaker 2: won a single game in his fifteen years here. Never
Speaker 2: his players won every game he won. John cal Perry,
Speaker 2: he didn't lose a game. He would tell you he did,
Speaker 2: which is admirable, but he never lost the game. John
Speaker 2: Calipari has yet to make a shot for the University
Speaker 2: of Kentucky. Ever. It's the players. So coaches can rant
Speaker 2: and raven do every I mean that, and look you've
Speaker 2: seen You've seen Mark do it. I mean Mark is
Speaker 2: already I mean Mark is so already ultrapsychological and thinking
Speaker 2: in terms of how to best communicate and get what
Speaker 2: I need out of my players. And then I mean
Speaker 2: he's already got a psychologist, you know constantly you know,
Speaker 2: at practice, watching the team, seeing, you know, noticing things,
Speaker 2: communicating that town. I mean, Mark is just he is
Speaker 2: a thinker, and he is constantly and he's also been
Speaker 2: on the player side. And so it's just like, you know,
Speaker 2: I can tell my guys to do something so many
Speaker 2: times before you know, what what what what do I
Speaker 2: have to do to get across to you and be
Speaker 2: physical if you're not used to it. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: one of the it's one of the reasons we used
Speaker 2: to have loose ball drills, right, I mean we would
Speaker 2: have loose ball drills when coach Patino had decided, in
Speaker 2: particular that you know what we're we're a weak team.
Speaker 2: We're a weak team. We don't we don't deserve to win.
Speaker 2: There's always his favorite things to say, we don't deserve
Speaker 2: to win. And then even though we won, we didn't
Speaker 2: deserve to win. And so we were gonna do thirty
Speaker 2: minutes of loose ball drills and charge drills and just
Speaker 2: to try to get us to understand that it's gonna hurt,
Speaker 2: make your peace with it. It's gonna hurt. What's what's
Speaker 2: the phrase, how be comfortable with being uncomfortable? And that's
Speaker 2: what these guys have to do. They have to get
Speaker 2: comfortable with being uncomfortable. But yeah, I think reboundings some
Speaker 2: make things. I don't know to your other point, Kobe
Speaker 2: Brea in particular, and and I know we didn't have
Speaker 2: a great shooting night the other night overall, but I
Speaker 2: don't think Kobe Brea can take a bad shot. I've
Speaker 2: seen him make too many very contested threes and oh wait,
Speaker 2: I know no, don't get me wrong, I get that,
Speaker 2: oh way contested three. I think Andrew just because every
Speaker 2: three that Andrew's taken has been wide open. I think
Speaker 2: I can't. I can't think of him taken too many, really, chat,
Speaker 2: I mean there have been guys running at him. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he does, and I kind of wish you wouldn't. But
Speaker 2: at the same time that isn't better. That's part of
Speaker 2: our offense though, is that you know what, if you
Speaker 2: you may have a good shot, but is there a
Speaker 2: great shot of past or two away? But you know what, honestly,
Speaker 2: here's the main thing. How much time we got one? Okay,
Speaker 2: all right, so let me let me see if I
Speaker 2: can get this in under one. This is a theory, okay,
Speaker 2: and this is my theory. This is not based on
Speaker 2: anything that I know or anything. This is just something
Speaker 2: that I'm starting to believe. All of most of our
Speaker 2: guys came from men majors, and in men majors, what
Speaker 2: you understand is that you have got to go out
Speaker 2: and you have got to As a mid major, you're
Speaker 2: the team that's typically especially early in the season when
Speaker 2: you're playing hid one, you're gonna get beat. Right, You
Speaker 2: got there and fight, but you're expected to get beat
Speaker 2: because you're a mid major, meaning the team based on rankings,
Speaker 2: or based on reputation, or based on what the media
Speaker 2: is saying you are. So this is an uphill climb
Speaker 2: for you tonight. Most of our guys came from that
Speaker 2: environment there that they came from teams that were supposed
Speaker 2: to get beaten by the high D one teams. Right, well,
Speaker 2: I wonder if a lot of these guys have not
Speaker 2: brought that attitude into Kentucky knowing that Now I'm at Kentucky,
Speaker 2: so now I'm the team that's spos I'm with the
Speaker 2: team that's supposed to win. So when we play Clemson,
Speaker 2: who we're supposed to beat, you get beat. When we
Speaker 2: play Georgia, who we're supposed to beat, we get beat.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if that's not our attitude, not not not
Speaker 2: maybe corporately, but it comes out corporately, is that we
Speaker 2: we will beat top ten teams easily, relatively easily easily.
Speaker 2: But when we play a team that's not ranked or
Speaker 2: that isn't quote unquote special.
Speaker 3: It's their super Bowl, it is you.
Speaker 2: Look, people mock all that all. I'm locked that all
Speaker 2: that one it is. But I'm wonder if that's not
Speaker 2: a problem for us right now that we are the
Speaker 2: average teams. We're not coming ready to play.
Speaker 3: An interesting theory.
Speaker 1: We'll come back and wrap things up with camera Mills
Speaker 1: here in the garage.
Speaker 3: Not yet. We have one more.
Speaker 1: Segment here in the Big moon Sider six thirty. We'll
Speaker 1: come back to the Big bon Sider. Camera Mills is
Speaker 1: here in the garage. We are counting things down our
Speaker 1: final segment, and we.
Speaker 3: Haven't really talked about movies and TV and.
Speaker 1: All like we usually do because we have so much
Speaker 1: to cover with this basketball team.
Speaker 3: But you know, I really enjoy hearing Mark Pope.
Speaker 1: Talking about his thought process, and you talked about the
Speaker 1: fact that he is really into the analytics.
Speaker 3: He has made a study.
Speaker 1: You know what most coaches are, They just don't really
Speaker 1: like to call it analytics. You know, they keep an
Speaker 1: eye on things, especially when you talk about baseball and
Speaker 1: baseball hardcore baseball people, they spit out the word analytics.
Speaker 1: My contention is, you've always used it, but most really
Speaker 1: good baseball guys have all that stuff stored in the
Speaker 1: back of our minds.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of stuff.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff, and the science now involved
Speaker 1: can help you sift through it and put it to
Speaker 1: better use, which is what Mark Pope kind of staff
Speaker 1: what they do. Oh, I thought, when it gets right
Speaker 1: down to it, man, and this is what you've been
Speaker 1: talking about here in the garage. Yeah, Like in football,
Speaker 1: they say it always comes back to blocking and tackling.
Speaker 1: Basketball comes down to what you got to play defense.
Speaker 1: You gotta rebound until you.
Speaker 2: Got to make shots. You got to make shots. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't care. I don't care if you take bad
Speaker 2: shots as long as you make them. I mean, in the.
Speaker 3: Grant Abbitty nds are there well.
Speaker 2: And but that gets into analytics, doesn't it. I mean, look,
Speaker 2: if you go back and this is the one thing
Speaker 2: and you and I may have talked about this before,
Speaker 2: but this is one thing I love about Mark and
Speaker 2: how very much because again he is an intellectual probably
Speaker 2: above everything else. Uh. But Mark, even though he is
Speaker 2: very much into the analytics. And I'm told you just before,
Speaker 2: they literally have one of the team managers during every
Speaker 2: game is plugged in to Tim Asher's video, right the
Speaker 2: head video. Guys, you know who's up up up in
Speaker 2: the top recording he is plugged into and it has
Speaker 2: a laptop over by the bench, and he is logging
Speaker 2: every play live so that the coaches on their iPads
Speaker 2: can pull that up at any minute and show the
Speaker 2: players what they're talking about, which is mind boggling to
Speaker 2: me because we had to wait until the next day
Speaker 2: or in some cases a few hours later to watch
Speaker 2: film of the game and for coach to make his
Speaker 2: points and say because sometimes you don't realize you're doing
Speaker 2: until you see it on film. But what I love
Speaker 2: about Mark is that he is very much into the analytics.
Speaker 2: I would say in a major, major way, but he
Speaker 2: has also said something like this is that, look, at
Speaker 2: some point, you got to go with your gut. And
Speaker 2: that's what bothers me about analytics is that I appreciate them,
Speaker 2: I'm fascinated by them, but they're not It's not black
Speaker 2: and white. They're not the end all be all, because
Speaker 2: just from a personal experience, if you're going by the analytics,
Speaker 2: I don't. I'm not even in the game against Duke
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety eight. I'm on the bench because I
Speaker 2: hadn't hit a three all tournament, So why would I
Speaker 2: be in the game when the game was on the line.
Speaker 3: Billy Packer pointed out, yeah.
Speaker 2: You love of all people, so but yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: I I I appreciate the analytics and I and I do.
Speaker 2: I find him fascinating and I and I think part
Speaker 2: of the reason if I don't. I mean, I got
Speaker 2: a friend named Kyle Man. I don't know if you
Speaker 2: know Kyle, but he works for the Ringer uh Ringer
Speaker 2: dot com and he's he lives in Louisville. He's a
Speaker 2: he's a Kentucky fan. I think think he might have
Speaker 2: actually been at practice yesterday. He he is. I got
Speaker 2: in touch. I found him on Twitter. I started following
Speaker 2: his Twitter account and I started following the things that
Speaker 2: he was saying. I'm like, dude, this guy knows more
Speaker 2: about current basketball than I do. So and I think
Speaker 2: I might have just got the job at JMI and
Speaker 2: so it was like, mantwork, Yeah, well yeah with a
Speaker 2: UK force network. So I'm like, you know what I
Speaker 2: need to I need to I need to have somebody
Speaker 2: in my life that can that could show me teach
Speaker 2: me analytics. And that's one thingle Kyle is don God's awesome.
Speaker 3: Let me let me run this by.
Speaker 1: Real quickly, since you're studying a little more acutely, I
Speaker 1: feel like analytics are as much, maybe more, a reflection
Speaker 1: of what has happened as opposed to a prediction of
Speaker 1: what will happen.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, but too many times people lean
Speaker 3: on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, here's what's going to happen if we do this,
Speaker 1: because here's what the numbers say.
Speaker 2: Well, and what bothers me the most is and again
Speaker 2: I understand fans being fans, but the criticism that fans
Speaker 2: lay at the feet of coaches sometimes because they didn't
Speaker 2: go with the analytics. They went with their heart because
Speaker 2: they just and I've heard it so many times, just
Speaker 2: felt like so and so was due.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what, it's so easy after a game
Speaker 2: when so and so might have been due but he
Speaker 2: didn't come through, because that's a great rhyme. And then
Speaker 2: for you to criticize a coach. But here's the thing
Speaker 2: that I'll always remind fans of what you see is
Speaker 2: five percent of what the coach has seen all week.
Speaker 2: The coach has been in practice, They've seen things that
Speaker 2: you haven't. So their their gut their estimation. Their hunches
Speaker 2: are a lot more powerful than what you're looking at.
Speaker 2: After the game's happened.
Speaker 1: Real quickly, as we only have a few minutes left.
Speaker 1: I mentioned this early in the show before you got
Speaker 1: to the garage. Kenny Brooks talked about the win over
Speaker 1: Florida yesterday. They had a twenty four point lead that
Speaker 1: got down to fourteen or so, never called a timeout.
Speaker 1: Florida made a run, and he said after the game,
Speaker 1: people might wonder, but he said, and again he had
Speaker 1: a bigger lead, and he knew his team. He said,
Speaker 1: they learn more.
Speaker 2: Yes, they do if.
Speaker 3: They figure it out on their own without me calling
Speaker 3: time out.
Speaker 2: You can go back to the very beginning of the season,
Speaker 2: right how many times where? And I didn't know that
Speaker 2: was the attitude, But I love that attitude because I
Speaker 2: started I started noticing like there would be runs and
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, Okay, Pope's gonna call timeout this not all right? Now?
Speaker 2: Is coming time out? And Pope would just be standing
Speaker 2: in their hand, hands behind his back, you know, head down,
Speaker 2: head up, head down, thinking right, and I'm like, what's
Speaker 2: he doing. Oh, He's gonna let them figure it out.
Speaker 2: From the very beginning of the season. He's done that
Speaker 2: with the players in practice well.
Speaker 1: And the best example of that, in my opinion, was
Speaker 1: when they were losing to Duke and Jack Gibbons has
Speaker 1: told this story more than one Yeah, and he could
Speaker 1: hear from his seat Pope's right over there, right, and
Speaker 1: he could hear Pope yelling.
Speaker 3: To his players, we're okay, We're okay, you know, which
Speaker 3: I think was more important than calling time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But look, just just setting settling down and make
Speaker 2: them grow up and fight through the adversity how many
Speaker 2: times if you've not already, you will. As long as
Speaker 2: Mark Pope's head coach here, he will never veer away
Speaker 2: from this because this has been his mantra, I'm assuming
Speaker 2: since he was fourteen years old, maybe earlier. It certainly
Speaker 2: was why he was here. Fight through adversity, learn from adversity,
Speaker 2: Embrace adversity, learn more. Yes, that's why you learn more
Speaker 2: from losing than you do from winning. And though I
Speaker 2: don't want to lose every game, I want to lose
Speaker 2: one or two, I just don't want to. I just
Speaker 2: don't want to lose those last six. That's why everything
Speaker 2: or nothing matters until March and technically April for be
Speaker 2: pedantic about it.
Speaker 1: Well we will, we will converse more than once, and
Speaker 1: you will. You'll be heard on uh the UK Network
Speaker 1: pre game show so many many times. Well tomorrow especially,
Speaker 1: yeah tomorrow, But as as March draws near. But in
Speaker 1: a minute, do you have a pretty good feeling about
Speaker 1: this team right now?
Speaker 2: I freaking love this team. I still love this team.
Speaker 3: I look, just because they shoot a lot of threes.
Speaker 2: Well, I am jealous of the green light, you Stu,
Speaker 2: But look I had that green light too, and Pope
Speaker 2: has said that what will coach. Tito's mantra was if
Speaker 2: you are open and you do not shoot, you're on
Speaker 2: the bench. That's that's the green light. I love this team.
Speaker 2: I love this team's heart. I love that they are
Speaker 2: never out of a game. They aren't. I mean Georgia
Speaker 2: and I was standing they are they were, they are not.
Speaker 2: They they have the mentality let it get away. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but they never are out of a game. I don't
Speaker 2: care who now. The one thing that is when we're
Speaker 2: playing Georgia, when we're playing Clemson, you gotta win those
Speaker 2: games too. But the SEC is a bear, and Georgia
Speaker 2: may not be ranked but rankings are stupid anyway.
Speaker 3: I'm glad we didn't get bogged down on that today.
Speaker 2: See I saved that for the last times.
Speaker 1: That's right, next time, all right, brother, thank you, We
Speaker 1: will listen for you on the pregame show.
Speaker 2: Thanks sir.
Speaker 1: Always fun when Cameron comes by, he and Dave will
Speaker 1: start at seven o'clock. When Network covers meaning KSR Boys
Speaker 1: at six o'clock. Tomorrow night, Kats in Mississippi State at
Speaker 1: eight thirty. Hear it right here, that's it, good night
Speaker 1: from the garage in Lexington.
Speaker 2: Looks like I picked the wrong week for smoking.
Speaker 4: It's like I picked the wrong week. Quick, looks like
Speaker 4: I picked the wrong week.
Speaker 2: Quin On Fetamans picked the wrong week. Chris mana