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3 Guys Before The Game - The Search Begins (Episode 538) · 3 Guys Before The Game

• 0:08
  'tis that time. We're ready to go. It's three Guys Before the Game,
• 0:12
  episode number five hundred and thirty nine. The title the search begins.
• 0:19
  Men's basketball season is over for WVU. We'll talk about that in detail.
• 0:24
  What does it all mean? The Senator is here, Poppy Kerchibal is here.
• 0:29
  And this is three Guys Before the Game brought to us by Comac's Business
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  Systems, keeping West Virginia's business data safe, secure and efficient for twenty five
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  years by Gomart. Go for good times, Go for Gomart by Lou Wendell
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  dot com. Two l's next to each other on the end of Wendell and
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  spreads on stats brought to us by calmly CPA Group, providing value beyond the
• 1:04
  numbers. As I said, this is the five hundred and thirty ninth episode
• 1:11
  of Three Guys Before the Game. And something happened today that had never happened
• 1:15
  in the previous five hundred and thirty eight episodes, and that is we started
• 1:19
  the show and we went almost like a teeny bit away from eleven full minutes
• 1:26
  of recording, and we collectively looked at each other and we went like,
• 1:32
  we got to start this again, because that thing was just going like nowhere
• 1:37
  quick. It was. It was so far off the rails you could not
• 1:42
  see the tracks. Yeah, so I just like he brought it up,
• 1:45
  that one there, that Brad brought it up, and I said, yeah,
• 1:48
  I'm with you, let's let's kill it. So I did save the
• 1:51
  audio, though under the file it just says three guys before the game unused
• 1:55
  version first ever outtakes being released later. There's eleven minutes it about eleven minutes
• 2:00
  of just complete stupid, gibberish stunner for this stunner for this program. All
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  right, on this episode, we're gonna jump into West Virginia's men's basketball program.
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  The search has formally begun, WVU wasting no time in making the announcement
• 2:17
  that Josh Eiler and staff would not return next season. They did that literally
• 2:23
  hours after West Virginia returned home from the game against Cincinnati, and Ren Baker
• 2:30
  held a press conference yesterday and his last press conference before he announces who the
• 2:37
  coach is and that might take two, three plus weeks before that's all done,
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  but he laid down the groundwork in the foundational points that he is using
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  to name West Virginia's next basketball coach. So there is a lot of that
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  WV women awaiting word this weekend on their NCAA tournament fate. Bring football practice
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  is now just a couple of less than ten days, eleven days away as
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  we record eleven days away from beginning, and we record in the middle of
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  the afternoon, not really middle of one o'clock in the afternoon, which means
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  my attention problems that I self diagnosed years ago, and actually it's not year.
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  Yeah, it's been a couple of year. I didn't know for a
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  long time that I had an attention problem. I don't think it's as bad
• 3:28
  as you think it is. Well, that's good, I'm glad to hear
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  that. Oh you do think it is? Tend to disagree. Yeah,
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  anyway, So we've got three conference tournament games on and we're watching those.
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  So if you see me, do you start to feed out or if it
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  goes quiet here for a couple of minutes, if the three shots up like
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  it is now and you see me, do like this, I can't help
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  myself, all right, So let's jump in. Season is over for the
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  Mountaineers, and I think it will be an unforgettable season. And oftentimes when
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  you say that, you say that was an unforgettable season, it's because of
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  the wins that you have and the wins that you had in the regular season
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  and then the wins that you have and experience this month, and so you
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  know, we always look back at those those are unforgettable seasons. Unfortunately,
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  this one will be remembered as an unforgettable season. I don't think you'll ever
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  be able to forget this. But it isn't going to be because of the
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  winds. Although getting Texas and Kansas were nice, but there were only seven
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  others other than that those two wins, and so this one is going to
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  be remembered really, in my view, from the season that really began in
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  May of last year. That's when things started to move toward this isn't going
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  to be a normal season. And then in June the intrim tag for Josh
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  Eilert and then all of the roster moves and the injury to Jesse Edwards and
• 4:56
  the waiver requirements and the suspension of her Careesa. You all get it.
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  If you're listening to this this and this season and you're not from Pluto,
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  you you know what we're talking about. And so now the interim status and
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  Josh's staff is gone, and the new beginning begins and off we go.
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  That's kind of like the open of this thing. You you, it's time
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  for hoppies. Obvious observations brought to us by absolutely no one. I guess
• 5:33
  we could put episode brought to us by episode eight hundred dot com where now
• 5:39
  we're offering camping chairs, lighter fluid and windshield wipe. Your fluid confirmed.
• 5:46
  Got a great cargo ship of fluids came in, so we're selling fluids now.
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  All right, what do your takes? Well, there's a lot to
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  unpack here. Let's start with this. Picking up what you said, Tony
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  and I wrote about this today and about this season and about Josh ivert staff,
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  is that I imagine a number of years from now, a young Mountain
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  Mountaineer fan looking through the WVU basketball media guide and looking at the twenty three
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  twenty four season and seeing that nine and twenty three record and asking an older
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  fan, a father, a mother, a grandfather, whatever, what happened,
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  and that that older fan saying, sit down, it's going to take
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  a while and to explain everything that happened in that season. And then the
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  young person, if they're paying attention, is going to ask, well,
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  nine wins, was Josh Eiler a bad coach? And if this fan is
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  really aware of what happened, they're going to say, no, he was
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  a great coach. He was a great coach. And then we'll go on
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  to explain that all the adversity that took place and how Josh Eilert and his
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  staff handled this. In a message to the fans, Eilert said, we
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  should all be so lucky to be put in a position to do hard things,
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  to be pushed to the brink and to expose what we're made of or
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  where we have room for expansion. Tony, that is the kind of attitude
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  that you want from a head coach in molding young men, in representing the
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  university. And here's a guy who conducted himself with strength and wisdom, perseverance,
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  stoicism, personal responsibility. Those are the kinds of qualities that I think
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  that we embrace as mountaineers. That's how we see ourselves and that's how he
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  conducted himself. The wins are obviously important, and at a major institution you
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  expect more wins. But sometimes, and this is one of the times,
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  that there are more important things, and that's what you had this season,
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  because the most important thing was during a very difficult time, historically difficult time,
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  you had a coach and a staff that the way they conducted themselves lived
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  up to and exceeded the standards of what you expect from a mountaineer. That's
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  how I see this season. I as well said, I think no,
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  I think I think that's well. Said Ren Baker in the press conference yesterday,
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  says, something I thought was interesting something to do. Someone asked him,
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  you know about Josh and this and what you and what do you think
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  he learned something like that? And he said, Ren said, I've learned
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  from Josh this year how he handled it. And he said, because what
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  you saw publicly was also the way he was acting privately when we would talk.
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  So it wasn't one of those deals where he's pointing fifty two fingers,
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  then you walk in front of the microphone and you and you play the game
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  instead. He goes, that's that's just how it was. And that doesn't
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  surprise me because he is uh, he's been like that and he'd never changed
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  from what he was all these years on staff. He didn't try to become
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  somebody else, he didn't reinvent himself. He was who he is. In
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  the long run, that'll pay dividends for him. Yeah, takes. Let's
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  do a little past, present and future. Look if we could past present
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  future as you take in this past season in totality, I think there's a
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  couple of things, and Josh and the coaching stuff is the headliner, but
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  there's some other things that were in this season that I think have some impact.
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  Let's go back to past for a second. And by that, I'm
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  referring to nil, which is such a big part now moving forward. And
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  quite frankly, that's now a misused term. It is not anil. Let's
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  just pay for compensation or compensation for play, pay for play. Why don't
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  you just go ahead and call it salary? Well, salary and well we
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  do we talk salary cap a lot. West Virginia was on the forefront of
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  that early on with this class that was put together. And I'm gonna use
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  one example. Jesse Edwards highly coveted transfer at one time the number one transfer
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  on the market at the time when West Virginia signed him. Thanks to the
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  salary cap that West Virginia had in place at the time, West Virginia,
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  Hoppey beat out Gonzaga and Kansas for the top transfer market recruit. So let's
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  take a moment and think about what the salary cap is and could be moving
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  forward for West Virginia. If it stays in that range. And we heard
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  Ren talk about it, You've heard Ken Kendrick talk about it. If that's
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  true, and I take them both at their word, the salary cap situation
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  is pretty good here at West Virginia. That will come back in in the
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  future. I'll get back to that in a minute. But the Jesse Edwards
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  to me, for one of the few times I can remember, you straight
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  up had to head the final three candidates Gonzaga, Kansas, West Virginia,
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  and West Virginia won that recruit. That was big news. So moving forward,
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  that plays well for future recruits. That's one present to piggyback on what
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  you said about the job that Josh did. I tweeted this yesterday, now
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  Tony, I haven't risen to the level of having a commentary part of the
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  website. So I just did a tweet. However, I do find it
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  interesting when a person reads his own tweets. Got a third person tweet,
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  I'm gonna read my tweet, yeah, quoting Bread, quoting himself. Josh
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  handled impossible circumstances with class and grace. He put the program first and exemplified
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  what it means to be a mountaineer. Put that out after I read his
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  statement of state, which I thought was one of the very very best statements
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  we've seen a coach release. I thought he and Brandy and family did a
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  great job of putting forth a bunch of different thoughts and it was extremely well
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  written. So I echo your thoughts there, and we've said that throughout the
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  thing. I thought, I thought Josh and family because that wasn't just Josh.
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  That was a family effort there that they had to put forth the time,
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  the energy, and endure some things that were difficult, and they will
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  always have my respect for getting through it the way they did. So the
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  present is Josh and that staff, knowing that they weren't going to be around
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  long term, still stepping in every day and doing the very best to their
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  ability to keep that program on track when their futures were completely uncertain. That's
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  really hard to do, guys, that is really hard to do to go
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  in and grind for an entity that you know, most likely you will not
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  be a part of moving forward. And I thought they all did a tremendous
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  job with that, So ultimate hats off in respect future. A couple things
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  happened throughout the year that I think bode well for the future, not just
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  the nil that I mentioned earlier, but let's look at these things. You
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  know, those NCAA rules changed completely thanks to West Virginia and Raequon Battle.
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  Now, maybe they change back, maybe they don't, but we are in
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  a totally different era, and that was on the backs of Raekwon Battle's battle
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  to get eligible. Transfer wise, that's a significant development in the history of
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  college sports that happened during all of the chaos of this season. So I
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  don't think we want to lose sight of that. Number one and number two
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  the fans support this season should not go unnoticed or unmentioned either. Tremendous maybe
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  the biggest storyline of the whole thing, and it is the biggest storyline from
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  a couple reasons we know that we know what the support is. Everybody listening
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  to the show knows what the support is, but you know who may not
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  have known the support whoever their next coach is. And that's one of the
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  things, Hoppy I said to you this morning on your show. That will
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  be one of the things moving forward that I don't think Ren has to tell
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  a new coach that new coach is going to understand the support. And that's
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  one of the things. Right at the top of the list, what's your
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  salary cap, what are you paying me? And what support do I have
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  from the fans and the administration with this basketball program? And I'd stack West
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  Virginia up right now as we sit today at among the very top when you
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  get to support across all levels that we're talking about. So I think those
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  fans showing up at ten thousand plus for a team that was struggling to win
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  games and doing it all season long, that shouldn't go on notice. That
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  will play a factor in who the next coach will be, and it will
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  play a factor in how successful the next head coach will be. Yeah,
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  So there's my past, present, and future post mortem on the season.
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  It was very, very well done. Very well done. So we had
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  hoppies, obvious observations, we had Brad's past, present, and future.
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  And I don't know. My thought is it echoes what you guys just said.
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  And I obviously have a little bit of a closer look because I travel
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  with those guys and I do Josh's show. But everything that you saw public
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  is what you saw privately. They the staff day, Sean and Jordan and
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  Alex and all of those guys, they knew what they were getting themselves into,
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  and they never whind and they never complained, never did the woe as
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  me, And so for me, I will always have the ultimate respect of
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  what those guys did in this stint, and you just hope if things are
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  fair somewhere down the road, each of those guys have opportunities to flourish as
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  coaches, and I think that they'll always look back at this as perhaps an
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  invaluable opportunity in their life, although it doesn't seem as though right now.
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  I think they look back on this as the invaluable part of their learning this
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  world. Because I think you can go away from sports here just in your
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  life. Chances are some of the greatest lessons that you learned, and the
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  greatest lessons and philosophies that you live by have been as the result of a
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  hardship that has struck you. What did Josh say? Josh said, do
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  hard things. Yeah, do hard things in all caps. He said that.
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  So so for that, yes, and for that you move forward and
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  you see what happens here. Now we'll get into the search, and it's
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  probably it's the middle of March. So this thing will be determined by a
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  couple of things. One, postseason basketball tournaments the NCAA starts next week.
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  And it also will be determined by the pick, the picking and pecking order
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  of how coaches are hired. So if you want to set it up,
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  you've got a list of candidates, and you will make your move predicated upon,
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  oftentimes what happens in other places. And so you can be as prepared
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  as you possibly can be. You can have your candidates vetted, you can
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  have your list of favorites. It's kind of like going into a barbecue place,
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  you know, and it's about four thirty and they've been open since about
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  eleven AM, and you walk in and you go like, man, I
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  still hope they got burn ends. Because you're not exactly sure if there's still
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  the burn ends there. So you might have the burn ends at the top
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  of your list of what you want, but someone might take the burn ends
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  away from you and you can't go get that, And so you got to
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  go down and go like, all right, we'll do the pulled pork in
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  the sausage. You're still gonna win. I mean, you're still gonna win.
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  It's still barbecue, but you just don't know how it's gonna fall down.
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  You're not in total control at this point. Well, I think I
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  like the barbecue reference because I'm kind hungry, but I like the but I
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  think it's more of a Rubik's cube where you move one thing and other things
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  change, okay, and sometimes it's not even you moving right moving to somebody
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  else moves something and then because of that, now that job's not open,
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  but this person's now. It's just so it's constant bred Now talk about this
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  this morning. Brad had a good take on it that it's constantly shifting.
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  It's fluid, I think you said, Brad, Yeah, I think fluid
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  is the word to use, because it's not only these other schools that are
• 17:08
  open in Oklahoma State as we record has just opened here in the last fifteen
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  minutes before we got on the air, pulled the trigger. So those are
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  constantly changing and the waters are moving and you're waiting in and so you're trying
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  to watch the list of coaches that you like. You don't know when they're
• 17:25
  going to be available, because some are playing in the tournament, some will
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  not be playing in the tournament. Some are going to be knocked out earlier
• 17:30
  than others. So you're watching that. You're watching what other schools are doing.
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  Who are they talking to? What leverage do you have over the coach
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  it's now talking to other schools. So this is really difficult. This isn't
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  a identify a coach you like, sit down and have a conversation and then
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  tell that coach we'll get back to you when our committee talks about it.
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  That's not how these things work, right. They move fast and fluid is
• 17:49
  the word to use here. And if Rin Baker's doing his job, and
• 17:52
  I believe he is. When he made that announcement yesterday, he didn't start
• 17:56
  yesterday, Okay, He's been looking ahead for money, whether Josh was going
• 18:02
  to be back or not. And then in recent weeks he's been making contacts
• 18:06
  with agents, starting to line things up, and he's got that same mindset
• 18:08
  too, Brad. Okay, I'm interested in this guy, but if this
• 18:11
  guy does this, then that I mean, he's thinking that wayt He's playing
• 18:14
  chess too. That's how the search goes. But you're also sitting there today
• 18:18
  and you'd like to announce the new coach today, but he can't even get
• 18:21
  started on the final leg of the process until these teams are eliminated. And
• 18:26
  that's where the challenge becomes so great. Is you're doing the hiring for a
• 18:30
  very important job with a lot of money on the line, and you're not
• 18:33
  totally in control of what you want to have happen. You're just not There
• 18:38
  are other factors that are in and that's different than it is in a lot
• 18:41
  of businesses. When you identify your candidate, you talk to your candidate,
• 18:45
  and you say yes or no to your candidate. That's not what this is.
• 18:48
  So that's why the list that Ren has, and we've talked many times
• 18:51
  on the show, how athletic directors constantly keep lists of different sports and head
• 18:55
  coaches, assistant coaches, and that comes in and out and people come on
• 18:59
  the list and off the list. That's why those are so important, because
• 19:00
  that gives you your start. But there's also not going to be one person
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  that's identified that you lock in and zero in on. I think that's where
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  I think that's where fans may get the process off a little bit. That's
• 19:14
  not what's being done. There's a pool, and sometimes that pool is three,
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  sometimes it's five, sometimes it's seven of people that you really like,
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  and then all those factors start to weigh in on that correct and it's as
• 19:26
  a spectator sport. It's kind of fun when you're not the person that has
• 19:32
  to make the higher but you can sit back here and watch all these moves.
• 19:36
  For example, he just said, Okay, they just fired Mike Poynt
• 19:37
  at Oklahoma State. Well, that just put a whole new wave into the
• 19:41
  pool. So what does that mean. Now? Is oak Steak going to
• 19:45
  come out and say because one of the biggest criticisms is they don't have nil
• 19:48
  money. And the reason that a lot of people didn't think this move would
• 19:51
  be made because they didn't want to pay the buy out, pay the new
• 19:52
  coach and the whole deal. But someone said that now they've got to go
• 19:56
  convince a coach that there will be nil for you here. Now, that's
• 20:02
  something that West Virginia has factually and even perception wise. The national narrative on
• 20:08
  West Virginia that's being written about this job is West Virginia's got money. West
• 20:12
  Virginia's willing to spend money. So that's already out there. That's a good
• 20:18
  thing. That's a good thing. Now keep this in mind. Let me
• 20:21
  just throw this out here real quick. Like, everyone's got a strength,
• 20:25
  everyone's got a strength. Ren Baker. If you look at his background,
• 20:30
  he's had some really impressive, big time hires specific to basketball, not just
• 20:38
  the recent one with Mark Kellogg, who's done unbelievable things with this women's program.
• 20:45
  Grant McCaslin, who he hired at North Texas has got it rolling at
• 20:49
  Texas Tech. In his very first season, he had to put his roster
• 20:52
  together after they won the NIIT. That's April last of this past year,
• 20:59
  right, and he won a ton at North Texas and they're sitting there having
• 21:02
  a great season. Ben McCollum. Now, for people that follow this closely,
• 21:06
  they'll know who I'm talking about. For those that are just kind of
• 21:07
  have a casual interest in this stuff. He hired Ben McCollum at Northwestern Missouri
• 21:14
  State. Ben McCollum is like like the hottest of hot guys in this coaching
• 21:22
  world. All he does is win thirty plus games a year and win national
• 21:26
  championships at Division two, but hasn't made that jump yet to Division one,
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  but Wren hired him. Now, is this too big of a jump to
• 21:33
  come to West Virginia. Yeah, it will be. It will be unless
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  everything just cycles through. He probably needs to go to Missouri State which is
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  open, which is open, which he gets, which he likely gets,
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  and then maybe the next time, whether he's there a year or two years,
• 21:48
  then he vaults. But like he's a dude. So to my point,
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  like this isn't something that Wren shies away from or runs away from.
• 21:56
  Like he instead like he embraces this. This is his super Bowl. Like
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  you know what Hoppy does these debates, right, that's when he stepped or
• 22:04
  Hoppy's election coverage when he like goes four lip bombs and he's like fired up
• 22:08
  and he's done his prep and he's like at his peak. All precincts have
• 22:12
  closed. This is where Wren is right now, like this is his thing
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  for an ad, this is your national championship. Correct, you love watching
• 22:19
  the games, but you don't have control of the games. The coach does
• 22:22
  that you you're in control to an extent. What I just said all remains
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  true. But this is what ads get paid for. This is what you're
• 22:30
  known for. Your reputation comes off the coaches you've hired. So this is
• 22:33
  a big moment. A couple things on the Oklahoma State thing. What's interesting
• 22:37
  about that is it's it's it's more of a direct comparison because you're being you're
• 22:41
  in the same league. The nil perception. I think you're right. West
• 22:44
  Virginia's is good, Oklahoma States is not. But you can overcome that really
• 22:48
  quickly. You can sit down and say, okay, we've got from the
• 22:49
  t Boons picking pickens trust, we now have three million a year to play
• 22:53
  with, and that that concern goes right away for a coach, So watch
• 22:56
  that. Here's I thought Ren's press cooff yesterday was about as good a job
• 23:02
  as you can do of explaining the situation, giving you some information without giving
• 23:07
  away any trade secrets. I thought I did a wonderful job. Here's what
• 23:08
  I think was the very best thing he said, and I mentioned it a
• 23:11
  second ago that I think you need to remember. He specifically said he doesn't
• 23:15
  believe there's one guy for each job, that there are multiple people that,
• 23:21
  given the right support, which he feels is here, and I've outlined earlier,
• 23:23
  I agree with him, given the right support, there's multiple people that
• 23:27
  can fit in and do the job. I think that's especially true on the
• 23:30
  basketball side, guys, because there's a lot more programs to choose from than
• 23:34
  in football. There's a lot of really good basketball coaches out there. I
• 23:40
  just got done covering the Mountaine's Conference tournament. I'm not suggesting a Mountaine's conce
• 23:44
  coach is ready for the West Virginia job. Of course, there are some
• 23:47
  really good basketball coaches. You want to go watch some good offense being drawn
• 23:49
  up, I'll go show you a couple outstanding coaches that I would put up
• 23:53
  against, multiple Power five coaches, multiple Big twelve coaches when it comes to
• 23:59
  design offense and running in assembling. You know why, because they have they
• 24:03
  have to. John John Bellen to coach John Beeline spent eight or nine years
• 24:07
  at Leamoy, and he would tell you to this day that's where he learned
• 24:11
  how to coach, where it's just like you got nothing but what you can
• 24:15
  do, and that's how you learn. That's how you learn. That's why
• 24:18
  a lot of times assistance don't make that great transition when they get to this
• 24:22
  level because they you gotta you gotta, you gotta go through all the hard,
• 24:26
  bad stuff and it has to happen for you before you you've got how
• 24:30
  to manipulate those linees. So anyway, my point there is I back up
• 24:33
  what Ren said. There's multiple people that can do a job at a place
• 24:37
  like this where you're gonna get support. And again, if you don't believe
• 24:40
  what I'm saying, look at the track record. Three consecutive coaches here have
• 24:42
  taken a team to the sweet sixteen. That that's not somebody that sat down
• 24:48
  here for forty five years and the program was that person. This program is
• 24:52
  more than a single person. You're on back to back Hall of Fame coaches.
• 24:56
  John Beeline's not in. He will be in back to back Hall of
• 25:00
  Fame coaches and then oh, by the way, adding a Gail Catlet that
• 25:03
  was extremely successful at multiple schools. So this is a this is truly a
• 25:07
  program, and I agree with RHN. There are multiple guys and you have
• 25:11
  a lot of choices when it comes to basketball. Sure, John Beeline was
• 25:14
  not the first pick, right John Ball. That worked out quite well,
• 25:17
  worked out, worked out all very well. That worked out quite well.
• 25:21
  Three guys before the game is brought to us by Gomart. You know right
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  and get that rewards card. Yes, Texas Tech is rolling over YU.
• 26:18
  They're up forty to nineteen here and they lost. As I said, Darrin,
• 26:22
  it looks like Williams's back. I got He's back in the huddle,
• 26:25
  senator. And see they're a good example. And I'm not saying you should
• 26:30
  guarantee West Virginia to have a media success in YR one, but isn't that
• 26:34
  a good example. Yeah, new coach totally remade roster, very good first
• 26:38
  year TBT. Well that's the beauty. I know so many people want to
• 26:44
  scream and a holler about salarycap and about free transfer portal, but the very
• 26:48
  best part of that for schools is the situation that West Virginia's in. You're
• 26:52
  coming off a season that didn't meet expectations. You need a total overhaul both
• 26:56
  roster and staff wise. Now, well there's never been a better time.
• 27:00
  I'm hoppy there's going to be thousands of players in the transfer portal in the
• 27:03
  coming leaks. And now if coaches are using the old model to come in
• 27:07
  and go, I need five years. And your answer is you got eighteen
• 27:11
  months. That's all five year things gone. Oh yeah, absolutely, the
• 27:14
  five year thing's gone. You got to you gotta get goes well as you
• 27:15
  know your salary cap. That's a that's a great start. Yeah, there's
• 27:18
  not a salary Excuse me why there's not a batter too. There's not a
• 27:22
  salary cap. There is no cap. That's true, there's not a salary
• 27:26
  cap. There's more. There's more control in major in professional sports on what
• 27:33
  you can spend the and Ken Kendrick, who is founder of the Country Roads
• 27:38
  Trust, you can't get the numbers because it's a private entity, but he
• 27:44
  said yesterday on my coffee clatch that they're in good shape. He thinks they're
• 27:47
  competitive, he thinks they're right. He thinks they're right there. I think
• 27:49
  of the sixteen teams in the Big Twelve next year, West Virginia would be
• 27:55
  in the top five or six in nil availability of dollars in basketball. And
• 28:00
  that's all you need to do. You just need to be in the You
• 28:03
  just need to be in that world. And then it's going to come down
• 28:06
  to making the right selections and then developing them. And then, as we've
• 28:12
  seen from this past season, The most absolute important part is if you just
• 28:19
  give it as a given that the guys can play is molding chemistry, creating
• 28:26
  chemistry and culture. That's that's the piece that's and that's the hardest part in
• 28:32
  today's day. Correct, that's the really hard part. But you've also got
• 28:36
  to you know, guys, it's it's not just the salary piece of this.
• 28:38
  It's having having an idea of how to build a team with the different
• 28:42
  parts that you need. And that's something I'll refer back to the Mountain East.
• 28:47
  I looked at a couple of those teams and they were put together with
• 28:49
  that in mind. They had this piece and they all work together. That's
• 28:52
  got to be part of it too. As you go into this portal with
• 28:56
  all these thousands of players available, you've got to make sure there's some thought
• 28:59
  give into how they interact and work together as well. Do you have some
• 29:03
  final spreads on stats for hoopage? I did? I have a couple numbers?
• 29:07
  Yeah, some of them. Again, as I often say, hoppy,
• 29:08
  sometimes the numbers just back up what you saw. Other times they surprise
• 29:12
  us. So I thought, just a couple of things, let's do it.
• 29:15
  Sorry, go ahead, there's forgot there's interrom a copy. Yeah,
• 29:17
  there's interesting. They have the sponsors sponsor on this too. I'll just go
• 29:21
  right to the numbers. There comes a yater. Let's jump into the about
• 29:26
  a month away, aren't we from tax deadline? Ready? Yep? All
• 29:30
  the other CPAs across the country are nervous. Yeah, not Conley's CPA Group
• 29:37
  because they've got shits pot. That's what they got. They got. They
• 29:41
  got some moxie. Like if they were a quarterback, they'd have moxie.
• 29:44
  They don't get scared about no deadline. You drop off of box at ten
• 29:48
  ninety nine. That says bring them, bring a shoe box. They got?
• 29:52
  Is that all you got? Give me a little bit more than that.
• 29:53
  Come on, give me a K one. I got your k R.
• 29:57
  What's a K one? That's a bitiness. We would know a weird
• 30:02
  K one thing. How much you made or lost on your business business air
• 30:06
  quote on your fleet. That's when I got can't make it anyway. I
• 30:11
  got your W two right here. Conley's CPA Group providing value beyond the numbers.
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  They do so much more when it comes to your taxes, audit,
• 30:22
  taxing, consulting. They got it all visit the Conley CPA group if you
• 30:27
  need to get into that world, or perhaps if you're not happy with the
• 30:32
  people that are doing your stuff now and you Conley's cpegre say Mike, hey,
• 30:36
  I heard about the Tell them the CPA transfer. Never been a better
• 30:41
  time. You got the resources to they got the supply. It's a soft
• 30:47
  landing. If you come into Portal to Conley CPA group, they'll take care
• 30:51
  of you, and you'll just say to yourself, why didn't I do it
• 30:53
  sooner? All right, give me some numbers. What happened? He got
• 30:57
  distracted? What are you doing? And find something? All right? Meanwhile,
• 31:02
  sorry, later in the program will have textual healing and I'll sing a
• 31:07
  few songs from my latest album. All right, huh go ahead? Is
• 31:10
  so one of the things I looked at. I think we can all agree.
• 31:12
  The biggest challenge that this team faced all season, in a season with
• 31:18
  a bunch of challenges was defensively. This team never never figured out what it
• 31:22
  was, what it wanted to be, how it wanted to defend. And
• 31:26
  again, some of that was the differences in lineups. Some of it was
• 31:29
  guys at the end of the day, to be a really good defensive team.
• 31:32
  You've got to have individuals that are really good defenders and want to defend
• 31:34
  it. Just you'll be better as a team if you have individual defenders.
• 31:37
  That could have been one of your obvious statements there hop I realize, But
• 31:41
  this team, if you look at the defensive rating for this team, gave
• 31:44
  up one hundred and fourteen points per one hundred possessions. So that's what about
• 31:49
  a one point one to one point four points per possession. If you look
• 31:55
  nationally, Indiana State this season led the country in points per possession at one
• 32:00
  point one. So over the course of the season, West Virginia was defending
• 32:04
  at a level that was one of the worst nationally. Well, no wonder
• 32:07
  your offense had to be so good on nights to get you wins overall.
• 32:10
  So the defensive numbers again, you saw this. You saw that most Knights
• 32:16
  the number plays out the other one free throw attempt rate that we talked about
• 32:20
  so much throughout the season and for what we needed got to get forty three
• 32:23
  to forty four percent in order to win games this season. Well, on
• 32:27
  the season, West Virginia finish in the top twenty percentile nationally in free throw
• 32:31
  attempt rate at thirty seven percent, so that was an area that pretty much
• 32:36
  consistently all year they got to the line, but in those games when they
• 32:38
  got their forty four percent or higher, they won those games. One of
• 32:43
  the challenges this team had defensively was was getting stops. One giving up baskets,
• 32:47
  but two getting up stops. Giving up stops West Virginia and just the
• 32:51
  fourth percentile nationally and steel percentage, So again it speaks to the inability individually
• 32:57
  and team wise to create those stops, get steals and create some transition opportunities,
• 33:02
  which leads to the second point, which would make sense when you're steal
• 33:06
  percentage is low points off turnovers per game just in the ninth percentile there,
• 33:09
  and dragged themselves through the finish line. They gave up ninety or more points
• 33:14
  five times in the last ten games. That's hard to win in this league.
• 33:19
  Would you have three very good defensively? Would you agree their defensive performance
• 33:23
  against Texas here was their best defensive effort of the season in the Big Twelve?
• 33:28
  Yeah? Yeah, because I thought against Drexel maybe overall it was one
• 33:30
  of its best. No, that's true too, right, if you just
• 33:32
  go overall games, but big twelve. But here's the other part, And
• 33:36
  I may do this for next episode, but I started this morning, just
• 33:38
  ran out of time before we started recording, looking at the numbers, just
• 33:43
  since Jesse Edwards return from injury when they actually were playing with a full lineup.
• 33:46
  One of the things that jumped in the first percentile, lower the number
• 33:52
  the better. First good, one hundredth would have been bad. First percentile
• 33:55
  in three point field goal percentage nearly forty percent from three point land. So
• 34:00
  it was a team. There were some things there, and I will always
• 34:05
  remember this season, not only just for all the chaos, but just that
• 34:07
  this is the ultimate what if season. What if this group could have been
• 34:12
  together all along. Defensively, I think they still would have had some issues
• 34:15
  all season. It probably would have limited them from being a tournament team.
• 34:17
  But offensively, had you played together, pick and roll was very good.
• 34:22
  Your ability to shoot the ball continued to get better as the as the season
• 34:25
  war on. There that was a real problem early on. It got better.
• 34:30
  First percentile nash almost forty percent from three point land. You would have
• 34:32
  won some games just off that earlier. If that had been more consistent throughout
• 34:37
  the year. Well, you had Brad, you had some spectacular individual performances
• 34:43
  throughout the season that stood out, so you didn't lose the game and go
• 34:45
  wow, but this guy was on fire. I mean, ray Kwon Battle,
• 34:49
  Kerkrisa, Jesse Edwards. So like you said, the pieces were there,
• 34:53
  you just never got them all going at this second, and one of
• 34:55
  those guys just never never mind just the lineup together and how that works against
• 35:00
  a coach trying to figure out who to sub and when to sub and when
• 35:05
  to do matchups. Oh, by the way, again in the toughest league
• 35:07
  in America, when there's Hall of famers on the other sideline that are going,
• 35:10
  oh, really, you got that guy in the game. We're gonna
• 35:13
  hunt that matchup. But just here's one small example of that. Noah Farakhn
• 35:17
  and kerk Riesa were never intended to play together. You didn't think Ferrakhn was
• 35:21
  going to be available this year. It was never the plan, right,
• 35:23
  You didn't know about the Curs' suspension, You didn't know Raykwon battles up.
• 35:27
  But those guys were expected to be on four. Noah wasn't. But now
• 35:30
  you bring in in essence two point guards two talented individuals. How in the
• 35:34
  heck do you mesh those together? And I thought by the end of the
• 35:37
  year there were certain sets where that worked you were able to do that.
• 35:39
  But wouldn't that have been nice to try and figure that out against Missouri State
• 35:43
  early in the season than it would against Scott Drew and Bill self and all
• 35:47
  the Big twelve coaches you went up against. Yeah, a massive loss to
• 35:52
  this program was Joe Tucson. You lost a perimeter bulldog defender and and you
• 36:00
  can just see and as Brad says, no coaches every game look at what
• 36:04
  they think is the weakest defender and they just attack them. Unfortunately for West
• 36:08
  Virginia this season had about three or four oftentimes on the floor at the same
• 36:14
  time. Just goes straight at them and they can do it. Yeah,
• 36:16
  And like I'm sorry, like a Missouri State all due respect to Missouri State.
• 36:20
  Sure they can't. Oh, they can identify the matchup. They may
• 36:22
  not have the personnel to attack the matchup. The Big Twelve, they're absolutely
• 36:28
  identifying it within about five seconds that you being on the floor and then have
• 36:31
  the ability, the player ability to execute what that mismatch is. Yeah,
• 36:37
  there's no question, no questions, right, So those I'm not going to
• 36:39
  bore everybody with a ton of numbers. I just thought those were a couple
• 36:43
  that jumped out. Defensive shortcomings were evident the three point shooting as the season
• 36:47
  were on, and you were able to keep up in some of those games
• 36:50
  where you're given up ninety because your offense got a little Their pick and roll
• 36:52
  was elite at times. And then the category of you'll never know because you
• 36:57
  just won't ever know would be this one. If Josh Eilert had a full
• 37:02
  roster at his disposal the entire season. While this team may not have been
• 37:09
  a great defensive team, he never had the opportunity to sit people down because
• 37:16
  they weren't playing defense well enough, and that oftentimes makes your defense better if
• 37:23
  you can sit someone down for a game or a half or two games and
• 37:28
  just say, hey, great, you have a good time down there,
• 37:30
  hopey goods. Stay there, and then the next time you get on the
• 37:34
  floor and you might want to guard now if you don't, you can sit
• 37:37
  there for the rest of the season. You just let me know. He
• 37:38
  never had the chance to do that because he had a limited roster for the
• 37:44
  first ten games. Of seven players eight, seven and a half seven,
• 37:46
  whatever it was you dressed eight, you were going to play seven, and
• 37:51
  then Edwards gets hurt Game ten and everything that came with it, so he
• 37:58
  never had a chance to do that thing in November that you have to do
• 38:02
  to get your guys to guard. And to your point, they never would
• 38:06
  have been great. They could have been better. Josh knows they could have
• 38:09
  been better, but again we'll never know how where that was. You'll never
• 38:15
  know before are you going to textual healing? Almost? All? Right?
• 38:22
  Go ahead? Almost, but not quite? Okay, what I was going
• 38:25
  to tell you, Yeah, Brad? And the uh have we ever determined
• 38:30
  if this is the three Guys Nation that we're speaking to. What I was
• 38:35
  going to tell the Three Guys Nation is right now at lou Wendel Marine Sales
• 38:37
  in Balmy Saint Albans. And by the way, you can take a look
• 38:43
  at their website lou Wendelmarne Sales dot com and take a look at their camera.
• 38:45
  You can see exactly what looks like on the river. By now,
• 38:49
  Brad, I would think those pontoons have been put down into the water,
• 38:52
  wonn't you, no question? Yeah, So right now, at lou Wendel
• 38:54
  Marine Sales where they've been doing this thing for forty years. They've got got
• 39:00
  some unbelievable opportunities for folks to get involved. And we've got a three guys
• 39:06
  special which is going on right now, and I'm talking about the twenty twenty
• 39:08
  three Tryton Venture eighty five to twenty three footer and it is a delight.
• 39:15
  Now you think that looks nice on the grass waite, you see that thing
• 39:19
  on the water speeding down their river. Unbelievable comes with a twenty twenty three
• 39:23
  one hundred and fifteen horsepower motor and trailers sold separately, but it's a three
• 39:29
  guys price and right now they've got their special hours. They've kicked in Monday
• 39:32
  through Friday eight thirty am till five. Sunday from one until five pm.
• 39:37
  They are open Sundays from one until five. Tis the season selections as good
• 39:40
  as it's going to be all season long when it comes to the pontoons and
• 39:44
  all of the accessories that go with it. You can visit the website lou
• 39:47
  Wendelmarne Sales dot com or visit them. They're located in Saint Albans. They
• 39:53
  sell family Fun and tis the season for Family Fund. Water looks awful smooth
• 40:00
  right now? Looking at you, do you see this particular marine that doesn't
• 40:02
  have any boats in it yet? Remember they had multiple stops. They were
• 40:05
  dropping people's yeah, boats off, putting them down yappy? Yes? Why
• 40:10
  why your head looks sideways like that? I was looking at what Brad had
• 40:15
  up there. You hadn't seen that before in his computers, Live feet hot
• 40:16
  get the water conditions you see very nice. So if you're like at home
• 40:21
  and it's like three in the afternoon, you go, should we go?
• 40:22
  Should we take the boat out tonight? Just look at that thing? Now
• 40:28
  stop at go mart? Yeah? Absolutely, you uh see a sponsored reference
• 40:32
  I got in here? You uh you want me to start texture? Do
• 40:37
  you want? Do you want to get in I mean I got an elephant
• 40:38
  in the room here to deal with? Do you want to deal with that?
• 40:40
  Intextual healing? Because it's going to come up. We'll start it.
• 40:43
  Then we'll we'll let you, We'll let you, We'll let you deal with
• 40:45
  your your elefante elfant textual healing. Three guys before the Games brought to us
• 41:00
  episode eight hundred dot com that's our website. That's E P I S O
• 41:04
  D E eight zero zero dot com. Episode eight hundred dot com. This
• 41:09
  is episode five thirty nine, so we are getting close to the end.
• 41:13
  Boys Before this Bad Boys self detonates. Got like old mission impossible, Remember
• 41:17
  Mission Impossible. They'd like they'd give you the message of table self destructing.
• 41:22
  Yeah, whatever it was, you say to yourself. What do I get
• 41:23
  at episode eight hundred dot com? Well, you can order our three Guys
• 41:27
  coffee which is called Game Day Grind. You can order popcorn right now by
• 41:31
  the way. Yeah, very nice. Mountaineer munch is available there and all
• 41:36
  of our apparel as well. It's about time to I had I had a
• 41:39
  pullover on before earlier today it was just too hot, So I need to
• 41:45
  get like, do we have any like wicking type stuff on the site.
• 41:49
  Think so there's some shirts that do that. It'll wick. Sure, Hoppy,
• 41:52
  you're maintaining your main tank tops? We have tank tops yet, I
• 41:57
  hope not either for men. I don't. That's for us. I don't
• 42:00
  need time. So episode eight hundred, maybe even Matt Pack can pull that
• 42:06
  off. All right, So jump in talk about your elephant. Oh you
• 42:09
  want to do that? Sure. Okay, I thought it might come up
• 42:12
  in the it does. It does. We'll just wait till it comes up.
• 42:16
  Okay, I'll answer the question, I'll answer the comment if it comes
• 42:20
  up in the comments. Well, I would say this about the comments and
• 42:23
  hopies, referring to Ken Kendrick's comments from his show talk Line yesterday. So
• 42:30
  there were a bunch of those, there were, And then what I'm saying
• 42:35
  is not all the texts are being used because many said the same thing.
• 42:38
  And we'll get to some of those and you can address that. And also,
• 42:45
  I mean, there was a bunch of topics like why was Bob Huggins
• 42:46
  wearing a red shirt at Cincinnati. We're probably in the eight to ten category
• 42:52
  on that, Like I don't have an answer. I don't know, but
• 42:54
  we just more we don't need to repeat all of those kinds of things.
• 42:59
  So anyway, we'll just kind of jump in. It's because they were honoring
• 43:02
  a particular player right now. They really didn't. They recognized, recognize,
• 43:07
  they recognize. He just kind of did a time out wag. Oh.
• 43:10
  Okay, he still looks good, by the way, it still looks like
• 43:14
  he could play Kenyon Martin. Martin still looks good. Pretty good? Yeah.
• 43:17
  Uh. Texter enjoyed the show with Neil Brown, especially glad to see
• 43:22
  him manage his contract in a way that everyone likely wins. There was one
• 43:25
  comment, however, that while he did not necessarily infer this, there was
• 43:29
  an illusion to the Rayquon battle ruling that ultimately makes it more difficult for coaches
• 43:35
  to manage their rosters because of Rayquon essentially winning his appeal. It should be
• 43:39
  made clear I think that neither WV nor the judge was intending for the ruling
• 43:44
  to apply to all NC DOUBLEA athletes, but that our assertion was the NC
• 43:49
  double A was not being even handed with battles, specifically as he met the
• 43:52
  requirements for a special needs transfer. My opinion remains that instead of the NC
• 43:58
  DOUBLEA admitting they were not fair by our player, they almost spitefully said,
• 44:01
  you don't like how we adjudicated the case, how about we throw all the
• 44:05
  rules out and see how that fits for you. They could have just let
• 44:08
  Ray play, but instead they made it a bigger blanket that needed to be
• 44:12
  laid. So, yeah, that did have impact, and it did and
• 44:16
  will continue to have impact. This is Texter. Josh from Oudra State Park
• 44:22
  competing for the one long text. I don't think it can be overstated that
• 44:28
  Josh Eiler what he did for this program. In the big picture, what
• 44:31
  Josh's professionalism and leadership has protected the institution of wv basketball. He knew full
• 44:37
  well that he was jumping on a grenade, even though he believed that they
• 44:42
  would win every game they competed in, especially Best in Texas. Josh is
• 44:46
  self aware enough to understand what he was walking into. He made every decision
• 44:51
  to benefit the program, not himself. The staff he put together, though
• 44:53
  impressive, full of guys that loved the program. He took no risks in
• 44:59
  bringing in someone that didn't have the future of the program in their view.
• 45:01
  The entire season, the storyline during broadcast was look at all the coaches and
• 45:06
  supporting the program has and look at these players baddling adversity. Look at the
• 45:09
  composure Josh saw past this season. He landed a crashing plane that now needs
• 45:15
  maintenance instead of being totaled. Thank you, Josh. Mattin Tulsa writes,
• 45:22
  the Neil Brown episode was phenomenal. I feel terrible about the times as an
• 45:25
  irrational fan that I wanted a new coach. Neil is obviously the right man
• 45:30
  for the job. Not only is he perfect cultural fit, but I don't
• 45:35
  think there's another coach in all of college football that is as candid and as
• 45:38
  transparent. You can tell his leadership skills are incredible because he exudes confidence while
• 45:44
  also being humble and finding ways to fix past mistakes. I can't wait to
• 45:47
  cheer him in the Mountaineers on next season. The future's bright. Great job
• 45:52
  on the interview, You guys continue to crush it week in and week out.
• 45:55
  You know that contract extension and I I hate the term win win,
• 46:00
  but it everybody both sides got something right. I mean, I think that.
• 46:06
  I mean Neil Brown is still being compensated very very well, even though
• 46:07
  he's taking a slight haircut for a couple of years. But that money's going
• 46:10
  back in the program and that shows his brad that shows his dedication to the
• 46:17
  program. Also earns him some good will. Straightens out the buyout situation because
• 46:22
  WV was on the hook for one hundred percent, now because the seventy five
• 46:25
  percent. Also, though Neil Brown gets instead of having if he leave,
• 46:30
  instead of having to pay twenty five percent of remaining of pays ten percent,
• 46:32
  So everybody got something out of it, which is what you like to go
• 46:36
  way, do you hate win win? That's exactly what you're looking for negotiation
• 46:38
  What a win win never do to you because you want to be a lose
• 46:44
  lose appropriate description kind of gets it. I'm not. It just gets tossed
• 46:47
  a randomly that's a win win. Well maybe, well that is that was
• 46:51
  one. Okay, probably that was one. It's not a right way,
• 46:54
  not probably. I don't think there's any question that is wes for you just
• 46:58
  outlined it for for both parts. That was a There was a really good
• 47:00
  negotiation. Both are in a better position, Both feel they have some flexibility
• 47:05
  if if needed. And I thought that absolutely was great. And I said
• 47:08
  I said to you before on your show, after this came out, I
• 47:12
  do think that's something you're going to see moving forward in terms of coaching.
• 47:15
  Salaries will not continue to be the rocket ship that they've been. There's going
• 47:19
  to have to be some leveling off as that as you need to start getting
• 47:22
  funds that go back into player procurement. When that when that eventually moves in
• 47:27
  house. So I think that was a forward looking contract that was well done
• 47:30
  by both partiers. I mean some might say a win win, some might
• 47:34
  some some people don't like that, like it. Some people don't like the
• 47:37
  term and still use it anyway. Texter, always a West Virginia connection.
• 47:43
  My husband and I are in Cesta Key, Florida for the month our yearly
• 47:45
  winter retreat, and we're on the trolley heading back to our condo after dinner
• 47:52
  in the village with friends. That's the conk train. Don't they call that
• 47:54
  the conk train? Sure, I've spent some time. There was a group
• 47:59
  of girls. There was a group of girls. We struck up a conversation
• 48:04
  with that they're from Columbus, Ohio for a bachelorette party. Sure they were.
• 48:07
  Of course we shared where we were from. Well, one of the
• 48:10
  girls mothers grew up in Bridgeport, and the girl's uncle is Mike Floria.
• 48:16
  Of course, of course, of course, always a West Virginia friend of
• 48:21
  the show. Texter in game text here from the Mountain East Conference tournament,
• 48:25
  watching Brad do a phenomenal job. I wanted to let you guys know that
• 48:30
  this is Freddy the Falcon. I'm the mascot at Fairmont State. I'm here
• 48:32
  and I'm an Avid three Guys listener. Well, thank you Freddie big with
• 48:37
  we are big with with the mascot mascots. Wish I had known that would
• 48:42
  have said hello to Freddy the Falcons. He stood right by Freddy the Falcon,
• 48:45
  and Freddy's busy. He can't talk to you. Mascots don't get He'll
• 48:47
  give you a wave. Mountain talks. Well that's different. Well he just
• 48:52
  said mascots don't talk. Most don't. That's not what he said. Hey,
• 48:57
  who am I Saint Joe's Hawk, which is one of the all time
• 48:59
  greats. That's too bad that retired. Then when he gets tired, he
• 49:01
  goes like this one arm never stopped, never stops. I love that existing.
• 49:06
  What do you mean doesn't? Yeah? They stop that? Are you
• 49:07
  serious? That's what almost? I'm almost. I don't think that's true.
• 49:12
  Look, we'll get a million text on that. I think they stopped that
• 49:14
  is the Saint Joss is the Saint Joe's Hawk dead? I say no,
• 49:17
  or they stopped it and had to bring it back with public pressure. There
• 49:20
  was something with that. I think it stopped ef Texter Will and Charlottesville.
• 49:25
  Obviously it wasn't the basketball season. Anyone wanted. I hope Josh lands on
• 49:30
  his feet gets another chance. He comported himself with grace. He had every
• 49:34
  reason to feel sorry for himself, he never publicly felt sorry for himself and
• 49:37
  took responsibility. Literally nothing went his way. I wish him nothing but the
• 49:42
  best on Neil Brown. For some reason, the longer the last head coach
• 49:47
  was here, it felt harder to picture a coach who wanted to be here,
• 49:51
  let alone a coach who understands the passion of the fans. What the
• 49:54
  program truly needs, the day to day underdog lifestyle, if that makes sense.
• 50:00
  His players and assistant coaches can still throw a headset if needed. But
• 50:04
  the man is so humble talking about Neil here. If he succeeds the next
• 50:07
  year or two, I think he could be just getting started. Some fans
• 50:10
  don't like that. But he checks every freaking box. It looks like that
• 50:20
  the hawk is still there, though they updated every now and then. They
• 50:22
  updated his or her look sure, so they know the hawk's still there.
• 50:27
  What's in dispute is whether the hawk still flaps its arms all the time.
• 50:30
  Well, this story says, and this is at the Saint Joe website,
• 50:34
  that the hawk is a source of pride, so and so forth known for
• 50:37
  constantly flapping its wings and flying and don't forget flying in figure eights. Yeah
• 50:40
  during the timeouts. Oh yeah, he's still so he's still flying bright Yeah,
• 50:45
  he's still flying. Hawks have been updated multiple times. Tech Zach Zach
• 50:51
  would know. The Hawk is the hardest working mascot in D one athletics,
• 50:53
  So still flapping, as the Mountaineer works pretty hard too. Yeah, but
• 50:58
  he ain't flapping, he's doing push ups. Makes more appearances than there's only
• 51:01
  one of them. You're saying there's more than one Hawk, Yes, well
• 51:06
  there is. I would as someone hoppy that was in charge of multiple mascots
• 51:09
  and multiple Division one institutions that covered their face, and as someone who once
• 51:15
  was the mascot reel in situation, I would feel comfortable saying, whenever there's
• 51:19
  a covered head involved in the mascot, there are multiple that perform the duties.
• 51:23
  Okay, back on Tuesday, Oklahoma State was playing UCF before our game,
• 51:30
  and I was sitting there, had a really good look court side and
• 51:34
  the Oklahoma State mascot, which has the animated had and the actual real legs
• 51:40
  of a So it's a. It's a combo. It's Ryan Day. It's
• 51:45
  a combo. Looks like Ryan Day. Props to Oklahoma State because they did
• 51:50
  like a Microderm on the on pistol Pete's face last time I had seen them.
• 51:55
  He is a lot of that paint was starting to peel on that face.
• 51:59
  They'd smooth him up for tournament play. I mean, he had a
• 52:01
  good look going. He went, he went out and got appeal Mike.
• 52:04
  Yeah, he got a Microderham. He got a Microderam type thing there.
• 52:07
  Yeah, that's pretty. They have the Big twelve has great mascots. By
• 52:10
  the way. Yeah, everyone's got a gun good. Yes, I mean
• 52:15
  I'm glad. I'm just glad they don't have the Tournament of Medicine Square Garden
• 52:17
  because, yeah, you have an issue. I mean everyone's everyone's got him.
• 52:22
  Uh. Frank from Clarksburg Rights three guys, curious on your take on
• 52:27
  the Dartmouth basketball Union court case. My opinion, I'm not a lawyer.
• 52:31
  States are having enough issues funding universities as it is. Adding several hundred student
• 52:37
  athletes to the payroll would take away from the budget of the school. I
• 52:40
  know, I sound like the sky's falling, but how could a group of
• 52:44
  five, let alone an FCSD two D three jointly pay athletes. So to
• 52:47
  your points, Frank, yeah, still in the infancy on all that stuff.
• 52:52
  I don't think that absolute employee form as we know an employee to be.
• 52:58
  I think they find way around that before it becomes that. In Dartmouth,
• 53:02
  their argument is they're not employees. Yes, so they went like do
• 53:06
  they go three and fifteen? They were at three and fifteen when that ruling
• 53:08
  came down. Someone said, first thing they should do is firemall if through
• 53:12
  employees. Right, that's true. David from Clenn Dennan Wright's coach Isiland and
• 53:17
  basketball staff, thank you no other words to say for the work they did
• 53:22
  this year, Texter. It's been repeatedly set on this show in some form
• 53:29
  things are never as good or as bad as they seem. Well, things
• 53:32
  look really bad for the state of men's basketball work, regular season, worst
• 53:37
  regular season record as far as losses, and finished a regular season with a
• 53:43
  thirty point loss. If you were to give a state of the Union type
• 53:46
  of update for this program to the fan base, how would you address it?
• 53:52
  Well? I wouldn't. I mean I did. In the commentary,
• 53:53
  today. I think that you acknowledge the values that Josh iw Staff brought to
• 54:00
  this program in a difficult circumstance, and now you have an opportunity. What
• 54:05
  do we say to Tony every change, Yeah, is an opportunities to improve.
• 54:09
  So I'm not worry. I don't I'm not as flipped out as here's
• 54:14
  my state of the state. Ladies and gentlemen, Members of Congress, thank
• 54:21
  court. Yeah, thank you all very much for being here four more years.
• 54:28
  I would say this, you know, it's never as bad as it
• 54:30
  looks. It's never as good as it looks. It's normally somewhere in the
• 54:32
  middle. And I think this to Brad's point, The last three coaches at
• 54:38
  West Virginia have taken the Mountaineers to the Sweet sixteen or better. One went
• 54:43
  to an Elite eight, one went to a Final four. West Virginia's basketball
• 54:47
  program is tradition filled since the days of hot Rod Huntley and prior to that,
• 54:53
  in the nineteen forty two NIT Championship. Crazy West Virginia is one of
• 54:58
  the top twenty winning programs in basketball history, and West Virginia has a commitment
• 55:04
  to win basketball games. Therefore, our history says we will win again.
• 55:09
  We will be successful. We play in the greatest conference in college basketball,
• 55:14
  which is about to get even better a year from now. We have the
• 55:17
  resources positioned and ready to win basketball games, and we will again. Rest
• 55:23
  assured. There will be ups and downs in athletics, because if we knew
• 55:29
  the outcome of every game, we wouldn't be nearly as interested. And we
• 55:31
  will win again. Rest assured. Thank you. I now send the rest
• 55:37
  of my moments of comment to the gentleman from the Eastern Panhandle. Brad,
• 55:43
  we'd like you to come to WV to play basketball. Let me ask you
• 55:45
  something, Brad, do you like to play in front of ten and twelve
• 55:47
  thousand people every night? Check? Do you know anything about the West Virginia
• 55:52
  basketball program? We have. Our assistants told you about our long history and
• 55:55
  tradition here of being in the sweet sixteen and he's only the final four and
• 56:00
  just great runs. You've heard. You've heard about that, right right.
• 56:04
  Have you seen our facilities, the coliseum or practice facility. You've seen that.
• 56:07
  Check? And I think you've talked with some of our people about the
• 56:10
  nil the opportunities here to earn something equating to your value. Have you heard
• 56:15
  that. Check all right, very good. Well, we welcome you to
• 56:17
  Mountain your nation. Got everyone check every box tradition. Multiple coaches, as
• 56:22
  we talked to earlier, payroll, fan support, administrator support, You got
• 56:24
  all Texter, You'll be fine. In game up? Yes, in game
• 56:30
  up, Dave. I'm watching the G League's Texas Legends play against Rip City
• 56:37
  in Portland. Coach Stevenson is now six for six, including three of three
• 56:40
  from three. His only miss was a technical foul free throw. As our
• 56:45
  former coach would say, yeah, pretty good. Signed by Brandon in Portlye.
• 56:50
  They traded Eric since he was on our pro did they. Yeah,
• 56:52
  he got moved from Austin to the to the Dallas MAVs franchise. It's three
• 56:59
  hour drive. Hey, three guys. One comments on three guys had anything
• 57:01
  to do with that. Someone told me before we got traded that ain't gonna
• 57:06
  sit well. Oh really yeah, someone told me before they said heard him
• 57:12
  on your show. He goes dude. They said they keep a file.
• 57:16
  Really, they say anyone that says anything out of they like in them.
• 57:21
  Boom he gets traded. So we'd like to say thank you to the San
• 57:25
  Antonio Spurs for listening in to three guys before the glay. How can they
• 57:30
  even know? They can barely get to the games and give him any gear.
• 57:34
  How do they know what somebody's saying back at West Virginia. Oh well,
• 57:37
  he asked him. He's the NBA guy, He works for him.
• 57:40
  Texter says, I wrote a high coup for Wren called ode to Baker.
• 57:45
  This is a high coup much pain and heartbreak. Next, coach, be
• 57:51
  defensive? Please? Who drank all my beer? So it's a high coupe?
• 57:58
  Uh, Texter? What are your top three have or abilities for the
• 58:00
  new men's basketball coach? Realistic expectations in the first three years. Ren hit
• 58:07
  my first one yesterday when he said defense, defense. You have to guard
• 58:15
  the teams that win in this league. Guard. When West Virginia is won
• 58:19
  in this league, it guarded defense first and foremost. The offense will come
• 58:23
  later. Defend. You got a chance in every game, and the expectation
• 58:29
  is that you every year you want to be able to compete, you know,
• 58:31
  a tough league, be able to compete in the league and get to
• 58:36
  the NCAA Tournament's that is the reasonable expectation that you should have. Correct.
• 58:40
  Yes, Yes, correct, Texter. Find some guys that can score too.
• 58:49
  Oh yeah, trust me, it helps. But you got to first
• 58:51
  start with the defense. You got no shot if you can't guard. As
• 58:54
  we just saw, like he just said, we're among the nation's best in
• 58:59
  three point shooting at the end of the season. Couldn't guard, and so
• 59:01
  you get beat ninety eighty five, you get beat ninety six. Yeah,
• 59:05
  exactly, Texter. Quick photo. Here's my game day Grind being used as
• 59:09
  cold brew. I selected the French press grind because it's best known for making
• 59:15
  your own cold coffees. Do you notice the pint glass? Yep, that's
• 59:20
  from Hoppy's initial kerchieve el Evant. It's been disappointing basketball season, but the
• 59:24
  game day Grind always wins. Thanks for doing what you do, spread Mountaineer
• 59:28
  Joy Todd from Charleston Starbucks clown Show see us Saturday. So he wants to
• 59:32
  meet up with us at Starbucks. I think he's one of the guys that
• 59:36
  was remember when we did that for the TBT. We set up office hours
• 59:38
  there. Todd was one of the gentlemen. We think we'll be able to
• 59:42
  get to Starbucks Saturday morning our games at nine. An early tip would you
• 59:45
  be ready to go at like seven? Do you know me? Okay,
• 59:49
  we'll be there at seven. Yeah. Three, guys, I have a
• 59:53
  package being delivered to you get their early hoppy obviously seven am early, go
• 1:00:00
  ahead. Hey. I had coffee by the way last Saturday morning with Joe
• 1:00:05
  Roberts at Cincinnata and I said to He texts, Hey, can we get
• 1:00:08
  coffee in the morning? I said, yeah, said what time early is?
• 1:00:12
  I said, what time you get up? He sends me a screenshot
• 1:00:15
  of his alarm from his phone four oh nine am. That's don't do that
• 1:00:17
  to me. I'm not doing getting up. It's up every morning at four
• 1:00:21
  oh nine am. Any reason for the nine or I don't know. But
• 1:00:23
  he walks with a dude at five am every morning, fellow teacher. Joe's
• 1:00:29
  an athletics director. They're one of the biggest high schools in Ohio. And
• 1:00:34
  uh, he looks great. He's walking like a ton walk seven days love
• 1:00:38
  Joe, one of the best. Does ninety minutes on Saturday, Sunday,
• 1:00:42
  does sixty on Monday through Friday. Do you set your alarm on a round
• 1:00:45
  number five twenty five? You five five O five not five six O?
• 1:00:52
  Five six o five. Yeah, if you're setting alarm, you're not getting
• 1:00:55
  enough sleep, go to bed earlier. Well, thank you doctor telling you
• 1:01:00
  you're not getting enough sleep. Man your age, be careful. What I
• 1:01:06
  got to get up? Go to bed earlier, Go to bed earlier.
• 1:01:09
  You should naturally wake up. You shouldn't have something ringing to wake you up.
• 1:01:13
  And welcome to life. You got to get up and go to work.
• 1:01:16
  Alarm. They're talking about some of us. Some of us are not
• 1:01:21
  able just to get up when we want, go walk the dog and go
• 1:01:23
  have coffee. Tell the whole court some girls where I take the school.
• 1:01:28
  Sorry, I will be a little b late because I don't have an alarm.
• 1:01:30
  I'll get in there when I get there. Yeah, whenever I get
• 1:01:32
  there, your circadian rhythms are all just crushed. I'm no question. But
• 1:01:37
  that's life, isn't it. John and Ohia talking about I don't know what
• 1:01:43
  he's talking. I want to thank Josh and his staff for everything they did.
• 1:01:45
  They're a difficult position. They handle the class guys will forever be mountaineers
• 1:01:50
  moving forward. We can trust rind Baker with this hire, after seeing what
• 1:01:52
  he's already done for the University. I hope you oversleep, That's what I
• 1:01:55
  hope. Well, don't say that because I got to beware with them somewhere
• 1:01:59
  Saturday, although we'll say I'll say that, wish that upon him after we
• 1:02:05
  get through this weekend. Is I frequently text Tony very early in the morning
• 1:02:08
  about coming on my coffee clatch and he's he's up. Oh yeah, I
• 1:02:13
  immediately responded. I giggle, and I go, oh, you think you're
• 1:02:15
  gonna get me sleep? Is that what you're gonna think? Yeah? Uh,
• 1:02:22
  Hoppy's arch nemesis has struck again. Let's go to the monitor. Oh
• 1:02:27
  did them will gets? Oh man Hoppy? Six o seven am. Yeah,
• 1:02:31
  Breaking West Virginia. Can you hold go back to Hoppy please? Six
• 1:02:36
  o seven am, Breaking, West Virginia. Vice President director announced today's beginning
• 1:02:40
  to National Search. Okay, go back, go to the next one.
• 1:02:43
  Pete theam oh five fifty nine, son of tweaked your ass again? There
• 1:02:51
  you go? Hop What time did that? What time did mine go out?
• 1:02:53
  Six o seven eight minutes late? Maybe you'r as should get up a
• 1:02:58
  little earlier. Alarm hadn't gone off. Oh, Pete themble gives up?
• 1:03:06
  He got no alarm. He don't sleep. He doesn't. I don't think
• 1:03:08
  he does. Was that was that? I don't. I don't know when
• 1:03:13
  was that was that? This week? Yes? It was this week.
• 1:03:16
  You're sleeping on the job. Here's the thing. The eight minutes didn't made
• 1:03:22
  no difference. The information was out. I know, it's just the thing
• 1:03:28
  as first reported. Did he say his first report? No, he didn't.
• 1:03:32
  Pete humble about it? Is he? Yeah? Every time I talk
• 1:03:35
  to him about you, just giggles at you, laughs at you. Oh
• 1:03:38
  wait a minute, like laughing at me. He kind of like when you
• 1:03:42
  when you're playing basketball against a little kid and you put your hand out and
• 1:03:45
  you hold his head. You know you ever see that, Brad, You
• 1:03:49
  know, like when you're the kid's trying to punch you and you just like
• 1:03:51
  hold their little head and then they're swinging and they can't reach you. I
• 1:03:52
  think that's how Pete views you. I'm not going to mention it now.
• 1:03:58
  I'll just say I have something in mind, new alarm clock, No stay
• 1:04:06
  tuned, Hi, friends. I work with people who are grieving on a
• 1:04:13
  daily basis. I have experienced grief of my own, and I recognize what
• 1:04:15
  I feel now. Is nothing but sadness and grief, Grief resurfacing about coach
• 1:04:21
  Huggins, Grief about all the turmoil with players leaving early on, grief surrounding
• 1:04:26
  how the season went, not being able to see this team succeed as I
• 1:04:29
  know in my heart they can, and I find myself with that pit in
• 1:04:32
  the stomach grief feeling as I read all the news about the search for a
• 1:04:36
  new coach. Is this just a woman overreacting to some? Yes, to
• 1:04:41
  some it is simply numbers and bets and not having a winning season. To
• 1:04:45
  me, and I expect many other true Mountaineers, what I feel is real.
• 1:04:48
  This coaching staff rallied together to do the impossible. They mentored and coached
• 1:04:53
  and loved and supported this group of young men whose world went topsy turvy,
• 1:04:57
  These young men who, through exhaustion an injury, tried their hardest and did
• 1:05:01
  their damn best, leaving it all on the court each game. And here
• 1:05:04
  we are, yet again, not knowing what tomorrow holds. I trust Rind
• 1:05:09
  Baker in the choice he will make. He has more than proven himself.
• 1:05:14
  I know this team will rebuild and one day truly be a force to be
• 1:05:16
  reckoned. With as a devoted fan. However, I need to be sad
• 1:05:21
  for a bit. I need to sit with my grief and send all of
• 1:05:25
  the positive thoughts I can to the players and the coaches I have grown to
• 1:05:28
  love. Signed forever a Mountaineer, although a bummed one, Kim going through
• 1:05:35
  the stages of grief. Yes, Hoppy, Yes, address your elephant.
• 1:05:41
  So on talk Line yesterday, Ken Kendrick was on. And Ken Kendrick,
• 1:05:45
  if you don't know is look there are Well we always hear about this brad,
• 1:05:49
  this sort of amorphous group of donors and supporters, and we don't typically
• 1:05:55
  name them or know them that well unless you're really inside the loop. And
• 1:05:58
  Ken Kendrick is really one of the primary contributors to the athletic department, and
• 1:06:04
  he is a significant player. He is a Princeton, West Virginia native,
• 1:06:10
  a very successful businessman. He's a managing partner of the Arizona Diamondbacks Major League
• 1:06:15
  Baseball, and he is a founder of the Trust of the Country Roads Trust
• 1:06:19
  for nil Money. And so when his name shows up on the phone of
• 1:06:25
  Rin Baker Gordon Gee, they pick up the phone, they take his call.
• 1:06:28
  So I had him on the program yesterday and we were talking. And
• 1:06:30
  also they just made a major donation to the WVU baseball program. They're going
• 1:06:34
  to build more facilities there and they're renaming the field the Kendrick Family Stadium there.
• 1:06:40
  So he's involved, he is inside the loop. And I asked him
• 1:06:44
  about this coaching search, and I just ask a generic question about whether Bob
• 1:06:47
  Huggins should be considered, and Ken Kendrick was very blunt. He said,
• 1:06:53
  I think wv is their handling of the Bob Hubbins debacle probably were too lenient
• 1:06:59
  with him. Had he worked for me, I would not have had He
• 1:07:01
  would not have had a job after he engaged in this vituperative series of homophobic
• 1:07:06
  remarks back in the spring, and then was retained under very difficult circumstances and
• 1:07:11
  lost his job as a result of a drunken stupor his words, I will
• 1:07:15
  call it, he said. He said, it's the second time he's lost
• 1:07:16
  his job because of drunkenness. It may not be remembered by many, but
• 1:07:20
  it is by me. He talks about the Cincinnati situation. He said,
• 1:07:25
  So I would be one who would wonder about the mental capacity of any leader
• 1:07:30
  of any university who would consider having him or hiring him as a coach for
• 1:07:34
  a coaching position, so very direct and comments by Ken Kendrick about Bob Huggins.
• 1:07:41
  Then Huggins did respond. He put out a post that said lots of
• 1:07:45
  folks are asking him to respond, and he said, this the only thing
• 1:07:47
  I'll say, and I think it's worth paying attention to the wording. He
• 1:07:50
  said. The only thing I'll say is I know my situation invites criticism,
• 1:07:56
  but I hope the strong opinions and judgments about me don't make anybody else out
• 1:08:00
  there feel ashamed in their own struggles. My homestate of West Virginia gets kicked
• 1:08:03
  around a lot, but the truth is there's a problem in this state and
• 1:08:08
  so many others, and a lot of people suffer from addiction. If you're
• 1:08:12
  struggling with addiction and recovery, do not let the shamers get to you.
• 1:08:15
  I continue to learn from my mistakes. We all have our critics, like
• 1:08:18
  me. You may be your own worst critic. But as we know well
• 1:08:21
  in West Virginia, pressure makes diamonds. So a couple of things to say
• 1:08:26
  here. One is that back to back to Ken Kendrick's comments, there are
• 1:08:30
  a lot of mountaineer I'm going to make generalizations. I think a lot of
• 1:08:32
  mountaineer fans feel that way, and I think that Kendrick, in a spirited
• 1:08:38
  way, represents a portion of mountaineer nation that is very, very upset with
• 1:08:44
  Bob Huggins. And I think that some of those views are probably shared in
• 1:08:49
  the athletic Department or in the top administration. However, because those comments were
• 1:08:55
  so pointed, I think I don't think, I know there were also comments
• 1:08:58
  from people saying, wow, that was over the line. Huggins has already
• 1:09:02
  lost his job, he's already struggling. Why would you kick a guy when
• 1:09:05
  he's down? So I think there's basically two camps on that. Now.
• 1:09:09
  Going to Huggins's comments, I don't think you have to read between the lines
• 1:09:13
  to see that Huggins is acknowledging is acknowledging a substance abuse issue, where he
• 1:09:19
  says, but I hope the strong opinions and judgments about me don't make anybody
• 1:09:25
  else else out there feel ashamed in their own struggles. So he's acknowledging the
• 1:09:30
  struggles that have been talked about and certainly come out of the situation that happened
• 1:09:34
  in Pittsburgh. So, as they say, the first step in recovery is
• 1:09:38
  acknowledging that you have an issue. So there's a lot going on there,
• 1:09:41
  a lot happening there. But those are three or four observations about what has
• 1:09:45
  taken place over the last twenty four hours. Ren addressed it pretty succinctly yesterday
• 1:09:49
  during the press conference, and he was asked directly if Bob Huggins would be
• 1:09:54
  provide counsel for this search or if he was in fact a candidate for the
• 1:09:57
  job. And I thought Rhant answered that straight to the point, said,
• 1:10:00
  listen up first and foremost, I respect what coach Huggins has done for this
• 1:10:02
  program and the number of wins and what he has meant to this program.
• 1:10:06
  And he said, I think there's a place to respect the pass but also
• 1:10:11
  look to the future. And that's where I sit today, is what Ren
• 1:10:14
  Baker said. So I think that an equivocally says where this program is and
• 1:10:17
  where Ren Breaker's mindset is as he enters into the air of finding the next
• 1:10:21
  coach of this program. And I think Brad that is a practiced and tune
• 1:10:26
  response to that inevitable question. In a way that closes the door on Huggins
• 1:10:31
  without stepping on Bob Huggins. But I can tell you, and I think
• 1:10:34
  you guys know this too, that there's absolutely positively no chance, no window,
• 1:10:40
  no avenue for Bob Huggins to return his coach. As long as Ren
• 1:10:43
  Baker's the ad Gordon Geez the president, and there's the current makeup of the
• 1:10:46
  Board of Governors, that route that avenue does not exist. Yeah, all
• 1:10:51
  said. And in regard to the text, there were, as you can
• 1:10:57
  tell, a bunch of thoughts that some in agreement with Kendrick and a lot
• 1:11:02
  of people who felt that he went over the top. Yeah, like a
• 1:11:05
  pylon. And so a lot of those as well. And I'll just kind
• 1:11:09
  of give you that as a general theme. Those both were out there to
• 1:11:12
  read every single one basically saying the same thing. So just in fairness,
• 1:11:15
  there were some that said yes, some that said way over the top.
• 1:11:18
  And that's kind of to your point. One other point about this is that,
• 1:11:23
  you know, Tony, the university has been around for a long time.
• 1:11:25
  There's a lot of graduates in the university, a lot of people,
• 1:11:27
  including myself, are very very loyal, feel a great affinity for the university,
• 1:11:31
  and a lot of the same people felt affinity toward Bob Huggins. But
• 1:11:34
  if it's coming down to a choice, if you have to make a choice,
• 1:11:41
  don't underestimate the loyalty that so many people have to the university as opposed
• 1:11:46
  to any individual. That loyalty by a lot of people. Ken Kendrick is
• 1:11:50
  one of them. There are thousands of other people that loyalty to the university
• 1:11:56
  runs very very deep. Yeah, Alan and Morgantown rights. I went to
• 1:12:00
  visit Charleston for the Boys Stay basketball tournament. Saw a few efforting T shirts
• 1:12:05
  from the three guys. Demo dads, uncles, maybe grandpa's So, I
• 1:12:12
  guess he's taking a shot at us right saying they've got old listeners. Is
• 1:12:15
  that what he's saying. Whatever, dad's, uncles and grandma, everybody,
• 1:12:19
  you're a dad. People are people? Yeah, are folks, all three
• 1:12:25
  of us, all right, They're not on TikTok. A lot of demos,
• 1:12:28
  by the way, I just thought it was what I just thought.
• 1:12:30
  Some you get nervous when I say I just thought of something. Yes,
• 1:12:34
  Yeah, Gordon knows all three of us are going to be in Charleston this
• 1:12:38
  weekend together. Yeah, same place. Yeah, maybe do a little three
• 1:12:44
  guys, uh impromptu, We'll say we got other things to do, not
• 1:12:49
  very often that way city at the same event in the arena. But I
• 1:12:55
  don't know if at the same time you're not gonna see him very much.
• 1:12:59
  What time were you roll in their myster I gotta wake up with an alarm
• 1:13:01
  clock. Well, I you I don't have the games you have. I
• 1:13:05
  have the night games. Oh I know, I have single an double a
• 1:13:11
  Saturday night. I got prep, I got prep. I gotta do.
• 1:13:14
  Okay, I mean I wasn't ina, I wasn't invited to your thing at
• 1:13:16
  Starbucks. So basically another time that you're giving us the finger you don't want
• 1:13:20
  to be with us. No, I just I thought you would respect my
• 1:13:23
  professionalism and trying to get ready for the broadcast Brad as opposed to hanging around
• 1:13:27
  and jacking around with you guys the games with who's your color person? Fred?
• 1:13:30
  Let them roll. We'll just say you don't need to prepare. Don't
• 1:13:35
  you overrate that they can see the players you're doing TV. You say,
• 1:13:39
  here's the opening tip, and that's the end of the first quarter. We'll
• 1:13:42
  be back after this from three Guys before the game at episode eight hundred dot
• 1:13:45
  com our score it's twenty five to fifteen with inside of two to play you.
• 1:13:50
  That's all you need to do. Of all people, you would say
• 1:13:54
  that as want Brad, as a guy who's always liked Proof, I can't
• 1:13:58
  believe that. We'll talk to you out the coffee situation when we get down.
• 1:14:00
  All right, fine, I think you'll have one with us. Can
• 1:14:03
  you come over for coffee? We go to that starbuck there on Canall Bulevard.
• 1:14:08
  If we take our own bag of game day grinding there, you think
• 1:14:10
  they'll grind that for us there? That one young girl there is very nice.
• 1:14:15
  I mean they're listeners to the manager. The manager is very nice.
• 1:14:17
  Her dad was a P one listener, and the the a one barista big
• 1:14:21
  listener of the show. He might that's right, yeah, I remember there.
• 1:14:25
  I mean we'll compensate. I'm just going to turn into like a two
• 1:14:28
  hour thing. We did. That's what we did last one on Saturday,
• 1:14:31
  because we got to get it. We get a game, we get two
• 1:14:33
  games. That's right, Yeah, you're right about that. Okay, Well,
• 1:14:38
  I don't know qun to Tony who roll one about five to nine,
• 1:14:40
  So he's ready to go. Don't worry about it. Who's playing. Morgantown's
• 1:14:45
  in that thing for about the nineteenth time in a row. If Morgantown advances,
• 1:14:49
  they got to beat Huntington though, in the summis going for a three
• 1:14:51
  pete. Yeah, and I don't. I don't remember names as well as
• 1:14:59
  you two. It's hard for me, Hoppy. It's TV. You don't
• 1:15:01
  need to know their names. What am I gonna say? Basketball number twenty
• 1:15:06
  two? You just say, well, look at that shot. So if
• 1:15:14
  you watch, if you watch the feed Saturday night and you don't know any
• 1:15:17
  of the players, well, I tell you what. I was listening to
• 1:15:19
  one of them games there last night and they had three kids on there by
• 1:15:23
  the last name of Davis. All at the same time, they had three
• 1:15:26
  Davis's on there. I did a game last week. Each team had a
• 1:15:30
  set of twins. Seriously, each team, both teams had a set of
• 1:15:32
  twins. That's awesome. It was paternal identicals. Those identicals will get you.
• 1:15:39
  You gotta be stirring at those numbers. Yeah. I worked on that
• 1:15:43
  a long time to get that done. Yeah, the Dobbins twins less the
• 1:15:47
  one thing I do like about the High School is it's a less of an
• 1:15:50
  international game. I'm about done with a zz bendego and seems Lukotia's Thanks Shoving
• 1:16:00
  only had to playing three times. I mean, uh, Texter scope spreads
• 1:16:03
  and missing beer guy. He one listener Wes and Charleston and woke up this
• 1:16:09
  morning poured me a big old cup of Game Day grind. Big old cup
• 1:16:12
  that's available, by the way. On episode eight Hunter dot Com, I'm
• 1:16:15
  scrolling through Facebook and I see the above picture. You had another West Virginia
• 1:16:19
  screw job to go along with all the others. I just cannot wrap my
• 1:16:24
  head around how our beloved three guys didn't win this title. True travesty,
• 1:16:28
  hashtag, no respect to love the show? What is that best sports podcast?
• 1:16:30
  Yeah, so Shannon got it. In our history of the pro I've
• 1:16:33
  ever submitted anything for any of them. Yeah? Are there even awards?
• 1:16:36
  I don't I think in order for us to say we lost, you have
• 1:16:40
  to submit show up and does shows. Yeah, we do. We also
• 1:16:45
  always do show up and do shows. And this happens talking about West Virginia.
• 1:16:49
  Is he talking about the Mountaineers? No, I'm about the coaching search.
• 1:16:53
  Does he know about the coaching search? Probably not intense. I'll do
• 1:16:57
  respect. I think Texas Tech can beat UH, either Houston or TCU because
• 1:17:00
  it looks like the Red Raiders. I was going down the elevator in the
• 1:17:03
  motel there the other day and Grant mccaslyn's wife and her kids. We're on
• 1:17:10
  the elevator with us, great young family. Do they know Wes always a
• 1:17:15
  West Virginia connection. So James Dickie, West Virginia's senior advisor, gave Grant
• 1:17:20
  mccaslyn his first job in college basketball West Virginia connection, of course. Then
• 1:17:28
  Ren hired then Wren hired Grant and his well, well, Grant was at
• 1:17:32
  Baylor for like sixty two years. By the way, loved Coach Dickie's time
• 1:17:36
  here in Western wish he could stay around here. Who knows a good one?
• 1:17:40
  I mean, who knows he's a great love love him all right.
• 1:17:44
  As we go to as we go to the end of the show, it's
• 1:17:45
  sixty to thirty eight, Texas Tech. Don't screw it up now. Three
• 1:17:49
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  times. Go for Gomart by lou When Devil Marine at sales in St.
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  CPA Group, providing value beyond the numbers. We'll be back on Monday.
• 1:19:12
  By then we'll know where the WVU women will play in the NCAA tournament.
• 1:19:16
  Plus a few other things as we head toward summer interview series. Thank you,
• 1:19:23
  Hoppy, it's always great seeing you here. It's great to be here.
• 1:19:26
  I'll see you June sixth. I'll see you. We might see Hoppy
• 1:19:30
  in Charleston, but he'll have handlers around him saying, please do not look
• 1:19:34
  directly at mister Kerchivill. Thank you, do not make eye contact. Our
• 1:19:40
  producers, Austin Wright, thanks for being with us to be good. It