Latest / The Sean O'Connell Show / Sean O'Connell Show - Full POD 4-6-26
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: He's the Shan O'Connell Show, brought to you by Big
- 0:11Speaker 1: Willies on Utah's number of sports talk and home of
- 0:14Speaker 1: the Utes, ESPN seven hundred and ninety two one af AM,
- 0:18Speaker 1: a proud part of Utah's ESPN Radio Network.
- 0:34Speaker 2: Preven Monday, everybody, Welcome to the Sean O'Connell Show.
- 0:39Speaker 3: Always glad to have you with us. Our show today
- 0:43Speaker 3: and every day is brought to you by our friends
- 0:45Speaker 3: over at Big Willies. Seventeen seventeen, South Maine. Hopefully you've
- 0:50Speaker 3: had an opportunity to swing by, maybe even on this
- 0:52Speaker 3: beautiful Easter weekend. Got in there, grabbed some of the
- 0:56Speaker 3: delicious food, maybe a craft cocktail, maybe a cold draft whatever,
- 1:01Speaker 3: Final four basketball, NHL Hockey Red Hot Utah Mammoth team,
- 1:07Speaker 3: You got baseball underway. Maybe you were down there to
- 1:09Speaker 3: watch regional gymnastics. A point of pain that we're going
- 1:15Speaker 3: to get to on the show today. Big Willies hooks
- 1:20Speaker 3: you up. Just go down, tell them that OC sent you.
- 1:23Speaker 3: They'll take extra special good care of you. Seventeen seventeenth,
- 1:27Speaker 3: South Main. Ari tem Can joined us on Mondays. We're
- 1:29Speaker 3: happy to have him this Monday as well. Everett Gray
- 1:32Speaker 3: to talk a little hoop as well. Tom Callahan is
- 1:36Speaker 3: going to join us to talk about the aforementioned Utah Mammoth.
- 1:42Speaker 3: You can check out your brackets at the ESPN seven
- 1:45Speaker 3: hundred million Dollar Bracket Challenge. Mine is I was hoping
- 1:49Speaker 3: that Arizona would help me out by making at least
- 1:52Speaker 3: to the title game, because I had them in the
- 1:53Speaker 3: title game in my bracket. Arizona just stunk it up
- 1:59Speaker 3: in a disgustingly lopsided Final four matchup with Michigan. But
- 2:04Speaker 3: you can always check out your bracket before the challenge
- 2:08Speaker 3: closes at ESPN seven hundred sports dot com.
- 2:12Speaker 4: We're gonna have to update later. Oh see, like what
- 2:16Speaker 4: like if you if there's a chance if Yukon wins,
- 2:19Speaker 4: someone wins our group, or or if if Michigan wins,
- 2:25Speaker 4: which everyone I think it's a safe assumption Michigan is
- 2:28Speaker 4: gonna win this game as dominant as they've been, you
- 2:31Speaker 4: know who wins our group, and they're gonna have.
- 2:33Speaker 5: To update that later.
- 2:34Speaker 4: As this is your last chance to track your bracket
- 2:38Speaker 4: because it's National Championship game tonight.
- 2:41Speaker 3: Man, I I was actually I don't know why man,
- 2:45Speaker 3: Bryce Larsen and Adrian Denny are currently tied for first.
- 2:49Speaker 5: Okay, so at least one of the sports guys. Oh, but.
- 2:58Speaker 3: He's got Michigan winning, Brice does. Let's see what Adrian's got.
- 3:03Speaker 3: Smitty Smitty what Ooh, we might have a tie for
- 3:08Speaker 3: first at the end of this thing, James. They both
- 3:11Speaker 3: have Michigan winning at all and.
- 3:13Speaker 4: They I believe they both had Duke in the National
- 3:17Speaker 4: Championship games. So this might end up being a tie
- 3:20Speaker 4: for first in our in our ESPN seven hundred staff
- 3:24Speaker 4: and guests group, here Smitty.
- 3:27Speaker 3: Smitty had he had Houston beating Arizona in the National
- 3:31Speaker 3: Championship game.
- 3:31Speaker 4: Yes, Smitty doesn't have a chance. Then and then and
- 3:34Speaker 4: then our guy John Watkins from John and Chantel on
- 3:38Speaker 4: Mix one of five to one. He's uh, he had
- 3:41Speaker 4: Florida winning like I did, so he's at a long time.
- 3:44Speaker 3: I also, I feel better because Smitty had the same
- 3:46Speaker 3: National Championship game and result as I did. I had
- 3:49Speaker 3: Houston winning beating Arizona in the National Championship game in
- 3:53Speaker 3: my bracket. Here's the thing, Arizona and look, you have
- 3:57Speaker 3: to give credit to Michigan and jax Ollandenborg for playing
- 4:00Speaker 3: through obvious pain. He was in bad shape for a
- 4:03Speaker 3: lot of that game. You could easily if you're Dusty May,
- 4:08Speaker 3: you could easily make an executive decision when you're up
- 4:11Speaker 3: consistently fifteen seventeen, fourteen, thirteen nineteen, when you're going on
- 4:16Speaker 3: these runs and you're just staving off any rally by Arizona,
- 4:20Speaker 3: you could have seen him make a decision to just,
- 4:23Speaker 3: you know what, let's not worry about Yaxvielle. Let's not
- 4:28Speaker 3: let him play for the rest of this game. We
- 4:30Speaker 3: could probably win without him.
- 4:32Speaker 5: But there's at.
- 4:34Speaker 3: Least some connection there still to what makes NCAA basketball,
- 4:40Speaker 3: and specifically Final Four basketball great.
- 4:43Speaker 5: There's at least some remembrance, there's some.
- 4:48Speaker 3: Acknowledgment of, like, you know what, these kids are in
- 4:52Speaker 3: their early twenties. Their bodies are built for recovery, and
- 4:58Speaker 3: we may never pass this way again. I'm not gonna
- 5:00Speaker 3: take away a kid's opportunity to have that kind of
- 5:03Speaker 3: a game, to put on a gritty performance and help
- 5:07Speaker 3: us go out and win this thing and punch a
- 5:09Speaker 3: ticket to the National Championship Game. I mean, like the coaches,
- 5:12Speaker 3: the new the modern coach's handbook is just like, oh,
- 5:16Speaker 3: someone grimaces in a basketball game. Sit him down. There's
- 5:21Speaker 3: pain evident, Sit him down. Something's gonna happen. Every tissue
- 5:27Speaker 3: his body's gonna explode. Don't let him hurt, don't let
- 5:29Speaker 3: him feel any discomfort. But thankfully, if you're a Michigan
- 5:35Speaker 3: fanly thankfully. If you're on the Michigan side of the
- 5:37Speaker 3: Big ten side of this, you're looking at it and
- 5:39Speaker 3: you're like, nice, Let the kid play through it, establish
- 5:44Speaker 3: his own legend, write his own book, carve his name
- 5:48Speaker 3: in the stone of those hallowed halls. It's pretty cool
- 5:52Speaker 3: to see that happen in a Final four game. If
- 5:54Speaker 3: you're Arizona, I mean, we were taking we were celebrating
- 5:59Speaker 3: going into the week. Hey, Tommy Lloyd said no to
- 6:02Speaker 3: North Carolina, eat at tar Heels. The Big twelve is back.
- 6:06Speaker 3: We got a new blood, blue blood. Arizona's gonna punch
- 6:09Speaker 3: their ticket to a national championship.
- 6:12Speaker 5: Let's go everyone, at least in our neighborhood.
- 6:15Speaker 3: Everyone felt pretty good about that possibility, except Arizona Wildcat basketball.
- 6:21Speaker 5: Players in Michigan.
- 6:23Speaker 4: This is five straight games, so there's six total NCAA
- 6:27Speaker 4: Tournament games.
- 6:28Speaker 5: If you make it to the national championship game.
- 6:30Speaker 4: Right, all five of their games so far, they've scored
- 6:34Speaker 4: over ninety and they've won by at least I think
- 6:36Speaker 4: eighteen points on Saturday might have been their closest game,
- 6:41Speaker 4: like they've been and that's, like you said, Landenburgh, Lindenborg
- 6:45Speaker 4: has barely played that game their best player. So yeah,
- 6:49Speaker 4: I don't have much confidence in Yukon tonight. I would
- 6:52Speaker 4: love for Yukon to win, but they they have an
- 6:56Speaker 4: injury of their own. One of their starting one of
- 6:58Speaker 4: their starting guards, Solo Ball believe, is out or at
- 7:01Speaker 4: least questionable, and that's a big deal for them. It's
- 7:06Speaker 4: not as big a deal as Arris Reid being out.
- 7:08Speaker 4: The only way I see Yukon winning is if Terris
- 7:12Speaker 4: Reid is the load that he's been down low all
- 7:15Speaker 4: tournament and he just snatches up every rebound, every miss
- 7:20Speaker 4: on their end of the floor and turns it into
- 7:22Speaker 4: a second chance points dominates in the post like he
- 7:26Speaker 4: has for just about every game this tournament. If that's
- 7:30Speaker 4: the case, Yukon's got a great chance. But even with that,
- 7:35Speaker 4: I don't know how you beat this Michigan team.
- 7:38Speaker 3: Well, they share the ball well, they rebound well, although
- 7:42Speaker 3: Arizona actually beat him on the boards. But this they're
- 7:46Speaker 3: just are a wagon right now. Michigan, like you said,
- 7:50Speaker 3: their tournament resume is gonna put them in the conversation
- 7:55Speaker 3: if they can cap it off tonight as one of
- 7:57Speaker 3: the most dominant college basketball teams, one of the maybe
- 8:01Speaker 3: most impressive national champions in the history of the sport.
- 8:05Speaker 3: I'm really really curious to know, especially in Michigan lore, right,
- 8:10Speaker 3: because you have like the Fab five was a cultural moment.
- 8:15Speaker 3: It was just as much about who they were as
- 8:19Speaker 3: people rather than just players, right, and.
- 8:22Speaker 5: The fact of how young they were.
- 8:24Speaker 4: Back then, you did not start five freshmen and those
- 8:27Speaker 4: and if you did start multiple freshmen, you did not
- 8:30Speaker 4: get that far in the Ncuelle tournament, if you made
- 8:32Speaker 4: the tournament at all. They made back to back national
- 8:35Speaker 4: championship games starting freshmen and sophomores, and.
- 8:38Speaker 3: They you know, like everything about that was It was
- 8:42Speaker 3: the the way they wore their baggy shorts, it was
- 8:46Speaker 3: the oversized jerseys, it was the sort of brash personality
- 8:51Speaker 3: of these young because we're talking about an era where,
- 8:55Speaker 3: like you said, it was unprecedented to have that many
- 8:58Speaker 3: young guys and if you were going to be a
- 9:00Speaker 3: young player in those days, who got to start, who
- 9:03Speaker 3: got to be out there? You were deferential, you know
- 9:06Speaker 3: what I mean. You were there, you were you were
- 9:08Speaker 3: on the floor, but you're still kind of waiting your turn.
- 9:10Speaker 3: And those guys were They were not there to take part.
- 9:12Speaker 3: They were there to take over. And it was something
- 9:14Speaker 3: that a lot of traditionalists were like, I don't know
- 9:18Speaker 3: if we love this. And the young people I remember
- 9:20Speaker 3: elementary school whatever, that was fourth fifth grade version of
- 9:24Speaker 3: me and they had eight seven seven three five three
- 9:29Speaker 3: zero seven hundred. If you ever owned the Looney Tunes
- 9:35Speaker 3: University of Michigan Crisscross collab gear, what a strange VENN
- 9:43Speaker 3: diagram that was, James, You were far too young to
- 9:46Speaker 3: remember this, But there was this brief and blessed time
- 9:50Speaker 3: in the early nineties where the Looney Tunes Bugs, Bunny
- 9:56Speaker 3: Tasmanian Devil, all these guys they were popping up on
- 10:02Speaker 3: gear right on like apparel, dressed as hip hop personalities,
- 10:09Speaker 3: and Criss Cross was a phenomenon at the time. You
- 10:15Speaker 3: ever even heard Jump Jump, Oh okay, they were a
- 10:19Speaker 3: phenomenon in their one hit wonder days, right and they
- 10:23Speaker 3: wore their clothes backwards, right, So these T shirts were
- 10:29Speaker 3: printed with like Bugs, Bunny Tasmanian Devil standing next to
- 10:34Speaker 3: each other in baggy backwards gear. And somehow the University
- 10:40Speaker 3: of Michigan Wolverines were kind of thrown into that recipe
- 10:45Speaker 3: because they were also doing like the hip hop culture thing.
- 10:48Speaker 3: So you could find you could have, you could get
- 10:52Speaker 3: yourself this like trifecta gear of Looney Tunes, baggy backward,
- 10:58Speaker 3: wearing baggy backwards, and your baggy T shirt and some
- 11:02Speaker 3: of those were Michigan gear.
- 11:04Speaker 4: I I did a Google search, I found it. You
- 11:07Speaker 4: can you can buy, you can buy these shirts. You
- 11:10Speaker 4: can buy I don't know if their shirts from that
- 11:13Speaker 4: era or shirts that have been made recently, so we're
- 11:16Speaker 4: just an homage to that.
- 11:18Speaker 5: So I just dug up the old screen print.
- 11:20Speaker 4: But yeah, they're they're wearing its Bugs with the backwards hat,
- 11:25Speaker 4: Taz with the backwards hat, and they got baseball jerseys
- 11:27Speaker 4: and their pants on backwards.
- 11:29Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, that's that's incredible.
- 11:32Speaker 4: I mean, I had no idea that that was a thing,
- 11:35Speaker 4: and I had no idea there was a connection to
- 11:36Speaker 4: the Fab five.
- 11:37Speaker 5: It was.
- 11:38Speaker 3: It was just like this very strange time where all
- 11:44Speaker 3: of it was just being smashed together. It was like
- 11:48Speaker 3: I think, if I'm being honest, my mental picture of
- 11:51Speaker 3: it is there's a bunch of people working in like
- 11:54Speaker 3: the I don't know, the apparel buyers department for certain stores.
- 11:59Speaker 3: They're just like, hey, the young kids they love the
- 12:02Speaker 3: hip hop culture stuff these days, but they also still
- 12:05Speaker 3: are kids, and they love Bugs Bunny still and space
- 12:07Speaker 3: Jams coming out, and they're just like, Okay, I'm.
- 12:10Speaker 4: Sure by that time, that was only a couple of
- 12:13Speaker 4: years before Space Jam was released. I'm sure they were
- 12:15Speaker 4: already promoting it for sure.
- 12:17Speaker 3: Yeah right, and they're just like, Okay, how do we
- 12:19Speaker 3: capture And it's just like a bunch of like dudes that,
- 12:23Speaker 3: you know, my age and older, like white dudes that
- 12:26Speaker 3: have never heard of any of this crisscross stuff, and
- 12:29Speaker 3: they're just like kind of frowning at the Fab five
- 12:31Speaker 3: and they're just like, well, the kids like it, though,
- 12:33Speaker 3: Let's put them all together, smash it up, throw it
- 12:35Speaker 3: on a T shirt.
- 12:36Speaker 5: And it worked.
- 12:37Speaker 3: My Willow Candy in elementary shout out fellow Wildcats. You
- 12:42Speaker 3: could not see you could not make it out on
- 12:44Speaker 3: the playground one day without seeing at least one of
- 12:45Speaker 3: these shirts on any given day.
- 12:47Speaker 5: Kids your age were wearing them in elementary school.
- 12:50Speaker 3: Yeah thing Sandy, Utah kids were down with the backwards
- 12:55Speaker 3: baggy bugs, bunny.
- 12:57Speaker 5: Stuff, and yeah, the Fab five was You're totally right.
- 13:05Speaker 4: They were as much a basketball phenomenon or cultural phenomena
- 13:08Speaker 4: as phenomenon as they were a basketball phenomenon. And here's
- 13:11Speaker 4: the thing about Michigan basketball history in that era. They
- 13:17Speaker 4: had won their only national championship in eighty nine with
- 13:20Speaker 4: Glenn Rice, who himself was quite a basketball phenomenon right
- 13:25Speaker 4: in college and then into the NBA for a while
- 13:27Speaker 4: throughout the nineties, and also a guy that was looked
- 13:32Speaker 4: at is like, that guy's really cool. But then these
- 13:35Speaker 4: five freshmen, Chris Weber, Jalen Rose in particular, they took
- 13:40Speaker 4: it to a whole other level. They are known as
- 13:43Speaker 4: like they're probably known as like the historic face of
- 13:46Speaker 4: Michigan basketball. And they didn't win a title like Glenn
- 13:50Speaker 4: Rice's team did in eighty nine.
- 13:51Speaker 5: They didn't want to tell That's why I said.
- 13:53Speaker 3: I mean when I before I went on a craziest side,
- 13:56Speaker 3: I wanted this Michigan basketball team has a really ex
- 14:00Speaker 3: on opportunity tonight to win a national championship, and to
- 14:03Speaker 3: do it on one of the most dominant runs we
- 14:06Speaker 3: have seen through tournament basketball. Where will that put them?
- 14:11Speaker 3: I mean, it's a different era, right, You're not as tied,
- 14:15Speaker 3: even if you're incredibly successful, You're not as tied to
- 14:19Speaker 3: your university, no matter who you are is you used
- 14:21Speaker 3: to be. I mean Jalen Jalen Rose and Chris Weber
- 14:25Speaker 3: have made entire careers out of that seed that was
- 14:30Speaker 3: planted when they were in the Fab five.
- 14:33Speaker 4: It's incredible because they were really good basketball players, right,
- 14:36Speaker 4: and they played on really good teams. Salen Rose's team
- 14:39Speaker 4: almost won that almost beat the two thousand Lakers in
- 14:42Speaker 4: the NBA Championship with the Pacers, right, and he was
- 14:44Speaker 4: probably the second or third best scorer on that team.
- 14:48Speaker 6: Uh.
- 14:49Speaker 4: Chris Weber was on those great Sacramento Kings teams that
- 14:52Speaker 4: almost beat the Lakers in the in the early two thousands.
- 14:56Speaker 4: And Yet I think if you ask people of any
- 15:01Speaker 4: that have even like even young people who have younger
- 15:03Speaker 4: than way younger than.
- 15:04Speaker 5: Us, who have looked looked up Chris Webber and.
- 15:07Speaker 4: Jalen Rose, I think if you asked anyone, what do
- 15:10Speaker 4: you know them for it's Fab five, like that's how
- 15:15Speaker 4: that's how incredible that story is. And I didn't even
- 15:18Speaker 4: I mean growing up, I obviously I was one, and
- 15:21Speaker 4: I was one, and where I was eight months old
- 15:25Speaker 4: and a year old when they when they when the
- 15:29Speaker 4: Fab five went on their runs, when Chris Webber and
- 15:32Speaker 4: Jalen Rose were on the same team at Michigan. So
- 15:35Speaker 4: I have no memory of that, obviously, but I so
- 15:38Speaker 4: I remembered them as NBA players when I was in
- 15:41Speaker 4: elementary school. But as i've but as I've gotten older
- 15:45Speaker 4: and watched things, even from that point on, I almost
- 15:48Speaker 4: remember them as Michigan Wolverines, even though I wasn't even
- 15:51Speaker 4: I was barely born.
- 15:52Speaker 5: That's right. So what will it do?
- 15:55Speaker 3: What can it do for these current modern Michigan players
- 15:59Speaker 3: that they just went out there and embarrassed an Arizona
- 16:02Speaker 3: Wildcats team.
- 16:03Speaker 5: That how many pundits did we hear all year long.
- 16:06Speaker 3: And even have on our show saying Arizona's been the
- 16:09Speaker 3: best team in the country all year. Yeah, They've rotated
- 16:12Speaker 3: in and out of that top ranking, and they've had
- 16:14Speaker 3: their runs and they've had their downs, but Arizona's the
- 16:17Speaker 3: best team in the country. Michigan made them look bad,
- 16:21Speaker 3: and I know Arizona did look bad themselves. They did
- 16:24Speaker 3: some of that to themselves, not sharing the ball at all.
- 16:27Speaker 3: They they finished the game, by the way Arizona did
- 16:30Speaker 3: with five assisted baskets. Five in an entire college hoops game,
- 16:36Speaker 3: five times a pass led to points. That is embarrassing
- 16:43Speaker 3: if you're the coach, if you're the players, it's a
- 16:45Speaker 3: bad situation. And obviously, at the end of a basketball season,
- 16:51Speaker 3: only one team gets to really truly celebrate. There's only
- 16:53Speaker 3: gonna be one national championship every year, one national champion,
- 16:56Speaker 3: excuse me, every year, and this year it looks like
- 16:59Speaker 3: it might be Michigan. And if it's not, and it's Yukon,
- 17:05Speaker 3: what a wild story that one's gonna be. If it's
- 17:09Speaker 3: I mean, Yukon has now had back to back games
- 17:11Speaker 3: where you've had some mullins, has come up pretty clutch. Obviously,
- 17:16Speaker 3: the Elite eight to Final four game was rifeless storylines
- 17:20Speaker 3: at the end because of the head hug, that's what
- 17:23Speaker 3: we're calling it, and whatnot.
- 17:25Speaker 5: The head hug.
- 17:26Speaker 3: By the way, if you're watching on YouTube right now,
- 17:30Speaker 3: I like James, I have found vintage Michigan Looney Tunes
- 17:35Speaker 3: crew neck sweatshirt. Unfortunately, on this particular website it has
- 17:40Speaker 3: currently sold out. I think we're gonna have to go
- 17:42Speaker 3: the eBay route on this thing. But James, I don't
- 17:45Speaker 3: know if you can watch on the YouTube, I'm gonna
- 17:47Speaker 3: put this up on the camera so people can see
- 17:49Speaker 3: exactly what I'm talking about. That is Bugs, Bunny and
- 17:52Speaker 3: the Tasmanian Devil in baggy Michigan gear. They have backwards hats,
- 17:59Speaker 3: they have pierced ears, and they are as hip hop
- 18:02Speaker 3: as you can be when you're a cartoon Michigan. Specifically,
- 18:08Speaker 3: the Wolverines and the Looney Tunes were hot sellers back
- 18:14Speaker 3: in the day.
- 18:14Speaker 4: I don't think even if they if Michigan wins tonight,
- 18:19Speaker 4: like it sounds like both of us expect that to happen,
- 18:23Speaker 4: and they score ninety plus points again, and they win
- 18:26Speaker 4: by double digits again, even if it's just by ten
- 18:29Speaker 4: or twelve points, not by eighteen to thirty points like
- 18:32Speaker 4: we've seen, right, Even if it's if it's just barely
- 18:36Speaker 4: double digits but they score over ninety, I still don't
- 18:39Speaker 4: think this team eclipses the Fab five in Michigan lore,
- 18:45Speaker 4: even though, like you said, this is gonna go down
- 18:48Speaker 4: if that happens, is one of the most dominant NCAA
- 18:51Speaker 4: tournament runs.
- 18:52Speaker 5: Ever.
- 18:52Speaker 4: The other other one I can think of in my
- 18:54Speaker 4: lifetime is the two thousand and nine North Carolina team,
- 18:58Speaker 4: Tyler Hansbrough's senior year. They were ty Lawson Wayne Ellington,
- 19:04Speaker 4: came back when they when they could have went to
- 19:06Speaker 4: the NBA. Tyler Hansbrough could have went to the NBA too,
- 19:08Speaker 4: but he obviously would. He would have been a first
- 19:11Speaker 4: round pick like he was, but he didn't have the
- 19:13Speaker 4: same kind of NBA upside that the other two had,
- 19:17Speaker 4: So it was it was way more surprising that those
- 19:20Speaker 4: two came back and they showed they didn't score ninety
- 19:24Speaker 4: in every game, but they scored like eighty five plus
- 19:27Speaker 4: every game and won by double digits every time. That's
- 19:29Speaker 4: the only one I can think of that has been
- 19:32Speaker 4: this dominant in my lifetime, and I'm probably skipping over others,
- 19:36Speaker 4: if you want to correct me on the text line.
- 19:38Speaker 3: Yeah, eight seven seven three five three zero seven hundred
- 19:41Speaker 3: we are. That's the best way to get engagement as
- 19:43Speaker 3: you say something that people deemed to be factually incorrect.
- 19:47Speaker 3: They're definitely going to come in and be like, well, actually, no,
- 19:50Speaker 3: I disagree with that, and I'm totally fine, by the way,
- 19:52Speaker 3: if you do that, go ahead. So college basketball in
- 19:57Speaker 3: a way, I mean, I've really enjoyed this year's tournament,
- 19:59Speaker 3: even though we started it off first weekend and you
- 20:03Speaker 3: come out of the first weekend and a big part
- 20:05Speaker 3: of the conversation is just like, oh man, what happened
- 20:08Speaker 3: to Cinderella. Cinderella is definitively dead. Now We've been having
- 20:12Speaker 3: that conversation for three or four years. And the fact
- 20:15Speaker 3: that you do not have any like mid major schools
- 20:19Speaker 3: make it into the Sweet sixteen, everyone's just like, oh yeah,
- 20:22Speaker 3: that sticks. And there's there's a part of me that
- 20:24Speaker 3: mourns that version of college basketball certainly. But if you're
- 20:28Speaker 3: going to try to find a way to redeem this season,
- 20:31Speaker 3: or to redeem the sport in general, after you lose
- 20:36Speaker 3: such a foundational piece of what makes March Madness great, well,
- 20:41Speaker 3: the storylines we've gotten in these last couple of weeks
- 20:43Speaker 3: have at least kept the conversation going for me, maybe
- 20:47Speaker 3: not in as wholesome and fun of a way as Cinderella,
- 20:50Speaker 3: stories did, But I mean what we've seen now in
- 20:54Speaker 3: both women's and men's basketball, the Big Ten has definitively
- 21:01Speaker 3: risen to the top of the table as a national
- 21:07Speaker 3: powerhouse in revenue producing sports. It's been happening for three
- 21:10Speaker 3: plus four plus five plus years in football right and
- 21:15Speaker 3: now even the former laughing stock of the conference, Indiana,
- 21:19Speaker 3: is a national power. So that has not yet happened
- 21:24Speaker 3: for the SEC. Although Vanderbilt, who used to be at
- 21:27Speaker 3: the bottom, is now respectable, they still have the kind
- 21:30Speaker 3: of bottom dwellers that that people can laugh at if
- 21:33Speaker 3: they so choose. The Big Ten is likely going to
- 21:38Speaker 3: win a national championship in men's basketball. They've won three
- 21:41Speaker 3: national championships back to back to back. In college football.
- 21:45Speaker 3: They they have a huge presence in women's gymnastics. They
- 21:53Speaker 3: have a huge presence in women's basketball. They have a
- 21:55Speaker 3: huge presence in softball, the.
- 21:58Speaker 4: Big volleyball as they've been the power to Penn State
- 22:01Speaker 4: in winning national championships in Nebraska, setting attendance records.
- 22:05Speaker 5: In you mentioned Penn State wrestling.
- 22:09Speaker 3: They've always been a huge power, but now they're definitively
- 22:13Speaker 3: the power.
- 22:14Speaker 5: Not that people care about that one. That's not a
- 22:15Speaker 5: revenue producer, but.
- 22:19Speaker 3: I would die to be in SEC conference meetings, University presidents, chancellors,
- 22:25Speaker 3: athletic directors, coaches sitting at SEC media days, but not
- 22:30Speaker 3: in the media portion in like the dinner of the
- 22:32Speaker 3: night before, in the hey, we all just got to
- 22:35Speaker 3: the hotel, Come meet us in the crown room kind
- 22:37Speaker 3: of a thing. I want to know what those conversations
- 22:39Speaker 3: are like right now because the strangle hold that the
- 22:43Speaker 3: SEC had on college athletics in everything for the longest
- 22:48Speaker 3: time has started to slip through their fingers. They're greedy,
- 22:54Speaker 3: greasy Southern fingers are starting to lose that grip because
- 23:01Speaker 3: legalized spending has now rewarded conferences that, let's be honest,
- 23:07Speaker 3: Michigan and Ohio State and Penn State and some of
- 23:09Speaker 3: these players they were always willing to dabble in the
- 23:13Speaker 3: dirty pool, but now everybody is in a way that
- 23:17Speaker 3: is above board. Like BYU has had done, They've elevated
- 23:20Speaker 3: their status in sports.
- 23:22Speaker 5: The Big Ten has found a way to do that with.
- 23:26Speaker 3: Very successful alumni bases, incredibly lucrative NIL contracts for players,
- 23:32Speaker 3: proud tradition to go along with it, and if that
- 23:36Speaker 3: tug a war game is going to continue between the
- 23:39Speaker 3: Big ten and the SEC, which I imagine it will.
- 23:42Speaker 3: The SEC now has to start thinking about how do
- 23:45Speaker 3: we play from a position of disadvantage rather than a
- 23:50Speaker 3: position of sincere advantage. I mean, that is, in my opinion,
- 23:56Speaker 3: an under talked about aspect of the result we're seeing
- 24:00Speaker 3: in actual competition. The SEC has never had to play
- 24:05Speaker 3: from behind in my lifetime. They never have even before.
- 24:10Speaker 3: Like you know, Alabama was a huge power. Again, it
- 24:15Speaker 3: was well Florida and LSU and Auburn were big powers
- 24:19Speaker 3: before Nick Saban came back and they turned the Crimson
- 24:23Speaker 3: tie back into what they are, and before Kirby Smart
- 24:26Speaker 3: was of course from that same tree turned Georgia back
- 24:28Speaker 3: into the powerhouse that they were in the eighties.
- 24:31Speaker 5: In the early nineties.
- 24:33Speaker 3: Like there was always somebody carrying that torch in the SEC.
- 24:38Speaker 3: And for the very first time in my sports fan lifetime,
- 24:42Speaker 3: the SEC is not definitively sitting in that throne in
- 24:47Speaker 3: some ivory tower looking down there their noses at everybody else.
- 24:54Speaker 4: I mean, they still had baseball and softball. Great shout
- 24:58Speaker 4: out to those sports for which is I mean awesome.
- 25:02Speaker 3: Seriously, Like their dominance in softball especially, but especially because
- 25:07Speaker 3: they just they borrowed they got Oklahoma in the conference.
- 25:10Speaker 3: Now they got Oklahoma. They took that from the Big twelve,
- 25:12Speaker 3: you know what I mean. Yeah, so, and if those
- 25:15Speaker 3: sports in those sports have never been a big deal
- 25:19Speaker 3: in college but if they were, then you could put
- 25:23Speaker 3: that on one side of the scale. It's just like,
- 25:25Speaker 3: all right, this is gonna help balance things out for
- 25:27Speaker 3: us a little bit. But you can't because it's baseball
- 25:31Speaker 3: and softball. You need one of the two revenue sports
- 25:34Speaker 3: you need. You need college football and or men's basketball
- 25:39Speaker 3: in order for that scale to be balanced. And like
- 25:42Speaker 3: you said, especially remember this point. Last year we were saying, man,
- 25:46Speaker 3: SEC is a basketball conference now too, And it's like
- 25:50Speaker 3: one year later, no SEC teams in the final four.
- 25:54Speaker 5: I think only one made it to the Elite eight.
- 25:56Speaker 4: They got their doors blown off by this Michigan team,
- 26:00Speaker 4: just like everyone else has. It was Tennessee. Yeah, it's
- 26:05Speaker 4: a one year after they announced themselves as the best
- 26:08Speaker 4: basketball conference in the nation, they're like the third best.
- 26:12Speaker 4: It's just it's crazy how quickly things can change.
- 26:16Speaker 3: And Yukon gets to stand there kind of like by themselves.
- 26:20Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like what about US, what about the Big
- 26:23Speaker 5: East US? What about us? You guys? It was just like,
- 26:25Speaker 5: shut up Ukon, you guys. Don't you guys play football?
- 26:29Speaker 3: Yeah, well yeah we do. Okay, technically you do. What
- 26:32Speaker 3: conference are you in? Never mind?
- 26:35Speaker 4: So speaking of Yukon, we did get a correction here,
- 26:39Speaker 4: and I we should have. I should have remembered this.
- 26:42Speaker 4: That Yukon team two years ago that won back to back.
- 26:46Speaker 4: They were the most dominant as far as blowout fashion. Okay,
- 26:50Speaker 4: the largest margin average margin of victory in the history
- 26:54Speaker 4: of college basketball. So so they it's like them, this
- 26:59Speaker 4: Michigan team, if they've finished off the deal tonight against Yukon,
- 27:02Speaker 4: and then maybe that nine Carolina team that have been
- 27:07Speaker 4: this dominant in my lifetime and you and I is lifetime.
- 27:12Speaker 3: Uh, let's see if Michigan can pull it off tonight,
- 27:17Speaker 3: if they beat Yukon at the same average that they
- 27:23Speaker 3: have beat everyone else, then they will be the most
- 27:26Speaker 3: dominant champion in the history of the NCAA tournament.
- 27:29Speaker 4: They'll eclipse the twenty three team a couple of years
- 27:33Speaker 4: three years ago, or.
- 27:35Speaker 3: North Carolina tar Heels plus twenty point two points per
- 27:39Speaker 3: game their average margin to victory in the tournament twenty sixteen,
- 27:43Speaker 3: Villa Novava, Okay, twenty point seven.
- 27:47Speaker 4: Even with winning on a buzzer beater over Carolina in
- 27:51Speaker 4: the championship game that year, they still had over twenty
- 27:54Speaker 4: point per game. That's impressive the rest of the games,
- 27:57Speaker 4: how dominant they were.
- 27:58Speaker 3: And then that Yukon team with twenty one and this
- 28:01Speaker 3: current Michigan run is at over twenty one points per
- 28:06Speaker 3: game according to.
- 28:10Speaker 4: Okay, I wasn't I wasn't that far off to it
- 28:12Speaker 4: off the top of my head.
- 28:13Speaker 5: There also, okay, this here we are again with me.
- 28:19Speaker 3: Being bad at my job, and you read it off
- 28:22Speaker 3: based on what you get. The grock is groc the
- 28:24Speaker 3: Google AI, now that's Twitter, okay, Grox.
- 28:28Speaker 5: What's the Google? One? Google is Gemini? Okay, well Gemini.
- 28:34Speaker 3: They Gemini examines the Google results and if you just
- 28:37Speaker 3: read the summary they give you at the top, you
- 28:40Speaker 3: can't trust it. Okay, public service announcement because it just
- 28:45Speaker 3: said that Villanova twenty point seven points per game is
- 28:49Speaker 3: behind Yukon's twenty point zero points per game.
- 28:52Speaker 5: Yeah, why why do I do this? I'm mad at myself.
- 28:56Speaker 3: Shot O'Connell schell brought to you every day by a
- 28:58Speaker 3: friend of a Big Willie seventeen seventeen. South Main Shaquille
- 29:01Speaker 3: O'Neill is on the Pat McAfee show right now, shooting
- 29:04Speaker 3: hoops and just reminding everyone how incredibly gigantic he is.
- 29:10Speaker 5: And Ari Tempkin is gonna join us.
- 29:11Speaker 3: Next we'll talk about the how and why Arizona's collapse
- 29:15Speaker 3: real quick.
- 29:15Speaker 5: Gotta gotta fit this in.
- 29:17Speaker 4: Oh see, you have no chance of beating me in
- 29:20Speaker 4: the million dollar Bracket Challenge. I am two points ahead
- 29:23Speaker 4: of you, and neither of us have any teams left,
- 29:27Speaker 4: so I will be two points better than you forever
- 29:32Speaker 4: in the twenty twenty six million dollar Bracket Challenge.
- 29:34Speaker 5: What are you gonna do with your million dollars?
- 29:37Speaker 4: Shoot, I'm not gonna win the million. I just have
- 29:40Speaker 4: million dollars worth of bragging bragging rights over you forever.
- 29:43Speaker 3: That's worth it, worth it, alright, Timkodnext, it's the Shot
- 29:46Speaker 3: o'connal Show ESPN seven hundred ninety two one FM.
- 29:52Speaker 1: You tune to the Shan o'connall Show from the Murdoch
- 29:55Speaker 1: Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred and and a half MDS.
- 30:08Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Sean O'Connell show on a Monday,
- 30:11Speaker 2: Welcome in our good friend, Ari Timkin, Big twelve Today,
- 30:17Speaker 2: Big twelve Radio.
- 30:20Speaker 5: Ari, how are you, sir?
- 30:22Speaker 6: I'm great, OC. How are you, Bud?
- 30:24Speaker 5: I'm doing all right, man?
- 30:25Speaker 3: What I hope you had a wonderful weekend, Big sports weekend.
- 30:30Speaker 3: Easter egg hunt's going on all over the place. And
- 30:34Speaker 3: the Arizona Wildcats, I think wanted to be at an
- 30:37Speaker 3: Easter egg hunt instead of against these Michigan Wolverines. What
- 30:40Speaker 3: happened to the Big Twelves, last representative in March Madness?
- 30:45Speaker 6: Yeah, and you know, I planned on still being in
- 30:48Speaker 6: Indianapolis today and tomorrow because, yeah, I was pretty confident
- 30:53Speaker 6: that Arizona was going to win. And yeah, obviously that
- 30:56Speaker 6: did not come to fruition. In fact, game wasn't even
- 30:59Speaker 6: particularly close. Yeah. I think it was a couple of things.
- 31:02Speaker 6: I mean, I think you can point to the freshmen
- 31:05Speaker 6: and freshmen that seemed more experienced heading into this game
- 31:09Speaker 6: suddenly looked like freshmen. But Arizona I think was able
- 31:13Speaker 6: to sort of overcome their freshmen quote unquote all year
- 31:16Speaker 6: with their depth. And you know, for all of the
- 31:18Speaker 6: coed Pete and braden Bury's and Yvon Kharchenkov's successes they
- 31:22Speaker 6: had with those freshmen, you know, I mean they still
- 31:25Speaker 6: had you know, Krevas and Jayden Bradley and you know,
- 31:29Speaker 6: plenty of other experienced players you thought could make up
- 31:32Speaker 6: for the potential for those those freshmen, but that did
- 31:35Speaker 6: not happen. And so I think it's two fold. I
- 31:37Speaker 6: think it was one. You know, Michigan just ran really
- 31:40Speaker 6: good offense early on. I think Arizona was a little flustered,
- 31:43Speaker 6: and then it didn't help when they were flustered that
- 31:46Speaker 6: Jade and Bradley got into foul trouble, and so I
- 31:48Speaker 6: think those things played a significant role in it. But yeah,
- 31:53Speaker 6: I mean Michigan was just sort of unstoppable.
- 31:57Speaker 5: Will they be unstoppable tonight?
- 32:01Speaker 6: I mean yes. But also Danny Hurley, I mean, you can't.
- 32:05Speaker 6: You know, we just heard James Patterson in an update
- 32:07Speaker 6: talk about the fact that they're going for three championships
- 32:10Speaker 6: in four years and seven overall. But three and four
- 32:13Speaker 6: is you know, John Wooden territory. So you know, I
- 32:18Speaker 6: wouldn't just count out Yukon because some of the things
- 32:21Speaker 6: that maybe I thought they would have, you know, lost
- 32:24Speaker 6: Illinois over one of them, specifically, would be the size
- 32:28Speaker 6: of Saint Illinois or a Michigan. You know, Terris Reid
- 32:32Speaker 6: has shown in this tournament that like it doesn't really
- 32:34Speaker 6: matter the size of the front courts, that he's still
- 32:36Speaker 6: betting able to be the best big on the floor.
- 32:38Speaker 6: So you know, I incorrectly said that there'd only be
- 32:42Speaker 6: two outcomes in the areas in a Michigan game, and
- 32:44Speaker 6: that was the two outcomes would be their Michigan wins close,
- 32:47Speaker 6: Arizona wings closed. So obviously I was wrong about that,
- 32:49Speaker 6: but I think this would be a close one tonight.
- 32:51Speaker 6: I would take Yukon to cover the six and a
- 32:53Speaker 6: half points, but take Michigan to win out right and
- 32:55Speaker 6: win the first championship with the Big ten in twenty
- 32:57Speaker 6: six years.
- 32:58Speaker 5: So we were.
- 32:59Speaker 3: Talking about this earlier, and you and I are about
- 33:01Speaker 3: the same age. So that Fab five Michigan team was
- 33:05Speaker 3: such a cultural phenomenon, was such a huge deal without
- 33:09Speaker 3: having to win a national championship to secure their spot
- 33:12Speaker 3: in the annals of college basketball history and University of
- 33:16Speaker 3: Michigan history. What would winning a national championship if Michigan
- 33:21Speaker 3: is able to pull it off, do now given the
- 33:25Speaker 3: changing context, given the fact that you know, you can't
- 33:29Speaker 3: really firmly establish yourself as a first mover in a
- 33:33Speaker 3: lot of the movements that that Fab five team was.
- 33:36Speaker 3: But what would there I guess, place in Michigan and
- 33:40Speaker 3: in college basketball history be if we compare them to
- 33:44Speaker 3: the last iconic Michigan team.
- 33:46Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a great question. O see. I mean, you know,
- 33:49Speaker 6: I remember the thirty for thirty on the Fab five,
- 33:52Speaker 6: and one of the things that stuck with me was,
- 33:54Speaker 6: you know, nobody really remembers who won the championship. The
- 33:56Speaker 6: two years of SAB five didn't, but they went to
- 33:59Speaker 6: the File four, and we remember how iconic culturally those
- 34:02Speaker 6: teams were, and so sometimes we don't even remember who
- 34:05Speaker 6: wins the championships, and a team like the Fab five
- 34:08Speaker 6: sort of always resonates with us. So you know, yeah,
- 34:12Speaker 6: I mean I think sometimes we kind of overrate championships
- 34:14Speaker 6: from that standpoint. Look, I mean, the Big Ten has
- 34:17Speaker 6: not had a national championship in college basketball since two
- 34:21Speaker 6: thousand when Michigan State did it. Michigan is making its
- 34:25Speaker 6: second trip to the national championship game since then, and
- 34:29Speaker 6: I think third to the Final four. They haven't won
- 34:32Speaker 6: a title since nineteen fifty two, So I mean, it
- 34:35Speaker 6: would obviously be significant from a Michigan standpoint. I can't
- 34:39Speaker 6: imagine there ever were a bunch of Michigan fans in
- 34:42Speaker 6: the state of Utah, but I'd imagine now they're probably
- 34:45Speaker 6: even less than there used to be because of the
- 34:48Speaker 6: Kyle Whittingham situation that hangs up. And look, I mean,
- 34:51Speaker 6: you know, if you know any Michigan fans, you know
- 34:55Speaker 6: within five minutes of meeting them that they'll let you
- 34:56Speaker 6: know that they went to Michigan. It's great pride, pride
- 35:00Speaker 6: of having their school, their academics and their athletics, and
- 35:03Speaker 6: so I mean it's you know, we think about these
- 35:06Speaker 6: things in terms of like, well, it's more of a
- 35:07Speaker 6: football school, and obviously it is. But Michigan tend is
- 35:10Speaker 6: good of a basketball program historically as anybody. And you know,
- 35:15Speaker 6: so I think they have as good a basketball fans,
- 35:18Speaker 6: you know, as there are now. They're not going to
- 35:20Speaker 6: fill up the arena in the same way they fill
- 35:22Speaker 6: up the Big House. But you know, I think the
- 35:25Speaker 6: bigger piece here is for the Big ten. I don't
- 35:27Speaker 6: know that it's that big of a deal for Michigan
- 35:28Speaker 6: other than again, their first titles is fifty two. But
- 35:31Speaker 6: I just think, you know, the fact that the Big
- 35:34Speaker 6: Ten has not won a national championship in basketball in
- 35:36Speaker 6: twenty since two thousand is kind of remarkable, and so
- 35:40Speaker 6: it's like a bigger deal there, especially when you look
- 35:43Speaker 6: at you know, the ACC the Big East have had
- 35:47Speaker 6: eight national championships in that same time period, so they've
- 35:50Speaker 6: really lagged behind. And you know, so now it's it's
- 35:54Speaker 6: they've taken over in football seemingly, and you know, this
- 35:57Speaker 6: would be a re emergency basketball because they've had tons
- 36:01Speaker 6: of trips to file four but haven't closed it out
- 36:04Speaker 6: since two thousand.
- 36:06Speaker 3: All right, Tim can our guests here on the Sean
- 36:08Speaker 3: O'Connell show, turning the attention back to the University of Arizona.
- 36:12Speaker 3: I mean, before they ended up with a disappointing weekend.
- 36:16Speaker 3: Heading into the weekend, we got a definitive answer on
- 36:19Speaker 3: Tommy Lloyd. He said, yeah, I'm not going to go
- 36:21Speaker 3: to North Carolina. I'm staying at the University of Arizona.
- 36:25Speaker 3: And it sounds like the school stepped up his assistant
- 36:27Speaker 3: pool salary pool for his assistants, and usually that comes
- 36:32Speaker 3: with an nil commitment and things like that as well.
- 36:35Speaker 3: So what does that mean for the Wildcats. He didn't
- 36:39Speaker 3: come through the way that a lot of us hoped
- 36:40Speaker 3: he would this year, But coming off the heels of
- 36:45Speaker 3: a loss like that, you also got the good news
- 36:47Speaker 3: that he ain't going anywhere.
- 36:49Speaker 6: Yeah, there's a couple of ways to unpack this OC.
- 36:51Speaker 6: So let's start with the Arizona side of things, and
- 36:55Speaker 6: that is, you know, there was clearly a disconnect between
- 36:58Speaker 6: you know, their athletic director at Dresrey Reid Francois and
- 37:02Speaker 6: the head coach and Tommy Lloyd, and so I think
- 37:04Speaker 6: that's where the wandering eyes came from. But it wasn't
- 37:07Speaker 6: you know, disingenuous. I mean, they UNC was coming after him,
- 37:11Speaker 6: and so it's obvious that he needed to clear up
- 37:15Speaker 6: the things that needed to be cleared up, you know,
- 37:18Speaker 6: internally for him to you know, not want that that
- 37:22Speaker 6: other job. But for me when it comes down to
- 37:25Speaker 6: like all these big jobs, and you know, Arizona is
- 37:29Speaker 6: blue blood as it gets without maybe being in North Carolina,
- 37:32Speaker 6: Duke Kansas blue blood, but still, I mean, Arizona is
- 37:36Speaker 6: as close there as anybody in terms of that. So obviously,
- 37:39Speaker 6: you know, presents a huge opportunity of a school that's
- 37:41Speaker 6: committed to basketball. So number one, he wants the Big three,
- 37:44Speaker 6: and that's what everybody wants, the Big three, which is
- 37:46Speaker 6: one money for yourself, two money for your sists, three
- 37:48Speaker 6: money for your players. So that had to be locked up.
- 37:52Speaker 6: And then maybe the most telling aspect of the you
- 37:56Speaker 6: know contract details would be the you know doesn't have
- 38:00Speaker 6: to report to the athletic director anymore. And again I
- 38:02Speaker 6: think that just speaks to the relationship that they had
- 38:05Speaker 6: or lack thereof. And you know, I don't know how
- 38:07Speaker 6: that gets.
- 38:07Speaker 5: Mad and leads along whoops.
- 38:12Speaker 6: But at least for you know, but at least for
- 38:14Speaker 6: Tommy's perspective, he gets what he wants and doesn't have
- 38:17Speaker 6: to deal with the very read France fall anymore. You
- 38:19Speaker 6: Know's what's really interesting to me, though I was seeing
- 38:21Speaker 6: all of this, is so the athletic at least this
- 38:24Speaker 6: article that came out over the weekend that said, you know,
- 38:27Speaker 6: the number one most sought after job, the best job
- 38:29Speaker 6: in college basketball America's duke and they basically surveyed fifty
- 38:32Speaker 6: one coaches, head coaches, assistant coaches in the Esmond ranked
- 38:35Speaker 6: their top five jobs, and so number one was Duke.
- 38:38Speaker 6: Number two is North Carolina, tied with Kentucky. Number three
- 38:41Speaker 6: was or four was Kansas, and so on and so forth.
- 38:45Speaker 6: I think Arizona was like sixth. Well, I mean, if
- 38:47Speaker 6: we go by this, it's interesting because North Carolina has
- 38:50Speaker 6: gone after Tommy Lloyd, and it seems like Dusty may
- 38:52Speaker 6: only for both of those guys to one take a
- 38:55Speaker 6: contract with Arizona and then two obviously Dusty may to
- 38:58Speaker 6: reaffirm his comimate to Michigan's. So sort of interesting how
- 39:01Speaker 6: that's viewed as one of the best jobs in America
- 39:03Speaker 6: and yet here's two guys with jobs that are not
- 39:06Speaker 6: viewed as highly as the North Carolina open job that
- 39:08Speaker 6: have you know, are not leaving for it. So I think,
- 39:11Speaker 6: like it just speaks to the reality of like, yeah,
- 39:13Speaker 6: some of the best jobs in America may be the
- 39:14Speaker 6: best jobs to like individuals, but not to everybody. Like
- 39:17Speaker 6: I'm sure John Shire Duke was his dream job, and
- 39:20Speaker 6: the same way that Bill Self's dream job was Kansas,
- 39:23Speaker 6: in the same way the Tommy Lloyd's dream job may
- 39:25Speaker 6: have always been Arizona. So you know, it's just really
- 39:29Speaker 6: interesting to me how this all shakes out when it
- 39:32Speaker 6: comes to these jobs that are open, how much they're
- 39:35Speaker 6: how they're viewed, you know, collectively by the public certainly,
- 39:38Speaker 6: and then you know, what would it take to get
- 39:40Speaker 6: those guys, And I think it's harder and harder to
- 39:41Speaker 6: get those guys to leave a Michigan or in Arizona
- 39:44Speaker 6: to go to some of these bluer bloods because you know,
- 39:47Speaker 6: they know what the skeletons are in the closets for
- 39:50Speaker 6: where they're at, and they know, you know, what they need,
- 39:54Speaker 6: you know, the devil they know because the devil they
- 39:56Speaker 6: don't know, and the things they don't know about those universities,
- 39:58Speaker 6: which I think make staying more active. So it's a
- 40:01Speaker 6: really dynamic. I think with Tommy, you know, having to
- 40:04Speaker 6: We'll see what happens with Desire Reid Francois, if she
- 40:06Speaker 6: sticks around or if there's a mutual party of ways
- 40:08Speaker 6: after this, because it feels like there's no coming back
- 40:10Speaker 6: from a guy that you know is a coach under you,
- 40:13Speaker 6: is no longer going to be working under you.
- 40:17Speaker 5: We saw a relatively similar situation.
- 40:20Speaker 3: It's a while ago now, but when UCLA had an
- 40:23Speaker 3: open job and they had to go down to their
- 40:25Speaker 3: fourth fifth, and I think it was reported that mc
- 40:28Speaker 3: cronin ended up being their sixth top choice. And you know,
- 40:31Speaker 3: he came in. It looked great for a while. I
- 40:34Speaker 3: don't know if people still think it looks great. He
- 40:37Speaker 3: certainly has a lot of things to say about the
- 40:39Speaker 3: state of college basketball. Are we are we entering that
- 40:43Speaker 3: kind of territory for North Carolina?
- 40:44Speaker 5: Do you think?
- 40:46Speaker 6: Well, look, I think I mean short answer, yes, you know,
- 40:50Speaker 6: I think very publicly they've been turned down by their
- 40:52Speaker 6: top two candidates. And again, I mean, if you're hiring
- 40:56Speaker 6: one of the best coaches in college basketball, then you know,
- 40:58Speaker 6: Tommy Lloyd and Dusty Mayor certainly that conversation. I mean,
- 41:01Speaker 6: we haven't heard about Danny Hurley, but it doesn't appear
- 41:03Speaker 6: he's willing to leave either. You know, there's been a
- 41:05Speaker 6: lot of smoke around Billy Donovan. In fact, kind of
- 41:08Speaker 6: the day that news broke about Hubert Davis, there was
- 41:10Speaker 6: also a story that broke that basically Donovan was potentially
- 41:13Speaker 6: looking to get out of Chicago. I don't think those
- 41:15Speaker 6: things are a coincidence. You know, it's funny because Donovan's
- 41:18Speaker 6: been gone from college basketball for a long time now,
- 41:20Speaker 6: and look, I still think he'd be a fantastic coach.
- 41:24Speaker 6: He's been a good NBA coach. He's just been on
- 41:25Speaker 6: a miserable franchise in the Chicago Bulls. But I do
- 41:31Speaker 6: think that that's where North Carolina wants to go. The
- 41:32Speaker 6: problem is they've had to wait around, and so it's
- 41:35Speaker 6: made it look even worse because they're waiting, I guess
- 41:38Speaker 6: for the bull to finish their season and for the
- 41:41Speaker 6: other shooter drop when it comes to that kind of stuff.
- 41:43Speaker 6: But it is just a weird dynamic to your point,
- 41:45Speaker 6: where it's like, very publicly, this program that is considered
- 41:49Speaker 6: to be one of the best jobs in America is
- 41:51Speaker 6: being turned down routinely by others. And again, I think
- 41:53Speaker 6: it's all about, you know, do you have the big three?
- 41:56Speaker 6: Do you have money for yourself, money for your coaches,
- 41:58Speaker 6: and then money you know for your coach pool, and
- 42:00Speaker 6: then money from an anile perspective, and then are you
- 42:02Speaker 6: aligned with your athletic director. I think if those four
- 42:05Speaker 6: things align, then there's probably no reason for you to go.
- 42:09Speaker 6: But if any of those four aren't, then there's a
- 42:11Speaker 6: good chance you would leave. And I think when you
- 42:13Speaker 6: look at the top of the sport, you know, there's
- 42:15Speaker 6: not much of a difference between you know, what you
- 42:17Speaker 6: have at your school versus what they have elsewhere, unless
- 42:20Speaker 6: you know, you're Chris Beard and you're at Texas Tech
- 42:22Speaker 6: but you're all the mater as Texas, or you're a
- 42:24Speaker 6: build self and you're at Illinois but the only job
- 42:26Speaker 6: you'd ever leave for is Kansas. Or you know, you're
- 42:29Speaker 6: a John Shire and you played under a coach k
- 42:31Speaker 6: and then coached under him, So you know, it feels
- 42:34Speaker 6: like again, some of these jobs that are viewed that
- 42:36Speaker 6: highly are more viewed highly by certain people, but not everybody.
- 42:39Speaker 6: And if it's the right job that you have currently
- 42:42Speaker 6: and your access to money, access to money for your coach,
- 42:44Speaker 6: is access to money for your players, you know, there's
- 42:47Speaker 6: not much of a difference at the top of the
- 42:48Speaker 6: sport between you know, what North Carolina and Duke are
- 42:52Speaker 6: doing from a money standpoint, and what you know, what
- 42:54Speaker 6: you've got at Texas Tech or anywhere else.
- 42:58Speaker 5: Before I let you go.
- 42:59Speaker 3: Right after we signed off on Friday, we got news that, look,
- 43:02Speaker 3: we don't have.
- 43:03Speaker 5: To worry about transfer portal anymore.
- 43:05Speaker 3: We don't have to worry about the mess of the
- 43:09Speaker 3: arms race in college sports because an executive order was
- 43:12Speaker 3: signed to save us from all of it.
- 43:15Speaker 5: Ari, I don't know what I was worried about.
- 43:19Speaker 6: You know, regardless of how you feel about the president,
- 43:23Speaker 6: there's a level of irony here because he's in some
- 43:26Speaker 6: ways reacting to a Supreme Court ruling, a unanimous ruling that,
- 43:31Speaker 6: like the main opinion of it was held by a
- 43:35Speaker 6: guy that was appointed to the Supreme Court by the
- 43:37Speaker 6: current president, as were multiple other Supreme Court justices that
- 43:41Speaker 6: ruled essentially against him in this way, I mean retroactively.
- 43:45Speaker 6: But there's just a level of riarty to that, right,
- 43:47Speaker 6: Like here are multiple Supreme Court justices all were appointed
- 43:51Speaker 6: to the Supreme Court by Donald Trump, and then now
- 43:54Speaker 6: all their opinions in a unanimous decision basically saying that
- 43:59Speaker 6: the NCAA was a monopoly. Now that opinion is being
- 44:04Speaker 6: sort of invalidated with the executive order by Trump. You know,
- 44:07Speaker 6: the executive orders, as much as I know about them,
- 44:10Speaker 6: basically just applied to government agencies, government entities, government entities,
- 44:14Speaker 6: and agencies that the president oversees. So I don't know
- 44:17Speaker 6: how the instable would fall, you know, under that. And
- 44:19Speaker 6: then on top of that, again if any of this
- 44:21Speaker 6: were to be enacted, I'm sure they would all sue
- 44:25Speaker 6: under the grounds of the Supreme Court justice ruling that Again, ironically,
- 44:28Speaker 6: many of the Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump voted
- 44:31Speaker 6: for so just a hilarious set of circumstances here. I
- 44:36Speaker 6: can't imagine he didn't think about that, or at least
- 44:39Speaker 6: was told by lawyers for him that of that irony, it.
- 44:44Speaker 5: Felt like an optics play.
- 44:45Speaker 3: But well, we'll see how it ends up, even though
- 44:48Speaker 3: I think we know.
- 44:50Speaker 6: One hundred percent of optics play. And then but again,
- 44:52Speaker 6: it's just funny to be like, but these are guys
- 44:54Speaker 6: you appointed, you appointed these justices.
- 44:59Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we can have a laugh about that
- 45:01Speaker 3: without getting too political of the show, because it's just like.
- 45:04Speaker 5: Did you forget right exactly.
- 45:07Speaker 3: It's like these guys are on your team, and then
- 45:08Speaker 3: you're just like, I'm going to overrule your decision, and
- 45:10Speaker 3: they're like you can't.
- 45:11Speaker 5: And then oh, tang it never mind.
- 45:15Speaker 6: Or maybe it's it's sort of funny because it you know,
- 45:18Speaker 6: those Supreme Court justices that he appointed, you know, politically
- 45:23Speaker 6: aligned with him politically, and yet this is the one
- 45:25Speaker 6: area where it feels like politically, he's you know, disingenuous
- 45:28Speaker 6: to his party and to the principles of the party,
- 45:30Speaker 6: you know, very non Republican for them to be anti
- 45:35Speaker 6: business in this sense. And you know, but yeah, there
- 45:38Speaker 6: you go.
- 45:39Speaker 3: Well, I don't know that it's going to be the
- 45:42Speaker 3: solution everyone wishes it was, but there we are.
- 45:45Speaker 6: That's yeah, alrighty, collectively they need to collectively bargainos. See,
- 45:50Speaker 6: that's it. That's that's what we need. We want it,
- 45:52Speaker 6: we need it. We just need to get it from
- 45:54Speaker 6: the instably.
- 45:55Speaker 5: That's yeah.
- 45:55Speaker 3: That's where we're at now. As tough as it is,
- 45:58Speaker 3: as self a pill. Is this that's what has to
- 46:01Speaker 3: happen or else the current state of things is either
- 46:04Speaker 3: going to continue or somehow possibly get worse, which I
- 46:07Speaker 3: don't want to see.
- 46:08Speaker 6: Yeah, no, you're right, and I would say more towards
- 46:11Speaker 6: getting worse than anything else, because Chiley isn't getting better.
- 46:16Speaker 3: You and I should have become sports attorneys because this
- 46:20Speaker 3: year would have been very kind to us.
- 46:22Speaker 6: You know, I always like to say I'm not a lawyer,
- 46:26Speaker 6: but sometimes I like to play one on the radio.
- 46:28Speaker 5: All Right, you're the man, appreciate your time. Thank you, sir.
- 46:31Speaker 6: Take care of I see if you well?
- 46:33Speaker 3: All right, Tampkin, He's awesome. Tune in Radio Big twelve today.
- 46:38Speaker 3: He is just an encyclopedia. I mean we spent five
- 46:42Speaker 3: minutes on Michigan there anyway, cannot say more about how great?
- 46:48Speaker 5: Could not say enough I should say about how great
- 46:50Speaker 5: are you?
- 46:50Speaker 7: Is?
- 46:50Speaker 5: All right? The hot launch is coming next.
- 46:52Speaker 3: We'll talk about the Executive Order and whether or not
- 46:55Speaker 3: anything actually changes because of its Utah is number one
- 46:59Speaker 3: sports stuck the Shan o'connon show on ESPN seven ninety FM.
- 47:14Speaker 1: As you were listening to a shan o'condo show for
- 47:16Speaker 1: the Murdock Hundi Studio of ESPN seven hundred and ninety
- 47:21Speaker 1: two one, A.
- 47:21Speaker 8: F M Hot Lunch today, brought to you by friends
- 47:36Speaker 8: over at Big Willie's seventeen seventeen, South Maine.
- 47:40Speaker 3: A sweet and hot chicken sandwich, grilled chicken sandwich with
- 47:45Speaker 3: bacon and Swiss cheese.
- 47:47Speaker 5: This thing is unbelievable.
- 47:50Speaker 3: They keep the lunch special under fifteen dollars every day,
- 47:55Speaker 3: perfectly crisp fries on the side, and of course a
- 47:58Speaker 3: fry sauce. Ask for an extra because you want to
- 48:01Speaker 3: be liberal with your fries Sauce Dipping seventeen seventeen South
- 48:06Speaker 3: May in the Hot Launch, brought to you by friends
- 48:07Speaker 3: over at Big Willie's. So this happened right after our
- 48:11Speaker 3: show went final. On Friday, President Trump signed an executive order,
- 48:15Speaker 3: the Urgent National Action to Save College Sports Dennan Ah
- 48:23Speaker 3: five year eligibility limits. Okay, so he and Tommy Tuberville
- 48:27Speaker 3: are in alignment there. One time transfer rule. He and
- 48:32Speaker 3: Tommy Tuberville are in alignment there. And by the way,
- 48:37Speaker 3: I don't know what your political leanings are. We can
- 48:39Speaker 3: make some guesses because you're in Utah. But whatever, I'm
- 48:43Speaker 3: not here to play any kind of political game. I
- 48:46Speaker 3: think that it's farcical and stupid, and rooting for a
- 48:49Speaker 3: political party that doesn't care about you is not any
- 48:53Speaker 3: more mature than rooting for a professional sports team that
- 48:57Speaker 3: doesn't care about you. But I understand why people do it.
- 48:59Speaker 3: Go ahead, fine, the one time transfer rule. Whether you
- 49:04Speaker 3: want to laugh at President Trump is signing an executive
- 49:07Speaker 3: order that doesn't actually change anything because lawyers and Supreme
- 49:10Speaker 3: courts have ultimate and final say in these types of things.
- 49:14Speaker 3: The one time transfer rule is a good rule. It
- 49:18Speaker 3: is something that we should consider and hopefully enact at
- 49:22Speaker 3: some point, whether through collective bargaining or whatever. It would
- 49:27Speaker 3: improve the career of most players, not all. It would
- 49:32Speaker 3: improve the situation you have right now.
- 49:34Speaker 5: With mobility in college sports.
- 49:38Speaker 3: It would make it easier for you to stay connected
- 49:41Speaker 3: and root for your franchise, root for your team. So
- 49:46Speaker 3: a lot of people either blindly support or laugh at,
- 49:50Speaker 3: and not a lot of middle ground anything that the
- 49:52Speaker 3: president does currently.
- 49:54Speaker 5: The one time transfer rule is a good rule.
- 49:56Speaker 3: Okay, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater if
- 49:59Speaker 3: you don't lie, Donald Trump.
- 50:01Speaker 5: That is a rule that we should be supporting right now.
- 50:04Speaker 3: Also includes protections for women's sports, and legal experts have
- 50:10Speaker 3: said that this exceeds presidential authority and will be challenged
- 50:14Speaker 3: in court, and that obviously is what's going to happen here.
- 50:17Speaker 3: But he signed it on April third, it is supposed
- 50:21Speaker 3: to become effective on August first, and it probably will
- 50:25Speaker 3: never actually see the light of day. There was a
- 50:28Speaker 3: lot of conversation, right he held that big roundtable meeting
- 50:31Speaker 3: that had way too many people at it, and no
- 50:34Speaker 3: real conversation could have actually taken roots. But the solution
- 50:40Speaker 3: that we just talked about with Ari Timkin is most
- 50:44Speaker 3: likely collective bargaining in college sports, and it feels icky
- 50:48Speaker 3: that we've gotten to that level because it's just at
- 50:50Speaker 3: that point professional sports attached to your university are loosely
- 50:54Speaker 3: attached to your university, or just licensing the brand name
- 50:57Speaker 3: of your university or whatever. But again, whether you like
- 51:04Speaker 3: Tommy Tuberville, or you like Donald Trump, or you like
- 51:11Speaker 3: fill in the blank on the other side of the aisle,
- 51:15Speaker 3: it's kind of irrelevant where the good idea comes from.
- 51:20Speaker 3: We need a good idea. We need one that will
- 51:25Speaker 3: quote unquote save college sports. The way that this one
- 51:30Speaker 3: is titled the gender identity politics stuff we will leave
- 51:35Speaker 3: for another day. But just the the wild and unfettered
- 51:43Speaker 3: nature that the free market took over college sports has
- 51:48Speaker 3: in a lot of ways compromised our interest, our passion,
- 51:53Speaker 3: our love as a nation for it. I don't want
- 51:57Speaker 3: the kids to get caps on their earning. I don't
- 52:00Speaker 3: want the kids to have their opportunities taken away. I
- 52:06Speaker 3: wanted to look more like real life. And you might
- 52:12Speaker 3: be saying, hey, well, hold on, you can change jobs
- 52:14Speaker 3: every year that you want in real life, and yes
- 52:16Speaker 3: you can, so you can. You can also change schools
- 52:19Speaker 3: every year that you want to in the current system,
- 52:24Speaker 3: but those birds come home to roost at some point
- 52:28Speaker 3: in your career if you do it too much. And
- 52:30Speaker 3: the same canon is and will be true in college sports.
- 52:36Speaker 3: You know we I was crowing loudly about how stupid
- 52:40Speaker 3: it was that NBA players or g League players were
- 52:44Speaker 3: going to be allowed back into college sports this year,
- 52:49Speaker 3: because again, there's no adults in the room, just like guys.
- 52:52Speaker 5: This is dumb that guy can't go from the pros
- 52:54Speaker 5: to college.
- 52:55Speaker 3: And guess what, none of those guys were impactful players
- 53:00Speaker 3: that came back, to my knowledge, not one certainly, not
- 53:04Speaker 3: the ones with any local attachment.
- 53:08Speaker 5: So what that was really about was just like bad.
- 53:11Speaker 3: Decisions being made along the way by the young people,
- 53:14Speaker 3: by the player, by their agent, by their parent, by whatever.
- 53:19Speaker 5: If there's anything we can do.
- 53:22Speaker 3: As a collective sports public, as the president of the
- 53:26Speaker 3: United States, as a senator government Congress, whoever, if there's
- 53:30Speaker 3: anything we can do to not enforce, not limit, but
- 53:36Speaker 3: to help the decision making processes of young people who
- 53:41Speaker 3: now have huge earning potential and opportunities and make it
- 53:46Speaker 3: some kind of reflection of positivity and some kind of
- 53:52Speaker 3: analogy to the real world. We should look for that,
- 53:57Speaker 3: and also collective bargaining in professional sports, since this is
- 54:01Speaker 3: becoming a professional sport. Collective bargaining makes it so you
- 54:05Speaker 3: don't have free, unfettered access to the open market as
- 54:09Speaker 3: a professional athlete. And every one of these dang kids
- 54:12Speaker 3: fancies themselves a professional athlete right now, so in their world,
- 54:19Speaker 3: the closest analogy, the closest thing to that, to that
- 54:21Speaker 3: real life scenario, is collective bargaining. Is a free market
- 54:29Speaker 3: that exists, but only within a very strict structure. Victor
- 54:35Speaker 3: weibin Yama can't just hiner transfer portal and leave the
- 54:39Speaker 3: San Antonio Spurs anytime he wants. He's got to wait,
- 54:44Speaker 3: he's got to play it by the rules. He's got
- 54:46Speaker 3: to go buy the book. Right now, there is no book.
- 54:50Speaker 3: We accept that book's existence in professional sports because the
- 54:53Speaker 3: athletes and their representatives and the teams and the owners
- 54:57Speaker 3: have all come together and figured out, all, right, this
- 55:00Speaker 3: this is the compromise we can all live with. There
- 55:02Speaker 3: is no compromise we can all live with right now.
- 55:04Speaker 3: In college sports, we have to get there at some point.
- 55:09Speaker 3: Maybe the president isn't the right guy to find that
- 55:12Speaker 3: maybe Tommy Tuberville isn't the right guy to find that
- 55:15Speaker 3: maybe AOC is not the right person to propose that.
- 55:18Speaker 3: I don't know who it's gonna be. Gavin Newsom, it's
- 55:21Speaker 3: not him. I don't know who it's gonna be. I
- 55:24Speaker 3: don't know when it's gonna be. I don't know how
- 55:25Speaker 3: it's going to be. But it has to be. If
- 55:28Speaker 3: we want college sports to look anything like the stuff
- 55:31Speaker 3: we grew up on, it just has to easy to
- 55:39Speaker 3: laugh at all. This isn't going to do anything. Easy
- 55:43Speaker 3: to laugh at any of the politicians that are trying
- 55:46Speaker 3: to do this performative thing and say, oh, I'm on
- 55:50Speaker 3: your side, sports fans, I'm gonna save this and.
- 55:52Speaker 5: We'll put those kids back in their price. It's very
- 55:55Speaker 5: easy to laugh at that.
- 55:57Speaker 3: If there is a genuine effort being made anywhere, and
- 56:00Speaker 3: this might not be yet, I'm using it as a
- 56:02Speaker 3: jumping off point, and Tommy Tuberville might not be it either,
- 56:05Speaker 3: But if there's a genuine effort being made, those people
- 56:08Speaker 3: should be supported. Those people should be applauded the genuine effort.
- 56:14Speaker 3: All Right, we're gonna take a break here. That's the
- 56:16Speaker 3: hot lunch. Everett Gray is gonna join us, former NBA player,
- 56:22Speaker 3: former UNLV running rebel from those early nineties Tarcanian teams.
- 56:26Speaker 3: You know, we were talking at the beginning of the
- 56:28Speaker 3: show about this Michigan basketball team and their dominance through
- 56:31Speaker 3: NCAA tournament so far and an opportunity to win a
- 56:34Speaker 3: national championship. Are they culturally iconic though the way the
- 56:39Speaker 3: Fab five was? Are they like those UNLV teams with
- 56:43Speaker 3: Grandma mon Stacy Agman and Everytt Gray was on those teams.
- 56:46Speaker 5: Maybe we'll get to that with him.
- 56:47Speaker 3: It's The Sean O'Connell Show on ESPN seven hundred ninety two.
- 56:51Speaker 1: Feeling out of the loop, Let's catch up on today's
- 56:57Speaker 1: biggest headlines. Said about daily news dump on the Shat
- 57:00Speaker 1: O'Connell Show, where we flush out the biggest stories of
- 57:04Speaker 1: the day on Utah's number one sports talk ESPN seven
- 57:08Speaker 1: hundred and ninety two. One alf Am brought to you
- 57:10Speaker 1: by Bally Plumbing.
- 57:11Speaker 5: Just look for the truck with the Duck.
- 57:26Speaker 3: Plumbing heating, air conditioning. Bally Plumbing can take care of
- 57:30Speaker 3: all of it. Go to Valley Plumbing dot com make
- 57:32Speaker 3: an appointment, get your air conditioner checked out. If you
- 57:35Speaker 3: still have an old swamp cooler, they can fix that
- 57:37Speaker 3: thing for you. Get on top of it early. The
- 57:41Speaker 3: weather is in that nice little Goldilocks zone right now.
- 57:44Speaker 3: You probably don't need a ton of furnace. You don't
- 57:46Speaker 3: need a ton of air conditioning just yet, but right
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- 58:03Speaker 3: be very annoying, very problematic. Valley plumbing. Look for the
- 58:08Speaker 3: truck with the duck, all right, the daily dump. How
- 58:14Speaker 3: about this, Angel Reese has been traded. The mee bounds
- 58:19Speaker 3: will now be happening in Atlanta. Angel Reese has obviously
- 58:25Speaker 3: become one of the most vocal, visible, interesting players in
- 58:30Speaker 3: WNBA basketball, and she is headed to Hot Lanta. Feels
- 58:36Speaker 3: like an excellent fit from a marketing standpoint, from a
- 58:40Speaker 3: put butts in the seat type standpoint, which, of course
- 58:43Speaker 3: you still have to worry about in the WNBA. But
- 58:46Speaker 3: James any thoughts on a deal that takes two first
- 58:51Speaker 3: round picks to Chicago and in return Atlanta gets Angel.
- 58:56Speaker 4: Reese just because you threw out the mee bounds. I
- 58:59Speaker 4: gotta I gotta chime into with me, bouncey. Maybe she'll
- 59:04Speaker 4: dream of making it on the first shot with the
- 59:06Speaker 4: Atlanta Dream. No, Uh, that was unnecessary. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
- 59:11Speaker 4: No fine, No, angel Uh, this is a this is
- 59:15Speaker 4: a significant deal. Like you said, she's one of the
- 59:18Speaker 4: more well known players in the w NBA because of
- 59:21Speaker 4: her rivalry with with Kaitlyn Clark. Going back to that
- 59:24Speaker 4: national championship at LSU, the first time Caitlyn Clark led
- 59:29Speaker 4: Iowa to the national championship game, which kind of called
- 59:33Speaker 4: back to your interview with Ari Tempkin. He said, in
- 59:37Speaker 4: some ways, national championships are overrated, and we were talking
- 59:43Speaker 4: about that in that we were we think of Chris
- 59:46Speaker 4: Weber and Jalen Rose and the rest of the Fab five.
- 59:48Speaker 4: When we think of Michigan basketball, even though that team,
- 59:51Speaker 4: though two years in a row, did not win national championships,
- 59:55Speaker 4: got really close but didn't win.
- 59:57Speaker 5: We and they have a national championship for years before that.
- 1:00:01Speaker 4: Right, when it comes to women's basketball recently, it's the
- 1:00:07Speaker 4: same kind of thing with those Caitlin Clark Iowa teams, right,
- 1:00:10Speaker 4: those neither of those teams won a national championship. They
- 1:00:13Speaker 4: got to the national championship game. But I don't know
- 1:00:16Speaker 4: how many people could tell you that LSU and South
- 1:00:18Speaker 4: Carolina won those championships and Angel Reese was on that
- 1:00:23Speaker 4: LSU team. But yeah, this is a big deal for
- 1:00:27Speaker 4: the WNBA. Hopefully good second start with the Atlanta tream
- 1:00:32Speaker 4: for Angel Rees.
- 1:00:33Speaker 3: Speaking of women's basketball, we have a new national champion
- 1:00:37Speaker 3: and UCLA women's basketball. How many how many national championships
- 1:00:42Speaker 3: as US UCLA women's basketball won. Wait, don't answer it, James,
- 1:00:47Speaker 3: because we're gonna use that question eight seven seven three
- 1:00:49Speaker 3: five three zero seven hundred to give away our first
- 1:00:52Speaker 3: round of golf in the Festival of Teas.
- 1:00:57Speaker 5: Powered by the Utah Golf Association.
- 1:00:59Speaker 3: Every ESPN seven hundred is giving away free rounds of
- 1:01:02Speaker 3: golf to the best courses in the state and even
- 1:01:05Speaker 3: beyond the state. Listen to me right here and spence
- 1:01:09Speaker 3: from two to six for your chance to win each day.
- 1:01:12Speaker 3: Details are also available at ESPN seven hundred sports dot com.
- 1:01:18Speaker 5: Lakeside.
- 1:01:18Speaker 3: We're gonna give away a free round to Lakeside, all right,
- 1:01:23Speaker 3: if you could tell me you know it's one at
- 1:01:26Speaker 3: least because UCLA beat South Carolina definitively nasty work. Don
- 1:01:34Speaker 3: Staley was very gracious in defeat after after some controversy
- 1:01:38Speaker 3: between her and Gino Arima in the final four game,
- 1:01:41Speaker 3: Corey close in UCLA women's basketball a twenty five point
- 1:01:45Speaker 3: victory in the national championship game.
- 1:01:47Speaker 5: They lost one game this year.
- 1:01:49Speaker 3: They are your new national champions in use in women's hoops.
- 1:01:55Speaker 3: In the history of its women's basketball program, how many
- 1:01:58Speaker 3: national championships have the UC Bruins won, not the men's side,
- 1:02:03Speaker 3: the women's side, eight seven seven three five three zero
- 1:02:06Speaker 3: seven hundred Gionaikins fifteen points by the way for the
- 1:02:09Speaker 3: Bruins in that game.
- 1:02:10Speaker 4: Former Utah women's basketball players excited for her to get
- 1:02:15Speaker 4: hurt get a national championship.
- 1:02:17Speaker 3: I mean, look, I don't know what the official stance
- 1:02:22Speaker 3: is supposed to be. When you're on the flagship home
- 1:02:25Speaker 3: of a certain team and you lose one of the
- 1:02:27Speaker 3: best players off that team and then they go on
- 1:02:30Speaker 3: to a new spot and they win a national championship.
- 1:02:33Speaker 3: For me, even though we don't like losing talents, even
- 1:02:38Speaker 3: though you don't want to see somebody like Gihonna Neipkin's
- 1:02:40Speaker 3: exit the program. Ever, man, you got to be happy
- 1:02:44Speaker 3: for someone to have it work out at that level
- 1:02:48Speaker 3: to where you contribute incredibly well. While you're in the uniform.
- 1:02:52Speaker 3: You're a great representative of the program. While you're in
- 1:02:54Speaker 3: the uniform, there's no controversy. On the exit, there's no
- 1:02:58Speaker 3: oh you got suspended, Oh you go you know this,
- 1:03:01Speaker 3: that or the other thing happened. You just decided that
- 1:03:06Speaker 3: it was time to move on. And when you do
- 1:03:08Speaker 3: move on, I'll be honest, there's a pettiness in me,
- 1:03:11Speaker 3: James that actually likes the fact and relish is the
- 1:03:14Speaker 3: fact that a lot of the people that have left
- 1:03:17Speaker 3: Utah Football, when they go to that new spot, it
- 1:03:21Speaker 3: doesn't work out the way they wanted it to. I
- 1:03:23Speaker 3: know that's an immature stance. I know that's a petty
- 1:03:26Speaker 3: and terrible way to be as a human being. I'm
- 1:03:28Speaker 3: not debating that. I'm not disputing that. I realize it's
- 1:03:31Speaker 3: a character flaw of mine. Especially someone who transferred out
- 1:03:36Speaker 3: of the program and had to go a little bit better.
- 1:03:37Speaker 3: You'd think I would be like a lot more reasonable
- 1:03:39Speaker 3: about this. No, I'm not that way. Okay, I'm a
- 1:03:42Speaker 3: bad person.
- 1:03:43Speaker 4: Unless they transfer to Weaver State and do well like
- 1:03:46Speaker 4: you did. Right, they were all about it. Well do
- 1:03:49Speaker 4: well is very wrong.
- 1:03:50Speaker 3: But in any case, Johonnaiepkin's left Utah women's basketball in
- 1:03:57Speaker 3: good standing, I would say, in my opinion, and she
- 1:04:00Speaker 3: went on to win a national championship. That is incredible.
- 1:04:04Speaker 3: That is the dream that I mean, every college athlete
- 1:04:08Speaker 3: I know. Now there's a lot more things, there's moving
- 1:04:10Speaker 3: parts to it. Yeah, you want a degree hopefully still
- 1:04:14Speaker 3: obviously you want nil opportunities.
- 1:04:16Speaker 5: You want as much money as you can.
- 1:04:18Speaker 3: In women's basketball, that's a little bit less of a
- 1:04:21Speaker 3: deal than in men's basketball and in football, but it's
- 1:04:24Speaker 3: still a deal.
- 1:04:24Speaker 5: Right. Those are driving decision making points.
- 1:04:30Speaker 3: But one of the things that you as a kid,
- 1:04:32Speaker 3: hope you could get a chance to do is to
- 1:04:34Speaker 3: win at the ultimate level, to win.
- 1:04:36Speaker 5: A national championship. Jonna Neepkins just did that.
- 1:04:39Speaker 3: That's incredible, And like you said, she had a good
- 1:04:42Speaker 3: game in doing it against a powerhouse program in South Carolina.
- 1:04:47Speaker 3: So no one gets to take that away from her.
- 1:04:49Speaker 3: For the rest of her life, forever, she will be
- 1:04:51Speaker 3: a member of a national championship team. She'll get that ring,
- 1:04:55Speaker 3: she'll be on that trophies like the etched name on
- 1:04:58Speaker 3: the trophy.
- 1:04:59Speaker 5: It's incredible. Good for her, Good for Corey Close.
- 1:05:02Speaker 3: By the way, I spent a lot of time talking
- 1:05:05Speaker 3: to Corey Close when I was doing Pack twelve radio.
- 1:05:07Speaker 3: The women's coaches in the Pac twelve and now the
- 1:05:10Speaker 3: ones that have come over to the Big twelve with Utah.
- 1:05:13Speaker 3: It's Ada Barnes and Corey Close and Tyr von Dervere
- 1:05:18Speaker 3: who ended up retiring, Like these women are just incredible coaches,
- 1:05:22Speaker 3: really really interesting human beings.
- 1:05:24Speaker 5: They love the game.
- 1:05:26Speaker 3: And now the women's game is also in some places
- 1:05:29Speaker 3: a revenue producing sports, so the calculus is changing a
- 1:05:32Speaker 3: little bit. But a lot of them got into it
- 1:05:35Speaker 3: when it was not anywhere near glamorous, when WNBA basketball
- 1:05:40Speaker 3: was not getting the attention like these I mean it was.
- 1:05:44Speaker 3: It's very much a love of the sport kind of thing.
- 1:05:46Speaker 3: And Corey Close is awesome. So congratulations to her in
- 1:05:49Speaker 3: UCLA women's basketball for winning a championship.
- 1:05:52Speaker 5: Close friends with Lynn Roberts.
- 1:05:53Speaker 4: By the way, now La Sparks coach, former Utah women's
- 1:05:57Speaker 4: basketball coach who was the one that brought Ga Neakins
- 1:06:01Speaker 4: here initially, So it made a lot of sense from
- 1:06:05Speaker 4: that perspective. Why if Gianna were to leave the programs,
- 1:06:08Speaker 4: she would go to UCLA, and like you said, worked
- 1:06:11Speaker 4: out for her. And I think that I think that
- 1:06:14Speaker 4: in Gianna's case less there's less reason to there's more
- 1:06:19Speaker 4: reason to kind of hold off that petty side of
- 1:06:21Speaker 4: you or other people because her coach did leave. Yeah,
- 1:06:25Speaker 4: and that happens all the time, and that that's something
- 1:06:28Speaker 4: that is one of those transfer situations that we for
- 1:06:32Speaker 4: a long time, we've been okay with. Well, the coach
- 1:06:35Speaker 4: that brought him there left, they can go ahead and
- 1:06:37Speaker 4: play somewhere else.
- 1:06:38Speaker 5: That's fine. That's that's what happened with Gihonaikins.
- 1:06:41Speaker 3: Also uh one of the top players in the National
- 1:06:44Speaker 3: Championship game and really throughout the tournament in the season
- 1:06:47Speaker 3: for UCLA. The sister of former Jazz man Heimi Hawkes.
- 1:06:52Speaker 3: Junior Gabriella Hawkz is the point guard for that UCLA
- 1:06:58Speaker 3: women's basketball team. Obvious, so her brother also played for UCLA.
- 1:07:02Speaker 3: But Gabriella Hakez big game, twenty one points, five assists
- 1:07:07Speaker 3: in this one.
- 1:07:07Speaker 4: Yeah, she did what her brother couldn't do but got
- 1:07:11Speaker 4: very close to doing at UCLA. Delivered a delivered to
- 1:07:16Speaker 4: national championship, but Can you imagine that you have you're
- 1:07:20Speaker 4: you're in the same family, and both of you played
- 1:07:22Speaker 4: in the final four. It's pretty cool. That's that's for
- 1:07:25Speaker 4: the same squash. That's pretty cool.
- 1:07:27Speaker 3: That would be a real twist to the knife thill
- 1:07:29Speaker 3: at every Thanksgiving when your little sister's got the ring
- 1:07:33Speaker 3: and you're like out there playing pickup hoops and she's
- 1:07:35Speaker 3: just like, yeah, where's your National Championship ring?
- 1:07:38Speaker 6: Hi?
- 1:07:38Speaker 4: May hey, Jaime, I forgot what happened when you went
- 1:07:41Speaker 4: to the final four.
- 1:07:43Speaker 5: Those kind of bragging rights must be brutal.
- 1:07:45Speaker 3: I'm lucky enough that in my family we are just
- 1:07:48Speaker 3: overall not successful in that regard, so I don't have
- 1:07:51Speaker 3: to worry about that, because that would just be that
- 1:07:53Speaker 3: would be really tough to have to swallow, to have
- 1:07:56Speaker 3: to deal with. I am not the type of person
- 1:07:58Speaker 3: who manages people having a real reason to talk trash.
- 1:08:03Speaker 5: Well.
- 1:08:04Speaker 3: We touched on this with Evert Gray, but I feel
- 1:08:06Speaker 3: like we're not doing a justice if we don't reiterate
- 1:08:10Speaker 3: that North Carolina has their new head coach, multiple sources reporting,
- 1:08:15Speaker 3: and his Wikipedia has already been changed, so you know
- 1:08:17Speaker 3: it's legit now.
- 1:08:19Speaker 5: They're so quick with that the Wikipedia editors.
- 1:08:21Speaker 3: I wonder if, like Pete Thamil, goes in and he
- 1:08:24Speaker 3: changes it.
- 1:08:25Speaker 5: He's like breaker that does.
- 1:08:26Speaker 3: It, breaking news betweets, and then he goes into whoever
- 1:08:30Speaker 3: that person's Wikipedia page is.
- 1:08:33Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, if I hadn't even thought of that before,
- 1:08:35Speaker 4: but if I were a big national news breaker in
- 1:08:38Speaker 4: a certain sport, I would absolutely do that.
- 1:08:41Speaker 5: He's so awesome, so awesome, it'd be so sweet. All right.
- 1:08:44Speaker 3: So Mike Malone, former Denver Nuggets head coach, is taking
- 1:08:49Speaker 3: over North Carolina's basketball program. Now this is interesting because
- 1:08:54Speaker 3: he has not been in college basketball since two thousand
- 1:08:58Speaker 3: and one.
- 1:08:59Speaker 5: What team was with? He was with Manhattan.
- 1:09:02Speaker 3: Okay, he has never really been with a big time
- 1:09:05Speaker 3: college basketball program, and he's never been a head coach
- 1:09:07Speaker 3: in college basketball.
- 1:09:08Speaker 4: I believe we're gonna have to double check, but I
- 1:09:11Speaker 4: believe Gordy Chia is also a former Manhattan assistant coach
- 1:09:15Speaker 4: at one point, or at least well knows a lot
- 1:09:17Speaker 4: of those guys, James, you and I are our brains
- 1:09:21Speaker 4: sometimes go the same place.
- 1:09:23Speaker 3: Because I looked up Mike Malone's coaching resume right and
- 1:09:29Speaker 3: he was at friends school of Baltimore, which none.
- 1:09:31Speaker 4: Of us have ever heard of, but I'm sure Gordy has.
- 1:09:34Speaker 4: There's a lot of friends there. It sounds like.
- 1:09:36Speaker 3: Then he was at Oakland, the Oakland Golden Grizzlies, Oakland
- 1:09:41Speaker 3: in Michigan.
- 1:09:41Speaker 5: In Michigan. When you think Oakland, you think Michigan.
- 1:09:46Speaker 3: Obviously, you don't think athletics, you don't think Raiders, you
- 1:09:50Speaker 3: think Golden Grizzlies. Okay, he was an assistant there ninety
- 1:09:54Speaker 3: four ninety five. And then this is where the Gordy chiers.
- 1:09:57Speaker 3: This stuff really comes in Providence assistant ninety five to
- 1:10:01Speaker 3: ninety eight, Manhattan assistant ninety nine to two thousand and one,
- 1:10:05Speaker 3: and then he got an assistant coaching job with the
- 1:10:08Speaker 3: New York Knicks, than Cleveland Cavaliers, then the Hornets, then
- 1:10:11Speaker 3: the Warriors, head coach of the Sacramento Kings thirteen to fourteen,
- 1:10:16Speaker 3: head coach of the Denver Nuggets twenty fifteen to twenty
- 1:10:20Speaker 3: twenty five, and now after twenty five years, he's going
- 1:10:25Speaker 3: back to college basketball, taking over a North Carolina program.
- 1:10:29Speaker 5: His name was nowhere near any of the lists that
- 1:10:32Speaker 5: I ever saw.
- 1:10:34Speaker 3: I did not see or hear a mention until it
- 1:10:37Speaker 3: was breaking news Mike Malone's being. It was always Billy
- 1:10:40Speaker 3: Donovan was the guy.
- 1:10:41Speaker 5: Yeah, I heard it.
- 1:10:43Speaker 4: I heard it right at the beginning, but it did
- 1:10:45Speaker 4: seem very it was buried under Tommy Lloyd and Billy
- 1:10:49Speaker 4: Donovan and Dusty May et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, I
- 1:10:57Speaker 4: he had for me. He had become an afterthought in
- 1:11:00Speaker 4: this national search. I went, oh, yeah, he was initially
- 1:11:04Speaker 4: on some of those lists.
- 1:11:06Speaker 5: I'm not sure that.
- 1:11:09Speaker 4: I'm not sure how much I love it for Carolina
- 1:11:12Speaker 4: because one, it's been forever since he's been in college basketball,
- 1:11:17Speaker 4: to college basketball has changed. Even if it had been
- 1:11:21Speaker 4: only five years, college basketball has changed so much. I
- 1:11:24Speaker 4: just I'll believe he'll be He'll be great at Carolina
- 1:11:27Speaker 4: when I see it.
- 1:11:28Speaker 3: I guess, Okay, do we know how his relationship with
- 1:11:33Speaker 3: with Yo Kicic's at this point, because remember there was
- 1:11:38Speaker 3: like some falling out there which led to his firing.
- 1:11:40Speaker 3: There was like an interesting situation where it was like, hey,
- 1:11:45Speaker 3: when did you find out that they were firing him?
- 1:11:47Speaker 3: And he was just like I found out when everyone
- 1:11:48Speaker 3: else found out, and everyone was just like, we don't
- 1:11:51Speaker 3: believe that because you're the star of this team. Nothing's
- 1:11:54Speaker 3: gonna happen without you being informed and basically signing off
- 1:11:58Speaker 3: on it.
- 1:11:58Speaker 5: And he was just like, I don't know what you mean.
- 1:12:01Speaker 3: And then they did a little bit more reporting and
- 1:12:02Speaker 3: it seemed like there'd been a fracture at some point
- 1:12:05Speaker 3: in a relationship that at one time it had been very,
- 1:12:07Speaker 3: very good. That is, to me an interesting point here
- 1:12:12Speaker 3: for North Carolina because if Mike Malone and the Joker
- 1:12:16Speaker 3: are still on good terms, now you've got this entire
- 1:12:19Speaker 3: Eastern European pipeline opening up in a way that I mean,
- 1:12:23Speaker 3: obviously North Carolina gets access to a lot of places,
- 1:12:26Speaker 3: but you could have a lot more of a preferential treatment,
- 1:12:30Speaker 3: especially in Serbia where you're getting a ton of talent.
- 1:12:35Speaker 3: The opposite can also be true if you're not on
- 1:12:39Speaker 3: good standing with Jokic. He's the type of guy that
- 1:12:43Speaker 3: might just be like, no, don't go to North Carolina.
- 1:12:47Speaker 3: Anyone who's ever heard of anyone that I've ever played
- 1:12:50Speaker 3: with or coach with, don't go to North Carolina.
- 1:12:52Speaker 5: You're not gonna like that guy.
- 1:12:53Speaker 4: He might just campaign is Sidekicks School Kentucky. Jamal Murray
- 1:12:58Speaker 4: from Kentucky be like, yeah, just go to k I
- 1:13:01Speaker 4: don't suck, you know, like yeah that like.
- 1:13:04Speaker 5: How spiteful is the relationship?
- 1:13:06Speaker 3: Is he just gonna be like every time he goes
- 1:13:08Speaker 3: in does a camp in Serbia.
- 1:13:10Speaker 5: Kid is gonna be like all of you go to Duke.
- 1:13:14Speaker 5: That would suck. That would Mike Malone, that would suck.
- 1:13:18Speaker 4: I the other thing about Michael Malone that I can't
- 1:13:22Speaker 4: decide if it'll work better, if it means it'll work
- 1:13:25Speaker 4: better for him in college that it did in the NBA,
- 1:13:27Speaker 4: which by the way, won an NBA championship, very successful
- 1:13:30Speaker 4: when he a coach and it's time, But I can't
- 1:13:33Speaker 4: decide if his fiery, intense gonna only stick with the guys,
- 1:13:42Speaker 4: that only gonna stick with the veterans I can trust
- 1:13:45Speaker 4: and in the lineup kind of mentality that was ultimately
- 1:13:49Speaker 4: his downfall with his players and his ownership and the
- 1:13:53Speaker 4: ownership group in Denver. I can't decide if that's gonna
- 1:13:58Speaker 4: work work better in college than it did at the
- 1:14:01Speaker 4: end of his time in Denver. Because, on the one hand,
- 1:14:05Speaker 4: Tom Izzo, Danny Hurley, Bill self, so many coaches in
- 1:14:10Speaker 4: college are that, so many successful coaches, national championship coaches
- 1:14:15Speaker 4: are you know, master general, I'm gonna berate you every
- 1:14:21Speaker 4: time you make a mistake, or I'm gonna be super
- 1:14:24Speaker 4: intense and I'm only gonna trust the guys that I trust.
- 1:14:26Speaker 4: Kind of thing that works in college like it doesn't
- 1:14:29Speaker 4: work in the NBA a lot of times. But also
- 1:14:32Speaker 4: this new era of college basketball, the player thinks that
- 1:14:34Speaker 4: they're all that is it just gonna turn these is
- 1:14:38Speaker 4: it gonna turn those guys off, and they're gonna not.
- 1:14:40Speaker 5: They're gonna tune you out quicker because of that, I
- 1:14:43Speaker 5: don't know.
- 1:14:45Speaker 4: That's why I say I might have to wait and
- 1:14:48Speaker 4: see before I believe he can be successful at Carolina.
- 1:14:52Speaker 3: Mike Malone being hired as the next basketball coach at
- 1:14:56Speaker 3: the University of North Carolina.
- 1:15:00Speaker 5: We'll see how it plays out. I asked this to
- 1:15:02Speaker 5: Everick Gray.
- 1:15:04Speaker 3: I mean, there's a case you could make that with
- 1:15:06Speaker 3: the professionalization of college hoops and college football, in college
- 1:15:11Speaker 3: every sport, maybe coaches with pro experience are going to
- 1:15:18Speaker 3: have an easier time transitioning back or forth. Maybe because
- 1:15:23Speaker 3: you're dealing with pro athletes in college. Now when you
- 1:15:25Speaker 3: go to the pros, you're just like, yeah, I've already
- 1:15:27Speaker 3: dealt with a bunch of pros. We just didn't pay
- 1:15:29Speaker 3: quite as much, and we didn't have collective bargaining, and
- 1:15:32Speaker 3: we had to talk to their moms.
- 1:15:35Speaker 5: When you're in the NBA, you don't probably have to
- 1:15:37Speaker 5: do that.
- 1:15:39Speaker 3: Going back from NBA basketball to college basketball, I imagine, is
- 1:15:44Speaker 3: less of a transition than it was ten years ago,
- 1:15:47Speaker 3: because you're talking about payroll, you're talking about salary cap,
- 1:15:51Speaker 3: you're talking about, Hey, well, this guy's paid three million bucks.
- 1:15:54Speaker 3: We got to get the most out of them. That
- 1:15:55Speaker 3: stuff happens in the NBA, right this guy's on a
- 1:15:58Speaker 3: big salary.
- 1:15:59Speaker 5: You better figure out out. It's not an owner saying
- 1:16:03Speaker 5: that to you.
- 1:16:03Speaker 3: It's the university president tour, it's the board of chancellor's
- 1:16:07Speaker 3: guy or whatever. But good luck to Mike Malone in
- 1:16:10Speaker 3: North Carolina. And when I say that, I mostly mean like,
- 1:16:12Speaker 3: I don't care. It's not like I want North Carolina
- 1:16:15Speaker 3: to be good?
- 1:16:15Speaker 4: Should we do? What should we do with the guys
- 1:16:18Speaker 4: down south? Do with North Carolina? Because now they've got
- 1:16:21Speaker 4: a former NBA coach, recent NBA coach, NBA champion coach
- 1:16:26Speaker 4: and for the men's basketball team, and a recent Super
- 1:16:31Speaker 4: Bowl champion coach for their football team. Should we do it? It's
- 1:16:35Speaker 4: pro vo, right, is it?
- 1:16:37Speaker 5: PRU and C. I don't know. I don't know.
- 1:16:40Speaker 3: I don't know if we're gonna do that pro unk.
- 1:16:43Speaker 3: Oh man uh Luca. It was a bummer to see
- 1:16:47Speaker 3: this over the weekend. Luca with a Grade two left
- 1:16:50Speaker 3: hamstring strain that you don't you don't see a ton
- 1:16:56Speaker 3: of it where a guy can't play through the play.
- 1:17:00Speaker 3: I can't finish out the play on a hamstring. You know,
- 1:17:06Speaker 3: when somebody in football really messes up the hamstring, you'll
- 1:17:10Speaker 3: see him go down. Maybe that's football. In basketball, when
- 1:17:16Speaker 3: somebody has like a like they usually can like pass
- 1:17:18Speaker 3: the ball off and then they start limping around.
- 1:17:21Speaker 5: Luca just lost his dribble.
- 1:17:23Speaker 3: It's just like that thing just tweaked, cramped, gnarled up
- 1:17:28Speaker 3: on him and he was ah.
- 1:17:30Speaker 5: Ah, I just started limping around instantly. So pretty severe.
- 1:17:35Speaker 3: Or maybe he just doesn't have a high pain tolerance
- 1:17:37Speaker 3: for hamstring related things. But he is going to fly
- 1:17:42Speaker 3: to Europe to seek specialized treatment on a grade two
- 1:17:45Speaker 3: left hamstring string.
- 1:17:47Speaker 4: He wants obviously feels like he can he can be
- 1:17:51Speaker 4: back for the playoffs. That is very much in doubt. Though,
- 1:17:55Speaker 4: especially because without Luka Doncic, are you getting past the
- 1:18:00Speaker 4: first round?
- 1:18:01Speaker 5: The playoffs might not be very long.
- 1:18:04Speaker 3: Reeves is out with a Grade two oblique injury. So
- 1:18:07Speaker 3: now it's the Lebron James show. And look, if your
- 1:18:11Speaker 3: third option is Lebron James, you're doing.
- 1:18:13Speaker 5: All right, doing a great spot, but it's a really
- 1:18:15Speaker 5: tough Western Conference playoff picture. I don't know.
- 1:18:21Speaker 3: Luke obviously does, like you said, want to get back
- 1:18:23Speaker 3: for the playoffs.
- 1:18:25Speaker 5: Reeves same way.
- 1:18:26Speaker 4: But like like I said, these guys, if you're gonna
- 1:18:28Speaker 4: be back for the playoffs, you might have to get
- 1:18:30Speaker 4: back sooner than you think.
- 1:18:31Speaker 5: You soon than you think, cuz I don't know.
- 1:18:34Speaker 4: Like they're in the three spot right now, they have
- 1:18:37Speaker 4: a chance to fall as low as fifth before the
- 1:18:41Speaker 4: end of the season. If they stay third, somehow they're
- 1:18:46Speaker 4: gonna have They're gonna have a rematch with the t Wolves,
- 1:18:48Speaker 4: who beat them in five games last year, and they
- 1:18:51Speaker 4: had all three of those guys available in five in
- 1:18:54Speaker 4: their five game Gentlemen sweep last year. And DeAndre Ayton,
- 1:18:58Speaker 4: news flash, not been the upgrade at center to their
- 1:19:01Speaker 4: no center rotation last year. Right, So I I don't
- 1:19:06Speaker 4: feel good about the Lakers making it out of the
- 1:19:08Speaker 4: first making it make it long enough before those guys
- 1:19:11Speaker 4: can come back and play.
- 1:19:12Speaker 3: Also, I know we've got, you know, a bunch of
- 1:19:16Speaker 3: medical connections. University of Utah is a wonderful medical school,
- 1:19:21Speaker 3: and there's great orthopedic programs up there and stuff. But
- 1:19:25Speaker 3: hamstring doctors, what are we doing here in America? You're
- 1:19:29Speaker 3: telling me that a star basketball player for the Los
- 1:19:33Speaker 3: Angeles Lakers would rather go seek treatment in Europe than
- 1:19:38Speaker 3: have an American doctor fixing his hamstring.
- 1:19:40Speaker 5: We're supposed to be the best at all of this stuff.
- 1:19:43Speaker 5: Why does he go to Europe?
- 1:19:45Speaker 3: I know he's European, maybe just using it as an
- 1:19:48Speaker 3: excuse to go home, but he's not. He's not Nikola Jokic,
- 1:19:52Speaker 3: He's Luka Doncic. He's not the guy who's always just like,
- 1:19:55Speaker 3: let me get home and watch my horses. What are
- 1:19:58Speaker 3: we doing hamstring doctors? Eight seven seven three five three
- 1:20:01Speaker 3: zero seven hundred. If you're a hamstring doctor, explain to
- 1:20:04Speaker 3: me why your field is suffering and lagging behind the Europeans.
- 1:20:11Speaker 5: Do we have actual hamstring doctors?
- 1:20:13Speaker 3: By the way, that they only work on hamstring, Like
- 1:20:16Speaker 3: there's you know like an odo laryngologist is the ear
- 1:20:19Speaker 3: nose and throat doctor. Do we have a special term
- 1:20:23Speaker 3: for hamstrings only? Hamstringologist?
- 1:20:27Speaker 4: Hamstringologists? I would like to know tig thread ologist. Okay,
- 1:20:34Speaker 4: don't do bad, all right.
- 1:20:37Speaker 3: That's the daily Dot brought to you by a friends
- 1:20:39Speaker 3: over at Valley Plumbing.
- 1:20:40Speaker 5: Look for the truck with the duck. Lots more left
- 1:20:43Speaker 5: to get to here.
- 1:20:44Speaker 3: On the Sean O'Connell Show, we're gonna talk about the
- 1:20:48Speaker 3: NBA tank race.
- 1:20:49Speaker 4: There's an update of him some import, huge, huge development
- 1:20:53Speaker 4: in the tank race, so see.
- 1:20:57Speaker 3: And a reminder that for the latest spring football coverage
- 1:21:00Speaker 3: ESPN seven hundred sports dot com. Spring Football is brought
- 1:21:04Speaker 3: to you by Big Willie's Game Day, Men's Health, Burger Fusion,
- 1:21:08Speaker 3: Valley Plumbing, Heating and Cooling, and Mountain Home Services, a
- 1:21:13Speaker 3: Tank Grace update, and then Tom Callahan. It's the Sean
- 1:21:16Speaker 3: O'Connell Show on ESPN seven ninem.
- 1:21:27Speaker 1: By Utah Jazz are at a waste to the bottom
- 1:21:30Speaker 1: of the NBA. It's tied to check in on the
- 1:21:33Speaker 1: Utah Jazz and the NBA's tank rates.
- 1:21:52Speaker 3: I'm just enjoying the pulp of music as we come
- 1:21:54Speaker 3: back in here on the Sean O'Connell show, Tank Grace Updates,
- 1:21:58Speaker 3: and then we'll take a look at the Utah Mammoth
- 1:22:01Speaker 3: with Mammoth insider Tom Callahan. To start off our number three, James,
- 1:22:06Speaker 3: what's the latest in the tank race for the Utah Jazz.
- 1:22:09Speaker 5: Oh see, it's happening the Kings. One.
- 1:22:14Speaker 4: On Friday, one seventeen to one thirteen, they beat the Pelicans,
- 1:22:18Speaker 4: which means the Jazz are tied for the fourth worst
- 1:22:23Speaker 4: record in the NBA, which, as I've been telling you,
- 1:22:27Speaker 4: is the only way that they guarantee keeping.
- 1:22:30Speaker 5: Their first round pick this year.
- 1:22:32Speaker 4: They have the exact same record as the Sacramento Kings
- 1:22:36Speaker 4: for the fourth worst record in the league, the lowest.
- 1:22:38Speaker 4: If this holds up, and I think there's like coin
- 1:22:41Speaker 4: toss tiebreakers that the league does, this holds up, you
- 1:22:45Speaker 4: get some luck there. You will not be losing your
- 1:22:48Speaker 4: first round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
- 1:22:50Speaker 5: So let's go Kings.
- 1:22:53Speaker 3: Now.
- 1:22:53Speaker 5: They beat the Pelicans.
- 1:22:54Speaker 4: They did lose their next game to the Clippers, but
- 1:22:57Speaker 4: Jazz lost their two games over the weekend, and so yeah,
- 1:23:01Speaker 4: tie for fourth there. And I'm not even gonna go
- 1:23:03Speaker 4: through any of the other teams because it doesn't matter
- 1:23:06Speaker 4: that much. I'm just gonna give you the remaining schedule
- 1:23:10Speaker 4: for the Jazz and the Kings. Three games left for
- 1:23:13Speaker 4: each of them, all right, one more, one more for
- 1:23:15Speaker 4: the Jazz at home, one more for the Jazz at home.
- 1:23:18Speaker 4: That's gonna be Friday night. But before that, on Tomorrow night,
- 1:23:21Speaker 4: they are at New Orleans. That's the team that the
- 1:23:23Speaker 4: Kings just beat. So that's unfortunately a very winnable game
- 1:23:27Speaker 4: for the Jazz. Pelicans aren't good at all. The home
- 1:23:30Speaker 4: game on Friday is against the Grizzlies Jaron Jackson Junior
- 1:23:34Speaker 4: Tray j revenge game from the bench for trade j uh.
- 1:23:39Speaker 4: That one also, unfortunately very winnable for the Jazz, especially
- 1:23:43Speaker 4: because it's at home. Sunday is the season finale is
- 1:23:46Speaker 4: and next Sunday is the season finale. I'm sorry that
- 1:23:50Speaker 4: would be this coming Sunday, the twelfth against the Lakers,
- 1:23:54Speaker 4: and that didn't seem very winnable.
- 1:23:56Speaker 5: But as as we.
- 1:23:57Speaker 4: Detailed in the Day we dump at the end there
- 1:24:00Speaker 4: ohc a few minutes ago, Luca's out and probably for
- 1:24:04Speaker 4: the rest of the season, maybe gets back before the
- 1:24:06Speaker 4: Lakers eliminated in the playoffs.
- 1:24:08Speaker 5: Austin Reeves. Same deal.
- 1:24:12Speaker 4: Lebron is still there and they still have something. They
- 1:24:16Speaker 4: still probably have something to play for trying to keep
- 1:24:19Speaker 4: trying to hold on that three seed. But that's unfortunately
- 1:24:24Speaker 4: a much more winnable game than we thought it would be.
- 1:24:27Speaker 4: That's the season finale. It is in LA.
- 1:24:31Speaker 5: For the Kings, they play the.
- 1:24:33Speaker 4: Warriors twice tomorrow in San Francisco at Chase Center.
- 1:24:38Speaker 5: Steph is back, so that's good news for the tank race.
- 1:24:41Speaker 4: That was a lot more winnable before Steph came back
- 1:24:44Speaker 4: in the loss of the Rockets last night. For the Warriors,
- 1:24:47Speaker 4: they're at home. Their final home game is also on
- 1:24:49Speaker 4: Friday against the Warriors, and then Sunday, the season finale
- 1:24:53Speaker 4: is at Portland. And Portland's not like one of the
- 1:24:57Speaker 4: best team, They're not championship contended, but that's a team
- 1:25:00Speaker 4: that's gonna be in the play in and still has
- 1:25:02Speaker 4: something to play for, so that those are gonna be
- 1:25:06Speaker 4: some Those are some tough games for Sacramento to win.
- 1:25:11Speaker 4: Jazz have. Jazz have a lot easier schedule. So anyway,
- 1:25:16Speaker 4: I need one more win from the Kings and the
- 1:25:19Speaker 4: Jazz got to lose out then they're securely in fourth.
- 1:25:22Speaker 4: But even if they both lose out, they tied for fourth.
- 1:25:25Speaker 4: Used to is you still got a shot at the
- 1:25:28Speaker 4: fourth best odds, which of course means you keep your pick.
- 1:25:31Speaker 5: So there you go. All right, that's your tank race update.
- 1:25:34Speaker 3: So the Jazz doing a relatively successful job of racing
- 1:25:40Speaker 3: toward the bottom.
- 1:25:41Speaker 5: Well done, Jazz.
- 1:25:42Speaker 3: You know what's so wild about this is we've spent
- 1:25:44Speaker 3: you and I two years, but the entire market like
- 1:25:47Speaker 3: four years now, kind of following the demise to decline
- 1:25:52Speaker 3: the this exact type of thing, and you got to
- 1:25:56Speaker 3: put a little lipstick on the pig. So you grab
- 1:25:59Speaker 3: some funny music and you make it a tank race
- 1:26:03Speaker 3: in what five months? Six months, we're gonna be like, okay, Jazz, now.
- 1:26:10Speaker 5: Try to make the playoffs. That is pretty bananas, but.
- 1:26:14Speaker 4: It's exciting and we're now gonna be disappointed every time
- 1:26:18Speaker 4: they lose.
- 1:26:19Speaker 5: And now every time they lose, what what are you doing?
- 1:26:23Speaker 5: How could you lose with this roster?
- 1:26:25Speaker 4: Come on when it's like, yeah, now we're saying basically
- 1:26:30Speaker 4: the same roster.
- 1:26:31Speaker 5: Obviously guys out injured. How can you lose with Keyante
- 1:26:35Speaker 5: George as your leading scorer? How dare you? Man?
- 1:26:40Speaker 3: Sports fandom is a weird thing, all right? That's your tank,
- 1:26:44Speaker 3: race updape. Our Number three begins next with Tom Callahan
- 1:26:49Speaker 3: and a blistering hot Utah Mammoth team, also nearing the
- 1:26:53Speaker 3: end of their regular season and firmly in the first
- 1:26:58Speaker 3: wild card position.
- 1:27:00Speaker 5: Jump any higher?
- 1:27:01Speaker 3: Is there real danger of them dropping lower and having
- 1:27:03Speaker 3: a really tough first round matchup. We'll get to all
- 1:27:06Speaker 3: of it with Tom Callahan next on The Sean O'Connell
- 1:27:08Speaker 3: Show ESPN seven hundred ninety two one FM.
- 1:27:16Speaker 1: You were listening to the Sean O'Connell Show, your source
- 1:27:19Speaker 1: for the best US football couple. Here's oc from the
- 1:27:22Speaker 1: Murdoch Hundai Studio of ESPN seven hundred that ninety two
- 1:27:26Speaker 1: to one a half.
- 1:27:27Speaker 7: Am.
- 1:27:34Speaker 5: Welcome to our number three.
- 1:27:36Speaker 3: Welcome in Tom Callahan, Utah Mammoth inside our host of
- 1:27:39Speaker 3: Locked On Mammoth, Friend of the program, Tom, welcome back.
- 1:27:43Speaker 5: How are you, sir?
- 1:27:45Speaker 6: Uh? You know what?
- 1:27:46Speaker 7: I'm getting excited? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me back.
- 1:27:48Speaker 7: But man, we're creeping right up on playoffs here, and
- 1:27:51Speaker 7: it's it's hard not to have your little puppy tail wagon.
- 1:27:55Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an exciting time for hockey fans in Utah,
- 1:27:58Speaker 3: for Mammoth fans in Utah, and right now this team
- 1:28:02Speaker 3: is blistering hot, three games in a row, scoring at
- 1:28:06Speaker 3: least six goals, coming off with Clayton Keller hat trick.
- 1:28:10Speaker 3: Is it's cliche to say, is this the best hockey
- 1:28:14Speaker 3: we've seen this team play? But how close to the
- 1:28:16Speaker 3: best version of the Utah Mammoth have we seen in
- 1:28:18Speaker 3: the last three games.
- 1:28:20Speaker 7: Well, certainly offensively, they are clicking and it's great to see.
- 1:28:25Speaker 7: It's very exciting. One of the little, you know, factors
- 1:28:28Speaker 7: inside of this has been the fact that I think
- 1:28:31Speaker 7: the power play has been a lot better. And that
- 1:28:33Speaker 7: was something that you know, we've talked about all year
- 1:28:36Speaker 7: long about special teams needing to be better. They really
- 1:28:39Speaker 7: needed to pick it up in that department. And boy,
- 1:28:42Speaker 7: the power play when when that's clicking, and even here's
- 1:28:45Speaker 7: the thing, it may not score you the deciding goal
- 1:28:48Speaker 7: in a game, but when it gets you a goal,
- 1:28:50Speaker 7: when it gets you maybe two goals, especially other teams
- 1:28:53Speaker 7: take note because now they have to stay out of
- 1:28:56Speaker 7: the box. Now they're thinking about it. And I think
- 1:28:58Speaker 7: that that has been a big part of the resurgence
- 1:29:00Speaker 7: here offensively, scoring on special teams is so huge and
- 1:29:04Speaker 7: you just you can't understate what it means right now.
- 1:29:09Speaker 3: Clayton Keller has been quiet at times overstretches this season.
- 1:29:15Speaker 3: What does a hat trick do for him and for
- 1:29:17Speaker 3: this team who obviously in some ways goes the way
- 1:29:20Speaker 3: of their captain.
- 1:29:23Speaker 7: You know, you look at the season he's had. It's
- 1:29:25Speaker 7: been an emotional roller coaster for Clayton Keller, and I
- 1:29:30Speaker 7: think that a lot of players dial their focus in
- 1:29:34Speaker 7: more and more the closer they get to the postseason.
- 1:29:38Speaker 7: Keep in mind, this is a fairly new thing for
- 1:29:40Speaker 7: this franchise. Yes, they have some guys, and they brought
- 1:29:42Speaker 7: in that Stanley Cup winning DNA, right, They've made trades
- 1:29:46Speaker 7: or free agent signings with the intent of, you know,
- 1:29:50Speaker 7: talking about this is how we're going to win, this
- 1:29:52Speaker 7: is what it takes to win a championship. We want
- 1:29:55Speaker 7: to learn these lessons from these players. But the core
- 1:29:57Speaker 7: leaders are a lot of drafted and or long time
- 1:30:01Speaker 7: acquisitions who haven't had that taste of experience. And so
- 1:30:06Speaker 7: Clayton Keller in particular as the captain. You're right, the
- 1:30:09Speaker 7: franchise does feed off of him. The whole room, does
- 1:30:12Speaker 7: the fan base can. He needs to have it going
- 1:30:16Speaker 7: at the right time, and I think his focus is
- 1:30:18Speaker 7: starting to dial in right now and having that game.
- 1:30:23Speaker 7: I mean, you know, three goals in an assist against
- 1:30:26Speaker 7: the Vancouver team that quite frankly was right for the picking,
- 1:30:28Speaker 7: and I'm glad they let him up the way they did.
- 1:30:31Speaker 7: I love to see his game rounding in the form
- 1:30:33Speaker 7: and if this is the way he plays for them
- 1:30:36Speaker 7: down the stretch and into the postseason, there's no reason
- 1:30:39Speaker 7: not to be excited as a Mammoth fan, no matter
- 1:30:42Speaker 7: who your first round matchup is.
- 1:30:43Speaker 3: The first time I asked you this, it was still
- 1:30:46Speaker 3: pretty brand new, and now we're a couple more weeks
- 1:30:48Speaker 3: into this experiment. But the acquisition of Wiger and what
- 1:30:52Speaker 3: he has done for the blue line, what do you think?
- 1:30:58Speaker 7: I think it's probably the biggest deal they've made in
- 1:31:01Speaker 7: their Utah residency since they've come in in the state.
- 1:31:07Speaker 7: Look at the difference without Wiger in the lineup, with
- 1:31:11Speaker 7: like Sergachev out there, It's unbelievable. You don't realize how
- 1:31:16Speaker 7: subtle and how professional Mackenzie Wiger is and how much
- 1:31:19Speaker 7: he's covered until all of a sudden, he's you know,
- 1:31:22Speaker 7: day to day right now, misses the Vancouver game. I
- 1:31:25Speaker 7: didn't think the Vancouver game is a very good game
- 1:31:26Speaker 7: for them defensively, but they survived it largely because it
- 1:31:29Speaker 7: was the Cups. But boy, oh boy, you see without
- 1:31:33Speaker 7: Wiger now, the difference he makes with Mackenzie Wiger and
- 1:31:37Speaker 7: the NAP is he covers a lot of those situations.
- 1:31:39Speaker 7: He allows Michael Sergachev to be better because Sergachev can
- 1:31:43Speaker 7: take more of those chances knowing that he's got a
- 1:31:45Speaker 7: guy back there who really has a great head for
- 1:31:48Speaker 7: the game, understands, reads, reacts well. McKenzie Wiger does all
- 1:31:52Speaker 7: of those tiny little things that you need to do
- 1:31:56Speaker 7: to win hockey games. And I think that this is
- 1:31:58Speaker 7: an incredibly underrate acquisition as far as the trade deadline goes.
- 1:32:03Speaker 7: No one's talking about it, but we saw the other
- 1:32:05Speaker 7: night what a huge impact he does have when he's
- 1:32:08Speaker 7: not in the lineup. I think it was probably the
- 1:32:10Speaker 7: best thing they could have done for themselves as far
- 1:32:12Speaker 7: as bolstering the defense.
- 1:32:16Speaker 3: So this team is in a really nice spot right now.
- 1:32:19Speaker 3: Part of the reason why your puppy tail is wagon,
- 1:32:22Speaker 3: as you characterize it, is because This is a you know,
- 1:32:25Speaker 3: this is the second year of Utah mammoth existence, well,
- 1:32:28Speaker 3: first year of Utah mammoth, second year of pro hockey
- 1:32:31Speaker 3: at this level in the state of Utah, and you're
- 1:32:34Speaker 3: already in, you know, pretty firmly entrenched in that first
- 1:32:37Speaker 3: wild card spot. How critical and crucial is it to
- 1:32:41Speaker 3: stay exactly there because you need the best matchup you
- 1:32:45Speaker 3: can get in that first round.
- 1:32:47Speaker 7: Well, and I'm again going to be someone who let's
- 1:32:50Speaker 7: let's just go ahead and suppose let's suppose Colorado does,
- 1:32:55Speaker 7: you know, finish this thing off and clinch the President's
- 1:32:57Speaker 7: Trophy and all that fun stuff, they're the best team
- 1:32:59Speaker 7: in the end. That's your one eight matchup, and then
- 1:33:03Speaker 7: your two seven could be any of the Ducks, the
- 1:33:07Speaker 7: Golden Knights, the Oilers. You never like, it could be
- 1:33:11Speaker 7: any of those three teams if you finish there. Do
- 1:33:14Speaker 7: I like matching up against the Pacific better than maybe
- 1:33:17Speaker 7: the Avalanche? Yes, except for the Oilers because they still
- 1:33:22Speaker 7: haven't beaten the Oilers in a season plus in Utah.
- 1:33:26Speaker 7: But I will say this, I'm not afraid of Colorado.
- 1:33:29Speaker 7: I think this team matches up very well with Colorado.
- 1:33:32Speaker 7: So if there's any fans out there, you know, cut
- 1:33:34Speaker 7: your friends off, head them off at the pass before
- 1:33:37Speaker 7: they get into the Wow, we can't play Colorado. We
- 1:33:39Speaker 7: wouldn't have a chance. Oh, you absolutely would. They play
- 1:33:41Speaker 7: Colorado very well, they play them very close. It's one
- 1:33:45Speaker 7: goal games. Anything can happen in the playoffs. I'm not
- 1:33:48Speaker 7: afraid of a Colorado series. I would expect Colorado to
- 1:33:52Speaker 7: win it, but I would expect Utah to give them everything. However,
- 1:33:55Speaker 7: matching up against the Ducks, which is a giant rivalry
- 1:33:58Speaker 7: for this team, I guess Golden Knights, who are up
- 1:34:01Speaker 7: and down, even Edminton, I mean, you know what, in
- 1:34:04Speaker 7: the playoffs, all bets are off. I actually think Utah
- 1:34:09Speaker 7: being in the first wild card spot is favorable to
- 1:34:13Speaker 7: them if they fall to two. I'm not I'm not worried.
- 1:34:17Speaker 7: I'm not losing sleep. But that said, yes, I think
- 1:34:20Speaker 7: that you know, if Vanaheim comes out on top of Vegas,
- 1:34:22Speaker 7: especially that matchup bodes well for them.
- 1:34:27Speaker 3: We saw at the tail end of last season it
- 1:34:30Speaker 3: was the Blues I think that were on this epic
- 1:34:32Speaker 3: run and you know, ended up being part of the
- 1:34:35Speaker 3: reason why Utah didn't make it into the playoffs. What
- 1:34:39Speaker 3: eight regular season games. Six regular season games left, and
- 1:34:43Speaker 3: you know there's points to be had or not. So
- 1:34:47Speaker 3: who underneath this Utah Mammoth team are you paying closest
- 1:34:51Speaker 3: attention to and maybe thinking that they could be the
- 1:34:54Speaker 3: surprise team that in the final few stacks up a
- 1:34:58Speaker 3: bunch of points.
- 1:34:59Speaker 7: This is the fun part because Nashville kind of controls
- 1:35:03Speaker 7: not only its own destiny but almost everybody around them
- 1:35:06Speaker 7: because they play the Kings again yet and they just
- 1:35:09Speaker 7: played the Kings. They have the Sharks in there as well. Nashville,
- 1:35:13Speaker 7: whether you're rooting for or against the Predators, can in
- 1:35:16Speaker 7: many ways be the king maker. If teams beat them,
- 1:35:20Speaker 7: they can push them right on out of the conversation.
- 1:35:22Speaker 7: If Nashville beats those teams had to head, Nashville puts
- 1:35:26Speaker 7: itself comfortably ahead in that wildcard toon position. So really
- 1:35:31Speaker 7: that group of three Nashville, LA and San Jose, the
- 1:35:34Speaker 7: Blues and the Jets are there. I just don't know
- 1:35:39Speaker 7: if being at this point is of us talking today
- 1:35:43Speaker 7: three points out and still having to jump three teams each.
- 1:35:46Speaker 7: I don't see Saint Leuis or Winnipeg pulling it off.
- 1:35:49Speaker 7: So Nashville, La, San Jose, that's your.
- 1:35:52Speaker 5: Group, Tom Callahan, I guess.
- 1:35:55Speaker 3: Here on the Sean O'Connell show, talking all things Utah Mammoth,
- 1:35:59Speaker 3: all things NHL Hockey, we talk about the fact that
- 1:36:05Speaker 3: you know, you still haven't shaken the Edmonton monkey off
- 1:36:08Speaker 3: your back, and big picture, it probably only matters once
- 1:36:11Speaker 3: you get to the playoffs, but you have an opportunity
- 1:36:14Speaker 3: to beat them tomorrow night in one of your final
- 1:36:16Speaker 3: home games of the season.
- 1:36:18Speaker 5: What does that matchup look like?
- 1:36:21Speaker 7: Five to the last six coming into Delta Center is
- 1:36:24Speaker 7: big for Utah and it starts, you know, with the
- 1:36:26Speaker 7: Sevington game. By the way, Connor Ingram has worked his
- 1:36:30Speaker 7: way into the number one spot in Edmonton, which is
- 1:36:33Speaker 7: a tremendous feel good story. I love that for him.
- 1:36:37Speaker 7: Just a great guy who's had his struggles and man,
- 1:36:40Speaker 7: I hope he continues to succeed. Maybe not, you know,
- 1:36:43Speaker 7: against the Mammoth. But what does beating them do right now?
- 1:36:49Speaker 7: If they beat them and it puts this little kernel
- 1:36:52Speaker 7: of doubt in there, Edmonton suddenly says, Hey, Utah is
- 1:36:57Speaker 7: not the pipsqueak we've been running over this whole time.
- 1:37:00Speaker 7: But really, what I need to see against Utah is
- 1:37:02Speaker 7: not so much the offense is We've talked about. The
- 1:37:03Speaker 7: offense has been going great, special teams, the power plays
- 1:37:06Speaker 7: look good. What I need to see, especially if it
- 1:37:10Speaker 7: were a first round playoff preview, is the containment of
- 1:37:14Speaker 7: the mammoth defense against this crazy Edmonton offense. About first capability,
- 1:37:19Speaker 7: The Oilers are a quick strike team. They're a very
- 1:37:22Speaker 7: talented team. They've got arguably the two best players in
- 1:37:25Speaker 7: the world. But I mean, any team that has Connor
- 1:37:28Speaker 7: McDavid not missing a limb really has a chance to
- 1:37:32Speaker 7: beat you in a series. And that's why they're so scary,
- 1:37:36Speaker 7: whether they have goldtang or not, whether they're playing defense
- 1:37:38Speaker 7: or not, because the Oilers are one of the very
- 1:37:40Speaker 7: few teams in the NHL that can outscore you even
- 1:37:43Speaker 7: when you're scoring. So that, to me is what the
- 1:37:46Speaker 7: matchup is all about. Is about the defensive containment and
- 1:37:49Speaker 7: how they're able to counteract what Edmonton does offensively.
- 1:37:54Speaker 3: ESPN did a fun little piece about the players who
- 1:37:58Speaker 3: could potentially win a Gold Medal and a Stanley Cup
- 1:38:02Speaker 3: in the same cycle in the same year. Do you
- 1:38:05Speaker 3: have any favorites on who you think is most likely
- 1:38:08Speaker 3: to pull that off?
- 1:38:10Speaker 7: We wouldn't you love to say the Utah Amma connection? Right, man,
- 1:38:16Speaker 7: that's a fantastic piece to think about. Boy, who would
- 1:38:20Speaker 7: you like to see winning that?
- 1:38:23Speaker 5: You know?
- 1:38:25Speaker 7: I don't know. I suppose kind of looking and I'm
- 1:38:30Speaker 7: looking at the article now. Out of everybody that's on here,
- 1:38:32Speaker 7: for I can say I love the Tampa Bay Lightning
- 1:38:35Speaker 7: and the way they're playing, and so Jake Denzil has
- 1:38:37Speaker 7: a chance to be that guy. I love Dallas as well,
- 1:38:42Speaker 7: and I think the Stars are probably the most complete
- 1:38:45Speaker 7: team besides the Avalanche, which is why I think it's
- 1:38:49Speaker 7: a shame that the Wild play the Avalanche in the
- 1:38:50Speaker 7: first round. So Jake Ottinger on the Dallas Stars has
- 1:38:54Speaker 7: that chance. Carolina. Every year I want to pick against
- 1:38:56Speaker 7: the Carolina Hurricanes. They always surprised me. I always think, boy,
- 1:39:02Speaker 7: shouldn't their window not be as good? And maybe they're
- 1:39:04Speaker 7: going to start a rookie in the playoffs this year
- 1:39:06Speaker 7: and goal and Brandon Bussy, But you know they've got
- 1:39:09Speaker 7: a chance. And so that's Jacob Slave and and me
- 1:39:12Speaker 7: being from Buffalo, New York. You know Taje. Thompson on
- 1:39:15Speaker 7: the Buffalo Sabers. You never know, but Honestly, I think
- 1:39:19Speaker 7: if I'm picking a team out of the East, it's
- 1:39:21Speaker 7: probably Tampa Bay and either brock Nelson on the Avalanche
- 1:39:24Speaker 7: or Jacotten dream the Stars on the West.
- 1:39:28Speaker 3: Some reports out there saying that there was an idea
- 1:39:32Speaker 3: floated around that maybe, if you know, the Utah Mammoth
- 1:39:35Speaker 3: didn't end up returning to form and playing the way
- 1:39:38Speaker 3: that they have down the stretch here, that maybe it
- 1:39:42Speaker 3: was going to be, you know, time to make a
- 1:39:44Speaker 3: change on the bench, and Pete de Boor's name was
- 1:39:47Speaker 3: floated out there. Coach Bear, I think, is you know,
- 1:39:51Speaker 3: in a good spot right now because the way this
- 1:39:53Speaker 3: team is playing. But how much creden should we be
- 1:39:56Speaker 3: giving to those rumors in your mind?
- 1:39:59Speaker 7: Well, well, I have been shocked at the last couple
- 1:40:03Speaker 7: of weeks the coaching changes both Vegas and the Islanders,
- 1:40:06Speaker 7: two teams in the playoffs, with in Vegas's case eight
- 1:40:11Speaker 7: and I think the Islander six games left, fired their coaches.
- 1:40:16Speaker 7: That is shocking and stunning, like that does not happen.
- 1:40:21Speaker 7: But maybe we're entering a new NHL now, So I
- 1:40:25Speaker 7: said on our show, actually that came out today, I said,
- 1:40:28Speaker 7: I don't know that any NHL coach can get comfortable
- 1:40:31Speaker 7: because short of winning a Stanley Cup. That's that's nuts
- 1:40:34Speaker 7: to me to fire your coach on the eve of
- 1:40:37Speaker 7: the playoffs while your team's in the playoffs. So I mean, man,
- 1:40:42Speaker 7: I don't know. I'm still not one hundred percent sold
- 1:40:45Speaker 7: that Andrey Tourney is the guy to get Utah to
- 1:40:47Speaker 7: win a Stanley Cup, and you know, Vegas let go
- 1:40:50Speaker 7: of a Stanley Cup winning coach to bring someone else in.
- 1:40:53Speaker 7: I've never been a big Peak to Board fan. I
- 1:40:55Speaker 7: covered the Vegas Golden Knights while he was in Vegas.
- 1:40:58Speaker 6: Pizza.
- 1:40:59Speaker 7: A great guy, He's very good with the media, but
- 1:41:01Speaker 7: I just didn't like the way he was kind of
- 1:41:03Speaker 7: running things in Vegas, especially with concern with the goaltenders.
- 1:41:07Speaker 7: So to see him in the island, I'm kind of
- 1:41:09Speaker 7: glad that choice is off the table if they do
- 1:41:12Speaker 7: go looking for a coach in the offseason, and right
- 1:41:15Speaker 7: now the landscape is telling me a lot of teams
- 1:41:18Speaker 7: feel emboldened by these changes. And even if they went
- 1:41:20Speaker 7: around may go looking for a coach, I just don't
- 1:41:24Speaker 7: think the Boar would have been the answer. I would
- 1:41:26Speaker 7: not have been a big fan of that.
- 1:41:28Speaker 3: What do you think of towards John Tortorella taking over Vegas.
- 1:41:31Speaker 3: Like you said right on the eve of the playoffs,
- 1:41:34Speaker 3: I love Tortorella.
- 1:41:35Speaker 7: I know people love him or hate him. I think
- 1:41:38Speaker 7: he is refreshingly honest. Can he be a jerky Yes,
- 1:41:42Speaker 7: he may not give you the answer you want, but
- 1:41:45Speaker 7: I think he knows who he is, and he knows
- 1:41:48Speaker 7: who he is as a coach, and he is going
- 1:41:51Speaker 7: to get down and what he does works in the
- 1:41:53Speaker 7: short term. Everywhere he's gone, he's been able to make
- 1:41:56Speaker 7: it work in the short term. Honestly, if you wanted
- 1:41:59Speaker 7: to jumpstart Vegas, he's the guy, which is a little
- 1:42:02Speaker 7: frightening for them heading into the playoffs if they do
- 1:42:04Speaker 7: find their momentum and their mojo, but I think it
- 1:42:08Speaker 7: gives all of us in the West another storyline heading
- 1:42:11Speaker 7: into the playoffs and short term success. Yeah, this could
- 1:42:14Speaker 7: work out real well for them. I don't know if
- 1:42:16Speaker 7: Corderella is in Vegas longer than two or three years,
- 1:42:18Speaker 7: especially at his age, but man, it's going to be
- 1:42:21Speaker 7: fun in the meantime to just keep an eye on
- 1:42:23Speaker 7: what he says every day of morning skate.
- 1:42:26Speaker 3: You and I haven't spoken since the Florida Panthers were
- 1:42:29Speaker 3: eliminated from playoff contention. And I remember some earlier conversations
- 1:42:34Speaker 3: and I had them with a lot of hockey people,
- 1:42:36Speaker 3: just like, oh, yeah, they're probably going to get it
- 1:42:38Speaker 3: figured out. Oh they'll get it figured out. And ultimately
- 1:42:41Speaker 3: they didn't get it figured out. Do you have a why?
- 1:42:45Speaker 7: Injuries huge reason. Their captain and arguably their best player
- 1:42:51Speaker 7: in Barkoff, never really played this year, was hurt the
- 1:42:55Speaker 7: whole year. That didn't help. They just never found a
- 1:43:01Speaker 7: way to keep pucks out of the net. Sergei Bobrowski's
- 1:43:04Speaker 7: thirty eight years old now, and you know he's not
- 1:43:07Speaker 7: getting any younger and he does have an extra set
- 1:43:10Speaker 7: of dials when it comes to turning it up in
- 1:43:12Speaker 7: the playoffs.
- 1:43:13Speaker 6: But in the.
- 1:43:13Speaker 7: Regular season he was supremely average. And they also battled
- 1:43:17Speaker 7: some other injuries. You know, Kachuk was in and out
- 1:43:20Speaker 7: of the lineup, and it's just they never were one
- 1:43:22Speaker 7: hundred percent healthy. They never got consistent play this year,
- 1:43:26Speaker 7: and I think they did get older, significantly older, and
- 1:43:30Speaker 7: that I think this year was a very down year
- 1:43:32Speaker 7: for Bob and this might be it for him. There's
- 1:43:35Speaker 7: a lot of reasons why, but the health of that
- 1:43:38Speaker 7: club was never ever good, never gave him a chance
- 1:43:40Speaker 7: right from the beginning.
- 1:43:43Speaker 6: Uh.
- 1:43:43Speaker 3: This has been a basketball market a lot longer than
- 1:43:45Speaker 3: has been a hockey market, and uh in NBA basketball
- 1:43:50Speaker 3: right now, there's this really kind of funny dynamic, interesting
- 1:43:54Speaker 3: dynamic where there's not a lot of belief that it's
- 1:43:56Speaker 3: going to be a team from the East that does anything.
- 1:43:59Speaker 3: When you get down on to the you know, Larry
- 1:44:02Speaker 3: O'Brien Trophy. How big a disparity is there right now
- 1:44:06Speaker 3: between East and West when it comes to the hunt
- 1:44:08Speaker 3: for the Stanley Cup.
- 1:44:11Speaker 7: I think people in both conferences are going to make
- 1:44:13Speaker 7: their cases for East is better, West is better. Now,
- 1:44:18Speaker 7: I can say probably ten years ago you can make
- 1:44:21Speaker 7: a very real case the West was head and shoulders
- 1:44:23Speaker 7: above the East, and for a long time it was,
- 1:44:26Speaker 7: and then Tampa Bay swinging that pendulum back the other way,
- 1:44:29Speaker 7: Tampa Bay and Florida. Now I feel like it's pretty
- 1:44:33Speaker 7: close to the middle. There are a lot of very
- 1:44:35Speaker 7: good teams in the East, and of course a lot
- 1:44:37Speaker 7: of the Eastern pundits are pointing at their point totals
- 1:44:40Speaker 7: and saying, well, look at how much better the East
- 1:44:42Speaker 7: is than the West. To me, what that's telling me
- 1:44:46Speaker 7: is there's just still a ton of parody on both sides.
- 1:44:49Speaker 7: Look it out close to the wildcard races are look
- 1:44:51Speaker 7: it out close. The difference is in the West. I
- 1:44:53Speaker 7: would say the bottom feeters are a little further out.
- 1:44:56Speaker 7: But I honestly believe that despite the point total being
- 1:45:01Speaker 7: fairly elevated in the East, I think that there's parody
- 1:45:04Speaker 7: all across the league and it's pretty close to the middle.
- 1:45:06Speaker 7: But no, you're right, and look, I'm a Lakers guy,
- 1:45:09Speaker 7: so yes, I really do believe the West is far
- 1:45:13Speaker 7: superior to the East in the NBA.
- 1:45:16Speaker 3: Do you think Lebron can carry it through in the
- 1:45:18Speaker 3: playoffs if he has to without Austin Reeves and without Luca.
- 1:45:24Speaker 7: I would have said maybe without Reeves, but not without Luca.
- 1:45:28Speaker 7: I don't think so. And look, I'm and I'm not
- 1:45:31Speaker 7: a Lebron guy. I've never been a Lebron guy. I
- 1:45:34Speaker 7: was actually kind of annoyed when the Lakers picked up
- 1:45:36Speaker 7: Lebron James, because I'm like, you make up your mind,
- 1:45:39Speaker 7: are you a coach at GM or a player?
- 1:45:40Speaker 6: Pick one?
- 1:45:41Speaker 7: Stick with it. So as a Lakers fan, I was
- 1:45:44Speaker 7: not happy, But you know there's a title in there
- 1:45:47Speaker 7: with Lebron's name on it. I just I think Luka
- 1:45:51Speaker 7: Doncic missing him is huge for that team unfortunately, And
- 1:45:57Speaker 7: I don't know. I guess I'm just gonna have to
- 1:45:59Speaker 7: stick to this Anley Cup this fall because you know, hey,
- 1:46:02Speaker 7: if they want to go on a run, that'd be
- 1:46:04Speaker 7: great and I'll be excited, but I'm not holding my
- 1:46:06Speaker 7: bro all right.
- 1:46:07Speaker 3: The last thing before I let you go, people, Utah
- 1:46:11Speaker 3: Mammoth fans especially are probably sick of hearing me talk
- 1:46:13Speaker 3: about this kid but a teenager and maclin Celebrini scoring
- 1:46:18Speaker 3: one hundred points in that shark sweater and the future
- 1:46:22Speaker 3: being so incredibly bright for him. I think the team
- 1:46:26Speaker 3: being a little bit ahead of schedule because he's on it,
- 1:46:29Speaker 3: and him being one of only what six teenagers to
- 1:46:33Speaker 3: ever do it in the NHL score one hundred points
- 1:46:36Speaker 3: or more. Just help me, help me characterize this accomplishment
- 1:46:41Speaker 3: for the hockey newcomers out there.
- 1:46:46Speaker 7: I think we're Oh, see, we live in a world
- 1:46:48Speaker 7: where everybody's very quick to label somebody a generational talent, right, Oh,
- 1:46:53Speaker 7: this generational quarterback, generational point guard. General. What we're seeing
- 1:46:58Speaker 7: here is probably in hindsight, what will be viewed as
- 1:47:02Speaker 7: the best player of his generation, and his accomplishment is like,
- 1:47:08Speaker 7: to one hundred points so quickly is phenomenal, And it's
- 1:47:12Speaker 7: so hard to do because it's not like when I
- 1:47:17Speaker 7: was growing up at the NHL the eighties and nineties,
- 1:47:19Speaker 7: where they were just handing out one hundred point seasons. Now,
- 1:47:24Speaker 7: in today's game, it is harder to score, it is
- 1:47:26Speaker 7: harder to manufacture points. To be able to do that
- 1:47:30Speaker 7: is just phenomenal. And I think, yes, if you are
- 1:47:33Speaker 7: a fan of Western Conference hockey and you paid any
- 1:47:37Speaker 7: even remote attention to the Sharks and Celebrini, what he
- 1:47:40Speaker 7: has done this year is nothing short of phenomenal. It
- 1:47:42Speaker 7: is a superstar effort. And this kid, if he continues
- 1:47:47Speaker 7: this pace, this is all of same credential pace and
- 1:47:51Speaker 7: you might get a chance here early on. You know,
- 1:47:54Speaker 7: if you're a Mammoth fan or a fan of any
- 1:47:56Speaker 7: other team and you're listening to this show, I mean,
- 1:47:58Speaker 7: pay attention to the Sharks or at least maclin Celabrini,
- 1:48:01Speaker 7: because what he's doing I can hang a generational talent
- 1:48:06Speaker 7: tag on him confidently.
- 1:48:11Speaker 3: That's Tom Callahan at Callahan on Air if you're not
- 1:48:15Speaker 3: already following, that'd be a mistake. You should also check
- 1:48:18Speaker 3: out Locked on Mammoth, stay dialed in on everything that
- 1:48:21Speaker 3: this Utah team is doing as they approach a playoff
- 1:48:24Speaker 3: picture where it looks like they're going to be at
- 1:48:27Speaker 3: least in that first wild card spot.
- 1:48:30Speaker 5: Tom, I always appreciate your time and your insight.
- 1:48:32Speaker 7: Thank you very much, thanks for having me on that.
- 1:48:35Speaker 7: I look forward to talking playoff hockey with you very soon.
- 1:48:38Speaker 5: Let's go, baby, the Mammoth are going to be in
- 1:48:41Speaker 5: the playoffs. That's Tom callahan second year of existence.
- 1:48:47Speaker 6: Now.
- 1:48:47Speaker 3: Look, it's not quite as sexy as when the Golden
- 1:48:50Speaker 3: Knights made it all the way to the playoffs or
- 1:48:52Speaker 3: all the way to the Cup Final this early, but
- 1:48:56Speaker 3: it's still pretty incredible, especially if you've been slogging along
- 1:49:01Speaker 3: with the Utah Jazz in these droughts. I will live
- 1:49:07Speaker 3: by and die by my dog ownership cat ownership analogy.
- 1:49:12Speaker 3: The Mammoth are your pet dog. The Utah Jazz. They're
- 1:49:16Speaker 3: your pet cat. A lot more finicky, not as much
- 1:49:20Speaker 3: return on investment, harder to keep them happy.
- 1:49:25Speaker 5: Not the Mammoth. Baby.
- 1:49:27Speaker 3: Just throw a bowl of food out there. They love
- 1:49:28Speaker 3: you forever big thanks to Tom Callahan for popping on.
- 1:49:32Speaker 3: All right, we have to address the end of an era.
- 1:49:39Speaker 3: For the first time in a half century, Utah Gymnastics
- 1:49:45Speaker 3: is not competing for a national championship following the regional
- 1:49:49Speaker 3: semi finals or the regional finals. I should say, well,
- 1:49:56Speaker 3: bite down, we'll get through the pain together. On the
- 1:49:59Speaker 3: Sean O'Connell Show, ESPN seven ninety FF.
- 1:50:05Speaker 1: You tune to the Sean O'Connell Show for the Murdoch
- 1:50:08Speaker 1: Chevrolet Studio of ESPN seven hundred and ninety one.
- 1:50:12Speaker 7: A m and.
- 1:50:25Speaker 3: Addressing a minor controversy on the text line. By the way,
- 1:50:28Speaker 3: in our Festival of Teas, I asked how many national
- 1:50:32Speaker 3: championships has UCLA Women's basketball?
- 1:50:35Speaker 6: One?
- 1:50:37Speaker 3: And the correct answer is two. The correct answer for
- 1:50:42Speaker 3: n C Double A basketball is one. They've won two
- 1:50:45Speaker 3: national championships, one predating women's basketball being in the n
- 1:50:50Speaker 3: C Double A and one with them in the NC
- 1:50:52Speaker 3: Double A. So the correct answer is either two or one,
- 1:50:56Speaker 3: depending on which lends you look at. So we're gonna
- 1:50:58Speaker 3: go with, uh, we've got one of those correct answers
- 1:51:01Speaker 3: in first.
- 1:51:03Speaker 4: Yeah, we actually we actually have our winner. We can
- 1:51:07Speaker 4: shout them out. It is Chad from Clinton.
- 1:51:10Speaker 5: Chad.
- 1:51:10Speaker 3: Yet all right, you get to play Lakeside, a free
- 1:51:14Speaker 3: round from the Festival of Teas, brought to you by
- 1:51:17Speaker 3: the Utah Golf Association, your favorite golf course.
- 1:51:20Speaker 5: Right, you won't see me playing anywhere else.
- 1:51:26Speaker 4: Right, with your fast with your fast face, a fast face,
- 1:51:29Speaker 4: ping G four.
- 1:51:31Speaker 5: Come on, Bud, Now you know the rules? All right? Uh?
- 1:51:36Speaker 5: I didn't. I don't know how to approach this.
- 1:51:38Speaker 3: With the like in the best way, because while I
- 1:51:43Speaker 3: consider myself a fan, a big fan of Utah gymnastics,
- 1:51:46Speaker 3: I'm not a big fan of Utah gymnastics like some
- 1:51:49Speaker 3: of you out there listening are where I go to
- 1:51:51Speaker 3: every home meet, where I'm following everything that they do
- 1:51:55Speaker 3: away from the home home floor. I'm not like, in
- 1:52:00Speaker 3: principle we are all red rock supporters, but then they're
- 1:52:03Speaker 3: the hardcore red rock supporters who maybe travel to their
- 1:52:06Speaker 3: away meets things like that, And I want to do
- 1:52:10Speaker 3: justice to those folks because it's a dark day for you.
- 1:52:16Speaker 3: For the first time in forty nine years, Utah women's
- 1:52:21Speaker 3: gymnastics will not be competing at the national final. They
- 1:52:27Speaker 3: did not advance out of the regional following an epic
- 1:52:33Speaker 3: run by of all teams, the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Minnesota
- 1:52:38Speaker 3: came ready to compete, they got it done. Utah battled unfortunately,
- 1:52:43Speaker 3: came up just a few hundreds short, and are not
- 1:52:47Speaker 3: able to compete for the first time in forty nine
- 1:52:51Speaker 3: years for a national championship. They're still your Big twelve
- 1:52:54Speaker 3: gymnastics champions The program is still in a really good place.
- 1:52:59Speaker 3: You've got a bunch of strong, young competitors that are
- 1:53:03Speaker 3: going to be presumably a foundation for you moving forward.
- 1:53:07Speaker 3: You have three women competing at Nationals in individual events.
- 1:53:13Speaker 3: Avery nef is going to be there, Anna patrou and.
- 1:53:19Speaker 5: Who am I missing?
- 1:53:20Speaker 4: Elliservis ell Oservis, which for a team that collectively misses Nationals,
- 1:53:29Speaker 4: I feel like three is on the higher end of
- 1:53:33Speaker 4: individuals who move on to Nationals. So I mean that
- 1:53:36Speaker 4: should tell you at least about the talent that this
- 1:53:39Speaker 4: year's squad had.
- 1:53:40Speaker 5: Unfortunately they come up a little bit short.
- 1:53:41Speaker 3: And also there's a structural conversation to be had here.
- 1:53:45Speaker 3: Remember when you know college football and college sports got
- 1:53:50Speaker 3: rid of divisions, and remember how the NBA and they're.
- 1:53:55Speaker 5: Just like, oh, we're taking the top eight.
- 1:53:59Speaker 3: You could the case that they would be better in
- 1:54:02Speaker 3: college gymnastics to do the same thing. If that were
- 1:54:05Speaker 3: the case, Utah did not advance out of its regional final.
- 1:54:10Speaker 3: But Arkansas and Stanford, who scored lower than Utah did,
- 1:54:16Speaker 3: They do advance and they do get to go compete
- 1:54:19Speaker 3: at Nationals without the same strength of scores as this
- 1:54:22Speaker 3: Utah gymnastics team just because of who they were up
- 1:54:25Speaker 3: against in the other regional.
- 1:54:27Speaker 5: And then I look, I've read what you've read.
- 1:54:30Speaker 3: The conversation is out there, well, like, hey, I mean,
- 1:54:32Speaker 3: if you that's why, that's why every meet during the
- 1:54:36Speaker 3: season matters. And we talked about this with Carly Dochndorf
- 1:54:39Speaker 3: when she joined us last week. This is not it
- 1:54:44Speaker 3: was not throughout the course of the regular season. It
- 1:54:46Speaker 3: was not quite the same level of powerhouse Utah gymnastics
- 1:54:50Speaker 3: team that a lot of people were accustomed to. Excellent, yes,
- 1:54:56Speaker 3: Big twelve champions, Yes, dominant in a way that during
- 1:55:01Speaker 3: the regular season, with the new scoring and things like that,
- 1:55:04Speaker 3: it was not going to come back to bite you.
- 1:55:06Speaker 5: Well, unfortunately, not the case.
- 1:55:09Speaker 3: Who you go up against, your placement, all that stuff
- 1:55:12Speaker 3: is affected by your scores.
- 1:55:13Speaker 5: Throughout the season.
- 1:55:15Speaker 3: The average of your scores at your home meets and
- 1:55:19Speaker 3: that's how you get your NQS. And unfortunately Utah ended
- 1:55:23Speaker 3: up where they ended up because they weren't quite as
- 1:55:27Speaker 3: formidable in every single meet throughout the season as we've
- 1:55:32Speaker 3: grown accustomed to them being. And that you just like
- 1:55:34Speaker 3: you make assumptions and you think everything's going to be
- 1:55:38Speaker 3: the way that they've always been because for forty nine
- 1:55:41Speaker 3: plus years now they've been that way. Well, twenty twenty
- 1:55:45Speaker 3: six is when that streak comes to an end and
- 1:55:48Speaker 3: all good things must. So shout out to the Red Rocks.
- 1:55:53Speaker 3: Still love you, still support you. Morgan Scalley, the head
- 1:55:57Speaker 3: football coach at the University of Utah, he had some
- 1:56:00Speaker 3: kind words, so wants to make sure that that community
- 1:56:03Speaker 3: remains strong up there. But a tough thing to swallow
- 1:56:08Speaker 3: for hardcore Red Rocks fans that five decades of history
- 1:56:13Speaker 3: come to an end this year.
- 1:56:16Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's unbelievable too, just because of the tradition
- 1:56:22Speaker 4: of success. And let's be clear, like this is still
- 1:56:25Speaker 4: objectively a very successful season, not to the standard making
- 1:56:31Speaker 4: it to nationals for fifty years basically in a row
- 1:56:34Speaker 4: of the Red Rocks, but like you made it into
- 1:56:38Speaker 4: the NC double as another for the the fifty year
- 1:56:43Speaker 4: streak predates NC double as so for another forty five
- 1:56:46Speaker 4: or whatever years in a row. Right, But yeah, I
- 1:56:51Speaker 4: feel like for you and I even who don't necessarily
- 1:56:56Speaker 4: follow the program all that closely, let alone the really iHeart,
- 1:57:00Speaker 4: really diehard fans who see every meet or see a
- 1:57:03Speaker 4: bunch of meets a year. It's just jarring to go,
- 1:57:06Speaker 4: oh my gosh, they're not in Nationals, but still a
- 1:57:12Speaker 4: great foundation. Like like you talked about three into three
- 1:57:17Speaker 4: gymnasts going in to compete at Nationals individually, one of
- 1:57:21Speaker 4: those your best, your best competitor all year, avery f
- 1:57:26Speaker 4: is only a sophomore.
- 1:57:28Speaker 5: Lots of reason to believe.
- 1:57:30Speaker 4: That they can get back as early as next year
- 1:57:32Speaker 4: to that Nationals National championship contention standard that we've had
- 1:57:40Speaker 4: here forever at the University of Tower Red Rocks.
- 1:57:45Speaker 3: I tease this a little bit earlier, and then I
- 1:57:47Speaker 3: never delivered on the tease. That's bad radio, that's my fault.
- 1:57:50Speaker 3: So I'll do it now. If you're a Ravens fan,
- 1:57:52Speaker 3: there's some good news for you.
- 1:57:54Speaker 5: You have a new coach, Jesse Minter.
- 1:57:56Speaker 3: Right well, their offseason workout program volunteer workouts began today
- 1:58:02Speaker 3: in Baltimore, and Lamar Jackson has decided to attend. He
- 1:58:10Speaker 3: doesn't always do that for voluntary offseason workouts, but Jesse
- 1:58:15Speaker 3: Minter talked about how important it was that Lamar Jackson
- 1:58:19Speaker 3: get as much work as he possibly can in with
- 1:58:21Speaker 3: his new offensive coordinator. Declan Doyle is the name of
- 1:58:27Speaker 3: that offensive coordinator who's taking on the job for the
- 1:58:30Speaker 3: first time. So Lamar Jackson perhaps renewed vigor and interest
- 1:58:36Speaker 3: in an offseason. I mean, he doesn't have to be
- 1:58:39Speaker 3: there for another month and he's already showed up, So
- 1:58:42Speaker 3: if you're a Ravens fan, it's probably exciting. Also, Mintor
- 1:58:49Speaker 3: was asked about whether or not Lamar Jackson was expected
- 1:58:51Speaker 3: at these last week, and he would not give an answer,
- 1:58:55Speaker 3: So maybe he didn't know that Lamar Jackson had played
- 1:59:00Speaker 3: and on doing this. In other NFL news, All Pro
- 1:59:06Speaker 3: defensive Tackle Giants best player in a lot of people's minds,
- 1:59:10Speaker 3: Dexter Lawrence has requested a trade.
- 1:59:13Speaker 5: And look, that's a.
- 1:59:15Speaker 3: Big time bummer if you're a Giants fan, because there's
- 1:59:19Speaker 3: starting to be some glimmers of hope around the offense
- 1:59:23Speaker 3: right A healthy Cam Scataboo. You got your quarterback of
- 1:59:27Speaker 3: the future potentially in Jackson Dart. Dexter Lawrence is the
- 1:59:32Speaker 3: foundational piece of your interior defensive line, and Dexter Lawrence
- 1:59:38Speaker 3: wants out. He was a first round pick in the
- 1:59:43Speaker 3: twenty nineteen draft. He's made the Pro Bowl three times,
- 1:59:47Speaker 3: he was second team All Pro twice. He does not
- 1:59:56Speaker 3: want to play out the third year of a four year,
- 1:59:58Speaker 3: ninety million dollars ye that he signed in twenty twenty three.
- 2:00:03Speaker 3: Here's the thing, Dexter Lawrence is in a position now
- 2:00:07Speaker 3: where he can probably do things like this, But man,
- 2:00:14Speaker 3: will you look back if you don't end up in
- 2:00:16Speaker 3: the right place? Will you look back and be like, ah,
- 2:00:19Speaker 3: I don't have a ton of confidence in the Giants period.
- 2:00:23Speaker 3: End of story as an organization. But John Harbaugh kind
- 2:00:28Speaker 3: of knows what he's doing. John Harbaugh is a good coach.
- 2:00:36Speaker 3: Can John Harbaugh keep his fastball with these young guys
- 2:00:40Speaker 3: that are from a completely different generation of personality and player.
- 2:00:46Speaker 3: I guess we don't know that yet. You're leaving the
- 2:00:50Speaker 3: organization with this trade demand unless you're just using it
- 2:00:53Speaker 3: for leverage at in my opinion, a time when it's
- 2:00:57Speaker 3: finally maybe worth staying in New York. If he had
- 2:01:01Speaker 3: made this demand two or three years ago, I'd have
- 2:01:03Speaker 3: been like, yeah, dude, get out of there. I think
- 2:01:06Speaker 3: the Giants are going to round into an era where
- 2:01:08Speaker 3: they're at least competitive, they're at least good. The Commanders
- 2:01:14Speaker 3: haven't capitalized on their growth or their potential growth as
- 2:01:17Speaker 3: of yet. The Cowboys are going to remain the Cowboys
- 2:01:20Speaker 3: in your division. So can you grow into something that'll
- 2:01:25Speaker 3: beat the Eagles? Maybe and you're leaving now. Wouldn't be me?
- 2:01:33Speaker 3: Couldn't be me. Also, basically everything that Dexter Lawrence does
- 2:01:41Speaker 3: couldn't be me, because you know he's good at this.
- 2:01:43Speaker 3: So he wanted to raise one year ago, but they
- 2:01:49Speaker 3: wouldn't give him one. They added three million dollars worth
- 2:01:53Speaker 3: of incentives, but he had three years left on the deal.
- 2:01:56Speaker 3: So don't sign deals if you don't intend on playing
- 2:02:00Speaker 3: at least out until the final year of the contract.
- 2:02:02Speaker 3: If your intention as a professional athlete is to play
- 2:02:06Speaker 3: the first year under the new terms, maybe the second
- 2:02:08Speaker 3: year under the new terms, and then immediately get back
- 2:02:11Speaker 3: to hey, I need more money.
- 2:02:13Speaker 5: Not a good look.
- 2:02:17Speaker 4: You remember when when too made such way like huge waves,
- 2:02:22Speaker 4: completely different situation, but he played the same kind of game.
- 2:02:27Speaker 4: Right after the first year with the Eagles, go to
- 2:02:30Speaker 4: the Super Bowl, he has an incredible game on one
- 2:02:32Speaker 4: leg basically and lost to the Patriots, and then he's
- 2:02:35Speaker 4: doing push ups saying, hey, you didn't pay me enough.
- 2:02:38Speaker 4: It's like, well, you just signed a seven year deal. Like,
- 2:02:41Speaker 4: if you didn't think it was enough, you shouldn't have
- 2:02:42Speaker 4: signed the deal. Why are you doing push ups at
- 2:02:46Speaker 4: a driveway? Stand up and talk to us.
- 2:02:50Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know. Man.
- 2:02:52Speaker 3: Again, it's hard to The right thing to do is
- 2:02:56Speaker 3: to say I have no idea how these things work, because.
- 2:03:01Speaker 5: We don't in the real world get to judge.
- 2:03:07Speaker 3: Our decision making abilities in these contexts. I don't know
- 2:03:11Speaker 3: anyone in a normal job who's ever had this this
- 2:03:14Speaker 3: kind of leverage or felt they had this kind of
- 2:03:16Speaker 3: leverage where they were still multiple years left on a
- 2:03:19Speaker 3: contract and they're just like, hey, new contract, give it
- 2:03:22Speaker 3: to me. In sports and entertainment, yeah, I mean, things
- 2:03:26Speaker 3: are you know, they move fast.
- 2:03:29Speaker 5: Maybe if you're like some.
- 2:03:31Speaker 3: High falutin computer programmer and you figure out something crazy
- 2:03:35Speaker 3: for AI, now, maybe you can walk in and just
- 2:03:38Speaker 3: be like, hey, if you don't give me a new contract.
- 2:03:40Speaker 3: I'm leaving, but we don't get to do this. If
- 2:03:46Speaker 3: you're working at the post office right now, you don't
- 2:03:48Speaker 3: get to do this.
- 2:03:49Speaker 4: So many letters I've mailed today, come on, hey, delivered today.
- 2:03:52Speaker 4: I should say, guess what.
- 2:03:54Speaker 5: I'm gonna go work for the Canadian Postal Service. Uh,
- 2:03:58Speaker 5: you can't. It's not how works all right, sorright in
- 2:04:02Speaker 5: the German post Puerto Rican Maybe maybe you can do
- 2:04:07Speaker 5: that one anyway, Dexter.
- 2:04:10Speaker 3: Lawrence wants out weird timing if you're asking me, Dexter,
- 2:04:14Speaker 3: and I know he listens to the show, so maybe
- 2:04:16Speaker 3: he'll call in and tell us why. We've got some
- 2:04:19Speaker 3: tickets to give away topical trivia, two tickets to muse
- 2:04:23Speaker 3: coming to the Utah First Credit Union Amphitheater August twentieth.
- 2:04:29Speaker 3: Perhaps a little conversation with Spence check its as well.
- 2:04:32Speaker 3: It's the Sean O'Connell Show. Wrap it up next on
- 2:04:34Speaker 3: ESPN seven ninety one FM.
- 2:04:39Speaker 9: Belong with Me.
- 2:04:43Speaker 5: And I can tell it Belong to.
- 2:04:45Speaker 1: The Sean O'Connell Show. From the studio of ESPN.
- 2:05:09Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Sean O'Connell Show. We'll wrap it
- 2:05:12Speaker 3: up with some cross talk. If Spence's poking his head
- 2:05:15Speaker 3: in the building here right now. Two tickets to muse
- 2:05:18Speaker 3: up for grabs August twentieth at Utah First Credit Union Amphitheater.
- 2:05:25Speaker 5: The University of Michigan.
- 2:05:29Speaker 3: Is knocking on the door of being a record setting
- 2:05:31Speaker 3: most dominant team in the history of the NCAA Tournament
- 2:05:36Speaker 3: twenty plus points per game.
- 2:05:37Speaker 5: They are winning these games, these games.
- 2:05:40Speaker 3: By on their way to potentially tonight a national championship,
- 2:05:45Speaker 3: but for now they have not completed that task. Who
- 2:05:50Speaker 3: currently holds the record for the most dominant run to
- 2:05:53Speaker 3: a national championship?
- 2:05:54Speaker 5: We talked about this earlier in the show.
- 2:05:57Speaker 3: What college basketball program currently holds the honor and distinction
- 2:06:03Speaker 3: of being the most dominant single year champion, meaning they
- 2:06:07Speaker 3: dominated their tournament games by the largest average margin of
- 2:06:11Speaker 3: victory eight seven seven three five to three zero seven hundred.
- 2:06:15Speaker 3: If you missed any part of the show today or
- 2:06:18Speaker 3: any part of any day, you can find it at
- 2:06:21Speaker 3: ESPN seven hundred sports dot com. You can go to
- 2:06:24Speaker 3: the ESPN seven hundred app. You can find our on
- 2:06:27Speaker 3: demand section. You can tell you're smart speakers to play
- 2:06:30Speaker 3: ESPN seven hundred. You can watch us on YouTube. We're
- 2:06:35Speaker 3: coming at you from every direction here on the Sean
- 2:06:38Speaker 3: O'Connell show and on The Drive with Spence.
- 2:06:40Speaker 5: Check its which is coming up shortly.
- 2:06:45Speaker 3: National Championship Game tonight. You're looking for a place to
- 2:06:49Speaker 3: watch it. Seventeen seventeen. South Maine Yukon, Michigan Yukon in
- 2:06:55Speaker 3: the National Championship Game for the third time in four years.
- 2:07:00Speaker 3: We probably too often in sports look for dynasties. We
- 2:07:04Speaker 3: talk about dynasties too much. We want there to be
- 2:07:08Speaker 3: another whatever, another UCLA basketball in college sports from back
- 2:07:13Speaker 3: in the early days, harder than it ever was to
- 2:07:19Speaker 3: be a dynasty, right, And even the most impressive and
- 2:07:24Speaker 3: incredible dynasties of modern sport.
- 2:07:27Speaker 5: Usually have.
- 2:07:29Speaker 3: This period where they stay hyper relevant for I don't know,
- 2:07:33Speaker 3: the better part of a decade. They're not winning four, five,
- 2:07:37Speaker 3: and six championships in a row. Most times you're not
- 2:07:40Speaker 3: even winning three. But if you're in that hunt, if
- 2:07:43Speaker 3: you're there, in the case of Yukon three years out.
- 2:07:48Speaker 5: Of four, you're flirting with dynasty.
- 2:07:51Speaker 3: For me, I think we have to redefine the word
- 2:07:56Speaker 3: on some level because of the nature of things now
- 2:07:59Speaker 3: in college sports, because of the turnover, because of the
- 2:08:04Speaker 3: rapidity with which your competition shifts.
- 2:08:08Speaker 5: In the ground on which you stands changes.
- 2:08:12Speaker 3: If you're there in the conversation, if you're almost a
- 2:08:17Speaker 3: title challenger, if you're almost a title winner three years
- 2:08:22Speaker 3: out of four, four years out of five, six years
- 2:08:24Speaker 3: out of ten, that's good enough for me. If Yukon
- 2:08:31Speaker 3: wins tonight against Michigan, and I'm a Husky fan, I'm
- 2:08:36Speaker 3: a Husky coach, I'm a Husky player, I'm starting to
- 2:08:39Speaker 3: put dynasty next to my program's name just because you
- 2:08:43Speaker 3: can't expect.
- 2:08:45Speaker 5: A decade anymore.
- 2:08:47Speaker 3: Coaches don't stay as long, players are off into the
- 2:08:50Speaker 3: transfer portal.
- 2:08:51Speaker 5: Whatever.
- 2:08:54Speaker 3: So will we see Yukon continue to stay the case
- 2:08:58Speaker 3: when we see Michigan on top of the college basketball world,
- 2:09:03Speaker 3: and and if they do win it twenty years from now,
- 2:09:08Speaker 3: will we still be saying like, Hey, remember that Fab
- 2:09:12Speaker 3: five Michigan team? Or will we say what about that
- 2:09:15Speaker 3: twenty twenty six squad that won every damn tournament game
- 2:09:18Speaker 3: by twenty three points? The driver Spence checkets is up next.
- 2:09:23Speaker 3: Spence is here in studio with me, Hi Spence.
- 2:09:25Speaker 9: Fab five never Eve won National champion correct last time
- 2:09:28Speaker 9: Michigan won. It was eighty nine. Your boy Rumil Robinson.
- 2:09:32Speaker 9: You remember that team, Glenn Rice.
- 2:09:33Speaker 3: Glenn Rice. Yeah, I remember off that team. Hell my
- 2:09:37Speaker 3: six year old self remembers from that team. Uh, let
- 2:09:40Speaker 3: me ask you this. Did you ever own or no
- 2:09:43Speaker 3: people who owned or be around people who owned the
- 2:09:46Speaker 3: old Bugs Bunny and Tasmanian Devil Chriss Cross like Baggy
- 2:09:53Speaker 3: were There were t shirts with Bugs Bunny and the
- 2:09:56Speaker 3: Tasmanian Devil wearing baggy backwards clothes to celebrate the cultural
- 2:10:01Speaker 3: crossover of the Looney Tunes and one hit wonder criss Cross.
- 2:10:07Speaker 5: I don't even know what you're talking about, really saw
- 2:10:09Speaker 5: the no. No.
- 2:10:10Speaker 9: What I will say is when you say backwards baggy
- 2:10:12Speaker 9: jeans and backwards baggy clothes, I think of criss Cross
- 2:10:16Speaker 9: the hip hop duo okay, because my man wore a
- 2:10:18Speaker 9: John Starks jersey backwards.
- 2:10:20Speaker 5: Uh huh. I don't remember the name of that song.
- 2:10:22Speaker 9: Oh was it a jump Jump Jump Jump Chris Faddy
- 2:10:27Speaker 9: Mac will maake you don't dump, don't don't know the words.
- 2:10:31Speaker 5: Mac Daddy make you. Oh my gosh, that's it. It
- 2:10:34Speaker 5: was like the whole thing. It was a it was
- 2:10:36Speaker 5: a great song back in the day. It was everywhere.
- 2:10:39Speaker 9: Those two kids had to be fifteen or sixteen years old,
- 2:10:42Speaker 9: Yeah they were.
- 2:10:43Speaker 5: They were like they were like.
- 2:10:46Speaker 3: Pubescent kids who probably got auto tuned and just like, hey,
- 2:10:50Speaker 3: do something we've never seen before.
- 2:10:52Speaker 5: So are you talking about the T shirts they would wear?
- 2:10:55Speaker 5: Would they wear the Bugs Buddy T shirts?
- 2:10:57Speaker 3: I don't know why this was a design. Okay, I'm
- 2:11:00Speaker 3: gonna pull this up for you. That Willow Canyon Elementary Huh,
- 2:11:04Speaker 3: every kid had one of these, I have I've never
- 2:11:07Speaker 3: seen that before.
- 2:11:08Speaker 5: You've never seen that. I haven't. It's a good looking
- 2:11:10Speaker 5: sweatshirt though.
- 2:11:10Speaker 3: That's why I bring it up, because this is what
- 2:11:13Speaker 3: I think of when I think of the Fab five
- 2:11:15Speaker 3: Team Michigan was a cultural phenomenon. Yeah, and even out
- 2:11:19Speaker 3: here in Sandy, Utah, everywhere, dude, kids were just like, yeah,
- 2:11:23Speaker 3: Michigan and weirdly enough, because that was the age demographic
- 2:11:26Speaker 3: I was in right now, like you could get away
- 2:11:28Speaker 3: with well also, not just Crisscross and not just Michigan,
- 2:11:33Speaker 3: but also Bugs, Bunny and Taz.
- 2:11:35Speaker 5: Interesting.
- 2:11:36Speaker 9: Well, I learned something new today when I think of
- 2:11:38Speaker 9: the Fab five cultural effect. Number one black Ankle socks, which,
- 2:11:42Speaker 9: by the way, I still wear to I'm wearing them
- 2:11:44Speaker 9: right now.
- 2:11:45Speaker 5: It's all I wear. And the baggy jeans I love.
- 2:11:50Speaker 9: Jalen Rose as a college player, Chris Weber, Ray Jackson,
- 2:11:56Speaker 9: Jimmy King, Jawon Howard.
- 2:11:57Speaker 1: That team was.
- 2:12:00Speaker 9: Really fun to watch. Never won a Nattie, ran up
- 2:12:03Speaker 9: against those really good duke teams. But yeah, I mean
- 2:12:06Speaker 9: they were one of those cultural phenomenons to your point,
- 2:12:09Speaker 9: that crossed over everywhere.
- 2:12:10Speaker 3: And they're remembered as though they did win a national championship, right, We'll.
- 2:12:14Speaker 5: Ever call the time out Carolina Eric Montross.
- 2:12:17Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's like, you don't talk about that Carolina team, right,
- 2:12:20Speaker 3: You don't reference them by some title you do the
- 2:12:24Speaker 3: Fab Five.
- 2:12:24Speaker 5: Yeah, it's strange.
- 2:12:26Speaker 3: And this Michigan team, I don't know why I'm so
- 2:12:30Speaker 3: fixated on this, this Michigan team. If they somehow find
- 2:12:34Speaker 3: a way to win by twenty plus tonight, they're gonna
- 2:12:36Speaker 3: go down as one of the three most dominant champions
- 2:12:39Speaker 3: in the history of college basketball, and we won't remember
- 2:12:42Speaker 3: them the same way, probably because we're in a new
- 2:12:44Speaker 3: era now where there's just less attachment to any cool
- 2:12:48Speaker 3: thing that's happening.
- 2:12:49Speaker 9: Yeah, because attracted exactly, because there's so many things going
- 2:12:52Speaker 9: on everywhere in a way that there wasn't back then.
- 2:12:55Speaker 9: I just I have this debate with a buddy of mine.
- 2:12:58Speaker 9: I love One Shining I love the song at the
- 2:13:01Speaker 9: end of the tournament, and he hates it. So I
- 2:13:04Speaker 9: texted him at the end of the tournament, Hey, you're
- 2:13:05Speaker 9: sitting down ready for one Shining moment?
- 2:13:07Speaker 5: Okay?
- 2:13:07Speaker 9: And the One Shining moment featuring the Fab Five as
- 2:13:11Speaker 9: freshmen was an embodiment of what you're talking about, because
- 2:13:15Speaker 9: if you go back and watch that, the majority of
- 2:13:18Speaker 9: it was them and they didn't win it. But it's
- 2:13:21Speaker 9: smart television executives understanding what sells because they were brash,
- 2:13:26Speaker 9: they were young, they were cool. And by the way,
- 2:13:28Speaker 9: I just love the Michigan jerseys. I love the Michigan colors,
- 2:13:33Speaker 9: wits decked out and Jordan brand now and we got
- 2:13:35Speaker 9: to deal with under armour up here like it's a
- 2:13:37Speaker 9: cool brand.
- 2:13:39Speaker 5: It just is. It's gonna make me.
- 2:13:41Speaker 3: I have not yet seen WIT's feet since he has
- 2:13:45Speaker 3: taken the Michigan job.
- 2:13:47Speaker 5: Why are we focusing on his feet?
- 2:13:49Speaker 3: Because when Kyle Whittingham comes out and is wearing like
- 2:13:52Speaker 3: some Jordan Fourskay, I'm gonna throw up, yeah, because they're
- 2:13:56Speaker 3: gonna look cool on because they're gonna look cool.
- 2:13:57Speaker 5: He's gonna look so cool.
- 2:13:59Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna be like, damn it does he with
- 2:14:03Speaker 3: under armour they had to find like the the one
- 2:14:06Speaker 3: signature Tom Brady under armour shoe that didn't look like
- 2:14:09Speaker 3: an absolute visual abomination.
- 2:14:11Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 2:14:12Speaker 3: That was the only thing that he could wear to
- 2:14:13Speaker 3: like the Pac twelve and Big twelve media days, so
- 2:14:16Speaker 3: he didn't look like a freaking Yahoo.
- 2:14:18Speaker 9: Can we get what hell long is the under armoured deal?
- 2:14:22Speaker 9: Is it still a couple of years? Hold on, it's
- 2:14:24Speaker 9: too long? Yeah, let's can we Can we dexter Lawrence
- 2:14:28Speaker 9: our way out of the contract?
- 2:14:29Speaker 6: Now?
- 2:14:30Speaker 5: Can we demand a trade to Jordan Brand? Please?
- 2:14:32Speaker 3: Uh sir, you have six more years on this thing. No,
- 2:14:35Speaker 3: I want out now? Can we be honest?
- 2:14:37Speaker 9: Like, Utah has the potential to have really cool gear,
- 2:14:42Speaker 9: But when's the last time you saw you'd sweater?
- 2:14:45Speaker 5: You're like, I need that?
- 2:14:46Speaker 3: Well, I still feel that way, but because of the
- 2:14:49Speaker 3: drum and feather. Sure not because of the underarm.
- 2:14:52Speaker 9: There's some unlocked potential here, Okay, under armoured themselves. They're
- 2:14:55Speaker 9: kind of like they thought there were gonna be something
- 2:14:58Speaker 9: that they're not.
- 2:14:58Speaker 3: I still I still have a like a pretty old
- 2:15:01Speaker 3: it's a dry fit, black crew neck sweatshirt with a
- 2:15:05Speaker 3: red Drummond feather on it.
- 2:15:06Speaker 5: Okay, and it's a it's from like two thousand and two, so.
- 2:15:09Speaker 3: There's a swoosh oh okay, and I wear it and
- 2:15:11Speaker 3: people are like, what the where'd you get that?
- 2:15:12Speaker 6: Yeah?
- 2:15:13Speaker 5: Yeah, like yeah, it's vintage at this point.
- 2:15:14Speaker 9: Yeah, I wonder how Kyle is digesting the NCAA tournament run.
- 2:15:20Speaker 9: Michigan has the endowment where they expect you to do
- 2:15:22Speaker 9: what the basketball team's doing. M So, if you're the
- 2:15:26Speaker 9: football coach, are you cheering for the basketball team to win?
- 2:15:29Speaker 5: You better be? Or do you not want that on
- 2:15:32Speaker 5: your shoulders? I don't think that.
- 2:15:34Speaker 3: I think that that is a man that is not
- 2:15:37Speaker 3: affected by external pressures.
- 2:15:39Speaker 9: Yeah, in the slightest yeah, yeah, you know, you're you're
- 2:15:42Speaker 9: you're probably correct, But but you got me on the
- 2:15:47Speaker 9: Fab five tip now, because it was just this thing
- 2:15:51Speaker 9: no matter where you were, and especially if you played basketball.
- 2:15:55Speaker 9: It's it's the Jordan effect, you know, like we all
- 2:15:58Speaker 9: wanted to be like Mike. It was the name of
- 2:16:00Speaker 9: the commercial, it was the name of the you know,
- 2:16:03Speaker 9: the the advertising campaign, be like Mike.
- 2:16:07Speaker 5: There were the cool videos.
- 2:16:08Speaker 9: There's McDonald's, there's Gatorade, and I am uniquely qualified to
- 2:16:13Speaker 9: hate Michael Jordan. With Jazz Nicks in my background, you couldn't,
- 2:16:18Speaker 9: you know. And every once in a while there's an
- 2:16:20Speaker 9: athlete or a trend that just I feel like Jeter
- 2:16:23Speaker 9: was like that in baseball. So many people hate the Yankees,
- 2:16:26Speaker 9: but I think it was really hard to hate Derek
- 2:16:27Speaker 9: Jeter football equivalent.
- 2:16:30Speaker 5: Brady's good, but he's a magoo. You can tell him
- 2:16:32Speaker 5: he's awesome, don't tell me he's cool. It's very easy
- 2:16:36Speaker 5: for me to hate Tom Brady. Yeah, like I respect him. Yeah, Yeah,
- 2:16:39Speaker 5: it's hard.
- 2:16:39Speaker 3: Not because he's I respect the football version of him,
- 2:16:42Speaker 3: because wow, he was so good for so long, but
- 2:16:45Speaker 3: he's pretty hateable.
- 2:16:46Speaker 9: The Niners were pretty cool with Montana and Rice, the Bears,
- 2:16:50Speaker 9: the Nights ever, Yeah, the nineteen eighty five Bears, Walter Payton,
- 2:16:54Speaker 9: the fridge, McMahon and sunglasses.
- 2:16:57Speaker 5: Yeah.
- 2:16:57Speaker 9: It's it's interesting whenever h or a team just transcends
- 2:17:02Speaker 9: all the things we typically talk about. Which usually is
- 2:17:04Speaker 9: winning and losing. And obviously the Niners and the Bears
- 2:17:07Speaker 9: want Super Bowls, but the Michigan example, average college basketball
- 2:17:12Speaker 9: fans be like, yeah, they want a couple of natties, right, Like, no, no,
- 2:17:14Speaker 9: they don't. They didn't win one, and it's weird. They're
- 2:17:16Speaker 9: just six seeds.
- 2:17:18Speaker 5: Those things.
- 2:17:18Speaker 3: Even though we have more access to whatever we want
- 2:17:21Speaker 3: to see now, those things that will remain in our
- 2:17:25Speaker 3: mind and evoke pictures of bug buz, bugs bunny for folks,
- 2:17:30Speaker 3: they're fewer and further between, because back in those days,
- 2:17:34Speaker 3: all of your exposure to all this stuff was funneled
- 2:17:37Speaker 3: through the same thing, you know what I mean. You
- 2:17:38Speaker 3: can see it on television. In my case, you couldn't
- 2:17:41Speaker 3: even see it on cable television. We didn't have it.
- 2:17:43Speaker 3: You see it on network television, and that's where you
- 2:17:46Speaker 3: get it. And now it's like, I think that the
- 2:17:49Speaker 3: US Hockey Gold Medal is the closest I can, like,
- 2:17:53Speaker 3: we're gonna remember what we were doing, where we were,
- 2:17:55Speaker 3: who we were watching it with, hopefully maybe right, but
- 2:18:00Speaker 3: you might have been watching it on your phone while
- 2:18:03Speaker 3: you were so it's not the same as it used
- 2:18:06Speaker 3: to be where you can smell the food you're eating
- 2:18:09Speaker 3: and stuff like that. So those things are further and
- 2:18:12Speaker 3: further and fewer and further between than they used to be.
- 2:18:17Speaker 3: And this Michigan team, like, maybe when it's all said
- 2:18:21Speaker 3: done tonight will deserve to be remembered that way.
- 2:18:24Speaker 5: Yeah, but probably won't be. Yeah.
- 2:18:26Speaker 9: And look, I don't think they're gonna win by twenty
- 2:18:29Speaker 9: because Yukon makes every game of rock fight. But this
- 2:18:32Speaker 9: is a tough task for Yukon. Even if the London
- 2:18:34Speaker 9: Berg kid has has a bomb ankle. That's a good
- 2:18:37Speaker 9: basketball team, and you know, they had some injury issues
- 2:18:40Speaker 9: early on. I thought they were the most vulnerable one seed,
- 2:18:43Speaker 9: but they've been incredibly impressive. I'm pulling for Yukon. I'd
- 2:18:48Speaker 9: like to see that happen, but I don't know. Man,
- 2:18:51Speaker 9: this feels like a really tough task when it comes
- 2:18:53Speaker 9: to the way Michigan is played throughout the course of
- 2:18:56Speaker 9: the tournament. And the other thing about stuff that grabs
- 2:18:58Speaker 9: our attention now is even if you try to stay
- 2:19:03Speaker 9: on your social media feed about what you want to
- 2:19:05Speaker 9: hear about, you're inevitably inundated by the other things that
- 2:19:07Speaker 9: have gone viral. The instant the algorithms just feed it
- 2:19:10Speaker 9: to you. So it's like, all right, I'm gonna I
- 2:19:12Speaker 9: want to watch a video about Utah football. Oh okay,
- 2:19:14Speaker 9: Now I need to learn who the Haktua girl is,
- 2:19:16Speaker 9: because suddenly she's everywhere. It's like, what's going on. It's
- 2:19:19Speaker 9: just like a weird thing. What grabs our attention algorithms. Oh,
- 2:19:24Speaker 9: Taylor Frankie Paul is leaving the Mormon Church. Sweet, let
- 2:19:27Speaker 9: me read about that.
- 2:19:28Speaker 5: Today.
- 2:19:28Speaker 3: I saw a really awesome tweet regarding that, where it
- 2:19:31Speaker 3: was one of the ute fan of councils. Just like
- 2:19:33Speaker 3: I've been to California many times for visits, I'm I
- 2:19:37Speaker 3: want to make an announcement that I'm leaving moving out
- 2:19:40Speaker 3: of the state of California. Yeah, but of course it
- 2:19:42Speaker 3: suggested being like, I mean, her behavior for the last
- 2:19:48Speaker 3: decade plus as indicator she's not really been in the Mormon.
- 2:19:50Speaker 5: Church hasn't been conducive to the standards. Shall we say?
- 2:19:55Speaker 9: That's a different show, but but it underscores the point.
- 2:19:59Speaker 9: I don't give rip who Taylor Frankie Paul is. I
- 2:20:01Speaker 9: never wanted to know who this person was. I don't
- 2:20:03Speaker 9: care what she does with her personal life. Get off
- 2:20:05Speaker 9: my feet. I'm not looking it up. It's just fed
- 2:20:07Speaker 9: to me.
- 2:20:07Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it's weird proximity minds. Yeah, indeed indeed. But
- 2:20:13Speaker 5: we'll talk sports today. Stay tuned on the drive.
- 2:20:17Speaker 3: Spence is going to tell you why the Presidential Executive
- 2:20:21Speaker 3: Order will save college sports.
- 2:20:22Speaker 5: I will do that coming up next.
- 2:20:25Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to the Sean O'Connell Show. It's ESPN
- 2:20:27Speaker 3: seven hundred ninety two ONEFM