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3 Guys BeforeThe Game - Emergency Podcast - DeVries Departs (Episode 625) · 3 Guys Before The Game

0:10
Speaker 1: All right, Hi, everybody, welcome in time four three guys
0:13
Speaker 1: before the game. This is an emergency podcast. We did
0:17
Speaker 1: not expect to be in studio so soon. We got
0:21
Speaker 1: it in Monday, and obviously we sat here and we
0:23
Speaker 1: talked about the just the sadness of not getting to
0:28
Speaker 1: the NCAA tournament. Now we bounce back just a couple
0:30
Speaker 1: of days later, and now West Virginia is without a
0:34
Speaker 1: head basketball coach. So Darren Devrees is gone one and out.
0:40
Speaker 1: On this particular podcast, we will give you just our
0:43
Speaker 1: initial thoughts on that. Then we will come back in
0:47
Speaker 1: again tomorrow and give you more details. Ren Baker is
0:50
Speaker 1: going to have a press conference later today and he'll
0:53
Speaker 1: give you some more specific So less than a year
0:58
Speaker 1: away from hiring Darren reason. In fact, it's the nineteenth
1:01
Speaker 1: of March today, which means his higher date was the
1:04
Speaker 1: twenty fourth, So literally like just almost a year. The
1:09
Speaker 1: search is on again. And it would not be crazy
1:12
Speaker 1: to me if on March twenty fourth of twenty five,
1:16
Speaker 1: West Virginia has another head coach. It could happen on
1:19
Speaker 1: the very same day. Our comments are coming up from
1:21
Speaker 1: Hoppy and Breadth. Three guys before the game is brought
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1:57
Speaker 1: I don't know, we've done maybe a couple of two
1:58
Speaker 1: three emergencyts in our in our eight years. And uh,
2:05
Speaker 1: they happen when coaches leave, when coaches come.
2:09
Speaker 2: And more frequent.
2:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they are, they certainly are. So what we're
2:14
Speaker 1: gonna do is different in the sense that we're just
2:16
Speaker 1: gonna We're gonna riff and then that's it, and we'll
2:19
Speaker 1: come back tomorrow and we'll do textual healing. And we
2:23
Speaker 1: almost blew up, We almost blew up the text line.
2:25
Speaker 1: I've been turned on the computer day, believe it, and
2:28
Speaker 1: it said like whoa, So.
2:30
Speaker 3: Well, this is why we're doing it tomorrow because we
2:32
Speaker 3: we'll give some time for the therapy portion of this
2:34
Speaker 3: and the venting portion of this, which which needs to happen,
2:37
Speaker 3: we understand.
2:38
Speaker 4: So we'll have some long form of that tomorrow.
2:40
Speaker 1: Correct. Okay, So what has happened obviously, Derees departs his
2:46
Speaker 1: introductory introductory press conference in Indiana is going on today?
2:52
Speaker 1: What is the significance of it all? Well, I'll tell
2:54
Speaker 1: you this. This is what has happened in the history
2:57
Speaker 1: of WVU basketball. West Virginia has had twenty three coaches.
3:02
Speaker 1: Twenty three coaches, and with Darren's departure, you now have
3:08
Speaker 1: six that have stayed for just one year. That includes
3:12
Speaker 1: Josh Eilert. So it's only happened prior to this on
3:18
Speaker 1: four other occasions. The last time it happened nineteen forty five,
3:23
Speaker 1: eighty years ago, John Brickeles went one and done.
3:26
Speaker 3: I was gonna say that that actually, to me sounds
3:28
Speaker 3: like a lot of done. I would have thought there
3:29
Speaker 3: would be less than that. But if you turn back
3:31
Speaker 3: the clock different era, a different time, go ahead.
3:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's back when everything was in black and white,
3:35
Speaker 1: like you know, these guys, there's wars going on and
3:38
Speaker 1: there's stuff going on. They just woned and done.
3:40
Speaker 4: And they got an eight hundred and twelve dollars stipend
3:42
Speaker 4: to be the coach.
3:42
Speaker 1: So it was different.
3:43
Speaker 2: Now, but the big the big numbers four coaches in
3:45
Speaker 2: four years.
3:46
Speaker 1: That's big. But my point is this has not happened
3:49
Speaker 1: at WVU in eighty years. Where you got don plitze.
3:53
Speaker 4: Whit I was gonna say on the men's side, it
3:55
Speaker 4: hasn't happened.
3:55
Speaker 1: This becomes the don plitze a verb. Now, yeah, you
3:58
Speaker 1: got your pittsnoggle or you get plitze whited. So absolute
4:03
Speaker 1: gazillion different emotions that go on when something like this happens.
4:07
Speaker 1: So again we don't rehearse as you probably can tell.
4:12
Speaker 1: Fire away boys, what do you got?
4:14
Speaker 5: Well, if I may, I thought about I thought about
4:16
Speaker 5: this a lot, and I came up with three things.
4:18
Speaker 5: I came up with disappointment, I came up with loyalty
4:23
Speaker 5: and opportunity. Let me explain is a college fandom is
4:27
Speaker 5: rooted to a large.
4:28
Speaker 2: Degree in loyalty.
4:29
Speaker 5: And because of loyalty, fans and we'll just talk about
4:32
Speaker 5: West Virginia fans. They go to games, they buy tickets,
4:34
Speaker 5: They go to games, they listen on a radio, they
4:38
Speaker 5: watch it on TV, they buy swag. In some cases
4:41
Speaker 5: they contribute as a late department. There is a loyalty
4:43
Speaker 5: factor and we even we even take pledges to it.
4:47
Speaker 5: We sing the Alma maters, sing to sing to the
4:51
Speaker 5: my Alma Mater, everlasting through the years, lasting through the years.
4:56
Speaker 5: With victorious teams, we sing country roads, take me home
4:59
Speaker 5: to the I belong. All of that is about a
5:03
Speaker 5: sense of place and a sense of loyalty. But with
5:06
Speaker 5: the changing landscape of college athletics, there comes greater opportunity.
5:11
Speaker 5: Started with coaches and the big money they were making,
5:13
Speaker 5: and now with players or essentially free agents, and that's
5:15
Speaker 5: a necessarily bad thing. I mean, we've talked about that
5:17
Speaker 5: players should be compensated for the value they provide. But
5:21
Speaker 5: now now it's getting different. It used to be loyalty
5:24
Speaker 5: was up here and opportunity was here. Now opportunity, I think,
5:27
Speaker 5: is trumping loyalty in terms of in terms of players
5:30
Speaker 5: and coaches. And with coach Devreese, he said, this is
5:33
Speaker 5: an opportunity, an opportunity to coach at a very specific place.
5:39
Speaker 5: So that's the world in which we in which we
5:42
Speaker 5: live now. So how do fans, how do you cope
5:45
Speaker 5: with this? Well, one of it because fans have emotional connections,
5:50
Speaker 5: and they develop emotional connections with players and with coaches
5:53
Speaker 5: and fans. Now fans have to understand that these relationships
5:58
Speaker 5: are purely transactional, purely transactional, and if you expect anything more,
6:05
Speaker 5: you're going to be constantly disappointed. So that's where we are.
6:10
Speaker 5: I know fans are disappointed. I'm disappointed. I think you
6:12
Speaker 5: guys are as well. But this is the new world,
6:16
Speaker 5: and you're if you expect, if you expect the same
6:20
Speaker 5: level of loyalty back from players and coaches that you
6:24
Speaker 5: are demonstrating through your behavior, you're going to be constantly
6:28
Speaker 5: disappointed and or in a state of anxiety because of
6:32
Speaker 5: the fear of what's going to happen.
6:35
Speaker 1: All right, Ell, senator stunned.
6:40
Speaker 3: Stunned is all I can say here. I said, from
6:44
Speaker 3: the very beginning before what was the date Darren was
6:46
Speaker 3: announced to twenty four mark, So we taught, we had
6:48
Speaker 3: we had podcasts leading up to that, and I said,
6:51
Speaker 3: from before he was even hired, this was an awesome fit.
6:54
Speaker 4: This was a great fit.
6:56
Speaker 3: After spending nearly every day with the guy for the
6:59
Speaker 3: last however many months, and I've said it many times
7:02
Speaker 3: on the show, this is an elite basketball coach. West
7:04
Speaker 3: Virginia had an elite basketball coach that was a really
7:07
Speaker 3: good fit. And I think this program was going places.
7:09
Speaker 3: I really do, and you saw what could happen in
7:12
Speaker 3: a one year turnaround, even without all the parts or
7:14
Speaker 3: pieces in place. I did not think this was somebody
7:18
Speaker 3: that was here for a year. Just did not had
7:21
Speaker 3: been two jobs in twenty four ish years, right, twenty
7:24
Speaker 3: total at Creton. Three is a GA seventeen as an
7:26
Speaker 3: assistant six at Drake, which is maybe more stunning. You
7:30
Speaker 3: don't stay six years at Drake. All due respect to
7:32
Speaker 3: Drake when you have the success that he had, so
7:35
Speaker 3: to be that patient and stay for those opportunities and
7:38
Speaker 3: then finally get your crack as a head coach at
7:40
Speaker 3: a Power four level. I did not think they were
7:42
Speaker 3: he was going. There was a lot of talk about
7:44
Speaker 3: the Iowa job for months, even before he took it.
7:47
Speaker 3: We had conversations about that. I never believed Iowa was
7:49
Speaker 3: where he was going to end up. I thought that
7:51
Speaker 3: was pretty clear from the beginning, so all of that
7:54
Speaker 3: social media traffic and man Iowa's got some accounts that
7:57
Speaker 3: missed it horribly, not even remotely close. But I did
8:01
Speaker 3: not think the Indiana thing was the one we would
8:04
Speaker 3: be coming in here having an emergency podcast. In fact,
8:06
Speaker 3: I didn't think there would be an emergency podcast. I
8:08
Speaker 3: thought we'd be in here on Thursday, regularly scheduled, saying okay,
8:11
Speaker 3: you're moving forward, and we'd have conversations about who West
8:14
Speaker 3: Virginia was pulling in via the portal. I really thought
8:17
Speaker 3: that's where we would land. For a lot of different
8:18
Speaker 3: reasons that we can get into. I did not think
8:21
Speaker 3: we'd be having this press conference one year later talking
8:24
Speaker 3: about the Indiana job. And I can speculate we will
8:27
Speaker 3: hear in a minute on why that is the case.
8:29
Speaker 3: But I just simply am left stunned by this.
8:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, as you said, I think disappointment is one of
8:36
Speaker 1: many words that you can use. I agree with you.
8:39
Speaker 1: I think he is as good of a coach as
8:42
Speaker 1: I've ever seen, and what he did this year was
8:47
Speaker 1: off the charred good. I truly believe that he did
8:50
Speaker 1: not think when he got here on March twenty fourth
8:54
Speaker 1: of last year that this also would be a one
8:57
Speaker 1: and done. I truly believe he thought he would come
8:59
Speaker 1: in for the long haul. And I think that when
9:05
Speaker 1: the way that these dominoes fall and all of a sudden,
9:08
Speaker 1: this Indiana job presents itself, then it becomes really really
9:13
Speaker 1: attractive because, as you said, this is a transactional business,
9:18
Speaker 1: not only today in emotion, this is a transactional business
9:22
Speaker 1: in regard to dollars and Indiana's ability because of the
9:29
Speaker 1: dollars that it has becomes a job in which a coach,
9:35
Speaker 1: whomever it is, can go in there. Nowadays in the
9:38
Speaker 1: world we're about to get into with the revshare and
9:41
Speaker 1: they will go and you will not want for anything.
9:46
Speaker 1: You will not want for anything. Now that's not to
9:48
Speaker 1: say that West Virginia wasn't positioned and has been over
9:52
Speaker 1: the last several months getting everything in line to make
9:55
Speaker 1: sure that you could go to market and get what
9:57
Speaker 1: you need. But when you go to this particular job,
10:00
Speaker 1: because they are so thirsty to win. They are so
10:04
Speaker 1: thirsty to win. And I'll tell you why they're so
10:07
Speaker 1: thirsty to win, because in their world of where they
10:10
Speaker 1: think they belong in college basketball, it's been really dry.
10:15
Speaker 1: It's been really really.
10:16
Speaker 4: Dry for a long time.
10:17
Speaker 1: And so from a leverage and negotiation standpoint, Daron Devrees
10:21
Speaker 1: can go in and he can call his shot, and
10:24
Speaker 1: from what I understand's going to be five million dollars
10:26
Speaker 1: a year, and then obviously whatever he needs. But the
10:29
Speaker 1: reality of it is they are thirsty and so bad
10:32
Speaker 1: to win that they were ready to do whatever it took.
10:35
Speaker 1: Let me give you an example. Okay, So in the
10:39
Speaker 1: last twenty five seasons of college basketball, last twenty five
10:45
Speaker 1: years from two thousand to two thousand and one season
10:47
Speaker 1: up until this season. Okay, NCAA appearances in the last
10:53
Speaker 1: twenty five years, Indiana nine, and their average seed when
10:59
Speaker 1: they went into the tournament was six point three. West
11:02
Speaker 1: Virginia in the last same period of time, the last
11:05
Speaker 1: twenty five seasons nc DOUBLEA appearances twelve, average West Virginia
11:11
Speaker 1: seed five point one. They haven't won a Natty since
11:15
Speaker 1: eighty seven.
11:16
Speaker 3: Well, you're gonna do final fours in sweet sixteens, final
11:19
Speaker 3: forces because you've had more success at West Virginia than Indiana.
11:21
Speaker 4: So here so much so.
11:23
Speaker 1: My point is, my point is twofold one. The last
11:28
Speaker 1: quarter century has shown that you can get it done
11:32
Speaker 1: at West Virginia. You can put yourself into that world
11:35
Speaker 1: of the NC DOUBLEA Tournament and you can have success.
11:39
Speaker 1: That's one thing. And if you didn't get screwed this year,
11:42
Speaker 1: that would have been thirteen years out of the last
11:46
Speaker 1: twenty five seasons that you were in the NC DOUBLEA Tournament.
11:49
Speaker 1: And then on the other side, for Indiana, it shows
11:53
Speaker 1: like they've been missing and missing and missing, and they
11:57
Speaker 1: need to fix it and no matter what it took
12:00
Speaker 1: to go get someone and whatever it's going to be,
12:02
Speaker 1: we're gonna go get this guy. They hit a home run,
12:05
Speaker 1: they hit a home run. I don't think he goes.
12:08
Speaker 1: I mean, if he went to Iowa, I'd be more like,
12:12
Speaker 1: why are you doing that? Indiana is a top ten,
12:15
Speaker 1: they're tenth all time in victories, They've got five national championships.
12:20
Speaker 1: Their perception may be better than their current reality. But
12:23
Speaker 1: I think Darren thinks that he can go back there
12:26
Speaker 1: and get that thing redone. However, this is a different world.
12:31
Speaker 1: It's an eighteen team Big ten. You are going to Washington,
12:35
Speaker 1: you are going to Oregon, you are going to usc
12:37
Speaker 1: you are going to UCLA, you are going to Rutger, right,
12:41
Speaker 1: So like it's a different deal man, and it's a
12:44
Speaker 1: lot of teams. So best of luck, he'll he's he's
12:47
Speaker 1: extremely good, but this is going to be hard and
12:51
Speaker 1: it's going to be a pressure cooker for him perception wise.
12:56
Speaker 1: That's a different world. That's seventh space.
12:58
Speaker 3: So a couple things, And I think I was going
13:00
Speaker 3: to bring up those the numbers of the jobs too,
13:03
Speaker 3: but let I always hesitate to speak on somebody's behalf,
13:06
Speaker 3: but I'm going to try and speak.
13:07
Speaker 4: A little bit here.
13:08
Speaker 3: Then we'll move it forward to what's coming. I think
13:11
Speaker 3: in this situation, as I've tried to sit back and think,
13:13
Speaker 3: all right, why is he at Indiana? And I think
13:17
Speaker 3: you said it best there there's a perception of Indiana
13:20
Speaker 3: from certain people of a certain age, from a certain
13:22
Speaker 3: area that is different than what the overall perception is.
13:26
Speaker 3: And I think I can speak to this because we're
13:28
Speaker 3: of similar age and from the same place. If you're
13:31
Speaker 3: fifty plus years old and you grew up in the Midwest,
13:34
Speaker 3: Indiana does sit in a different place in your mind
13:37
Speaker 3: than for a lot of other people. And I think
13:40
Speaker 3: if you're Darren and you're looking at yourself and you're
13:42
Speaker 3: self aware excuse me enough to know this. You're thinking,
13:46
Speaker 3: I'm never going to be the coach. I'm not going
13:48
Speaker 3: to coach at UCLA. I'm not going to coach at Kentucky.
13:50
Speaker 3: I'm not going to coach at Carolina. And I'm not
13:51
Speaker 3: from Texas, so I'm not going to coach at the
13:53
Speaker 3: University of Texas. So a lot of the unlimited resource
13:57
Speaker 3: jobs in basketball are not even on the radar because
14:00
Speaker 3: it's not going to be a fit and you're not
14:01
Speaker 3: going to go get them. So if I'm trying to
14:03
Speaker 3: think of why he makes this move, to me, this
14:06
Speaker 3: is not about what was wrong with West Virginia. It's
14:09
Speaker 3: just simply not all the stuff you're going to hear about.
14:12
Speaker 3: They didn't like it here and they had to get that.
14:13
Speaker 3: That's that's not right. I've had enough conversations with him
14:16
Speaker 3: to know that's not true, and I know the support
14:19
Speaker 3: was there, and the conversations were there, and the feeling
14:22
Speaker 3: that he could get what he needed to win was there.
14:25
Speaker 3: This to me, is not at all about what West
14:27
Speaker 3: Virginia had offered or will have. This is about a
14:31
Speaker 3: guy that viewed that job as one of the crown
14:34
Speaker 3: jewels in college basketball that he could go get and
14:37
Speaker 3: of that certain age, those opportunities may not come around again.
14:42
Speaker 3: And I think that's where this landed. I don't think
14:44
Speaker 3: this is running from something. It seems to be running
14:48
Speaker 3: to something. And listen, I know that probably makes nobody
14:51
Speaker 3: listening to this field any better, but I think that's
14:54
Speaker 3: just the situation we're in moving forward this particular job.
14:58
Speaker 3: And I said this when we went through this last
15:00
Speaker 3: year before Darren was identified.
15:02
Speaker 4: This is a really good job.
15:05
Speaker 3: This West Virginia job is really good. There is support,
15:08
Speaker 3: there is resources, there are a ton of people that
15:11
Speaker 3: care about it, all of those things. But here's what
15:13
Speaker 3: it also is, as outlined by those numbers you just gave,
15:16
Speaker 3: and I will repeat what I said one year ago.
15:18
Speaker 3: This is a program that has won with a bunch
15:21
Speaker 3: of different coaches, a bunch of different styles, in a
15:23
Speaker 3: bunch of different leagues. Gail Katlet to sweet sixteen, John
15:26
Speaker 3: b Lying an elite aid a whisker from a final four,
15:29
Speaker 3: Hugs to a final four, and as you said, without
15:31
Speaker 3: getting absolutely screwed by the committee, you were in the
15:34
Speaker 3: tournament again with another coach with a depleted roster, battling
15:38
Speaker 3: injuries again. This program not team. This program has won
15:43
Speaker 3: through all kinds of different coaches, and I think it
15:46
Speaker 3: will again because it is a good program. There is
15:49
Speaker 3: a lot of good This isn't a time for West
15:52
Speaker 3: Virginia fans and West Virginians to go, oh, woe is us?
15:55
Speaker 3: What's wrong with us? This isn't a what's wrong with us? This,
15:59
Speaker 3: in my opinion, is a guy that saw a job
16:01
Speaker 3: that he valued as one of the top, if not
16:03
Speaker 3: top jobs in the country, and he went to get it,
16:05
Speaker 3: and the timing sucked and the timing was awful, and
16:08
Speaker 3: I guarantee there's a big part of him that thinks.
16:10
Speaker 4: That as well.
16:11
Speaker 3: But this is not about West Virginia having an issue.
16:14
Speaker 3: I think this is a really really good basketball job, right.
16:17
Speaker 2: I think you're exactly right.
16:18
Speaker 5: And WVU did not a couple of things that we
16:22
Speaker 5: know from talking to various sortses. WVU did not get
16:24
Speaker 5: a chance either to counter proposal. So this wasn't oh,
16:28
Speaker 5: they're offering me this, what can you do? So it
16:31
Speaker 5: was and that tells you a couple of things. One
16:33
Speaker 5: is that he really saw the Indiana job. Again, not
16:37
Speaker 5: to speak for him, but he really saw that as
16:38
Speaker 5: a once in a lifetime opportunity.
16:40
Speaker 2: Okay, number one. Number two is that WVU.
16:45
Speaker 5: They were never that worried about Iowa because West Virginia
16:49
Speaker 5: is They didn't think that Iowa was at best a
16:52
Speaker 5: lateral move for him. Indiana they had concerns about, but
16:58
Speaker 5: they thought that he was not in the top two
17:01
Speaker 5: or three one two or three of what Indiana was
17:03
Speaker 5: looking for. Now what where he was, we don't know,
17:05
Speaker 5: I mean, number one guy. But so they had a
17:09
Speaker 5: fear like, uh oh, like we can compete with Iowa,
17:12
Speaker 5: but if Indiana comes in, we got a problem.
17:15
Speaker 1: If Indiana comes in and the people that are the
17:18
Speaker 1: first picks for Indiana say no, then you got a problem. Yeah,
17:21
Speaker 1: and that's exactly right.
17:22
Speaker 5: Yeah, but we don't know how many, if any, were
17:25
Speaker 5: ahead of him.
17:26
Speaker 1: Now, you know, you know Scott Drew, you know Brad Stevens.
17:29
Speaker 1: You know, they took their shots several guys. Here.
17:32
Speaker 3: Here's where I give Indiana credit, though. The fact that
17:35
Speaker 3: they interviewed Ben McCullum and Darren Devrees shows me there
17:39
Speaker 3: was a shift within the Indiana power structure that they
17:42
Speaker 3: finally said, you know what freaking got We got to
17:45
Speaker 3: go get a basketball coach, somebody that knows how to
17:47
Speaker 3: coach a game. All due respect to Mike Woodson, that
17:49
Speaker 3: team was lost. We looked at him down in the Bahamas.
17:51
Speaker 3: They were lost, and that wasn't a good higher. That
17:54
Speaker 3: just wasn't a good higher. The hope from a West
17:56
Speaker 3: Virginia perspective, My perspective was that someone would overrule in
18:00
Speaker 3: Indiana and go, now, I know, we got to get
18:02
Speaker 3: somebody else in here, and they would miss on what
18:03
Speaker 3: are two really good coaches, Ben McCollum and dere Freese.
18:06
Speaker 3: The fact that they interviewed McCollum as well. When I
18:09
Speaker 3: heard that early on, I thought, this isn't good because
18:12
Speaker 3: someone over there has finally figured out what they're doing.
18:15
Speaker 4: I know, they've got to get the basketball job right.
18:18
Speaker 1: Believed purportedly reportedly they interviewed McCollum twice. Oh really, yeah,
18:23
Speaker 1: I mean it was there. I mean, this to me
18:25
Speaker 1: has some similarities to how Rich Rodriguez got back to
18:28
Speaker 1: West Virginia. I mean, Rich was not number one on
18:31
Speaker 1: the list when they started it all. But you just
18:35
Speaker 1: have to hang in there and things happen, and then
18:38
Speaker 1: your time comes. I Pat Kelsey was not the number
18:41
Speaker 1: one pick at Louisville last year, but he just kind
18:44
Speaker 1: of hung in there and then, guess what, it can
18:46
Speaker 1: work really well if you're not number one, if you're
18:49
Speaker 1: not the first pick. It just needs to be at
18:50
Speaker 1: the right time.
18:51
Speaker 2: Here.
18:51
Speaker 3: Here was the other thing too that I've said many times,
18:54
Speaker 3: and I think it's easier in basketball than football. One,
18:57
Speaker 3: there's more to draw from. There are a ton of
19:01
Speaker 3: good basketball coaches out there.
19:03
Speaker 4: There are really.
19:04
Speaker 3: Good basketball coaches that exist, and frankly, a lot of
19:06
Speaker 3: them don't exist at the Power four level. They're in
19:09
Speaker 3: other spots other than that. And we'll see that here
19:12
Speaker 3: in the coming days. We'll see that. We have seen that.
19:15
Speaker 3: The fact that you landed on Devrees the first time.
19:17
Speaker 3: Ben McCollum's a name you're gonna hear a lot, right,
19:20
Speaker 3: Ironic that he's an Iowa native and he's sitting at
19:22
Speaker 3: Drake but worked with Ren Baker while winning four national
19:26
Speaker 3: titles a division to Northwest Missouri State. That's a name
19:29
Speaker 3: you're gonna hear a lot. Jared Calhoun's a guy, right,
19:31
Speaker 3: You're gonna hear that name a lot. We know that
19:33
Speaker 3: from his time here at West Virginia right down the
19:35
Speaker 3: road at Fairmont State, Youngstown State, success goes on and
19:38
Speaker 3: has an NCAA tournament here at Utah State.
19:40
Speaker 4: There are a lot of good coaches out there.
19:43
Speaker 5: You know, it's interesting if you do go the Drake route,
19:46
Speaker 5: be like he would have been there one year. It
19:49
Speaker 5: just trickles down right, can't make it up. Huggs was
19:53
Speaker 5: at Kansas State one year. I mean, of course that's
19:54
Speaker 5: a little bit different because he was coming he was
19:56
Speaker 5: coming home. But look wherever he was in the pecking
20:01
Speaker 5: order in Indiana. Uh, he got the job because I
20:04
Speaker 5: think he's.
20:06
Speaker 1: The best guy for the job.
20:07
Speaker 5: We saw, Oh yeah, this guy is an outstanding coach.
20:10
Speaker 5: You know what, from an Iniana perspective, what a great hire,
20:13
Speaker 5: A good fit, a great hire.
20:15
Speaker 4: Listen, guys, they made it. They did make a great hire.
20:18
Speaker 3: And and part of the disappointment and the frustration and
20:21
Speaker 3: the anger on on the West Virginia side is because
20:23
Speaker 3: you had a great one.
20:24
Speaker 4: You had a great one.
20:25
Speaker 3: So so I understand all of the emotions quite frankly,
20:28
Speaker 3: I've gone through them, right, I've gone through them. I
20:30
Speaker 3: thought I thought coming in here Monday was going to
20:32
Speaker 3: be our worst day of the week getting absolutely just
20:34
Speaker 3: screwed by the committee and then and then this happened.
20:37
Speaker 4: So I get it.
20:38
Speaker 3: I understand that this is this is unbelievably frustrating from
20:41
Speaker 3: a guy you thought was was a fit and going
20:43
Speaker 3: to be here a long time and did a did
20:45
Speaker 3: a tremendous job.
20:46
Speaker 4: I was fired up to see where this where the
20:48
Speaker 4: futures are?
20:49
Speaker 1: So was our So is it so?
20:51
Speaker 2: So? So is everyone sure? Okay?
20:53
Speaker 5: So that's why I think, going back to my original point,
20:56
Speaker 5: there's disappointment, and you just like because people fans, whether
21:05
Speaker 5: they're just listening to you guys on the radio or
21:08
Speaker 5: making big contributions, they're they're invested.
21:11
Speaker 2: You know, they're invested. The way it goes on emotional.
21:15
Speaker 5: And this team, this team encouraged investment. It did because
21:21
Speaker 5: the way they played, in the way this guy coached.
21:22
Speaker 5: So you like, so you weren't certain and then you
21:25
Speaker 5: like you okay, here we go. So the end of
21:27
Speaker 5: this year, even though it was disappointing with not getting
21:30
Speaker 5: into tournament, getting staffeld, Trump was okay, that's all right,
21:33
Speaker 5: because we'll get guys, and you now you're like, okay,
21:36
Speaker 5: got to start over. I get all new team, an
21:39
Speaker 5: entirely new team, and a new coach.
21:41
Speaker 4: Entirely new team.
21:42
Speaker 3: And again I'll say the same things I said last year.
21:44
Speaker 3: There's never been a better time to have to remake
21:46
Speaker 3: your entire roster. So there you go, make the remake
21:49
Speaker 3: the entire roster.
21:49
Speaker 4: The good news you just.
21:50
Speaker 3: Went through this search a lot of the people you
21:52
Speaker 3: were interested in last year, a lot of the stuff
21:54
Speaker 3: you pulled up. If your rent breaker still exists, you
21:56
Speaker 3: cross a couple of names off that have gone to
21:58
Speaker 3: other jobs, and you move forward, and you go high
22:00
Speaker 3: another good coach, and you move forward.
22:01
Speaker 1: Let me say a couple of things that for some
22:05
Speaker 1: it's not going to change your belief. That's fine, because
22:07
Speaker 1: some people have ideas or perceptions, and that's totally good. Right,
22:11
Speaker 1: There's still people out there that strongly believe that rich
22:14
Speaker 1: Rod through the pit game, right, and you're never You're
22:17
Speaker 1: never going to change anybody. You're never going to change
22:19
Speaker 1: anyone from that. But let me just say this as again,
22:22
Speaker 1: we'll get to the text tomorrow, but there's a couple
22:25
Speaker 1: of things. So Brad and I obviously we're with we're
22:28
Speaker 1: with these guys for the last several months and in
22:33
Speaker 1: every conversation that we're talking about with them, you know,
22:37
Speaker 1: it's about, Okay, how are we gonna build this roster
22:39
Speaker 1: for next year? Okay, we need to keep this guy
22:41
Speaker 1: and this guy, we can go get this guy. We're
22:42
Speaker 1: already starting to talk about portal guys. This guy's gonna
22:45
Speaker 1: come out. We're gonna get this guy. So this was
22:48
Speaker 1: not a a two months ago, Darren Devrees said I'm
22:52
Speaker 1: going to go to Indiana. That that that was not it.
22:55
Speaker 1: That was not it. As I said, I think the
22:57
Speaker 1: thing continued to pir itself out at Indiana among candidates,
23:03
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden it did become a possibility.
23:05
Speaker 1: So that is one one A is I get a
23:09
Speaker 1: lot of texts people saying they shut Tucker Devrees down
23:12
Speaker 1: this year because they knew that they would be leaving
23:16
Speaker 1: and he would just take him with them. Come on, man,
23:20
Speaker 1: absolutely not the case. So when he got hurt with
23:24
Speaker 1: his shoulder, he couldn't shoot the ball. He was hurting
23:28
Speaker 1: when he shot the ball, and they thought that that injury.
23:34
Speaker 1: The injury was better than they thought when they went
23:36
Speaker 1: in there and cut it, and it did require surgery.
23:39
Speaker 1: It required surgery. He went and had surgery, and so
23:43
Speaker 1: that also was just not the case at all. I mean,
23:47
Speaker 1: we were talking about guys that would be coming this
23:52
Speaker 1: off season to join Tucker. They you know, they had
23:56
Speaker 1: already had that all figured out. So that is and
23:59
Speaker 1: again I'm not going to con issue any different just
24:01
Speaker 1: but for the if you might be on the fence
24:03
Speaker 1: on that perception, that wasn't the case.
24:05
Speaker 3: That was an agonizing decision to have to shut him
24:08
Speaker 3: down because of the surgery, agonizing.
24:10
Speaker 4: For all of them involved.
24:11
Speaker 3: And you're right, if you believe in the other stuff,
24:13
Speaker 3: believe in the other stuff, had those conversations sat there
24:16
Speaker 3: with him, that was an agonizing decision.
24:18
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, Tony, you talked about appropriately that the
24:21
Speaker 5: whole new roster and guys they would want to bring
24:24
Speaker 5: in on the portal.
24:24
Speaker 4: That's all.
24:25
Speaker 2: That's all out the window now.
24:26
Speaker 5: But but every coach is doing the same thing. So
24:30
Speaker 5: whoever you hire presumably has already been working too, because
24:34
Speaker 5: they were expecting to coach the next year wherever they
24:37
Speaker 5: were or someplace, and so they have guys hopefully lined up.
24:40
Speaker 2: Right.
24:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you're in the same dog gone situation that
24:45
Speaker 1: you were last year. If Darren was hired March twenty fourth,
24:47
Speaker 1: the last year. A lot of these guys like you
24:53
Speaker 1: would be much better off if you had everything positioned
24:55
Speaker 1: right now and ready to go in quest tack mode.
24:57
Speaker 1: No' that's what bums out less. You know, whomever you're
25:02
Speaker 1: bringing is going to bring a posse with them. You know,
25:06
Speaker 1: Ben McCullum brought four of his guys from Northwestern Missouri
25:10
Speaker 1: State to Drake and that was the nucleus of that team.
25:14
Speaker 1: So whomever it is, you just hope. You know, Chester
25:18
Speaker 1: Fraser brought Sincere Harris and Amani Hansbury and you know
25:23
Speaker 1: Javon Small's relationship from Oklahoma State got him here. So
25:29
Speaker 1: you just figure out who the pieces are.
25:31
Speaker 4: He'll you guys, guys available.
25:34
Speaker 1: Only guy standing again, only guy standing is the athletic trainer,
25:38
Speaker 1: Randy Metterer. Randy met is a constant everyone else for
25:42
Speaker 1: the second year in a row, which is just mind numbing.
25:46
Speaker 1: Think about this to your point, and I we use
25:50
Speaker 1: this a lot. It's never as bad as you think,
25:52
Speaker 1: it's never as good as you think. Here's the reality
25:55
Speaker 1: of it. And you pointed it out. West Virginia's last
25:59
Speaker 1: three coaches. Now, if you take Josh out as an
26:02
Speaker 1: intro where John Bline, Bob Huggins and Darren.
26:06
Speaker 4: Devrees pretty good line, like that's a heck of a
26:10
Speaker 4: you were hitting.
26:10
Speaker 1: It elite level coaches, right, and so why is that
26:14
Speaker 1: going to stop? You got a basketball guy in Ren
26:18
Speaker 1: Baker who is just like intimately so well versed, Like
26:23
Speaker 1: Ren Baker does coaching searches when he doesn't have to
26:26
Speaker 1: do coaching searches for basketball. I mean, he is on
26:28
Speaker 1: the phone constantly in that gossip world of Hey, what's
26:32
Speaker 1: this guy doing, what's this guy doing? What's going on here?
26:34
Speaker 1: What's going on? Like he is more network than network,
26:36
Speaker 1: So like to him, we can get into Ren's deal
26:40
Speaker 1: in a second. Not that he likes this, but he
26:43
Speaker 1: is like perfectly ready to do this big picture. However,
26:48
Speaker 1: think about this. No athletic director in WVU history has
26:55
Speaker 1: been put on the spot as much as Ren Baker has.
27:00
Speaker 1: Sense he got no question right when he was hired.
27:03
Speaker 1: It was to evaluate what was going to go on
27:06
Speaker 1: in football, and that became the least of his worries
27:10
Speaker 1: because basketball blows up. Don plitz a White one outs,
27:15
Speaker 1: Randy Mazee departs right throw a volleyball coach in there
27:21
Speaker 1: throw in the search for Darren Devrees. Follow me.
27:25
Speaker 4: But then football did come in?
27:26
Speaker 1: Football did come in? Go out and do that.
27:29
Speaker 2: I mean, by the way, raise twenty million dollars.
27:31
Speaker 1: Yes, raise twenty million dollars and get ready for the
27:34
Speaker 1: new world of sports.
27:35
Speaker 4: It's a good point.
27:36
Speaker 3: This isn't an ad that has to go back and
27:38
Speaker 3: go you know what, how do you do the coaching
27:40
Speaker 3: search thing?
27:40
Speaker 4: I haven't done that. Can I call something like? What
27:43
Speaker 4: am I supposed to do here?
27:44
Speaker 2: What you can do it from memory? Doesn't even need
27:46
Speaker 2: to check his spreadsheet.
27:48
Speaker 3: I think if there wasn't a coaching search, he'd get antsy, Yeah,
27:50
Speaker 3: really I replace somebody so and.
27:52
Speaker 1: Trust me, if you asked him today, he'd say, no,
27:54
Speaker 1: I'm good. I don't need one.
27:55
Speaker 3: I know there is some crossover though to what you
27:58
Speaker 3: just went through a year ago. Yes, a lot of
27:59
Speaker 3: the work that you put in a year ago speeds
28:02
Speaker 3: up your ability today. And I'm sure that's what we'll
28:04
Speaker 3: hear him say today is their position. They're ready as
28:06
Speaker 3: a list. He's already been making calls and and we're
28:09
Speaker 3: going and we'll be back with you in a couple
28:10
Speaker 3: of days.
28:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's getting I mean, his phone's getting blowed up
28:13
Speaker 1: by agents right now, and he's constantly on the prowl.
28:17
Speaker 1: So again, I think it's going to be sooner than later,
28:21
Speaker 1: and he'll just jump in. Man, No, it's interesting.
28:24
Speaker 5: I mean, we had a show this week about the
28:27
Speaker 5: NCAA snub, and then you know, Marcia came out with
28:31
Speaker 5: the news conference et cetera, et cetera, that is now
28:34
Speaker 5: so far in the distance, that is so irrelevant.
28:38
Speaker 4: News cycles moving fast this week?
28:39
Speaker 2: How move very fast?
28:41
Speaker 1: You retired guys probably struggle with how fast this moves,
28:44
Speaker 1: isn't it? It is?
28:45
Speaker 4: Uh?
28:45
Speaker 2: I try to keep up, man, Man, you can't. You
28:47
Speaker 2: try to keep up.
28:48
Speaker 1: You didn't even you didn't get in over to Tutor's
28:50
Speaker 1: Biscuit World and sitting in a corner with those guys
28:52
Speaker 1: in the corner drinking coffee talking about you haven't had
28:54
Speaker 1: enough time to talk about it?
28:55
Speaker 2: Did I tell you what?
28:56
Speaker 1: I didn't?
28:56
Speaker 5: I like, Brad, I mean, I hoped and I did
28:59
Speaker 5: not think he was gonna leave. And I got some
29:01
Speaker 5: and people asked me and I said I didn't think
29:03
Speaker 5: he's gonna leave, and and then I got text like,
29:06
Speaker 5: oh you were wrong, And I said, yeah, I was.
29:09
Speaker 1: Here's what I've said. It was, I get a bunch
29:11
Speaker 1: of phone calls, and this is what I've been telling
29:13
Speaker 1: people since yesterday. This is the only thing I know
29:16
Speaker 1: that I don't know anything.
29:18
Speaker 2: The known, unknowns or the unknown.
29:19
Speaker 1: The only thing I know nowadays is that I don't
29:21
Speaker 1: know anything, because I too thought that we'd sidestep Iowa.
29:26
Speaker 1: He'd sign the contract extension and everything would be hunky
29:30
Speaker 1: dory and we'd be out there just crushing it in
29:31
Speaker 1: the portal. Bring it in, guys, and off you go.
29:33
Speaker 3: You know, I'm gonna, Brad, I'm gonna go back to
29:35
Speaker 3: a point you made yah Iowa with things not even
29:36
Speaker 3: a side step that was that was never in play,
29:39
Speaker 3: just for.
29:40
Speaker 1: Those time I'm saying the conversation.
29:42
Speaker 4: I know what you're saying.
29:42
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, for some folks that were writing to
29:45
Speaker 3: the contrary, never in play that, Brad.
29:47
Speaker 5: Something you talked about that and the generational appeal of Indiana.
29:51
Speaker 5: I thought you made a great point there is that. Yeah,
29:53
Speaker 5: you can look at the numbers go Indiana the last
29:54
Speaker 5: twenty years, like huh, I mean, just hasn't been the
29:57
Speaker 5: Indiana of the Bob Knight of the Bob Knight area.
30:00
Speaker 5: But as you said, if you grew up in the
30:01
Speaker 5: Midwest and you followed basketball, where.
30:04
Speaker 2: Was Indiana with the peak? Right? So you do understand.
30:09
Speaker 5: And if you're a coach like Devrees, anybody that level
30:12
Speaker 5: thinks in Derees case, it's true that they're really good
30:15
Speaker 5: and they can win if they just have the resources
30:18
Speaker 5: necessary to win. So I'm sure, again don't want to
30:21
Speaker 5: speak for him, but it's natural to think that a
30:23
Speaker 5: guy who's a very good coach and knows that he
30:25
Speaker 5: can win and has an opportunity at a place that
30:28
Speaker 5: is historic, thinks here we go, you know. I mean
30:32
Speaker 5: I can see his thinking, right.
30:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that, in my opinion, is what this is.
30:40
Speaker 3: And I think that's what I want to be clear about.
30:41
Speaker 3: This is not a getting away from West Virginia. It's
30:45
Speaker 3: just not that now. I don't know that makes anybody
30:47
Speaker 3: feel any better. You're still out looking for a coach
30:49
Speaker 3: and you lost one that was really good. But I
30:51
Speaker 3: think that's what we're dealing with in this situation.
30:53
Speaker 5: I mean, it's almost like when Bob Huggins left Kansas
30:55
Speaker 5: State after one year and you go, okay, I mean
30:58
Speaker 5: Kansas State probably had to say disappointed, But okay, I
31:01
Speaker 5: get it.
31:01
Speaker 1: I get it. So all right, that's an emergency podcast.
31:07
Speaker 2: We need a rent, like a red light or something.
31:09
Speaker 1: Then yeah, we can get that.
31:11
Speaker 4: You got back for a while doing an emergency podcast.
31:13
Speaker 1: We again, we got an unlimited Yeah, let's stop doing
31:15
Speaker 1: emergency podcast, like we don't need emergency.
31:17
Speaker 2: And we just we react to the news though, so
31:20
Speaker 2: news happens.
31:20
Speaker 1: We got to react, all right, So we're good to
31:21
Speaker 1: go again tomorrow.
31:22
Speaker 2: What time?
31:23
Speaker 1: Because I don't know, we'll see you.
31:25
Speaker 4: Gotta know where to matter to you at any point
31:27
Speaker 4: during the day.
31:28
Speaker 1: What he told me, you know what he told me earlier.
31:30
Speaker 1: He said, I gotta go down to Charleston for the
31:32
Speaker 1: state tournament. I said, when's your first game down there?
31:35
Speaker 1: He said Saturday. I said, you're gonna go down? I said,
31:39
Speaker 1: is it a bowl game? I mean, what the hell
31:42
Speaker 1: are we doing?
31:43
Speaker 4: Well?
31:44
Speaker 3: I mean I side with him now, I mean I
31:47
Speaker 3: get it, But thank you, I understand.
31:48
Speaker 1: Thank you.
31:49
Speaker 5: I'm not like to like Tony is such a product show?
31:51
Speaker 5: Like what time is the game?
31:52
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll be there. Let me just tell you something.
31:54
Speaker 1: You know where you're gonna get there. Let me tell
31:56
Speaker 1: you can go. Okay, you very much, all right, we'll
31:58
Speaker 1: be back in tomorrow. We'll get some detail.
32:00
Speaker 2: Tomorrow morning.
32:03
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Speaker 1: Biscuit World, Start Your Day d Homemade Way, and by
32:28
Speaker 1: conly Cpegre providing value beyond number Special thanks to our
32:32
Speaker 1: producer mister Jake for coming in. Emergency pod is over.
32:35
Speaker 1: We're back again tomorrow. We'll break down run Baker's comments
32:39
Speaker 1: whereas it lead West Virginia on its search that and more.
32:45
Speaker 1: Probably do some WV women's basket. Well, we still don't
32:48
Speaker 1: know who they play, will we they play?
32:50
Speaker 3: We'll get into your text too, yeah, oh yeah, yeah,
32:52
Speaker 3: we'll do textual healing.
32:52
Speaker 1: We can go for about nine days. We'll do a
32:54
Speaker 1: telethon all right, see
32:55
Speaker 5: It spiny, sp