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3 Guys Before The Game - Welcome Darian DeVries (Episode 542) · 3 Guys Before The Game

• 0:17
  The three plumes of smoke have lifted from the tower of the WVU Coliseum.
• 0:26
  The vote is in, the decision has been made, and Darren Devrees is
• 0:32
  the twenty third head basketball coach of the West Virginia University men's team. And
• 0:37
  this is three guys before the game. Thanks for being with us, such
• 0:42
  a big show. All three of us are in. Wouldn't miss it for
• 0:45
  the world El Senator l Hopster, and away we go. Three guys brought
• 0:50
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• 1:17
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• 1:26
  pontoon boat dealer in the state of West Virginia. I think we have to
• 1:30
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• 1:33
  only business that sells Pomtoons in the state. Oh, that's unconfirmed. We'll
• 1:37
  work on that. We'll look into that one. Three guys also brought to
• 1:41
  us by Commonly CPA Group providing value beyond the numbers. Brad is going to
• 1:45
  have a series of numbers to share with you, not only the hiring of
• 1:49
  Darren Devrees, but also on the basketball contest as we record, which will
• 1:56
  take place this evening in Iowa City. Everything in basketball seems to be happening
• 2:01
  in Iowa, Iowa the center of the basketball universe right now. And we'll
• 2:06
  get into a massive game. And that's not just a big game in Round
• 2:09
  two the NCAA Tournament. The eyes of college basketball upon Iowa City and West
• 2:14
  Virginia City. Yeah, think about it. West Virginia's women's program has been
• 2:17
  celebrating its fiftieth anniversary of basketball throughout this season, and tonight they will play
• 2:24
  in what could be the most memorable game in school history. Regardless right,
• 2:30
  win or lose, you're playing against the all time greatest women's basketball scorer in
• 2:36
  history, who's a one seed on their home floor, and the upstart Mountaineers
• 2:42
  under first year head coach Mark Kellogg, have exceeded expectations all season long.
• 2:47
  You win this game and you have the greatest win in school history, and
• 2:52
  it's not even close. You lose this game and it's an absolute shoulder shrug.
• 2:57
  You just lost on the home floor to the one seat against the greatest
• 3:00
  score of all time, in her final home game, in her final home
• 3:04
  game. And so if you talk about you're playing with house money, like
• 3:09
  all the armored trucks are lined up. You got all the money, You
• 3:14
  got all the money. You have nothing to lose. Tonight, you go
• 3:16
  up there and you take your shot and we'll see how it unfolds, will
• 3:20
  break down. You have so much money, you're actually driving that Brinks truck
• 3:23
  and you just leave the back open. I mean if some flies out the
• 3:27
  back copy and a little bit of it, so what, don't care?
• 3:29
  Tell what people will be yelling at you. Hey, your back of your
• 3:32
  trucks up and you go like, now we got it, don't matter,
• 3:35
  playing with house money, not our money. We're good. We're good to
• 3:37
  go. So we'll get into that, okay. So, eleven days after
• 3:43
  formally announcing that the search had begun, West Virginia University on Sunday announced the
• 3:47
  hiring of Darren Devrees as West Virginia's twenty third men's basketball coach. The formal
• 3:53
  press conference will take place here in Morgantown in a couple of days as we
• 3:57
  record. They haven't set it yet, but it looks like Thursday. At
• 4:00
  some point. This will be the big one. This will be a coliseum,
• 4:04
  but they'll take this one out onto the colisseum floor. Like, this
• 4:06
  isn't like boardroom anything like that side wasn't even the double conference room. This
• 4:12
  is this is not the one. The divider the divider back. Now,
• 4:16
  will you be the master of ceremonies to my knowledge, yes, yeah,
• 4:19
  at this point I will. So we're looking they send the email to reserve
• 4:25
  the Jerry West Lounge, Well it does. You send an email to reserve
• 4:28
  that room, Like if you want to have a meeting in their hot you
• 4:30
  got to send the email up. Judy will just block that off and then
• 4:32
  you can have that room for a meetings that they do that a couple of
• 4:34
  things since you sends you left, Yeah, there is no more Jerry West
• 4:39
  Lounge. That's that's gone away. It doesn't exist anymoll it doesn't no.
• 4:42
  Ever since the expansion of the of the concourse, has that gone away?
• 4:45
  My old office has gone away. I don't even know what gates what when
• 4:46
  I walk in there? I went there about Well, never mind, it's
• 4:50
  we got yeah, we do. Okay, So let's jump on in on
• 4:55
  the program. We're going to talk about Darren Devrees, what's it all mean
• 4:58
  to double ev you men's bast foketball. We'll talk about the women's game against
• 5:01
  the Iowa Hawk. Gys Brad will have some of the numbers and spreads on
• 5:04
  stats, and then we'll get into textual healing as well. So it was
• 5:11
  an historic day on Sunday because you've been playing basketball for over one hundred years
• 5:15
  and you're hiring just your twenty third coach, and when you think about it,
• 5:19
  it's just the fourth coach in the last forty years Gail Catlet, Gail
• 5:28
  Catlet, John Blaine, Bob Huggins, Josh Eilert for so this is the
• 5:30
  fifth think about it, Gail Catlet in seventy eight. So it hasn't doesn't
• 5:36
  happen often, is the point of all that. So it's significant when it
• 5:40
  does. What does it all mean? We did an eight minute ish segment
• 5:46
  yesterday as the News came out, and now we're going to get a little
• 5:49
  bit more into the weeds. We start off with Hoppey, who, as
• 5:54
  everyone who's a regular NOS, provides obvious observations and thought. So you're really
• 6:00
  ready to go because you not only have your laptop open, but you've got
• 6:03
  a pad leaned up against the monitor. They see what you guys, so
• 6:08
  he is, He's like, almost like teleprompter. It's a blue collar teleprompter.
• 6:12
  Put you got on your board, dear boy. I have notes,
• 6:15
  and what I'll start with is just some of the things most people know,
• 6:19
  and certainly you all know, but I think most of my notes are about
• 6:24
  the search and the decision. So let me go over that and then we'll
• 6:27
  talk about what it all means. But one of the advantages, if there
• 6:30
  was one, of having your season ending early, is that Rin Baker was
• 6:35
  on the search early. And when he had that press conference after West Virginia
• 6:40
  got beat in the Big twelve Tournament, he says, Okay, the search
• 6:42
  is underway. Really, the search had been underway. He'd been working on
• 6:45
  this for some time, worked a lot of metrics, so he had an
• 6:47
  idea early on of the direction that he was going and he got busy very
• 6:51
  quickly with phone and zoom interviews which led to in person interviews, and I
• 6:57
  believe he had in person interviews with with Devrees and also Medved and Byington.
• 7:02
  That was part of the process was in person interviews. And what stood out
• 7:09
  my understanding is to Baker, was that assuming you're already impressed by Devres record,
• 7:15
  by these coaches records and what they can do, and Brad will get
• 7:17
  into that, was that Dvrees was a straight shooter and had done his homework.
• 7:23
  He knew about West Virginia. And if you remember when Neil Brown was
• 7:26
  hired, remember the story about him, Like he had done his homework about
• 7:28
  West Virginia, knew the history, knew things about West Virginia, watched some
• 7:32
  tape, and Davrees had done his research about West Virginia, knew the legacy,
• 7:36
  knew the history, and that prompted at least at one level, his
• 7:41
  interest in the job. And Devrez was also interested in fact as an Iowa
• 7:45
  guy, and Brad will talk about this, that this is not a metro
• 7:47
  area. Okay, this is not a big city, it's not an urban
• 7:50
  area. So there was a good fit, a good fit for him and
• 7:56
  that he was impressed by. And I'm sure we'll talk about this later this
• 7:59
  week. The passion of the fan base West Virginia. And we mentioned the
• 8:03
  fact this is West Virginia had this losing season, but still in the last
• 8:05
  games, ten twelve thousand people showing up. The passion of the fan base
• 8:09
  for West Virginia basketball, West Virginia sports is well established. It's not a
• 8:13
  one off, it's well established. That certainly meant something. Also, the
• 8:18
  timing was good. The timing was good because if Rees had been there for
• 8:24
  seven years and had done about all you can do in the Missouri Valley Conference,
• 8:28
  won the conference, been the NCAA, what more could you do there
• 8:31
  after seven years? So the timing was good in terms of him going to
• 8:37
  the next step, going to another job, and that job, as it
• 8:43
  was explained to me, Brad, he wasn't just looking for a job,
• 8:46
  he was looking for the job, okay, because there are a jobs out
• 8:50
  there, but I mean by that, I mean other jobs that will pay
• 8:52
  you more money and you can go there and they'll hire you. That's different
• 8:56
  than the job which is specific to the job that you're looking for. So
• 9:01
  as this process went on, it was evident that things were matching up what
• 9:05
  Davirees wanted and what West Virginia wanted. So this thing was coming together.
• 9:11
  It was a good fit. And as that fit got a little tighter.
• 9:13
  As this process went on, then Devirees I think was stiff arming other inquiries
• 9:18
  like, well, wait a minute, I'm not let me see how this
• 9:20
  thing with West Virginia is going to go. So he was I'm not sure
• 9:24
  if it's exactly rebuffing other opportunities, but he was not engaging them like he
• 9:28
  was with West Virginia. And then so the money, and I think that'll
• 9:35
  become evident today or tomorrow. He's making about a million dollars now, understand
• 9:39
  it. So you got to pay him something that's equivalent. You can't just
• 9:43
  pay him like, okay, you were making a million, will pay a
• 9:45
  million five. You have to pay him something comparable to what a coach coming
• 9:48
  from where he is to where he's going to be in the big twelve.
• 9:52
  So I think you're probably talking in the you know, in the three million
• 9:54
  dollar range, probably somewhere around in there. And Rin Baker was in a
• 10:01
  unique position to close this deal because the culture fit was very important and always
• 10:11
  is, I think, or usually is. And Ren Baker was in a
• 10:13
  position to say, I'm a guy from the Midwest. I did anything about
• 10:16
  West Virginia or I didn't. I'd never lived here, and I came here
• 10:20
  and I've been accepted. My family loves it here. This is a great
• 10:24
  place to be. So he could make that sincere pitch to a guy was
• 10:28
  really a similar circumstance coming from the Midwest to here. So and in fact,
• 10:35
  I think one of the quotes Ren Baker had to the new coach was
• 10:37
  there's no better people than here. And I think we all believe that.
• 10:41
  Brad, you can speak to that because you came here and you love it
• 10:43
  here. So that I just want to give you an outline of how I
• 10:48
  think this, how I think this search went. So it was a matter
• 10:50
  of finding the right person and then seeing over almost like dating, over the
• 10:58
  course of a couple of days, pretty rapidly, how there's a mutual interest
• 11:01
  and a mutual affection, and then it got consummated, if you will on
• 11:05
  Sunday, Senator, you offer a very unique perspective in this because you are
• 11:11
  from Iowa. You're transplanted Iowan who has come to West Virginia. You know
• 11:20
  this group, the folks around Darren Devrees and what it all means. You've
• 11:26
  lifted weights in his old high school and there was familiarity with coaches and the
• 11:31
  whole thing. Your takeaway, Yeah, I think we'll kind of back into
• 11:35
  some things and we'll get to the basketball stuff because I think that's really intriguing
• 11:39
  and I think you just hired a heck of a basketball coach in this.
• 11:43
  But let's talk about culture here for a second, and Hoppy to piggyback on
• 11:46
  what you said about the search and guys, we talked about this when the
• 11:48
  search came open that this was going to be an attractive job for multiple reasons,
• 11:54
  and one of those is the support both fans support and administratively. So
• 11:58
  if you're a coach looking to come here, I want to have the support.
• 12:00
  What is that fan sport was tremendous, talked about that all season ten
• 12:03
  thousand plus late into the season for a team that was struggling to win.
• 12:07
  So you have that. You know, you've got administrative support from Ren Baker
• 12:09
  and right now Gordon Gee, although I know he won't be the president for
• 12:13
  a long time, but you've got that support right now. You have financial
• 12:16
  stability, which is important if you're going to compete in the new area.
• 12:18
  Do you have financial stability check? You've got that. And the third part
• 12:22
  of that with the culture fit, We've got that. So basically what those
• 12:24
  coaches are asking, can I win there? Can I go there and win?
• 12:28
  And I do think the fact that the last three coaches have all taken
• 12:31
  West Virginia to the Sweet sixteen or further bodes well if you're outside looking in,
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  if you've got the support, and you've got the finances, and you've
• 12:41
  got the tradition, not just a long tradition, not just the Jerry West
• 12:43
  hot rod tradition, but you've got recent tradition of winning games at this school
• 12:48
  and you can do that. That's part of what was attractive about this job.
• 12:52
  And I'll talk more about culture here in a minute. One correction,
• 12:54
  Derees was a Drake for six season. It's not seven. That's my error.
• 12:58
  Six. Whatever it takes, whatever it takes. The other the other
• 13:01
  point is, and this this gets into play, and I think this is
• 13:05
  something that Rin Baker liked, is that Devrie's teams are very efficient on both
• 13:09
  sides of the ball, because you can go out there and say, Okay,
• 13:11
  we want to we want to coach, it's going to like score ninety
• 13:13
  eight points, or we want to coach it's going to lock down defense and
• 13:16
  hold teams to fifty five points. But Davrie's history is for a balanced team,
• 13:22
  good offensively and defensively, and is disciplined, and that wherever he's been,
• 13:28
  he's been on an upward trajectory. Okay, it wasn't just oh he
• 13:31
  was here and he won some but then he lost them. An was It's
• 13:33
  been an upward trajectory. So can this be the next step in his upward
• 13:37
  trajectory. Let's talk about this a little bit because you talk about a stable
• 13:41
  guy and a coaching profession that is unstable. So more than a quarter century,
• 13:45
  he's been at two places, Creighton through multiple head coaches, two very
• 13:48
  good ones Dane Altman, Greg McDermott, and then on to Drake for those
• 13:52
  six seasons. That is rare. He's had opportunities, both at Creighton and
• 13:56
  when he's at Drake to go to other jobs, and he hasn't. He
• 13:58
  was very particular about what he wanted to do. Families, very important and
• 14:03
  we'll talk about that coming up in a little bit. So, yeah,
• 14:05
  I think this was a job that he's going too. He's not running from
• 14:09
  something at Drake. He could have stayed at Drake, very involved in the
• 14:11
  community, obviously deep Iowa roots. He was good at Drake. Yeah,
• 14:15
  but this is a job he is running. Two And let's talk about Drake
• 14:18
  here for a second. We did a little bit of this on our preview
• 14:22
  that we put out last night. Drake's a hard job, guys. That's
• 14:24
  in a league that is most times a one bid league, sometimes two seven
• 14:30
  NCAA tournaments. In Drake's history, seven total to the NCAA Tournament. West
• 14:33
  Virginia's had that many since the twenty twelve season, So that gives you some
• 14:37
  comparison there. There's been some really good coaches at Drake that haven't got teams
• 14:41
  to the NCAA tournament. Devrees did it three times. Three of those seven
• 14:45
  all time come from Darren. Two of those three he was the lone bid
• 14:48
  out of their league. So that's a place that is hard to win games,
• 14:52
  and he did twenty plus in every season. So this is not only
• 14:56
  a great fit, this is a heck of a basketball coach. Several people
• 15:00
  contact me in the last whatever it's been twelve eighteen hours since it came down,
• 15:05
  and besides the basketball part of it, they tell me, you're gonna
• 15:09
  love him because of his activity in the community. It is a true piece
• 15:16
  of him. It's not a facade of you play the game and say,
• 15:18
  yeah, we really care about the community. They said, you'll see him
• 15:22
  out, You'll see his players out. They will make a difference in the
• 15:24
  community. And I know for some that doesn't meet anything. All you want
• 15:28
  to do is win. I get all of that, but if you have
• 15:31
  that totality, I think it does a ton I'm hearing a lot of the
• 15:37
  similar comments that I heard when the word came down that John Bline was going
• 15:41
  to be coming to WV. You the same kind of thing. Phone call
• 15:43
  is going to like, You're gonna love this guy. People are gonna love
• 15:46
  this dude, Tony. I reached out to the play by play announcer for
• 15:50
  Drake, Michael Admire, and some question whether he's coming with him or not.
• 15:56
  I'm not sure, but you very funny man. He a very funny
• 16:04
  man. Bright This This is what this is what Admire said about the coach.
• 16:10
  He said, he's the kind of guy that eats last at team meals
• 16:12
  and unloads bags from the airplane when it's twenty degrees on the twenty minus twenty
• 16:18
  on the tarmac Iowa reference, which is not an exaggeration. It's been minus
• 16:21
  twenty in the tarmac maintimes. He has a huge family that's very supportive,
• 16:23
  so get used to all the degrees rolling through. He's great with both players
• 16:29
  and fans. He's really honest with players, which I always appreciated, said
• 16:33
  admire. Our fan base has been reignited because of him and one of the
• 16:37
  cool things we do know at the conference tournament and the NCAA tournament, one
• 16:41
  of the things to do is the bulldog walk after leaving the hotel and before
• 16:45
  getting to the arena of the team walks through the pregame pep rally. He's
• 16:49
  just always thinking about ways to connect the players and the fans, and that's
• 16:53
  important in West Virginia. It's super important, guys. And let's let's talk
• 16:57
  about that culture fit for a second. And guys, I said this sea
• 17:00
  you last night. I feel like I can speak confidently in what it's like
• 17:03
  to move from Iowa to West Virginia have done it, have been to Aplington,
• 17:06
  where Darren is from. People in this state are going to like him.
• 17:10
  He's going to go into areas of this state and say, this looks
• 17:14
  like exactly where I'm from. He will understand the people of this state.
• 17:17
  There's a lot of similarities between Iowa and West Virginia in terms of the people.
• 17:21
  And I think even if you haven't lived in both places, you see
• 17:23
  that with Iowa State's fan base. Right, how often do we say,
• 17:26
  look at the support that Iowa State gets. It feels very mountaineer esque,
• 17:30
  correct, Right. They go to a Bowl game, they sell out the
• 17:33
  city, they sell out the beer in the city. They're packed even when
• 17:34
  they're not good. Very similar fan base is very similar people. I think
• 17:38
  Darren de Freeze is going to come in and people of this state as he
• 17:42
  wins games are going to say that guy's one of us. I think he's
• 17:45
  a not just a kind of a good fit hobby. I think this is
• 17:48
  an excellent fit for this program. Guys. One other thing is that when
• 17:55
  you make this higher, I mean for the last year, well since early
• 17:57
  last year, you know, spring of last year, it has been a
• 18:00
  very unsettling time, to say the least for Mountain Your Basketball. The Huggins
• 18:03
  situation, which really was was catastrophic and then it lingered. And then Josh
• 18:10
  Eiler and his staff, even though we have praised them appropriately for the job
• 18:12
  they did, it was a very tough season introm coach, just a lot
• 18:18
  of issues. And all the whole time you're thinking, Okay, there's going
• 18:21
  to be a coaching search, and then the search was on who's going to
• 18:23
  be So now you have a point. Now you have a seminal moment where
• 18:26
  you can say, Okay, all that happened. Now you can look forward.
• 18:30
  Now you have some some reference point that you can build from. There's
• 18:36
  a new coach. Let's get to go to the new coach. Who's he
• 18:37
  going to bring, Who's he going to recruit, Who's going to come here?
• 18:40
  So you have those kinds of stories going forward instead of the uncertainty and
• 18:45
  the disappointment that has been around for almost a year. That's a good point.
• 18:48
  Uh. The program has been under cloud really since last May with everything
• 18:53
  that's been going on, and now we're here at the end of March,
• 18:57
  and so what happens now is the portal is open as we know, So
• 19:03
  the next questions become, firstly, who will come with him on his staff?
• 19:07
  Will there be anyone on the current wvu's staff that will be retained?
• 19:11
  You got all of those pieces. Think about this, folks, This literalist
• 19:15
  decision impacts hundreds of people. And that's not an exaggeration because if your staff
• 19:23
  is twenty people, which is realistic, a twenty person staff, when you
• 19:29
  take in everybody that's involved, that's twenty plus their families. The players could
• 19:36
  be as many as all of them and their families and everything that goes along
• 19:41
  with that. You're talking about well over a couple hundred people are impacted in
• 19:45
  some form and way. We are at the point of the year where a
• 19:51
  lot of people are going to be able to get up and close and touch
• 19:52
  him real soon. Not only the press conference on Thursday later next month in
• 19:59
  Charleston April, the annual Charleston Scholarship Dinner that you're very familiar with, hundreds
• 20:03
  on hand, and then the Mountaineer caravan will go this year adding Manassas,
• 20:08
  Virginia, Charlotte, Wheeling, Parkersburg, Wheeling, Parkersburg, Martinsburg, Glade
• 20:17
  Springs. Right, so everyone is going to want to see the new guy.
• 20:21
  They want to hear them for the first time. They want to get
• 20:22
  there, you know, they want to get their spin, their feel.
• 20:26
  So this will go really quick and that takes you through April, and then
• 20:30
  with the rules nowadays, of course, practice starts right. You can get
• 20:33
  on the floor and they'll do that, and then they're going to Italy the
• 20:37
  end of June or July into August. And so this is going to happen
• 20:41
  really super fast because basketball season, football season never end anymore. They're just
• 20:45
  the times where they play the games and the times they don't play games,
• 20:47
  but it never ends. So I think it'll be a really fast paced,
• 20:52
  really intriguing fun time for fans just to kind of keep track. Okay,
• 20:55
  what do we got? What do we got? Because these rosters nowadays are
• 21:00
  are completely malleable unlike any other time, and it is possible. And you
• 21:06
  can take a look at Texas Tech this year, right. Grant McCaslin won
• 21:08
  the NIT last season, so he was a very late higher at Texas Tech
• 21:12
  and he had to replace ten impacted West Virginia. Obviously, they took Joe
• 21:18
  Tucson among others, and they had a really good year and they're in the
• 21:21
  NCAA tournament, So it's going to be quite a fascinating time to see how
• 21:26
  the whole thing goes. But again, regardless of the flexibility that you now
• 21:30
  have, unfortunately you also have to keep in this in night. You can't
• 21:34
  make year one become year two. This is going to be the year where
• 21:38
  you're going to put your foundation and your principles down and that part of it.
• 21:41
  Sometimes it takes time. You can speed it up quicker, but there
• 21:47
  are certain things that just take time to get Bran. I have a question
• 21:51
  for you, really both of you, and that is to what degree did
• 21:55
  Drake utilize the nil to smaller school and now you're at you're coming here where
• 22:00
  you it's all about the anile. Yeah, it'll be different, it'll be
• 22:03
  different, and that's one of the things you start to look at personnel.
• 22:07
  Darren devrez had had really good personnel at Drake. Just take this year for
• 22:11
  a second. Well, we'll talk about his son, Tucker and him in
• 22:14
  a two time player the year out of the Missouri Valley. Because if the
• 22:15
  transfer portal starts with Tucker Devirees, that's a heck of a pickup for West
• 22:19
  Virginia. So we'll get to that in a minute. But they had multiple
• 22:22
  players in there. They did a really good job of recruiting and building a
• 22:26
  team with guys that fit different positions to allow them to play. This will
• 22:30
  be a different deal having some money at your disposal to be able and go
• 22:33
  out and recruit. But that's something you welcome, right. That's part of
• 22:36
  the reason you make the move from Drake to a West Virginia is it provides
• 22:38
  you some resources to go out and get the guys you need to compete at
• 22:42
  this level. And you're talking about a guy that's done it at Creighton,
• 22:45
  right, a major basketball school that knows what it looks like when you go
• 22:49
  get those type of players. So he'll be excited about that having some resources.
• 22:53
  The science of the game will come in. Now in the new world
• 22:57
  that we're living in, is how do you spend that money? I mean,
• 23:02
  it's it's fair to say that nowadays to compete in the Big twelve,
• 23:06
  you probably need to be in the two million dollar range to two and a
• 23:10
  half million dollar range, and some maybe Kansas might be at three million dollar
• 23:15
  range to get these players. West Virginia's in that ballpark. They're right there,
• 23:19
  and they're not under two. They're somewhere between. And so how you
• 23:25
  spend your money is like, it's not just I mean, how you spend
• 23:29
  that money? Sure player type? What am I looking for? It doesn't
• 23:33
  necessarily have to be the shiniest star. But if this guy can do exactly
• 23:37
  what I need to have him do, and I can go get him because
• 23:41
  I know that's what I have to have, and that becomes a seventy five
• 23:45
  thousand dollars expenditure, But I know I just got that one piece that I
• 23:49
  need that to some doesn't look really shiny and fancy. That's the magic of
• 23:55
  this game right now. It's not going out there and getting because you can
• 24:00
  see Ie several schools that got bounced out of this tournament. It doesn't matter
• 24:03
  if you get stars. It matters if you get the ingredients that can make
• 24:07
  your recipe. Hop Here's my sense. I just said a second ago,
• 24:11
  Drake was constructed really well. My sense is this is a guy that is
• 24:14
  going to understand how to deploy those dollars to cover a roster rather than just
• 24:19
  throwing money at a couple players and hope you get a couple good guys and
• 24:22
  then we'll have a hope and a prayer that they work together. My sense
• 24:26
  is this is a guy that understands how to build a team and will take
• 24:29
  those added resources that maybe he hasn't been able to work with before and deploy
• 24:33
  those appropriately to get a team in Now. Is it happened in year one?
• 24:37
  We'll see as it goes on. This is a guy that's going to
• 24:38
  instill a culture and a plan of attack with those dollars. So I would
• 24:44
  say this to you, Hop on a personal level, he needs to be
• 24:47
  a little bit more liberal in his spending than you because you were the last
• 24:53
  You were the last guy. You were the last guy in Morgantown that had
• 24:57
  a tube television. That is so he Yeah, I mean brush, Brad,
• 25:00
  I mean fair, and so I think you need to kind of do
• 25:03
  look like, don't go to them and offer them, you know, gift
• 25:07
  certificates to the beanery and say, hey, if you come play it right,
• 25:10
  Brad, I mean I think you probably. I mean that might be
• 25:12
  a nice added bonus there. But yeah, so freek. Some would say
• 25:15
  I'm judicious, Yeah, Others would say just tighter than Dick's hatband. Let's
• 25:22
  take a look at some of the graphics here a little bit more on who
• 25:26
  Darren Derees is our crack staff. So here we go as an assistant coach
• 25:33
  seventeen years. As Brad mentioned earlier, under Dana Altman and Greg McDermott,
• 25:38
  those two guys had great success. I mentioned during our Sunday taping that he
• 25:42
  was part of that NCAA game between West Virginia and Creighton in two thousand and
• 25:48
  five, which was a great, great game. And while they're that staff
• 25:52
  won sixty eight percent of their games, which is a really stupid number.
• 25:56
  Next up, moving on at Drake seasons as the head ball coach, crazy
• 26:02
  record, won fifty to fifty four, three tournament appearances, twice named coach
• 26:06
  of the Year in the league. One hundred and twenty two wins is the
• 26:08
  most in any five year period at the school, twenty plus in five consecutive
• 26:14
  years, never done before Drake's first NCAA tournament victory in fifty years, and
• 26:19
  a sixty five percent winning percentage in March. You know what stands out to
• 26:26
  me of all those and all those impressive numbers is all six seasons never won
• 26:30
  fewer than twenty games. Yeah, and there there was one season with twenty.
• 26:33
  Everything else was well about it. So I mean usually over six years
• 26:36
  as well, a little bit allful, like I was sixteen wins or something,
• 26:38
  always won twenty the guys won. And I'll say it again, guys,
• 26:41
  I mean Gary Garner couldn't get to an nca tournament. There, my
• 26:45
  guy, Rudy Washington, he struggled to get there. Rudy Wilshon, Tom
• 26:48
  Abetta, Marco almost two years couldn't couldn't get to an NCAA tournament. Tom
• 26:52
  Davis, the Great Tom Davis came in there, turned over to his son
• 26:56
  Keno. Keno did get to one? Hopy Keno got to one nca turn
• 27:00
  didn't he won? And done it? Who? Keno? Yeah? Yeah,
• 27:03
  he won an NA tournament? Which Providence he went to? Hey,
• 27:06
  which one offered you at Drake? I bet a Marco a Beta Marco offered
• 27:08
  you. You think it was the greatest disappointment in his career that I didn't
• 27:12
  say yes. Yeah, yeah, but he was gone shortly thereafter. Okay,
• 27:15
  but now remember Tom Tom David. I accepted an off a walk on
• 27:18
  offer from Tom Davis at when he was at Iowa. Right now, he
• 27:21
  went to Drake later. Now that the assistant coach that we corresponded with,
• 27:25
  Rudy Washington, also a Drake coach. A lot of Drake ties. Their
• 27:27
  hobby followed this program for a long time. Hey, one more slide,
• 27:32
  Hey, Austin, put up one more slide here. This is our high
• 27:33
  level of sophistication. Played for Eldon Miller as a player at Northern Iowa.
• 27:41
  What about Elden Miller? Tell you there, you go ahead say it.
• 27:45
  Well, he just he missed on me. I've heard this story so many
• 27:49
  times I can tell it. Scored over a thousand points. Uh. He
• 27:53
  was a scholar athlete, team captain. He's in the Iowa High School Hall
• 27:57
  of Fame. All four her brothers and sister played collegiate sports. Brother Jared
• 28:03
  all American at Iowa twelve seasons in the NFL Detroit Lions. He'd hit you
• 28:07
  right in the face. His wife is Ashley. He's got two kids.
• 28:11
  We've already mentioned Tucker, who is expected to join his dad here, and
• 28:15
  Tatum, the daughter a freshman high school of brad Is that were recruiting battle
• 28:21
  on for Tatum eighth grade hop eighth I understand she's eighth grade. Probably a
• 28:23
  battle on for her. So you think Morgantown University are lining up their nils
• 28:27
  right now, I would think so, I don't know, pretty good combination
• 28:30
  over there, Morgantown. I mean you got coach Kellogg's daughter over here,
• 28:36
  quite at tandem. So Eldon Miller was at the WU Coliseum, Brad accosted
• 28:41
  him. Brad approached him and introduced himself, being polite, coach, Brad,
• 28:47
  howe here you missed on me when you were coach at Iowa, Elden
• 28:51
  Miller, so, oh, oh you fine young man. Yes, even
• 28:53
  told him the kid that he recruited over me. You know. Nick Nurse,
• 28:56
  current coach of the seventy six ers, played for Elden Miller at Northern
• 29:00
  Iowa, which is where Darren de Friese played. Obviously, Is that once
• 29:03
  again Iowa is just the center, the center. Yeah, and then you
• 29:07
  take Iowa football. Everything comes out of there too. Came out of there.
• 29:12
  Let's get a let's get a Hayden for reference. It's a center of
• 29:17
  one of his brothers went to Wartburg College, of course, where you want
• 29:19
  to tell my Wartburg alum friends, your Iowa connections have been invaluable throughout the
• 29:25
  story. Bread I think, I really do. I think people are gonna
• 29:27
  like thereon. We'll get into his style of play, We'll get into the
• 29:30
  on court stuff here in a second. But you know, here's the other
• 29:32
  thing, guys, real quick before you go to the music. I also
• 29:34
  think what this does, hop to and Tony to piggyback on your your message
• 29:38
  here that it's a time where the turmoil of the last year can be put
• 29:41
  to side, that there's some hope now around this program. Right. Isn't
• 29:45
  that the best thing about sports that you get some hope and there is the
• 29:48
  cyclical nature of it. That you're down, and you've said it many times
• 29:51
  on this show, You're not gonna be down forever. You're gonna come back
• 29:53
  up. And it feels as if today you have seen when the game start.
• 29:56
  But it feels as if today there can be a rally being of this
• 30:00
  fan base to get together and have some hope for a new basketball coach that
• 30:03
  points this program back in the direction we all think it should be. So
• 30:07
  welcome to Darren de Frees. Are you you ready to do some spreads on
• 30:11
  stats? Sure? What are you going to bring us with what do you
• 30:14
  want to start with the Iowa women's game tonight? We'sterdian women. Do you
• 30:17
  want to do a little Darren Devrees first? Both? You might as well,
• 30:19
  what do you want to do? So Dealer trut do, let's do
• 30:22
  Devirees first in his style of play, hit it so I check for numbers.
• 30:29
  We'll just go right to the numbers. Just go right to the numbers.
• 30:32
  Let's jump into the analytics. Worship of the show spreads on Stats is
• 30:37
  brought to us by the Conley CPA Group. Who are they? You might
• 30:41
  say to yourself, Well, who they are? They happen to be the
• 30:45
  greatest combination of CPA's in the state of West Virginia ever. Ever, this
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  is the like you remember dream Team, Remember Jordan Bird Bird and all those
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  that they pay enough pay their fair share but don't pay too much. It's
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  the Conley CPA group. They're the only accountants in our state and across the
• 31:26
  world right now that aren't nervous that text day deadline day is approaching. They
• 31:30
  just like, give me the ball. I got it. I'll take what
• 31:33
  is it down to? Yeah? I hit a three? What do you
• 31:33
  need? Down two? I get three free throws. I'll make all three.
• 31:37
  See you later, Conley CPA group. Can I give you a stat
• 31:41
  before you start? Sure? I did a dig last week on this one.
• 31:47
  So to me, we had sixty five percent winning percentage in March for
• 31:49
  Darren Devrees. I think that's massive because that's really all that matters. Are
• 31:53
  you playing in March and are you winning in March? Sixty five percent?
• 31:57
  Really good? So other one was what's your record when you're trailing at halftime?
• 32:02
  Good? Stead? Right, it was real good. Got cut this
• 32:07
  in context though, Right, he's forty four percent when he trails at halftime.
• 32:12
  You can do some math on some others. I didn't see any other
• 32:15
  I mean I didn't. I didn't do the whole cross base. But that's
• 32:17
  really good. That's that's coaching. It's half time and you take a look
• 32:21
  at last week. He's down at halftime, took an eight point lead,
• 32:23
  came storming back in the start of the second half. They go six for
• 32:27
  fourteen. From the file line, can't win, can't win anyway, I
• 32:30
  didn't mean to to, uh, supplying your numbers by any stretch. All
• 32:35
  I like that. Okay, go ahead, all right, let's get into
• 32:37
  some stuff in a hobby. By the way, Eldon Miller did miss.
• 32:38
  Just for the record, I just want to point that out. If if
• 32:43
  you had gone there and had success, who knows, maybe today we'd be
• 32:45
  saying, who is this Brad Howe, this new head coach, Head coach,
• 32:49
  Brad Howe. I probably wouldn't played a lot, that's all right,
• 32:52
  that's a really good probably the great coaches don't play a lot. They just
• 32:55
  study, probably right, probably, right, all right, let's talk about
• 32:59
  let's do some general stuff on this and then we'll dive into some specifics.
• 33:01
  But guys, here's here's a profile of of what Darren's teams have been the
• 33:05
  last few years at Drake. Really good shooting teams both from two and three.
• 33:09
  They're a low turnover team offensively, so they protect the basketball. Now,
• 33:14
  they don't get to the free throw line much. But a lot of
• 33:15
  that's just because they're efficient on the perimeter with the shooting, really solid defensively,
• 33:21
  and the one of their key components defensively, they'll they're really aggressive.
• 33:25
  I spent a few minutes last night watching a preview of one of his practices.
• 33:30
  Excuse me, wow, that was preview one of his practices working on
• 33:32
  going under screens or over screens. And how much do we talk about that?
• 33:37
  Like what do you what do you do around screen? And there?
• 33:39
  What's what one is philosophy. There's a lot of coaches out there that can
• 33:43
  tell you what to do. Now. His philosophy is, well, the
• 33:45
  player choose go over under, just get through the blankety blank screen. So
• 33:50
  it's a lot of effort, don't let yourself be screened, fight that thing
• 33:53
  and whatever you're going to do. If you're going under, then pop back
• 33:55
  out. And it was really fun to watch their drill. They did like
• 33:59
  a shelld and those dudes were getting it. So you're basically saying, Okay,
• 34:01
  here's how we're going to play this. Here's how we're going to defend
• 34:04
  the ball screen. I don't care, you better be there. It's your
• 34:07
  choice. Yeah, you want to go over you while go onunder. I
• 34:08
  don't care what you just get over or under the damn thing and get by
• 34:13
  the guy that's trying to screen you. You're tougher than he is. Get
• 34:15
  around it. You better be face to face with the with the guy with
• 34:17
  the ball again. Darren a really good football player in high school. Brother
• 34:21
  played twelve years and ANFL. I don't think he's afraid to run right to
• 34:22
  your chest. No, hits right in the face. Yeah. This year
• 34:25
  a metaphorically, of course, our ball screen. Our ball screen defense was
• 34:29
  horrendous. So I think you're gonna get that from him. You're gonna get
• 34:31
  great effort. Defensively, they've been an elite defensive rebounding team for a number
• 34:36
  of years now. Last year I believe they were second nationally in defensive rebounding.
• 34:39
  So that's one of the pieces of magic on the defensive end is just
• 34:43
  don't give up second chance points. Get on the defensive glass and you may
• 34:46
  make your first shot, and you better make your first shot because you're not
• 34:49
  getting a second and you're probably not getting the third. They only gave up
• 34:52
  Drake only gave up seven second chance points. This past season to its opponents
• 34:57
  per game. Wait wait, hold on, seven second chance points per game
• 35:00
  to its opponents. Now, they had a really talented big, a six
• 35:05
  to ten guy, which a lot of times at that level it's hard to
• 35:07
  find size that's really good. He'll leave Drake as the all time leading rebounder
• 35:10
  really good. So that helps you. But seven second chance points, that's
• 35:14
  ridiculous. I'm not suggesting you can translate that right to the big twelve,
• 35:17
  but a lot of rebounding is what what effort? Effort? Right? And
• 35:21
  want to well to your defense to your point here, you don't mind if
• 35:24
  I jump in this is this is a collaborative effort here. So when I
• 35:28
  was talking Hoppy about how you deal in the transfer portal, Okay, you
• 35:32
  have to go get guys. And so when he recruits these guys, he
• 35:37
  has to make one thousand percent sure that the guy I'm talking to is going
• 35:40
  to be willing to either go over or under, but go get the person.
• 35:45
  And if there's any hesitation that you're not going to do either of those,
• 35:47
  as we had on this team this past season, you just kind of,
• 35:52
  eh, you don't come here, you won't play for me, You
• 35:53
  don't. You don't get to come here, so he'll by by nature,
• 35:58
  that's the guy that you have to to have. Again, this is about
• 36:00
  ingredients, and if you're not going to go through or go through someone's chest,
• 36:04
  you can't play here, say you anyway. So it's a pretty simple
• 36:07
  formula to win games. Hard to execute, obviously, it's pretty simple.
• 36:12
  You make your shots, you don't turn it over, and you only give
• 36:15
  them limited shots. So there it is out. There's a formula pretty I
• 36:16
  don't know why everbody doesn't do that easy? So why did everybody just say
• 36:21
  that? You know why? Because everybody was just wants to score thirty and
• 36:24
  it doesn't want to play defense. And because that it's really hard. What's
• 36:29
  his pace? Deploy? Hold on, we'll get into some of this.
• 36:31
  Stay with me, So I jumped ahead one. What's one mark of a
• 36:35
  what people often say a really good coach, A mark of them is okay,
• 36:38
  they run really good stuff. Fine, they get great effort out of
• 36:40
  their players. But if you've you've sat next to me enough here, Now
• 36:44
  you niche down into some of these advanced numbers. And what's an area I'm
• 36:49
  being vague here, I'm probably not leading you far enough an area that you
• 36:52
  look at and say, yeah, they're really good coming out of Are you
• 36:58
  really good coming out of time blobs? Generally, if you're good coming out
• 37:01
  of a timeout, coaches respect that a lot, right, They say,
• 37:05
  it's really good. He's really good coming Josh did a really good job early
• 37:07
  timeouts. They were very good out of timeouts. Drake was top ten percent
• 37:12
  nationally this past season. Run good stuff. You can give a coach off
• 37:16
  it runs good stuff. That's good. He runs good stuff. Hoppy,
• 37:19
  Wait, he's seen to freeze. Ain't run good stuff? That a good
• 37:22
  one. Okay, offense, let's stay on offense for a second. So
• 37:25
  here's different categories. You've heard me talk, all right. This team is
• 37:30
  really good on cuts to the basket. This team is really good spot up
• 37:32
  shooters. This team's really good at posting up. They're good at offensive rebounding.
• 37:36
  Here's what Drake was elite at under degrees. Elite spot up shooters both
• 37:42
  two and three, Elite with the pick and roll ball handler, Elite on
• 37:45
  cuts to the basket, meaning they can also do what Tony pass it well,
• 37:50
  Elite post ups. Again, they had a really good big in the
• 37:52
  middle that helped them elite when they had to iso elite when they did handoffs.
• 37:57
  That's a lot of different play categories right there. They were very very
• 38:00
  good those fundamentals. I think you're gonna get a pretty good fundamental team here.
• 38:05
  You'll be able to pass it, you got yeah, catch it helps?
• 38:07
  Hey, hop, Yes, this twenty four team for them? Yep,
• 38:10
  love the left corner. Three fifty percent on the season from the left
• 38:15
  corner. Three they made yes on one hundred plus attempts. Fifty percent from
• 38:21
  the dead left corner from three. How many different guys. I'm pretty good
• 38:24
  A bunch of different guys all right here because I got I got pretty deep
• 38:28
  here into these zones. I won't bury all with all the stunner. I'll
• 38:32
  just niche it this way over the last three or four seasons. Okay,
• 38:37
  here's kind of a profile of them shooting the ball. And tell me if
• 38:39
  this sounds like modern basketball or not, hop, because you a we talk
• 38:43
  about ern basketball. What do you want to do? Rim and three and
• 38:45
  three. Although they're very good from two to two, don't pass up to
• 38:47
  two. You can be efficient from two sixty seven percent field goal percentage at
• 38:52
  the rim over the last four seasons above the national average for that time by
• 38:55
  about six percent, so very good. When they get to the rim,
• 39:00
  they love the right and left elbow twos, then get into that mid range
• 39:04
  school range in mis top twenty percent nationally field goal percentage from those areas in
• 39:12
  the last three seasons. Okay, how about this. Each of the last
• 39:15
  three seasons, Drake was top five nationally in at least one three point shooting
• 39:22
  zone. So we've talked before. I'm counting five zones around the outside,
• 39:27
  two corners, two wings, and top of the key. In every season
• 39:30
  of for the last three at least one of those zones, Drake was a
• 39:35
  top five field goal percentage team from three. So that tells me what they
• 39:37
  like to shoot the three. They get good shooters, but they're also not
• 39:40
  just a wing shooting team. They've done it from all different areas around so
• 39:45
  really good elite shooting team here as well. That's impressive. Those are impressive
• 39:49
  numbers. I mean, I've got more. I figure we got plenty of
• 39:52
  time, like before the Italy Triple when they's down into some stuff. Is
• 39:53
  that. But what you're talking about, what those numbers show is what Rin
• 39:58
  Baker talked about generally, we talked about Okay, balance, hard knows that's
• 40:04
  what that is. Yeah, you know, and if you're good at the
• 40:06
  fundamentals, even if you don't have, you know, an NBA draft guy,
• 40:09
  and maybe you do, then if you're good at those fundamentals, what
• 40:13
  happens tony many times teams that are balanced I get in me in particular,
• 40:16
  I tend to to fault to the offensive side because you want to see what
• 40:20
  they run offensively. But this was a group that if you if you take
• 40:22
  their season long numbers at Drake this past season top ten percent nationally offense in
• 40:28
  terms of rating one hundred possessions defensively top fifteen percent. So they can do
• 40:32
  it both and have done it both. Yeah, it's good. Yeah,
• 40:37
  good research. I think it's I know, we can't go four hours.
• 40:40
  I'll just leave it right there. We'll have more of this as we move
• 40:44
  throughout the side. I think it's fair to say, and not hyperbole,
• 40:45
  to say that this was the most comprehensive coaching search in West Virginia basketball history.
• 40:55
  And I say that, and I say that this way because the game
• 41:01
  has changed to the point where analytics are now very, very front end Center,
• 41:07
  and Ren Baker had a spreadsheet that could choke a horse as far as
• 41:13
  breaking down candidates and numbers. And he will admit that he's obsessed with people
• 41:19
  that have high winning percentages, but there's so much more than that. And
• 41:23
  you take a look at his hires. Ben McCollum, who very well could
• 41:27
  be the next Drake head coach maybe who's at Northwest Missouri State or he could
• 41:32
  go to Missouri State. And Grant McCaslin, who won at North Texas who
• 41:37
  he hired and then obviously has this mentioned. He went to Texas Tech and
• 41:40
  NCAA, so he has a really good feel for this. And I think
• 41:45
  he punched his numbers and he said, okay, this is it. On
• 41:50
  the numbers. I talked to Gordon gee. Look, Gordon ge' is a
• 41:53
  pretty smart guy, he said. His eyes glazed over. He looked at
• 41:57
  the metrics and they're like, okay, what do you got here? So
• 42:01
  but yours do that when I get into my numbers here too, So you
• 42:04
  can relate to No. No, I know, I pay attention because you
• 42:07
  know why, because I'll learned something. Well, here's what I'd say about
• 42:09
  numbers guys and I know we have fun with it and the spreads on stats
• 42:13
  and I love going in there hop just to make you giggle and find and
• 42:15
  find a spot from the right elbow that they shoot forty two percent. But
• 42:19
  here, here's what those numbers do is if you follow this program and listen
• 42:22
  to this program as we establish those scouting reports, how accurate they either.
• 42:27
  Right. I mean there's a reason, Tony that so many now teams are
• 42:30
  recognizing the importance of those analytics that we talk about on here and how you
• 42:35
  use them. It does build your profile. It does allow you to do
• 42:38
  a coaching search in a different way instead of just saying, oh, I've
• 42:42
  seen that guy on TV. He looks pretty good. Right, you can
• 42:45
  get down in the nitty gritty when you get the culture and the fit stuff
• 42:47
  from talking to them and talking to people around them. All right, that
• 42:51
  still has to be done that way, but the basketball stuff, you can
• 42:53
  get into these numbers and get a really good sense of what these teams and
• 42:58
  what these coaches like to do. And I think that gives you some confidence
• 43:01
  as you go in hiring. And I think that's what you're talking about with
• 43:04
  Ren. He was able to whittle that list down to fifteen, then to
• 43:07
  ten, then to three to five guys, and here they fit the profile
• 43:12
  of what I think you need to win in this league, and it's you're
• 43:15
  doing what we do each each week on the show of identifying what those teams
• 43:17
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  nice walk, no jackets. And as we walked, now you're walking together.
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  Yeah, And as we walked to the coffee shop, I looked across
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  I looked across High Street. I looked across University Avenue, and I saw
• 44:43
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  Don't you think we would think? Now again, I went not known
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  for its great bodies of water. Now there are a couple of nice lakes.
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  His brother lives in area called Clear Lake. Right, that's a very
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  popular boating community up there, Sailorville Lake. Of course, hop probably have
• 45:36
  heard of that. I'm sure there's a lot of lou Wendell Marine Sale boats
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  out there far there in Michigan. I mean, you just go right down
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  to I would drop it right on Saylorville Lake. You're just out there,
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  So I would think I would think Coach Devrees will love love Cheat Lake greatest.
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  It's the greatest time of the year to buy at lou Wendell Marine Sales
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  Sales dot com. That's lou Wendelmarine Sales dot com and ask them about the
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  three Guys special. Okay, so now we're gonna do a We're gonna do
• 46:10
  the quick. That's our four second spreads on stats. Hit me with Caitlin
• 46:16
  Clark in the Iowa Hawk. All right, let's go, and you got
• 46:19
  to listen to this maybe on one and a half speed, since the game's
• 46:21
  coming up here in just a little bit by the time this is out two.
• 46:23
  Although me on one and a half speed's tough listen so that it goes
• 46:28
  like four and a half times. All right, I'll try it. Here
• 46:29
  we go. Hoppy Iowa women's basketball overview. They run, they hunt threes,
• 46:34
  and then they attack you at the rim. If you run them off
• 46:36
  the three point line. This is a if your team's not playing them.
• 46:38
  This is a really fun style of basketball to watch. There's not a lot
• 46:42
  of wasted dribbling. There is really elite passing. There's three point shooting.
• 46:46
  Their offensive numbers are absolutely silly. A quick rundown. They're one hundredth percentile
• 46:52
  nationally, which is which is good. Hup those good as it gets one
• 46:55
  percentile offensive rating, effective field goal percentage, two point field goal percentage,
• 47:01
  points per game, and assists per game on the offensive side one hundredth percent
• 47:06
  out. Here's how Iowa has been attacked in losses, and let's see if
• 47:10
  West Virginia matches up in any of these categories, you're gonna need some help
• 47:15
  with some missed threes from them. You saw that the other night in their
• 47:16
  first half against Holy Cross. They were struggling to get going. They're one
• 47:21
  of the best three point shooting teams in the country thirty eight percent from three
• 47:24
  in their losses. That drops all the way to twenty five, So no
• 47:29
  surprise for a team that relies on the three. If you can get them
• 47:31
  on a night when they're missing or force misses to them, then you've got
• 47:35
  a chance to hang around. You have to score with them. That's really
• 47:38
  hard to do. I just mentioned one of the best offensive team in multiple
• 47:43
  categories, but they don't have many weaknesses really the about the only one you
• 47:46
  can find is their defense. Hob They're just forty seventh percentile on the season
• 47:51
  when it comes to defensive ratings in losses. That drops all the way to
• 47:55
  the second percentile. Teams score one hundred and nine points per one hundred persession
• 48:00
  in their losses, so they're a team that just wants to outscore you,
• 48:04
  which makes sense. Kaitlin Clark can get sixty when she wons. So it's
• 48:07
  a team that you can get shots against, you can get threes, you
• 48:10
  can run on them. They're just as happy to play you one hundred and
• 48:14
  ninety five as they are to play you sixty to fifty five. So can
• 48:17
  you score with them? Listen, guys, I'll be the first admit it
• 48:21
  is hard to out Iowa Iowa. You're gonna have to have an element of
• 48:24
  that. They've got to miss some shots. You've got to make a ton
• 48:28
  of threes tonight, and you've got to try and stay hot with them scoring
• 48:30
  wise. Can you hit the offensive glass on them? Iowa isn't great defensively,
• 48:37
  but they do get a ton of defensive rebounds. Opponents are only getting
• 48:40
  nine second chance points per game against them. Hopin losses that number jumps to
• 48:45
  fifteen, so not a big difference. But can you be closer to that
• 48:49
  fifteen than the nine and see if you can stay in this game? The
• 48:52
  problem, though, that's not West Virginia's fote. They're just forty third percentile
• 48:55
  nationally in offensive rebounding percentage West for Rigot, and he gets about eleven second
• 49:00
  chance points per game. Need to find a couple more tonight. Free throw
• 49:05
  rate. West Virginia's women's team relies on this a lot, much like we
• 49:08
  talked about the men all year. West Virginia's top ten percent nationally and free
• 49:13
  throw rate that drops to bottom ten percent in West Virginia's losses. So he
• 49:16
  said, when teams pack it in and you rely only on the three,
• 49:20
  that has not been a good formula for West Virginia. So I think you'll
• 49:22
  be able to get to the basket at times. Can you get some foul
• 49:25
  calls in Carver Hawkeye Arena tonight? You right to ask a question there?
• 49:30
  No, I have some things direct quotes from Kaitlyn Clark. Okay, hold
• 49:32
  on, let me give one more and then jump in with Kaitlyn one more.
• 49:36
  I was only face to press on two percent of their possessions this season.
• 49:40
  We know West Virginia likes to press. They didn't face more than eighteen
• 49:45
  possessions of full court pressure in any one game this year. The three teams
• 49:49
  that press them double digit possessions lost all three. I will handle that.
• 49:54
  It's no surprise, right, you have one of the best passers in women's
• 49:58
  basketball history in Kaitland Clark. You have all all five players that can dribble.
• 50:00
  They move the ball without dribbling, and all five players can handle if
• 50:05
  they need to top one percent nationally in points per possession against the press.
• 50:09
  So limited sample size, they've chewed it up when they've seen it. So
• 50:14
  we'll see if West Virginia's press causes some problems. But this is a really
• 50:16
  difficult team to press, not just because of Kaitlyn Clark, but because of
• 50:20
  the other four as well. So the buzz around their first round game against
• 50:24
  Holy Cross was that Caitlyn Clark did not play well. So this is what
• 50:30
  she said in preparation for tonight's game. West Virginia better be ready, like
• 50:37
  from the moment the ball goes in the ear. Coming out with a strong
• 50:39
  start will be really important for us. I think that goes for any game.
• 50:44
  But our group has played in quite a few March Madness games where we
• 50:46
  did not come out and set the tone and we were able to take a
• 50:50
  breath and respond. I think understanding we're not going to win by twenty five
• 50:53
  points, that's not what this is at this point. It's going to come
• 50:58
  down to single possessions and you have to exit cute possessions. You need to
• 51:00
  get offensive boards. We need not to turn the ball over, little things
• 51:06
  like that. And she said, our group knows better than anybody. This
• 51:10
  is a game that is going to be close. Doesn't really matter what number
• 51:14
  is next to your name. That's what makes this tournament so fun. You've
• 51:16
  got to come out ready to play. Georgia gave us a great battle last
• 51:20
  year. It just shows how important singular possessions are in these types of games.
• 51:24
  Well, that's not good because you have an absolute well, you have
• 51:28
  an absolute sharpshooter, one of the all time greatest players going like I'm bringing
• 51:32
  it, hope you bring it season assassin, and will be ready to go
• 51:36
  in what will be a hobby a bonkers environment. Not only that's not only
• 51:40
  a sellout, that will be a sellout that's on its ear in her final
• 51:44
  home game. So West Virginia's ability to handle that atmosphere is going to be
• 51:46
  important early. A couple of observations. One is that props to West Virginia
• 51:51
  for having the season they had, win the first round game and now be
• 51:54
  just by the draw on the national state for this game. That's amazing.
• 51:58
  That's incredible. Second thing is, and we've seen a lot of sports and
• 52:01
  a lot of sports events over the years, and you've seen a lot of
• 52:06
  games, a lot of big games, a lot of events, and to
• 52:09
  me, this went from big game to event to phenomenon. And by that
• 52:14
  I mean that her impact has increased geometrically. Okay, it hasn't gone from
• 52:21
  two to four and four to six. It's gone from two to four,
• 52:22
  four to eight, eight to sixteen. And it is a phenomenon. It
• 52:27
  is a cultural event, and it's remarkable. You don't see that very often,
• 52:31
  but it's happened. And when it gets to that point, it builds
• 52:35
  on itself. Okay, everybody picks up on it, like normal news organizations
• 52:40
  are covering it. ESPN has somebody specifically assigned to it. But it goes
• 52:44
  beyond sport and it goes into the popular culture. It's like the it's like
• 52:49
  the Taylor Swift of basketball. That's actually a good analogy on what she's done
• 52:54
  and where she is right now. There's a couple of things tonight. One
• 52:58
  on the Caitlin Clark side of things. What scares you from a West Virginia
• 53:00
  perspective is in every one of those instances. It's what's impressed me most about
• 53:05
  her. Her individual skills really good. She shows up in big moments.
• 53:08
  She hasn't been overwhelmed by the night going to break the record. Instead,
• 53:13
  she came out and scored the first nine points. Lots of logo three.
• 53:15
  That thing's over right, what's next? She is a stone cold assassin.
• 53:19
  There's a lot of Jordan and Kobe behavior and traits within her. She's just
• 53:22
  super talented. The flip side is the West Virginia thing you were talking about
• 53:25
  in the open. They're in a great spot here, they're in a great
• 53:29
  spot. They go in and Caitlin Clark scores fifty five on you and you
• 53:31
  get run out of the gym. Okay, so be it right. You
• 53:34
  had a wonderful season you just mentioned, exceeded expectations. First coach in West
• 53:37
  Virginia history to win your first tournament game in your first year. That team
• 53:40
  has achieved a ton and is set up nicely for the future. If you
• 53:44
  go in and play with Iowa for a half for three quarters, if you're
• 53:47
  able to do it for four quarters, that just enhances your brand significantly.
• 53:52
  There's literally almost no downside to this. Game tonight West Virginia. John and
• 53:55
  Tonic told me this today from WVU that West Virginia is the last team in
• 54:00
  the tournament with a first year head coach. Probably, yeah, if John
• 54:06
  said it, it's true. He writes books, authors never lie. I
• 54:09
  think this is one of those moments if you embrace the moment. If you're
• 54:14
  West Virginia's winner's the basketball team this is this is a historic event that you're
• 54:19
  playing college basketball's all time leading scorer, interfinal home game in her building.
• 54:22
  Go in and have some fun with this and see how you line up.
• 54:25
  No one knows what her career will become as a professional, but potentially this
• 54:31
  is one of those things where if she continues to go on and play at
• 54:35
  this level that she did professionally, you can go back and you look at
• 54:38
  this thing ten to fifteen years down the road, and that would be kind
• 54:42
  of similar to saying like, yeah, I played against Maravich right, or
• 54:46
  I played against the Jerry West of women's basketball. You know what I mean.
• 54:50
  It's like that type of a level. Potentially it could be you don't
• 54:52
  know again how things will go, injuries and things like that, but you
• 54:57
  got an opportunity you get one chance. If you're West Virginia, it is
• 55:00
  a glorious moment. You just go play your ass. And what's what's cool
• 55:02
  about it too, is that inbred you can relate to this because you have
• 55:06
  girls and one or both played basketball. They both play basketball, play basketball.
• 55:10
  Is that how many times they show all those shots in the gym and
• 55:14
  the arena and all those girls. Okay, so that's impact that that is
• 55:17
  driving girls to participate in sports. You know they are there, you know,
• 55:22
  so that's a huge impact. Like Tiger Wolf, Tiger Woods and golf.
• 55:25
  Yeah, I mean in the state of Ioway, I'm saying it's past
• 55:29
  that too. It's it's boys too. I mean that's crossed over gender there
• 55:32
  on what she has meant and what she's meant to the women's game. So
• 55:36
  yeah, I think this is this is really fun. You talk about a
• 55:37
  lot, we talk about almost every one of our football broadcasts about being nationally
• 55:42
  relevant. You're you're West Virginia, You're nationally relevant. Tonight, all eyes
• 55:45
  are on you primetime slot eight pm ESPN. That's be a lot of fun
• 55:50
  swings. You're exactly right, eight pm on ESPN. I mean, it's
• 55:52
  the equivalent of Monday Night Football. That's the Monday Night Football of the spring.
• 55:55
  All right, hey, one, two, three, let's do this
• 56:00
  soon as they did their hopey queued end of that song. Yeah you don't.
• 56:05
  You don't need to countdown on the air, though you came back to
• 56:07
  my DJ days. Probably shouldn't countdown it. Can I show you that picture
• 56:15
  of Garrett Green and SOB? Yes, we use that? Did we use
• 56:19
  it? Yeah? We use we used it? Yeah, SOB was the
• 56:24
  was it the home home base from Pat White? Right? Yeah, there's
• 56:29
  Daphney, Alabama. Three guys before the game. Textual healing is a little
• 56:32
  more mojo. Three guys before the game. Textual Healing brought to us by
• 56:37
  episode eight hundred dot com. You know, if we were smart, we
• 56:42
  probably would have episode eight hundred dot com on that graphic, But I ken
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  no one's ever called us smart. Episode eight hundred dot com where you can
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  buy all of our stuff that includes our award winning coffee game Day Grind,
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  our award winning popcorn Mountaineer Munch, and all of our appair and all three
• 57:00
  of us are wearing our apparel today. Hoppy's got the Adidas. What's your
• 57:06
  brand here? Bred, what do you wear? Peter Malarm? Well,
• 57:07
  that's Peter Milarm. Fuddy, Oh, I didn't know that nice. That
• 57:12
  is twice and uh I got a Peter malar on two. Okay, let's
• 57:16
  jump into this thing, man. I'd like to address the elephant in the
• 57:21
  room. May I. First, I'm going to read a couple of things,
• 57:25
  and then I'm going to address the elephant in the room. It's not
• 57:29
  the first elephant we've addressed on this show. In fact, we've addressed enough
• 57:32
  elephants so we could be in a zoo. First one, it was just
• 57:39
  five five words, four words and an abbreviation, said fami ol got Hoppy
• 57:45
  again Lol. Another one came in said Famil seven pm, Hoppy seven oh
• 57:51
  five pm. Next one came in, got Pete them will break in the
• 57:54
  news at seven eighteen and Hoppy at seven twenty unofficial time Texter did Hoppy beat
• 58:01
  his arch nemesis Pete Thamil to the punch on reporting the devies higher? Next
• 58:06
  one, did Hopy call Pete themill to find out who the next West Virginia
• 58:09
  basketball coaches go Mountaineers? Ou? Will Pete be taken over? Texter?
• 58:15
  See they're Hoppy you got some time stamps on that thing. Yeah, yeah,
• 58:19
  I do. Unfortunately, well, hang on first and foremost, this
• 58:22
  texter says, I have been, forever will be hashtag team Hoppy. So
• 58:28
  with that being said, in all due respect, I regretfully point out the
• 58:30
  following. Our generation's greatest correspondent did not, in fact beat pistol Pete Thamil
• 58:35
  to the news. What's more, he did not finish seconds, made clear
• 58:37
  by the attached pictures. However, I don't feel this is a reflection of
• 58:42
  his ability to break the news, but rather a commitment to purity and journalism.
• 58:46
  What I mean is anyone who stays this dedicated to carrying a hanky probably
• 58:51
  couldn't care less about Twitter, but rather spend his first several critical minutes sending
• 58:54
  news out over widely used media such as smoke signals, telegram or carrier pigeons.
• 59:00
  So I say a way to go, Hoppy family, can kick rock,
• 59:02
  stay well, God bless Philip and Tampa. Thank you Philip. So
• 59:10
  here's the deal. As you know, if you're a regular on this program,
• 59:15
  I have had a great deal of fun poking Hoppy about Pete Thamil,
• 59:21
  and for whatever reason, Hoppy took on Bridge on a couple of things that
• 59:25
  THEAMIL got in front of and reported it. And I said, Hoppy doesn't
• 59:30
  matter, It doesn't matter, It doesn't matter. But I will say this
• 59:36
  to besmirch Hoppy in this particular situation regarding the hiring of the basketball coach would
• 59:43
  be not only unfair, it would be incorrect. Here's the deal, Hoppy
• 59:50
  had it. We had it. We just didn't push the button. If
• 59:54
  you take a look, we recorded our eight minute segment yesterday five pm that
• 1:00:01
  Darren Devrees was West Virginia's head coach, and this studio is used at six
• 1:00:07
  pm by the sports line guys. So we had we recorded, We had
• 1:00:12
  it. We just as this one texter wrote, we were being journalistically absolutely
• 1:00:22
  accurate, because we've seen so many of these stories crumble. And as I've
• 1:00:29
  tried a school Hoppy on, it doesn't matter who gets it first. It
• 1:00:32
  matters that you get it right. And when we had it, we hit
• 1:00:38
  you guys with a boatload of information right off the bat. So I'm not
• 1:00:43
  going to pee on Hoppy. Oh thank you. We had it. You
• 1:00:47
  had it, We had it, We had it for but you have to
• 1:00:52
  dot the I and cross the t I can give you five head coaches who
• 1:00:54
  have gone to podiums and walked away from jobs. So like, as I've
• 1:01:00
  always said, these are the hardest jobs to get. So, hey,
• 1:01:02
  Pete, I like Pete. Pete's great. Pete was right on top of
• 1:01:06
  it as usual. We also had it. Just didn't push the button.
• 1:01:08
  That's all I did. Well, thank you, Tony, I appreciate it.
• 1:01:12
  That's what kind of surprise you that it does crush you as you could
• 1:01:15
  have maybe Bradwell, you could have taken me off at the knees. Well,
• 1:01:17
  it's fair, a man, it's right. We taped it. We
• 1:01:20
  were here at five We taped about five fifteen, five twenty. We were
• 1:01:24
  done like five thirty five, five forty. We could have gone. We
• 1:01:28
  knew the contract was being done at that time. We had it, but
• 1:01:31
  I didn't tweet it out until I had it from a source that I knew
• 1:01:37
  I could depend on. Okay, I mean I could have just and you
• 1:01:40
  knew the contract was being done, which was before five pm. You could
• 1:01:45
  have, if you wanted, have tweeted West Virginia's currently working on final contract
• 1:01:50
  details with Darrin. Yeah, you could have, could it? But you
• 1:01:52
  know what I could have, but I you know, I didn't. It's
• 1:01:59
  a it's a it's it's a it's a difficult relationship that you have with sources
• 1:02:05
  that you're trying to pin things down, and I just wanted to be I
• 1:02:07
  wanted to be accurate. I didn't want to get it wrong. I wanted
• 1:02:10
  to protect sources. And you know that's so I'm I'm fine with it.
• 1:02:15
  Your thoughts, I'm fine with it. Go to the next text. I'm
• 1:02:19
  tired of this topic. I'm just saying, I mean, hey, Pete's
• 1:02:24
  the best. I mean, hoy is he is really really Hoppy's not going
• 1:02:29
  to get the next drake Head coach, but Pete will. But Hoppy for
• 1:02:35
  what this was, he had it. That's all. Thank you, that's
• 1:02:37
  all. Now let me tell you something. You get beat on something else,
• 1:02:40
  I'll rip your ass. Hey, three guys, this is Devin from
• 1:02:45
  the Goshen Road Exit. They're a nice seventy nine. In reference to Tony's
• 1:02:50
  cheeto comment at the beginning of the last episode, did you know that Freedo
• 1:02:54
  Lay actually trademarked the orange dust that is compounded on your fingers from eating cheeto?
• 1:03:00
  After Cheetos. True story, they did, and they named it cheetle
• 1:03:06
  I'm gonna double check then. Now you might be saying, how do you
• 1:03:08
  know? Well, I had to write to write a current events article one
• 1:03:12
  time in high school, and that's the first thing that popped up when I
• 1:03:15
  googled current events. So that's how I've come to learn one of my favorite
• 1:03:19
  trivia fun facts that is true. I just checked it. Furthermore, the
• 1:03:22
  reason the bags feel as though they're a ninety percent air is because they actually
• 1:03:24
  are higher elevation like Colorado. For example, chip bags, pringles cans are
• 1:03:30
  actually known to bust or pop due to the chest changes in pressure, so
• 1:03:35
  if they filled them all the way up, it would result in more lost
• 1:03:37
  product. As always, you guys are great. Can't wait for the next
• 1:03:40
  two hundred and fifty nine episodes, which will not happen. You know,
• 1:03:44
  it's actually nitrogen that's in the bag. Really yeah, not just playing air
• 1:03:50
  cause you Uh. Texter bart Zop from Elkins, I was listening to the
• 1:03:58
  last episode flying back from Fort Myers heard Reese's Popcorn was sent to you by
• 1:04:01
  a listener. I was very interested in that. Heading south from the airport,
• 1:04:05
  I seventy nine South Delcins. Late Wednesday, I stopped at a convenience
• 1:04:11
  store that won't be named. It wasn't a gomart. I was surprised to
• 1:04:15
  see the popcorn you guys had mentioned on the show sitting on the shelf ate
• 1:04:18
  a bag. I think it's safe to say Mountaineer monch is clearly superior.
• 1:04:23
  That's what we sell. Reces doesn't have crap on the fine people of Mountaineer
• 1:04:27
  popcorn. By the way, can you can you clip this and send it
• 1:04:30
  to the sales folks that they might want to use on one of their sales
• 1:04:32
  presentations? What do you mean? Did I hear you? Right? So
• 1:04:35
  Bart listened to the episode we mentioned a product. He went to the store
• 1:04:40
  and bought the product that we were talking about. That would seem to be
• 1:04:43
  a pretty good sales listener engagement. I mean, out on your sales and
• 1:04:45
  we're done sales for a long time, hoppy, but I might take that.
• 1:04:47
  If I was a sales staff, I would say, here, you
• 1:04:49
  want to say you want to move a product? A direct response? Hop
• 1:04:54
  you don't get any more direct response. It is a director. John and
• 1:04:56
  Bart, there was listening to the show, went and bought a product,
• 1:05:00
  true and it still a companies Pontoon Boats. Then with that right at the
• 1:05:02
  top of the deck deck Hobby deck advertising, I would say this, I
• 1:05:09
  would say this, Senator, to your point. Yeah, we can't guarantee
• 1:05:12
  wins and losses by coaches. But the one thing through five hundred and forty
• 1:05:15
  one episodes that this program can guarantee. You got a product, we can
• 1:05:20
  move it, we can sell it. Those great listeners Hobby, they'll go
• 1:05:25
  out and try stuff. Sure, I have wonderful well technically though, you
• 1:05:29
  guys are You're like influencers. So if you guys get a product and you
• 1:05:34
  like it, because I don't think if it was just crappy, I don't
• 1:05:36
  think you'd be out there going, boy, try this, no, never
• 1:05:40
  do that, but never do it. I think our listeners know try this
• 1:05:43
  hummus no, no, no. And I thought that respopcorn is pretty good.
• 1:05:48
  But I agree with Bart, it wasn't as good as the Mountaineer much.
• 1:05:50
  I agree with you. I agree with you on that. Ted from
• 1:05:54
  Colorado. As I watched the NCAA tournament, I see the deficiencies in West
• 1:05:59
  Virginia. His basketball team, no defense, lack of strength, lack of
• 1:06:03
  athleticism. The new coach needs to recruit players to address these deficiencies. I
• 1:06:10
  suspect the new coach has a pretty good idea of the kinds of players he
• 1:06:13
  needs, based on his experience. Texter. Listening to your Thursday cast on
• 1:06:18
  Friday, Brad was pontificating about BYU's chances of making a run of the tournament.
• 1:06:25
  I unfortunately had the same thought process and had BYU and my Elite eight.
• 1:06:30
  It's funny how you feel good outside the box until picks, until the
• 1:06:33
  game starts when you hit. What the hell was I thinking? Hope my
• 1:06:36
  Friday picks are better. Enjoy the rest of the tournament, Fellers. Texter
• 1:06:43
  Fay in Fayetteville, probably not a correct first name. I was driving in
• 1:06:47
  traffic listening to episode five forty. The vehicle's license prayed in front of me
• 1:06:53
  read bwitchd Bwitched, which only goes to show there is all he's a Bewitched
• 1:07:00
  connection. Thank you for the years of antics and entertainment. There's no way
• 1:07:04
  that can be real. You don't think he can't be listening to an episode
• 1:07:08
  where we're mentioning Bewitch while he's looking at a Bewitch license plate after the show
• 1:07:13
  aired. Sure somewhat concern Depitus. I think here's a question that needs to
• 1:07:19
  be asked as a Texter. Let's say you three are college basketball coaches.
• 1:07:24
  How on the heck do you build a program that wins consistently? The one
• 1:07:29
  and done era doesn't produce titles and the portal doesn't produce a consistent lineup?
• 1:07:33
  Do you recruit fabulous freshman or some three star four star guys that you can
• 1:07:38
  build with? For me, I choose the latter, try to catch a
• 1:07:41
  five star here and there. But maybe I'm just crazy and wanting to actually
• 1:07:45
  consistently win a national title and make a Final Four run once more than once
• 1:07:50
  in a blue moon. Signed by DJ in Monroe County. Yeah, I
• 1:07:57
  think this weekend in the Kentucky experiment of bringing in all the first year guys
• 1:08:02
  again, you want to find a model Houston. Houston recruits guys that fit
• 1:08:11
  their style, and they're having great success and have had great success, but
• 1:08:15
  they're not necessarily five star guys four star guys. Iowa State's a really good
• 1:08:20
  current example right now. If you want to focus on the center of the
• 1:08:24
  basketball universe right now in Iowa, Darren de Fries and knows tj Alzilberger.
• 1:08:28
  Well, I think they've done a great job of Evan. You've got to
• 1:08:31
  get that culture installed first and right, because if you miss on that,
• 1:08:35
  it's nearly impossible to get it in later years. You've got to come in
• 1:08:39
  and set those parameters, and when you do, then you recruit to that
• 1:08:42
  system. And there's different ways to do it, right HOPI if you're gonna
• 1:08:45
  end up with Tucker da Freeze, all right, that's a very talented player
• 1:08:47
  that you're going to mix in that, but he fits the principles that you
• 1:08:49
  want to bring to so you're going to be heavy portal. That's just the
• 1:08:53
  way it is right now. The ability to go out and get talented freshmen
• 1:08:57
  and plug them in right away. You mentioned with at Kentucky that that's really
• 1:09:00
  hard to do and West Virginia traditionally has not got those players. So there's
• 1:09:04
  other ways to go about it. There's no model that is right for everybody,
• 1:09:09
  but you will be heavily in the portal, there's no question about that.
• 1:09:12
  Paul from Tampa, I wanted to thank Brad for the following quotes.
• 1:09:16
  B Yu could go on a run and Auburn might be the best team in
• 1:09:20
  the country. Both want and done. I don't feel so bad about my
• 1:09:24
  dumpster fire of a bracket if spreads himself as in the same boat, here's
• 1:09:29
  hoping for a WUVU appearance on the dance floor next year. The very thing
• 1:09:32
  that makes the NCAA tournament is what also makes it impossible to pick games.
• 1:09:38
  So you mean it's it's unpredictable, Yes, it is unpredictable. This is
• 1:09:42
  like this text is like from you. We sat there on all those games
• 1:09:45
  and I'd play you, only you only seem to remember the ones that you
• 1:09:47
  miss on. You never would ever say is congratulations you have a great call
• 1:09:51
  in that game. Those txts or those comments from you never come in.
• 1:09:55
  Was this from Hoppy? The just the text because that's how he does it.
• 1:10:00
  So no, the record will show I can't believe you said that you
• 1:10:02
  missed on that one. I consistently give you credit for when you make a
• 1:10:06
  good call or make a great point. Tony, that's just simply untrue.
• 1:10:10
  No, that's absolutely true, simply untrue. You misrememory, that's simply untrue.
• 1:10:14
  No, that's no, it's true. Text. No, no,
• 1:10:15
  I didn't know Texter her. What were the Big twelve of the ACC tell
• 1:10:20
  me wh I to talk about? Connecticut? Maybe right down there? Connecticut
• 1:10:23
  one in her eyes pretty good, so he soon's pretty good. I'm not
• 1:10:31
  made no, because you can't say anything, because that's that's exactly what you
• 1:10:34
  do too. Go ahead, yeah, please go, because this is what
• 1:10:40
  we're the Big twelve of the ACC thinking in agreeing to an unequal revenue distribution
• 1:10:45
  and the new CFP. Very soon colleges will be paying players directly. The
• 1:10:49
  unequal revenue distribution will be no different than if half of the NFL teams had
• 1:10:55
  a fifty million dollars salary while the other half had one hundred million dollars.
• 1:11:00
  Both leagues just guarantee their second tier status for as long as they remain part
• 1:11:03
  of the CFP. I say they quit the whole thing and start their own
• 1:11:09
  playoff and have their own national title at the end of the year. As
• 1:11:14
  for what fans of the Big Twelve and the ACC should do, boycott anything
• 1:11:18
  SEC or Big ten. Don't give them or ESPN your eyeballs for any reason.
• 1:11:25
  JD from the Southern coal fields. I've been so ensconced with this basketball
• 1:11:31
  stuff, and Ren has been very ensconced with the basketball stuff. I've not
• 1:11:38
  had a good conversation yet with someone that needs to explain to me exactly why
• 1:11:44
  the Big twelve was willing to take less. But my guess is they're playing
• 1:11:48
  the long game so that they don't get left out of the party. That
• 1:11:54
  if the SEC and the Big ten were ever to push or move or whatever,
• 1:12:00
  you just don't want to get But I don't know that for a fact.
• 1:12:03
  I got to find out that you might know someone I'm just not doing
• 1:12:09
  to that point, what's your leverage? What are you going to do if
• 1:12:13
  you don't participate? You see you? Yeah, there there won't be another
• 1:12:16
  national championship. There won't be another and you just don't have any levers and
• 1:12:23
  that sucks. I mean, the unequal distribution is is a problem. I
• 1:12:26
  mean, there's no question about that. But I don't know what your options
• 1:12:29
  were at that point. Kathy from Washington, West Virginia writing, I'm watching
• 1:12:33
  the WV women's game, and those watching were aware of ESPN commentators ignoring WVU
• 1:12:41
  focus on the Princeton team, particularly Chin. Can we get some respect,
• 1:12:46
  Kathy, I would say to you stop listening to TV announcers. They're a
• 1:12:50
  bad thing for society. You must listen to the radio. You must listen
• 1:12:56
  to the radio. Turn on to Junior except when it's not except when we're
• 1:13:00
  on TV. And then please listen to Hello, three guys, Jeff from
• 1:13:03
  Edward, Jeff from Edward, Jeff from Edwards, California, checking in.
• 1:13:11
  What are you doing? I don't know. I just started reading this ante
• 1:13:15
  it was you. This is serious too, so I gotta do strong.
• 1:13:17
  Sorry. Okay, it's been a while since I've texted Pearl Harbor Day to
• 1:13:20
  be exact. Over the past few months, I have faced a lot of
• 1:13:23
  adversity, including two deaths in the family and another close family friend. There
• 1:13:29
  have been high points during the period, though. One was going to the
• 1:13:30
  Bowl game with my uncle right there and seeing the Mountaineers lay the SmackDown on
• 1:13:36
  the tar Heels. Another happy moment was taking my family to Disneyland for the
• 1:13:41
  very first time. My little ones really enjoyed that. The men's basketball season
• 1:13:46
  wasn't the most enjoyable, However, there were high points, and I did
• 1:13:48
  listen to or watch parts of every game. I'm hop happy with the job
• 1:13:54
  Coach Islet and staff did as they navigated the most bizarre season I've witnessed.
• 1:13:59
  I wasn't able to listen to every three Guys during the season, but I
• 1:14:01
  was able to catch the past month. That's really helped me get back to
• 1:14:04
  myself. The friendly banter, the Gomart endorsements, and Tony's hilarious unconfirmed statements
• 1:14:13
  really take my mind off the stressors of life, as well as keep me
• 1:14:16
  connected to my homestate. I thank you. PS. Is there any way
• 1:14:20
  you could bring back the original three guy shirt with your faces? I wasn't
• 1:14:25
  able to get one of them. I'm sure we can probablieve. Yeah,
• 1:14:28
  we'll effort that. Talk to Dave. Yeah, gotta find the design for
• 1:14:31
  Where's well? He was in uh, I haven't seen him. He was
• 1:14:34
  in La last week. He's back in town for two weeks. He'd like
• 1:14:40
  to talk to you. What now? Eh, say what now? You'd
• 1:14:44
  like to see you? He misses you. Dave might be looking for a
• 1:14:48
  couch sleep on Dave. Dave has an unbelievable cabin in Monroe County. Yeah,
• 1:14:55
  and he just got that new satellite thing. Oh okay, yeah,
• 1:14:59
  then so he can now Yeah he can now bang off video calls for work
• 1:15:06
  and stay down there. Before we used to have to drive in from Monroe
• 1:15:09
  County down into Louisbourg get some of that internet. So now he got that
• 1:15:13
  internet off at his cabin. He's all good to go. Three guys.
• 1:15:19
  Now we have meetings this week here locally. Who does we do? Three
• 1:15:23
  guys, the Corporation of Three Guys will be meeting with clients this weekend.
• 1:15:28
  Okay, some new I was not. I don't think I was. We
• 1:15:31
  just use your name in the meetings. Hoppies all for this, Let's go
• 1:15:38
  with it. All right, that's fun. I have not been led astray
• 1:15:41
  yet. No, we're good, Three guys. Last episode had me in
• 1:15:44
  stitches on my walk in Charleston. I never thought I would have bewitched on
• 1:15:47
  my three guys bingo card. May I suggest that if you record during next
• 1:15:53
  year's tournament, that you all use YouTube TV to watch all four games at
• 1:15:57
  the same time. I did it this week and it was wonderful to watch
• 1:16:00
  that from a recliner. I'm sure Brad does aye. Jenny's yeah, I
• 1:16:05
  did that with this weekend. Oh yeah, yeah, my oldest, my
• 1:16:11
  oldest, he got that YouTube TV and you can that's a pretty nice fee.
• 1:16:15
  You watch all four of them at the same time. Pretty good.
• 1:16:17
  You're gonna watch all the games same time and then pick I just do last
• 1:16:23
  and inflict but that, But how about watching all four at the same time
• 1:16:26
  on the same screen. That's pretty cool. Loading up multiple screens on your
• 1:16:29
  wall like I do. Well not everyone's got the luxury of having sixteen TVs.
• 1:16:32
  True, everyone doesn't have a sports bar in their house, out there
• 1:16:39
  running around like it's Caesar's Casino, just taking bits. Only guy in his
• 1:16:49
  neighborhood that's got an OC three for his Internet connectivity. What's an OC three?
• 1:16:55
  It's about this big whatever you need, let me just this. He
• 1:17:00
  can watch every game he needs and sends signals to green Bank. That's that's
• 1:17:05
  what he can. He can listen. Somebody at green Banks went, I'm
• 1:17:11
  picking something up. Wait a minute, Brad hougins on. That's I'll go
• 1:17:15
  one thing. In the background. I think I hear Iron Eagle will in
• 1:17:20
  Charlottesville. Charlottesville. My favorite Derees statistic. Last fifty years of Drake Hoops,
• 1:17:29
  they've won twenty or more seven times. Six of those all six were
• 1:17:33
  coach Derees's seasons. The fact that he also seems like a true family man
• 1:17:38
  and community man with that level of success speaks volumes to his character and humility.
• 1:17:43
  Yeah, it actually won four of those times back when Mary John,
• 1:17:46
  of course was the coach. Excuse me, Oi John went to a Final
• 1:17:49
  four back then. I mentioned this last night. Dolph Polliam excuse me,
• 1:17:54
  Dolph Polliam was a star on that team. My old high school coach,
• 1:17:56
  Jim O'Day, part of that final four run for the Drake Bulldogs came out
• 1:17:59
  there in Arizona now and Arizona's retired to Arizona right. A heck of a
• 1:18:02
  basketball This is, Brad. This whole coaching thing in the Iowa picking debris
• 1:18:08
  has been so in your wheelhouse. This was just like can delivered to you.
• 1:18:13
  This was fun, it delivered. It truly is quite bizarre. And
• 1:18:15
  I told him this this morning because John bee Line's from my hometown, and
• 1:18:19
  so to have two coaches right b Lines from my hometown and he's got all
• 1:18:26
  of these connections as well, just kind of crazy right of all the place.
• 1:18:30
  It what it does. It speaks to the small world of athletics,
• 1:18:32
  and I think basketball even smaller than some of the other sports. It is
• 1:18:36
  a tight knit world. Everyone knows everyone. What was that town? Abington,
• 1:18:41
  Arlington, Applington, Aplington as An Applington, Parkersburg right Parkersburg High School?
• 1:18:45
  Solid. It's actually if you listen when you were lifting there back in
• 1:18:50
  as old as you are, you were probably lifting on a universal Oh you
• 1:18:56
  had free were you there that you know? It's there's some interesting stories that
• 1:19:00
  that community, to be serious for a moment, has really had some tragedy
• 1:19:04
  go through there. There was a massive tornado that went through that area and
• 1:19:08
  wiped out some of the school. They had a long time legendary football coach
• 1:19:11
  that Darren and his brothers played for that was that was beloved in the state,
• 1:19:15
  that had a tragic accident or tragic event around him. He passed away.
• 1:19:18
  It's a it's a it's a wild story about that community. That's really
• 1:19:24
  interesting if you have some time to go back and google it and research it.
• 1:19:27
  But there football are very very proud football program at that school. So
• 1:19:30
  the weight room when we lifted there was a super nice weight room. Small,
• 1:19:34
  very tiny school, but super nice weight room. Wait, but again,
• 1:19:36
  while were you there. One of my best friends from college, his
• 1:19:42
  dad was a was a longtime teacher and coach at that high school. Were
• 1:19:45
  visit on after college one year. As I was heading back to Des Moines,
• 1:19:49
  I just went that way, followed in there. We spent a couple
• 1:19:51
  of days in in Aplington before I hit it back to I feel like with
• 1:19:55
  Brad and with coaches, thinking I know more about it, I feel almost
• 1:19:58
  like an Iowan now I feel a strong connection to Iowa. Then we should
• 1:20:03
  we should go to the state Fair this year, just kind of to get
• 1:20:05
  the full, get the full. You know, many times though my my
• 1:20:11
  geography about Iowa is limited. I've been here longer than I lived in Iowa.
• 1:20:15
  So you can ask me questions about West Virginia. I'll know it better
• 1:20:17
  than I know the state of Iowa. This just so happens where Darren is
• 1:20:20
  from, happens to be an area I know well and people around it.
• 1:20:24
  Well, you've milked that. You've milked that Iowa think pretty hard. For
• 1:20:27
  the last couple of days. That's relevant, how very relevant. Most of
• 1:20:30
  the time, it's not relevant. It's never gonna be as relevant. By
• 1:20:36
  next year, on a nine day flight out there won't be as relevant that
• 1:20:40
  Iowa has a connection. Got to get it in now it'll be the b
• 1:20:43
  YU game and go. Don't tell you about Iowa. We were in West
• 1:20:45
  Virginia. Lines up at the Huntsman Center against Utah for a league game,
• 1:20:48
  it will not be as relevant. Gon're gonna leave Bridgeport. We're gonna have
• 1:20:53
  to get connected and fueled in flight like one of those big come in and
• 1:20:58
  just drops the fuel and while we try to get it likely that you'll leave
• 1:21:00
  Italy and just fly straight to the conference game in Utah. It takes so
• 1:21:03
  long to get there. Twenty league games next year, Hey a reminders,
• 1:21:08
  Get ready to fuel your fun with Gomart's updated app. Hobbies got the app,
• 1:21:14
  Brad's got the app. I have the app your go to for savings.
• 1:21:16
  Big a Gomart just got fresh new makeovers featuring special perks and rewards.
• 1:21:21
  Members love, exclusive contest. You can get all of the new things that
• 1:21:27
  are going on. New clubs, members only prices and select products. Yeah,
• 1:21:30
  members only prices like that fly Rod slim gym. Yeah that you can
• 1:21:34
  take out there onto the out there, onto the creek and do some fly
• 1:21:38
  Rod fleet. You got a slim gym in your hand. It's twelve feet
• 1:21:41
  long. You get a great whip going on that thing. Update the app.
• 1:21:44
  For details, go to gomart dot com. Okay, normally we'd come
• 1:21:48
  back on Thursday. However, we really can't do Thursday because they're going to
• 1:21:55
  have the press conference on Thursday. So Friday, Friday morning. Yeah,
• 1:21:59
  Friday, it's sometime eleven am I think is the press conference Thursday, So
• 1:22:04
  that'll kind of take all afternoon long or we'll figure it out, but we'll
• 1:22:09
  be back at some point. Probably won't be third year. Ho's a softball
• 1:22:12
  team doing by way, you're coaching this week? Doing well? Doing well?
• 1:22:15
  Steal stealing any signals? No, hey, by the way, trying
• 1:22:19
  to play straight up. We will have the stream in one form or another
• 1:22:23
  on our website of the press conference Thursday. Thursday, they're going to bump
• 1:22:27
  your show. Bigger name, Man, bigger name. I hate to hear
• 1:22:31
  that. So we're not quite sure when the next episode will be here.
• 1:22:34
  Subscribe, subscribe as always and follow along and then you have a notification of
• 1:22:39
  some sort. Yeah, that's what we'll do. Special thanks to Austin Right,
• 1:22:44
  our producer of this episode. Three Guys before the Game, brought to
• 1:22:46
  us by Comac's Business Systems keeping West Virginia's business data safe, secure and efficient
• 1:22:51
  for twenty five years. By gomart. Go for good times, go for
• 1:22:56
  Gomart, get that reward's card and save. By lou Wendel Marine Sales in
• 1:23:01
  Saint Albans. They sell family fund visit Lou Wendelmarinessales dot com and by Comac's
• 1:23:10
  Business Systems keeping West Virginia's business data safe, secure and deficient for twenty five
• 1:23:15
  years. Good luck to the WV women. As I said at the start,
• 1:23:21
  you win this game. National Big National Store, you lead, lead,
• 1:23:28
  You're the lead. You're the lead lead. Go take your run at
• 1:23:30
  them, take a shot sports none to lose, all right, thanks for
• 1:23:32
  being with a seal