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UT Basketball and Supply Chain Updates · Champions of Life

welcome to the champions of life podcast where 3 orangeblooded Tennessee alums discuss how there's always next year Well, hello.
Welcome back.
It's been a minute, hasn't it? The microphone still works.
And we are back at the table.
The Champions of Life podcast.
Yours truly.
And I've got Joe and Laney here with us.
We are a collective team at r and s Logistics.
Proud go Val's supporters here to unpack a little bit about, what's going on in the world of ut Well, we just talked about Lady Val's before we started.
Should we rehash any of that or are we good? We have a team.
There is a team and we play sometimes not, perhaps a team of quitters if you ask the coach.
Yep.
I think we were taking.
Off offline.
We were taking, bets on how long she was gonna be here.
Mm-hmm.
So the coach that is mm-hmm.
Not the player that already left.
I think she lasts at least one more year.
It's gonna make Danny White look real bad.
If he were to let her go, given the, whatever happened between Tony V going to the Giants, not getting the money, the money going to the lady balls.
I don't know the ins and outs of that.
Bobby, you always have the.
4 1, 1, you've got your ear to the ground more than Joe and I, Ingram Pulse, but I don't know what, what transpired with Tony, but like, there was a weird, I saw a, uh, a clip of him in the dugout for the Giants and they were asking him questions and he was basically like, what do you think happened? Who, who let this leak? And he said several times, I'm pretty sure he said, I probably wouldn't be here had this not transpired.
Mm-hmm.
And so like he wouldn't specifically.
I don't know if it was related to the Hill or if it was the Giants courtship, but I don't think he had it on his radar to go looking for a pro job.
So, yeah.
And if we bomb out in the tournament, the big dance, not the SEC tournament.
Mm-hmm.
Nobody one really cares about that or any of the conference championships.
But if we bomb out there and.
I don't want this to happen.
I love the baseball team.
If the baseball team does not do well and drops it outta the top 25, it could get bad for Danny.
Mm-hmm.
'cause now Lady Ball's, the top like three or four programs at ut.
Yep.
Yeah, we'll be down.
And football, I feel like there's still a lot of question marks obviously high.
He has gotten new coaches, he's turned over a little bit, which is.
Surprising, I think just based on the, the historical trends that he's had over the years and his coaching experience.
Um, but yeah, there's a lot of question marks with football, basketball has been, uh, it's not been a, it's not been a failure.
It's not been a, a disapp, but it's a disappointment.
You win a game, you lose a game, you lose two, you win three.
You lose two.
Mm-hmm.
Every time we're top 25, we get, we lose.
It's the same stuff too.
Can't make a lap, can't make free throws.
Hmm.
If a team drives on us, we cannot stop them and we will not change our defensive strategy to help like maybe throw in a zone every now and then or double team the point guard or like have one of those post guys that, that you see it happening every time they spread us out.
Mm-hmm.
The point guard drives every time and we cannot and then he gets 32 points.
Yeah.
We make look like a hero or, or we hack it in collapse and he kicks it out to the guy that's six six of 400 for the season and he just goes off.
Yep.
Yep.
Like he always does.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, we, the last one we had, we weren't sure what was gonna happen with Nate.
Obviously Nate has picked it up big time.
Mm-hmm.
He's killing it.
He's a player that, you know, obviously Barnes saw everybody was hoping for.
Now he's injured.
I don't wanna see him in the SEC tournament.
Like you said, nobody cares about the tournament.
Nothing that we, even if we want it, maybe we move up to a potential four seed.
But probably not.
So I don't even care about the tournament.
Right.
Just sit in the whole time.
Yep.
Get him, get him healthy.
And then let's see what happens in March.
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
I like it.
Well, even when we did win the tournament, we didn't move up at all.
Yeah.
I think we were, we should have been a one seat, but they'd already made the rank and so we were still a two seat and we worked so hard to win that.
And then it's like we have nothing left.
It's like that's our championship and we lose first or second round.
Just like beating Kentucky in the Sweet 16 last year.
And.
The Houston game early this year.
It was like, man, but yeah, it feels like the consistency piece.
We can't string it together.
I dunno how many times.
You're right.
It's, you hit your free throws, you make your bunnies, you make your layups.
You are probably, you probably won six of the games that you've lost, is my guess.
And it just feels like we're not, I don't know how many times I've seen a game where.
It's a crucial possession, and Jacoby is just fighting for his life at the perimeter.
Nobody moves.
Defense can just pin down.
Yep.
And we fire off some heavily contested shot instead of doing what people do against us trying to get in the paint drawing, contact, driving dish.
I don't know.
And a lot of times that's coming out of a timeout.
Correct.
A drawn up play.
Yep.
That we throw out a bounds or dribble off our foot and say, what? What are we doing? I think it was two games ago.
The postgame, Rick, I think we were 11 of 29 on layups.
That is so bad.
What's you, can we go back for a second? You used a word, I'm fairly familiar with sports terminology, but you used a word that I do not.
Write this down Joe.
This has never happened.
Taking notes.
She knows all the words.
No.
What's a bunny? Did you say? Bunny? Oh yeah, I did.
Yeah.
What is that? A layup.
Yeah.
Joe, you wanna take this one? I don't know what a bunny would do there.
You dunno.
What a bunny.
No, it's a bunny.
A bunny slope is like the easy slope in skiing.
Yeah.
I hope it's like with the kid, right? Is that what it means? I hope our listeners, is this a Bobby? No, no, no.
Listeners, fellow Champions of life.
I hope you come in for a bunny.
Is, is like, it's within like the restricted area on the paint.
And so like, if you're in that area and you're putting up like a little pop shot, a hook shot, uh, you're attacking the rim.
These are short little, you're not getting a full form.
To get a shot off.
It's, you're just putting it back up.
It's a bunny, huh? Okay.
All right.
I learned something new.
Well, take your word for it.
You coached us up.
I feel like more of a champion.
There you go.
Uh, more, more of a champion of life today than was yesterday.
Champion.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm champion This, I was like, man, I've said a lot of dumb things.
I'm, she's about to call me out on something.
I said no, I, no, I was not.
My language gets called out a lot around here, but I was just curious.
Never heard that bunny.
Look it up.
Bunny.
Bunny.
Okay.
Just some.
Alright.
Anything else about ut Anything? We're, we're gonna switch to another UT topic, but out of the realm of sports? No, just the last comment is we beat South Carolina and none of the three of us even care.
Right.
We don't even care because we'll see.
Didn't even know we played, to be honest, by almost 20 points, which is the big deal.
Right.
Again, we don't, because it's like, let's see us win six or seven.
Yeah.
Or eight games in a row now.
Yeah.
It's, that means nothing.
And it's also the.
Yeah.
The stagnant offense, it's the issues of, you saw it happen in Alabama, um, shivering saying you saw it twice against Kentucky.
Mm-hmm.
It's like, what is going, it almost feels like a football game when you're like, Hey, I know Butch.
You got the the lead here.
Let's sit on it because, and they come back and beat you.
Right.
'cause you can't Right.
Put your big boy pants on.
So you have to lead the entire game and lose it in the last 30 seconds and you can't go down and.
This team would be vastly different if you had a Scofield or uh, a gainy or someone of that nature, that ilk that has the leadership skills to say, I'm not going to let us lose this game.
Yeah, we're going to buckle down.
Yeah.
We're one or two, two players probably.
Short of a great team.
Yeah.
And we, we say that every year, right? Yeah.
Oh yeah.
If only we, and then you look at Duke, you look at Houston.
How every single year it's at Gonzaga.
I mean, it's somehow fair.
Yeah.
We get one or two of the five stars.
Yep.
Type players.
Not that they're actually ranked that way, but they've got six or 70.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But this has been to your, I don't know if this is podcast or the podcast before the podcast, but we've seen the dark days where they're putting up the curtains in the upper deck.
'cause you can't fill the house because our team stinks.
And so what Rick has done.
I know we had two coaches in between him and, and Bruce.
But what Bruce did, are you counting Tyndall in that? Does he count as one of those coaches? Donny is technically a coach that was employed by the university.
From there you can nitpick as to what he actually did, um, coaching wise.
But you did have two coach.
But to go from Bruce to to Rick and like in that little gap, we kind of were reminded of like, oh yeah, we're.
We're not a good basketball program.
And then Rick comes in and you're like, is this the retirement party? And he is wildly, yeah.
Like I think he has exceeded expectations and now we're a little spoiled, but like mm-hmm.
It's been a tough season this year for sure.
Yep.
Just want that final four.
We mis you zaka.
Mm-hmm.
And Maysack in that last second.
Yeah, of course.
Connect.
Connect.
Two years.
Two years with Connect.
Yep.
One year without Zach Eddy in the league.
Come on Cha Chaney.
That's a final four right there.
It's, we're missing another Chas Lanier too.
He could make it.
Yeah.
All right.
We are not at everything school anymore.
We are not, but we're champions.
Of course we are.
Okay.
Got the t-shirt.
So let's pivot a little bit.
We've been doing a class with ut.
Uh, just Joe, give us an update on how that's going.
It's going great.
They graduate Friday, two days from now, we're gonna have presentations from two different groups on lean and, they've got their, last week or two weeks ago, they all got their forklift certification.
We've been on three tours.
Mm-hmm.
Bush beans, Cherokee Distributing.
Yeah.
And, uh.
Toyota.
Toyota.
Yeah.
And I think we have two more coming, even though it's after the class, but we're gonna altered State and Denzel maybe.
But yeah, it's going well.
A lot of the students, um, that are not in the class have already approached the Professor Don and us asking how do they get in? Can they switch? When's it being offered next? So I think, not only are the current students liking it, but I think UT is starting to notice as well.
So it's been great.
It went really fast, seven weeks and it's hard to believe it's gonna be over.
Yeah.
One thing that you know a lot more about than I do, even to ask questions on it, the supply chain forum is coming up mm-hmm.
And there's gonna be a short presentation on the class in the forum, but tell us a little bit more about what the forum is, what the purpose is, and.
Yeah, they bring the top, the director in supply chain or the VP in supply chain of a lot of the Fortune 500 companies, around the country for a two and a half day forum.
There's no booth, there's no sales people.
What's really low key? It's about what's going on, what's the state of supply chain.
And it's in conjunction with ut And, they had professors, helping teach the classes or facilitate, a discussion on AI or a discussion on, hr.
What are students wanting when they're graduating, from benefits to pay to, what are threats to the industry, like what's going on in China or the Middle East and how that affects, freight movement in and out of the us.
What are the tariffs doing? So it's a great, two and a half day collaboration.
You learn a lot, but yeah, we're excited to present a little bit there.
The class was developed for the students and those companies that will be there, so that when the students come out, they're, they've had hands on experience.
They know what lean is, they know what continuous improvement is.
They know what, scheduling freight looks like.
They know what LTL carrier is and that's just the tip of the ice iceberg.
But teaching them to think critically and not just rely on AI has been great.
So.
We're excited to present and, hopefully continue this in the coming semesters.
You said the Navy Seals of supply chain, was that Yes.
That's their honorary title.
Yes.
Something like that.
Yep.
All right.
Well, we're looking forward to that.
I know, we'll be sad to see 'em or not seeing in our Knoxville warehouse after this week.
But, Bobby, what do you have for us on the way out the door? What's your, uh.
We play Vandy Saturday.
Do you wanna give us a prediction? Yeah, we're gonna beat Vandy.
Oh, okay.
Without Nate? Yeah.
I meant we already beat him in memorial, right? Yeah.
I, that's a horrible arena.
It is.
Okay.
Can I say this? You can.
I feel like watching a game played in Georgia's Arena mm-hmm.
Is the most distract, like, I don't even wanna look at the screen.
I don't know what it is.
If it's their floor, if it's.
Have you noticed that it's, I think the word you're looking for is, it is just tacky.
It's distracting.
Tacky, yeah.
Okay.
It's just, it's kind of like some of the NBA floors now.
Yeah.
Trying too hard a little bit.
It's just hard to watch for me.
But Memorial, yes.
Sorry.
We shouldn't get what you're, yeah.
Danny's brothers coaching that team, you know? Really? Mm-hmm.
Mike.
Well, sorry.
And Rick has a lot of respect for him.
Yeah, a lot of respect for his family.
I think it's a, good guy.
No personal offense.
No, but it was just hard to watch.
And then I watched some of the, some of their game last night too, and it was just hard.
Alabama feels like a high school gym.
It, yes, it does.
Just looking up as you guys are talking, who we play this weekend, baseball Oakland.
We've got one loss on the baseball season.
No, we got two We lost to like Kent State.
Kent State.
Two of three.
That's when I started to worry.
Think that's what I was referencing.
If it goes down, we lost, we, no, we have three losses 'cause we lost to, I think we have four.
We lost to UCLA.
They're number one.
They were out in Dallas playing.
That's right in that tournament.
But they beat Virginia Tech and Arizona State.
Two good wins.
Uh, but I don't know.
Well, no one really cares about baseball but me.
What we should be focused on is the Lady Ball's softball team.
They are an absolute behemoth.
Yeah, but pick and start.
She talking about 'em more.
She got hurt last night.
Oh no.
Yep.
What'd she do? Just pitching, uh, some kind of strain in her arm.
Too much.
So that could be Jim Hallick.
Yep.
Step in, please.
Yep.
Don't they normally pitch two games in a day though? Or they're able to Yeah.
Sometimes Or three, three games in a weekend.
Yeah.
Gotta rest them.
She'll be fine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She's made for this undefeated rights still.
I have no idea.
I know they're number one.
Yeah.
But just like Miami of Ohio.
30 wins.
No losses.
What? Then they, Bruce told them they don't deserve to make the tournament.
Oh, I missed that.
Oh.
Because his son does.
Are you kidding me? Oh, if is Auburn.
Okay, Bobby, take us out on this.
This is, I, we need the prediction.
Is Auburn making the tournament? No.
Nor should they.
Well, of course they shouldn't.
How long does he last? I think his, contract.
I mean you can get fired from anything these days, but I think his contract is two or three years.
I think he gets for sure two years.
The team also was not in great standing when.
Bruce left.
Yeah.
There's not a ton of talent and I think their best player just quit on his new team.
USC Baker.
Yeah.,
He quit at halftime or something like that? Yeah, he was always, I could, yeah.
Yeah.
He could see that coming.
So, but for Steven to call his players, he literally called him two names the other day.
It was like spool Brad or something, and I was like.
Uh, Steven, what? You're my fellow millennial now looking down on the new generations.
I'm proud of you.
And he is always, he's always got his arm cross arms crossed and he's always shaking his head at him.
Yeah.
Like he just, I wouldn't wanna play for him if I was those guys.
You, you just gotta start out lower.
He's needed to start at a small and maybe division two program.
Mm-hmm.
And then work his way up.
So I would love to watch another game between Auburn and Tennessee at Tennessee so that we could hear more about his illustrious career.
Oh, that was so over the top.
I missed this.
What happened? And from Dane Bradshaw, I all, yeah, Dane.
Dane was the announcer and they just, it was a lot of like, walk us through the, these hallowed hills at Thompson, bowling Reed and all the big games you were in.
I mean, Steven, he played, he paid his dues and yeah, he was a good glue guy, but.
But it was the whole game of just praising, make sound like Peyton was coming back Yeah.
Of praising his coaching ability.
And it's like, good night.
How much, how much did y'all's pockets get lined before Yep.
This game? Glad I didn't hear it.
Couldn't do it.
It was pretty rough, but no, I don't think Auburn should make it.
Sorry, Steven.
I will say this, the SEC go look at the standings today.
Like it is extremely competitive.
There's not just like one team that's just.
Yep.
Far and above, Florida.
I mean, they, they probably will, they will probably two beat.
They are very good, but the rest of the league, it's like everybody's in the same little bucket of, there's a lot of good players in this league and it's good teams in the coaches.
It, it hasn't always been this way.
We haven't invested from a league perspective, the Money Florida one last year.
Yeah.
Are you gonna pick Florida over like a Arizona or Arizona's got a good team.
Tobe Waka, man.
He, I miss you to, we had him FLI miss you Tobe.
We could use some rebound.
I'm good for him though.
This team, this current team, it rebounds exceptionally well.
They don't know how to put the ball back in the hoop.
They cannot, that's the problem.
They cannot hit it.
Turns out.
Doesn't do that much good if you can't put the ball in the basket.
Arizona's got a good team.
I think Duke.
Duke is Duke.
I think Boozers a really good player.
They've got several good players.
UConn could get hot again.
They won two, two years ago.
Mm-hmm.
And they've got a good team right now.
I mean, they're humming right along as well.
So Coach is a maniac.
And I'll get you far, um, yeah, it's, I would say it's wide open as far as, but I would put Florida in the top echelon.
All right.
Maybe the next one is our, what are our bracket predictions? Let's do it in a couple weeks.
So can do final four Sister Jean.
Oh, why would you? That's terrible.
Don't bring those things up.
Bobby Carson Edwards.
Okay.
It's good to just rip, rip the bandaid off.
Just Zach, Edie, the ghost of Tennessee's 16.
We've already, we've mixed Zach, Edie twice in this podcast.
That is two times.
It's too many.
That name is banned from our house.
It's too many.
It's too many.
The Michigan Sweet 16.
That one was tough.
Josh Richardson.
We're ending the podcast on a depressing note.
Anything uplifting we can say on the way out.
We are champions of life.
Yeah.
And we now know what a bunny shot is.
We know what a bunny is.
Basketball within the arc.
Hey, shout out shot Joey.
Hate to see you.
Go Faison George.
Figure it out.
Let's do it.
Alright.
To be continued on that.
Go Balls.
Go balls.
See ya.