It's time for coffee and company, fueled by Thornton's on Sports Talk seven nine day. Now, here's Nick coffee. All right, let's get it started hour number two here on a Friday afternoon, getting set for the weekend, getting set for the Louisville Spring game, which will be in just a few hours. Hopefully they get a good crowd out there. I expect there will be a good crowd to it. Again, you know, it's it's a
spring game. You know, it's not as if there should be the you know, if you expect it to ever be like full, then I think you're beyond unreasonable. But you know, this is the most successful season Louisvill's had in a long long time, meaning the one they're coming off of. So you know, I'm sure, I'm sure there'll be a better crowd and we've seen in quite some time. Because you got to keep in mind there wasn't a spring game for a while. I mean, they finally, I
think implemented one with sadderfield, you know, towards towards the end. But it really was I mean it was almost I mean he was kind of forced to do it because the ACC network wanted to televis they needed, they needed the property, they needed content to put on the channel, and that changed it. But I think the last time there was a huge crowd, and
I don't expect to Night's crowd to be like this one. But when Lamar came back from the Heisman season that was and actually Teddy entering his last year here, those were the two spring games that stand out to me that I just remember being like a big, big deal. So hope again, Uh, if you don't have plans, it's completely free and it's completely free to park, and you know they will sell beer. That's always an added bonus. You know, Louisville fans love to drink. That's kind of what we
do. I mean, we do other things too, but you know, we were drinking before it was like socially accepted to drink at games. You know. Like I remember, right around the time that I had first gotten a chance to you know, make radio my full time career. It really you know, you instead of you know, doing a day job, I did things all throughout the day to try to make sure I had enough content to fill a three hour talk show. And it really hit me, like
I knew that there were certain school. I knew Kentucky didn't sell beer at games and it was an sec thing, but I didn't realize that, you know, maybe ten years ago or so roughly, Louisville was one of very few schools that allowed you to buy beer at football games and basketball games. So you know, Dan just started it a couple of years. I mean, look, we've been doing like this is what we do, folks.
We party and that's why, to be honest with you, at the time when Louisville would have you know, before they expanded the stadium back in the early Bobby tenure and even early Charlie actually, and they had expanded at that point. But I mean, don't act like alcohol wasn't an enhancement there to get people. Not to say everybody was just completely sloshed, although some people probably were. I mean, like that enhances the atmosphere of your crowd.
And you know, not that we need to talk about this today, but I actually it sounds crazy. But maybe it doesn't sound crazy because there's actually been studies that have been public that you know that the people have talked about that. If you want to avoid people completely getting belligerent to where they're throwing
up on people passing out fighting. You need to let them buy beer because the people who are so dead set on wanting a buzz, they're gonna they're gonna shove fireball down their neck for you know, twenty minutes before they're thinking, Oh man, this game. Gosh, college football games last what three days? I gotta, I gotta, I gotta have all I gotta have,
you know, I mean eighteen of those little fireball whiskey shots. Maybe give me some, you know, some Jack Daniels as well, give me some ever Clear, Yeah, every yeah, yeah, ever Clear, something like that. They just they're just they're gonna want to think I got four days to kill because the games last forever. I gotta get completely hammered so I don't lose my buzz. They get in there, they start urinating on themselves, throwing up on people, and you guys learn in the hard way.
Louisville, they've always let people buy beer. It's what we do, win or lose, we still booze. Did you make that up? No, it's gonna sell. That's pretty good. I wish I could take credit for that, but no, in fact I might. I'm sure that's been said by a lot of fan bases across the country, but I'm pretty sure
that came from uh Kentucky. So when my buddies first got to a lot of my closest friends that I'm still close friends with today, they all went to UK for four years graduated, and you know, believe it or not, I spent a lot of time down there having you know, having a good time, which was fun because it was actually the Billy Gillespie era in basketball, so you know, I felt pretty good about being down there at
that time. But football, you know, they always sucked out loud until like the you know, the end of the Rich Brooks era, I guess, and they still weren't very good then, but you know, they're better than they were before. But I remember, like all the students had shirts that said win or lose, we still booze, which I think it's kind of a I guess it could be. It could just be like, hey, regardless, we're gonna have fun. But I took it at that time
like, we know we suck, but we're gonna get drunk. It's the brain, like that's that's not a politically correct, like, you know, way to describe the experience as a fan, but like it's really the truth everywhere, Like whatever happens, we're still getting drunk, We're still gonna party have fun. I mean, Indiana football fans are infamous for leaving after the third quarter to go back to the drinking fields, as they call it. Yeah, I you know, we'll have plenty of time to do it as
we get closer to football season. But I think Indiana football is a real rarity in high level college sports because I mean, there are there are certain things you can point to that do let you know that they care about football a little bit, but really, for the most part, as a university from top to bottom, they've never really even tried to make people think that
they care about football being good. I mean they clearly, you know, don't try to sabotage it, but like it's just been such a secondary thing, yeah, for so long. And I think the reason that they they're
able to do that is because they haven't needed it to be good. Like from a financial standpoint, they've been fine, right, But like it's such an untapped thing that if they if they mess around and start just going to bowl games consistently, and I mean like to where you know, you're seven and five, six and six, seven and five, eight and four, and then maybe you drop off and go five and seven, I mean, like and then you're back to seven and five again, Like that's not and
that's not even really making you a relevant program in the grand scheme of things, But it gives you life you've never had as far as just I mean, I actually struggle to say consistent sustained success because six and six is not success. But again, it's just it gets you to a bowl game, and you got to start somewhere in Indiana. There really is no reason why in the NIL world, and with the resources that they have, and if they get a good coach, which I'm sure Kurt Signetti is going to do
better there than you know a lot of the other coaches they've had. I mean, I believe that we'll have to wait and see if it happens. But like, if they really did want to be good, and again, the coach that they hired is a guy that is you know, worthy of it and has the chops to really succeed, Like they could be really good. Now they're not going to you know, hit the microwave and become Ohio State, but like there's no reason they can't be what I've always said,
this consent or something they should be Iowa. Iowa goes eight and four in that rank, seven eight, nine games almost every single year. If Indiana can replicate that, you'll please the fan base that may be asking too much early on. And my worry would be that now that the league has added these other teams, like you kind of missed your mark to do that.
And that's the other mystery is that you don't know what success or I guess what Indiana's version of success truly looks like under this new conference format where you've added four teams from the West Coast, so Wolt's have to see. Yeah, I mean I think every team you added is going to be a tougher game, right, I mean I would say this year CLA might be oh yeah, because they have a very weird situation. They could be a mess. Yeah, But Washington, Oregon, USC, they'll all be a tough
out. They're just gonna always be talented. And UCLA actually has always been able to recruit pretty well, but they just haven't had they've got they have some administration issues I think that have kept them up in football. But anyways, let's dive back in here, shall we. So we talked earlier about Kenny Payne taking the job at Arkansas, and it's really, you know,
not a surprise at all to me. We let you guys hear the Pat kell not Pat Kelsey, but the Josh Herd comments on the situation, and you know, he's I think he was always going to be completely classy about it, and he was. But if you go to Twitter, and if you go to Kent Taylor's Twitter account, if you just look at mine because I shared it, I mean, Josh looks like a brand new man. He's refreshed, and it's the revival as the revive Ville, as Pat Kelsey
has coined the hashtag. The vibes are just really good for bad. I mean, who knows what happens, right, They still gotta put team together. Like I'm trying not to sound like I'm completely getting ahead of myself here, as if they're about to win a bunch of national championships. But with how bad things were as far as just morale vibe, it's a total night and day difference now and it feels good and Louisville fans are excited about recruiting
like they never have been before. Because look, they got a good class last year. We know that, but deep down, a lot of us, myself included, I mean, I wanted to believe that that would mean that we'd have a breakthrough year for Kenny, but I knew that that wouldn't be the case because of just how glaringly incompetent he and his staff were from
top to bottom. And it almost kind of made me more sad because I'm like, we're gonna have some dudes that can play, and I think it's going to be a waste because it's a clown show at the top of the coaching staff. So yesterday they added Ali Khalifa, and you've got BBN and coordination going back and forth about you know, we took a guy that Mark Pope coached, and he wouldn't even go follow Pope to Kentucky. He wanted to go to play for Pat Kelsey at Louisville and then Kentucky. Oh,
I mean we didn't want him. There's I mean, there's no way, no, we didn't want him. Which they didn't want him. They didn't make him a priority, but neither did Louisville. To be honest with you and for those wondering like this is odd, like why would Louisville be in the mix here? Because I talked about it earlier in the week. I said I actually thought there was a chance that maybe, just maybe that this was like a move from Mark Pope and Khalifa to try to give Pope his
first win over Louisville and recruiting. But it turns out there's a connection that Khalifa has to a former Louisville cardinal. Honest my mood. Both both of these guys are from Egypt. They know each other to some extent, and he really sold Louisville to Khalifa, and he took the visit, and he's going to be a louis of a cardinal and I assume he will red shirt
because that's what they're saying. So I guess that is the plan. But I wouldn't be shocked if like he I mean, he's gonna start He's already rehabbing his knee. Now what I gotta figure out is he gonna have surgery that I don't know that would obviously make it to where it would be wise to just let him sit. But I wouldn't be if there's no surgery. I wouldn't be shocked if he ends up rehabbing for the next many months that we have here, gets himself in better shape, and maybe he plays this
year, because again, there's no scenario. I mean, there's nothing that locks you into where you have to red shirt. So I just found it to be pretty telling because you know, Kentucky they're not going to get the young man from Duke Jeremy Roach. There was belief that it was going to be Louisville, not Louisville, but a Kentucky Arkansas and Saint John's well,
now he may have already committed, but it's Baylor. Baylor is Scott Drew is gonna get him, which again, like that's Kentucky fans are already uneasy because of their you know, I don't even want to say lack of ability to get players. I mean it's still early, and like I don't think Pope not getting a player yet is like a big red flag. But I also understand the anxiousness to at least start to see the roster come together a little bit, even if it's baby steps, because right now they have like
nobody, almost nobody. But it went from maybe Caliperry taking roach because he's a good player, and also he would love to take him from Kentucky. I'm not sure Patino was ever really in play there, but now it's a guy who you can't deny you offered the job, but he turns you down to State Baylor, and now he's gonna get him. So I'm not gonna get ahead of myself here and tell you that Kentucky's gonna have a trash roster next year, because nobody knows, and there's still guys entering the portal as
we speak. For example, Desmond Claude at Xavier, just at the portal. He's a really good player that everybody's gonna want. And I think Jeff Goodman's report yesterday makes total sense, and you know he would know this. There are a lot of guys who know they're leaving but cannot endo the portal because they're waiting for their last check from nil that they had at their previous school. So maybe we see in the next week a big time, you
know, flood of guys hitting the portal because of that reason alone. We'll see, all right, this is not a portal edition. This this would be a big time addition from the recruiting ranks. Jaden acquaintance. I'm sorry, Jaden acquaintance. I hope he becomes an acquaintance and then you know, decides to stay here at Louisville. But he's visiting right now. He arrived. I think last night somebody got a picture of him at the airport.
So he's here. He's posting all kinds of stuff on his Instagram and everybody's screenshot and those pictures and sharing them, and it's you know, that doesn't mean anything, right, any any recruit that takes a visit is going to you know, share that they're there because they want to hear from that fan base, and you know, they're probably, you know, even if they don't end up that school, they're probably I'd say visiting a school, especially
one like Louisville, is an exciting experience. So it's not a tell in any way if things are going good or bad. But his father liked, slashed favorited. What is it called. I think it's like it's liked now it used to be favorite. Yeah, So his dad liked a tweet that a Kentucky fan sent, and sometimes liking a tweet can be honestly a sign. I don't know everybody operates on that platform, I guess in a different
way. But I at times have have used that feature to let people know that I saw what they posted, if that makes sense, and they didn't like tag me or something like a subtweet. Yeah, I've also liked a tweet so I can go to my likes and reference it later because I wanted to use it for like show content. I've also liked a tweet just because I liked something that somebody posted, but maybe I didn't, you know,
want to retweet it. So sometimes somebody could say something that like like for example, I've liked a lot of tweets and oftentimes retweeted people who insult me, you know, and you know, sometimes in a playful way, sometimes in a very personal way. So I guess it just depends on how I mean. We don't know how Quaintance's father uses the platform here, but he is at upt Q the number four life, So up t Q four life. He has eight hundred followers roughly, and there is a tweet from big
Blue Bud on Twitter. Big Blue Bud, I did you know referencing Twitter as much as I have in the last ninety seconds and then referencing a tweet from somebody who goes by Big Blue Bud without their name, like that's where we are. But he said when Cal Love this is the tweet when Cal lof Kentucky. Jaden Quaintance's camp put out that he may stay at UK,
but they'd want to talk about what that looks like. With the ad Mitch Barnhart ignored the formalities and never called JQ nor any of the other commitments. Now he's likely Louisville bound. And then that emoji that like you put in front of your face like you know, oh my god, you know what I mean? You know, I'm SI John, Like the emoji that's like panic, I guess or just you know, like oh crap, yeah, and then hashtag BBN. His father liked that tweet. And I don't know
what to do with that. Is that like a shot at Barnhardt. That's probably more what it is than anything, because he's not considering Kentucky. None of those guys are, I mean, And what's crazy is that, Like I wouldn't be shocked at all if Cali Perry told Pope, like, don't recruit any of these guys. And and that may sound asinine, but a lot of Caliperi's NIL resources were from not UK boosters or a collective. Like he had money from people that he knows, that you know well that they
could help him. I mean same thing with Kenny, by the way, like Kenny had nil to build that team last year. None of those guys would have came here without that. But he left six figures of nil funds for men's basketball in the five to two collective unused because he wanted to do it his way. He's a lot like call to be honest with you, like he didn't want any help. He didn't listen to anybody. Again, I got like PTSD, like Tourett's syndrome. Once we start talking about Kenny
pain, I can't help myself. But nonetheless, Mitch may have just known that, hey, we don't have like we now that Col's gone, we cannot fulfill what was arranged for them because that financial resource is now going to be going to fell Arkansas. So maybe that's the way they approached it,
and maybe the quaintan's family feels a certain way because of that. But then again, now he's likely Louisville bound like that may not have been why he hit the like, but it's just fun to be in the weeds here again, overreacting to little things on social media in the internet, because we're so obsessed with getting the best players to have success, because we love college basketball
all that much around here. And we were dead for a while. I mean, maybe not fully dead, but we were on life support for a while, right. We weren't living. There was a machine keeping us from being six feet under. And then a man showed up, handsome man, I may say, thick glasses, black frame. He showed up in the in the in the room at the hospital, and he ripped off all the stuff that was keeping us alive. And we we bounced up. We jumped up as if we woke up after being you know, in a coma for
years, and now we're alive again and it's fun. All right. That was a little much. I'm sorry, but I get worked up. It's a Friday, I get you know, I'm this is this is not a new me, but this is, you know, this is I'm talking about Louisville basketball like I was talking about Jeff bram in the fall. You know what I'm saying. It was fun, good vibes. All right, At one point, we're gonna have to get to the Duke situation because it could just be the new norm. But if you have not paid attention, which
I don't know why you would, a lot of people wouldn't care. But Duke has like nobody on their team now in Louisville, Kentucky's same situation, but this is different. Like right now, Tyreee Proctor and Caleb Foster are the only players returning to Duke. Ryan Young is out of eligibility, Philipowski and Jared McCain are off to the NBA. Seven players now have hit the
portal and they've got freshmen coming in. But I just I worry a little bit about the sustainability not only of like how this is working as far as how you have to get players, but the days of having a foundation where you're just loaded every year, Like how realistic is that going to be? Because at any moment you can lose everybody. And there are guys who are leaving teams that were successful that meaning not just the team was successful, they
had a successful role in a successful team and they had an il. But you know what, they can just leave and start over and they're taking advantage of that, like losing players to the portal. I feel like it more often than I feel like nine times out of ten. Eventually, it's just gonna be looked at is like nobody did anything wrong. It's just that these
players can do whatever they want and they're gonna choose to do that. All right, quick break, We're gonna come back on the other side, bringing mister Jeffrey Greer talk a little footy as they've got a big match coming up this weekend tomorrow on the pitch for Thunder. How about that? I like that. That's right, Coffee and Company getting you set for the weekend. Here about halfway through the show on a Friday, appreciate you hanging out with
us. We are a fueled by Thornton's and we now welcome in a very special guest, the one, the only, mister Jeffrey Greer. Jeff, how are the vibes here out of Friday afternoon? Nick, I gotta tell you, the vibes are absolutely immaculate. I just got haircut. Oh yeah, I feel like I got a superpower going. You feel like a brand new man. I feel like a brand new man. Although my wife told me I look older when I got home, which is hard to do for
my age. You, honestly, now that you say that you've looked the same since I first saw you over ten years ago, I think I don't think you've aged at all. You are full of it. But thank you. I'll tell my wife. You said that, I'll tell my wife he said that. But no, we're gonna set an attendance record this weekend at Racing Louisville. It's gonna be a lot of fun. The fighter jets are screaming around downtown today. Louisville is doing itself proud. Yeah, that was
gonna be My first question was the attendance. I see you guys are over ten thousand tickets sold at this point. I mean, is is that eclipse the record by quite a bit? Or is it close? I know you guys have had some good crowds in the early existence here of the club, but that's that's a lot of folks. Yeah. So the record, the all time record is ten ten fourteen. We've surpassed that. I would not be surprised if we end up somewhere north of twelve thousand the tickets, I
mean, because of thunder the tickets have been selling like crazy. That's awesome,
which just adds to the element of this whole experience. So it should be a lot of fun and certainly an exciting combination of events going on at the same time, well, especially considering you know, Derby season is officially upon us, and I know they're going to have the Traveling Kentucky Derby experience at at Lynn Family Stadium tomorrow, and you know, you're probably going to get some fans in attendance that like, maybe are are just here for Thunder,
right, Like you could you get a chance to kind of show off what you guys do. As far as the atmosphere the club, I mean, I feel like it'll be probably a lot of locals of course who want to take in Thunder and watch the club. But you know, you got you get a chance to show off, right Yeah. And that's the thing is, it's such a great opportunity you've got. You know, you're gonna have clean bathrooms, You're going to have good vendors open all day. I
mean, it's a place to go and hang out. There's covered areas. I don't think it'll get too hot tomorrow, but you know, God forbid. Somebody needs to be in a covered area. We've got that. So it's really a great opportunity to attract a lot of people. And then, like you said, you know you've got the game at five o'clock. It's a great chance to show off what we're doing and show off these amazing athletes
and kind of have that vibe of a home field advantage. So it'll be nice to see that crew in front of all these people, and I know they're rare and to go and hoping to show off the product to some new faces. Yeah, and again as you likely know they're meaning listeners likely know this. You get a chance to see the awesome fireworks show celebrating thunder of a Louisville. But also you can take pictures with the Kentucky Oaks Trophy and
win tickets to special events during Derby Week. So if you already haven't been incentivized enough, I think that should that should put you over the top there. But there's also potentially going to be some special guests that only Jeff Greor could reel in right, like I'm hearing, there could be some real celebrities there that you know they wouldn't be there without you. Well, I don't know if I'd go that far, but I do think we're we I know
we're expecting somebody who's got busy night tonight. With the spring game coming out tomorrow. I know that uh uh, the the athletics director of U L. Josh Herd, is planning on coming out nice. And then you know we had Jack Harlow last weekend, uh and uh. I know that he's always interested in soccer games. So I don't want to I don't want to put words in his mouth. I don't want to say he's for sure coming, but I would not be surprised if we had had him at the game
tomorrow if he's in town. So Jack Harlow, I think as we speak, is the most famous Louivillion currently like others have been has had their moment, but you know, he's had a run here in the last four or five years where he's I mean, he's a superstar. I mean I've always
always say this, Jeff. If you were on SNL and you do both the musical act and you are like participating in the show like not many people do that, and that that will always stand out to me because that hit me like this dude isn't just like famous for his craft in his industry, Like this guy is like a superstar, but he's a real soccer fan too, Like he's a Louisville guy that supports everything Louisville, but like he also like soccer is a big passion of his right, Yeah, because he So
he played at Atherton and I know he's he's got connections to Mockingberg Valley. I mean, I'm sure anyone who follows him has seen him posting his his IG stories playing there, and and I know his friends all play. Brother is big in soccer too, I believe. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then on top of that, I remember maybe last year he went he was going to some matches. Either he was on tour or he was just happened to be in England for business, but he went to some matches while
he was over there. So yeah, he's a huge soccer fan. You know, he's been to some Loose City games. It came to the racing game this past weekend. So yeah, he's he's all about it, and I think that's a really cool thing to have locally. I know Louisville fans all know him from from going to basketball and football games too. So it's just cool to have somebody like that, who's who so readily willing to show
support across all these different teams and show up for the city. What makes it so great is that, you know, it's little things here and there that make it to where you really can't question how genuine it is. Right, It's not just because he knows he's playing to his hometown and his crowd like he I mean running on the field when when Jeff Braun beat Notre Dame and you know, just getting just like any other fan. Right, he wasn't out there to be on TV. He was just on the field and
flipping off Kentucky fans during the Governor's Cup game. I mean it like this guy, he really he really cares. So it is awesome to see, no doubt. What can you tell me about the Utah Royals, right? I mean what kind of a what kind of a matchup are we expecting here tomorrow? Look there, that's an expansion team. It's so it means they're in trouble. The interview, yeah so they Well I wouldn't go that far. We gotta be careful with that because he can't go that far. I'll
go that far. They're in trouble. Well, the second you underestimate teams in this league of parody. I think last year there are twelve teams in the league. I think going into the last day there were six teams fighting for the last like two spots in the playoffs. So, I mean it was pretty intense last year, a lot of parody, and this league is is like that. So that's kind of the fun part of this is these
games, you know are going to be difficult. You know they're going to be competitive, but yeah, Utah's first four games out they've struggled a little bit. So they're coming in here and I know it's going to be a really difficult atmosphere for people to play in because it's going to be playes screaming around, there's going to be a huge crowd, and and I know our squad is just anxious to try to get a w after some hard fought but
frustrating draws to start the season. So I didn't even think about that the opponent, really not knowing like I would. I wouldn't be shocked if if every single representative from from the Utah club, the Royals, that's going to be here. I would imagine all of them have never experienced thunder of Louisville, and they're gonna probably think, what the hell's I mean, what the
hell's going on? And they're gonna think, what a second, there's a there's a firework show for you know this, this extravagant firework show for a horse race that's in a few weeks that last two minutes. And they're gonna think we're crazy. But are crazy? Is gonna overwhelm them? They're not. They're gonna wint to get the hell out of town, jeff I. I would love for that to be the case, Nick, That would be fantastic for everybody. I will tell you this funny little anecdote though, when
it was my first year here. I don't remember if I've told you the story before, but my first year here, I lived down downtown on Fourth It was fourth in Chestnut, in this little apartment, and I was I would always walk over to the pole and the pot Belly on Fourth Street all the time. I mean I was eating those two burritos and sandwiches like twice a day every day for like two years. But anyway, one day it
was it was it would have been similar to today. It would have been like the Friday before thunder when they were doing the warm up sessions and they're flying the planes around and running their practice runs. Man. I remember walking out to get lunch and being like, are we in state of war? Because there are fighter jets like screaming around downtown and I have never like I'm really uneasy, like like what is going on? And I remember I tweeted
it and I just got destroyed from that is a great story. I did not know that story. That is a great welcome to Louisville, Jeff story. That is so we're here, we're actually our studios are now at four Street Live. And earlier in the three o'clock hour, same thing, Like I thought, oh goodness, the spring game is gonna be ruined. There's thunder, and no, it's the it's the practice for the jets. And it's I mean, you could be asleep downtown in your hotel and it's gonna
wake you up. Like it's not it's it's it's not. It's not just you know, a plane overhead. It's it's something much more, much more extravagant than than just that. All Right, I got I want to do a little rapid fire with you before we before we wrap up the conversation.
You ready, okay? All right? So, throughout your travels as somebody who covered college basketball for many years here and you know, obviously you'd worked elsewhere before you got to the Louisville market, what city did you end up in for assignment or for covering a team that you would like to never ever go back to, Like you hated it, you thought, who would want to live here? No, I'm gonna say, can I This is gonna make me sound like so so bougie, but I'm going to say a European
city so that nobody gets mad at me. Okay, safe, I have you? I have an American answer, but I'm not going to say it. But I would say Belgrade, Serbia. Probably don't want to go back there. I will say you've probably seen the cliffs of their basketball games. One of the most intense. No, no, no, the most intense is that what they have like fire. Yes, I've seen players, they're
throwing stuff the opposing team. I'll never forget watching Marcus Page. You remember Marcus Page walking off, walking off the court for partisan playing Red Star Belgrade and they had police with shields over his head because people were throwing like pens and lighters and batter and all sorts of stuff down at the players. That was the craziest environment I've ever been in. But I would not. It's a beautiful city, but it's not a great spot to go for Americans.
So that's that's my recommendation. I'll take your word for it. I will not. I have no plans to go there, and I'm gonna keep it that way, all right. So when you were a kid and you play, and you played variety of sports growing up, which athlete did you did you ever like pretend to be when you're taking a jump shot? You know, I know you played soccer too, Like what athlete did you idolize when you were young? Okay, I've got two for you. Baseball, No
mar Garciapara. Every kid grown up in New England tried to tried to be like him with his little fidgety at bat warm up all that stuff. And then I know Louisville fans will cringe at this, but he was a Celtic star when I was growing up. I Lusa loved doing the Antoine walker after making a three the little shimmy. Yeah I am. I am a big Pacers fan, love Reggie Miller, which I got older and I realized, like he's actually a hated player by everybody. It was very I didn't know
that one. When I was a young kid. I thought like, how could you not love Reggie Miller, the guy's clutch, And then like, I realized he's hated. So I went to see Reggie play the Pacers when I was a kid. My dad took me. It was a great game, double overtime, and sure enough it was Walker who hit a late three and did the shimmy. And you know, I'm pretty sure I cried.
So, yeah, you enjoyed it. You enjoyed my tears. You didn't know me then, but you know if you if you would have known, I was crying, Yeah, exactly, that's that's that's how, that's how sad. It was. All right, So, uh, last TV show you binged on one of the streaming networks, House of the Dragon just finished it, which was that on the first season. That's uh on HBO It's or Max or whatever it is. It's the It's the new the new Game of throw Gotcha. It's like a prequel The Game of Throats. Good stuff,
Jeff, uh, We'll let you get back to your kid. Okay, he's watching Daniel Tiger's family trip right now. I've seen that many times. I've been there, so we'll let you get back at it. As always, appreciate your time and have a great day tomorrow. I know it's big for the club and big for the city, So enjoy yourself, my friend. All right, thank you so much, Nick, have a great weekend, all right, YouTube brother Jeff Greer, always appreciate him making some
time for us. We got to run quick break. We'll come back on the other side. Keep this thing rolling along. It is Coffee and Company. We are Fieldbeth Thornton's right here on Sports Talk seven ninety. All right, as we wrap up the four o'clock hour, there is some breaking news as Jordan Burk's Kentucky freshman has entered the transfer portal. So it's going to be a brand new team entirely for Mark Pope, which I think that was
the expectation Burks. I guess entering the portal this late might I mean, you kind of feel like if anybody was going to go, they would have done it. But now he's entered the portal. And you gotta keep in mind, this was a guy they added late last year because of just you know, needing depth, and he didn't play. I mean, I'm trying to pull up his numbers here. This is Avery. This guy was not very impactful at all for Kentucky and his freshman season and in fact, I'm
not even sure how many games he played in. It was pretty telling when they went to Canada and he couldn't get on the floor in those games. But yeah, in he played in twenty games, which surprised me. Seven minutes, you know, very very little production as far as statistics, but he was a six eight forward and he's in the portal. So you know, Mark Pope being tasked with honestly a bigger rebuild as far as just roster
than Kelsey. Well, I guess not as we speak, yes, because honestly, you know, Pat Kelsey is probably not going to get anybody back. But again, I keep thinking that the longer Mike James is out there in the portal, but there's not like a list of schools he's visiting, and it could just be that it's private, Like Mike James is a guy that probably is not going to be talking to anybody about what he's going to
do. I'm sure he's probably talking to some coaches. I mean, I would imagine he has been hit up since he's been in the portal, and maybe he's visiting and considering other schools. But I still think there's maybe a small chance he would return. But if he doesn't, not going to be a shock, and Pat Kelsey will have all new players. But with Kentucky, you know, I don't think Kelsey's gonna bring two guys with him. I'm sorry, I don't think Pope's gonna bring two guys with him. In
fact, the guy that he's bringing with him has never played before. That's the guy who was on the Mormon mission and did not play the last two years. And the other players Travis Perry, who was the freshman that did decide to stay committed to Kentucky and not open up his recruitment. So again, this doesn't really change anything because Burke's even if he was still around, I doubt he was looked at as somebody that would be a guy that can
really have a strong impact in year one from Mark Pope. But I'm just curious if Kentucky fans see this, and because what it probably does is just if you took like the afternoon off as far as worrying about what your team's going to look like, maybe now you're thinking about it again because right now you have zero players that have played for you before on your team. And
again same thing for Louisville. But even the transfer that came to Kentucky for Pope has never played college basketball and the freshman again as a freshman who I think will be good. I think Travis Perry actually is going to really really thrive under Mark Pope because he's just he's a good player first and foremost, but he's also an elite shooter, so you know, I know Kentucky is expected to be one of the leaders for Amari Williams, who is who is
I guess down to three schools now, he's the transfer from Drexel. I thought it was LSAL for some reason, but it's Drexel, same conference, but he's down to Kentucky. Saint John's in Mississippi State, which I feel like is a very random trio of schools to be picking from. And then there's a big guy from Utah State who I don't know, I'm not sure of his name, but a very productive guy that would be a good get for Kentucky. But you know, maybe he just follows mister Sprinkle to uh.
Is it Washington? Is that where Danny Sprinkle went he left Utah State Danny Sprinkle, Yeah, because you quickly forget about anything about this guy because
the only thing that stands out is his name is Danny Sprinkle. And he's a good coach too, by the way, And if you know, in both Louisville and Kentucky's situation, you're gonna want to look to Danny Sprinkle if you're trying to get big expectations for year one, because Danny Sprinkle brought back not a single point from the Utah State team that he coached last year and ended up having a good team. I mean, in fact, Utah State
they went twenty eight and seven. This past year fourteen and four, they finished first in the Mountain West. Uh and his only year there, first year coach had never or sorry, I had no players from that team the year prior and then went and did this in here with the Mountain West was actually a pretty good league. So now he's at Washington and you know, they've got resources, so you know, we'll see. But NIL money matters,
we know that. But everybody has in IL money. Because here's something that I don't I can't prove this, but put it this way, Louisville and Kentucky they've had, like everybody else, they've had to be very much involved in competitive INNIL to get players because that's just the name of the game. You know. I know that there are certain players for both sides that have been believed to get this and that as far as a dollar amount,
and it's always been exaggerated, sometimes exaggerated substantially. And what happens is if the player knows that the word out there is that he got three hundred K, that makes him look like he's he's worth it, right, Like damn, God must be great. If the school is believed to have dropped the three hundred thousand dollars bag, they're standing on business John, we know that, but it just makes them look like they got money. So it's kind
of all a mirage. Like I don't think the amount of money is close to what it's being reported as and what not even being reported, but what it's just being rumored as. So what Mark Pope is selling as Kentucky's coach is not at all what transfers or high school kids envision when they think about Kentucky. So the allure of Kentucky is still there, but then they're gonna beat Mark Pope and they may like him, but it's not what they thought.
Like, it's not that they thought Mark Pope was gonna be John Calla Perry. But am I making sense here? John? Like? What would get people really attracted at Kentucky with Cali Perry? And look, I know Cali Perry is not Kentucky. Kentucky was very successful before him. These college kids and these high school kids don't know they I mean, they know that, but they don't care about that. It's just different now. Ye, not that Kentucky's lost its luster. It's just they're they're rebranding right now,
and not that the brand is going to be bad. It's just gonna take a while for it to pick you. Yeah, in the immediate time. I'm not predicting the future, but I would not be shocked if they lose a lot of these battles to schools that maybe they wouldn't they would expect to lose to you like Danny Sprinkle being able to take his big man from Utah State with him to Washington when Kentucky wanted him, Like that would make total
sense because again they've got in Aiel just like Kentucky does. And maybe Kentucky can throw more money, but maybe Washington can too. And again like just the Cali Perry was going to final fours winning titles when college players currently and high school You know, when college players currently that they're playing now, that time when he was on top, they were probably in middle school dreaming of playing at that level. High school kids they may not even remember it because
it was that long ago. So it's just different. By the way, if your name is Danny Sprinkle, there's no scenario where at one point in your life you were not a mail stripper, right, has to be. My mind went to it's like bakery owner or something. Now Danny Sprinkle is a mail stripper. Come on, John, Like mattress Mack, you either sell mattresses or you're a porn start no in between five o'clock hours next MHM