5.20: Wild Wild West - Hour 2

in southeastern Kentucky. But one thing that I don't want to bring this up to like make fun of it or make a joke out of it, because I'm not doing that. But I am sort of indisible leave how something like this could happen Saint Louis. They had that area that I mean, Missouri is always, I feel like an area of the country that just seems to get hit really really bad with with tornadoes. But they didn't

have sirens that went off on Friday. And I mean, this almost seems like something that you like, you can't you can't make it up, like, how does this happen? But the Saint Louis mayor has said that the tornado sirens didn't activate because of a protocol confusion. So many residents of Saint Louis were not warned of the tornado that hit the city because sirens didn't go off. I mean, I can't be I mean I can't be the only one that does, in fact take the sirens quite literally, right,

I mean, I don't. Man, when you think of this day and age, as far as how you really get your confirmation that you need to take cover. There's a lot of ways to do it right. Again, we talked about it earlier. The radio, Like you've got the radio emergency service system that that that plays, which, by the way, for those who missed it earlier, we talked about it.

That's not if you've got severe weather tonight in the area in Kentuckyana and you rely on the radio to tell you it won't happen because they're doing some emergency maintenance or I guess some I don't know if it's emergency maintenance. I'll read directly what it is, just so I don't get it wrong. But they're doing says dude, it's a mandatory upgrade of weather systems. Due to that, the weather radio for the Louisville area will be offline

into Wednesday, So just keep that in mind tonight. But anyways, there's a lot you've got your phone, Like my phone, I don't even know if I ever programmed anything or set it up on my own, but my phone will go off if if there is something severe near where I'm at, like, and I think it's only the warning, not a watch, which of course the warning is more severe.

But anyways, I mean, if you hear the sirens in your area, your neighborhood where you are, I mean, I feel like that is that is that would to me. It's up there as far as one of the scariest things in regards to the realization that, Okay, this is dangerous, I need to take cover, I need to be safe. So for Saint Louis to not have those work, and it's just because of like a human error, like that's insane.

So the mayor has said that the sirens weren't activated before a deadly tornado that happened Friday because of quote human failure, which imagine being that human. I mean, so their mayor has only been in office. It looks like a couple of months. Yeah, But Mayor Caro Spencer said a button to sound the sirens was not pushed after the tornado warning was issued, but added that there wasn't a single person at faults since emergency protocols weren't exceptionally

clear about roles or responsibilities. Five people were killed in the tornado and over thirty were injured. She's in her second month in office, as I mentioned, and she has had she's activating the sirens will now She says that activating the sirens will now solely be it will now be the sole responsibility of the fire department going forward.

So I mean, I don't want to be overly critical, because again I don't there's clearly no intent for somebody to just, you know, not have the sirens working to notify people that they may need to take cover and prepare because their lives are in danger. But just think about that, Like, there was confusion as far as whose responsibility it was, so it just didn't get done, and who knows, We'll never know if those sirens would have

kept people alive. But man, if I was somebody that was on the the if I was somebody within the confusion of not knowing if it was my responsibility or not, I would that would eat me alive. I mean that would be devastating. I mean, doesn't that sound like something in a movie that somebody internally nobody knew whose responsibility it actually was to hit the sirens? Like that's that's all, so.

if it was the fire department's responsibility. And now the mayor of Saint Louis is claiming that it's now moving forward, going to be the sole responsibility of the fire department. That's just that's just that's just not everybody being on the same page, And I mean, will never know, and it would be foolish to say for sure that lives would have been saved had the sirens been activated and worked. But I mean, you never know. You don't know.

I would say most people this day and age, with technology being what it is, with the cell phones that we have really being able to do as much as you can do on them, I don't think people are just waiting around ear to the ground or the sirens going off, then I know something is bad. But the sirens, to me, I believe it would be like a it's part of the whole thing, right, like my phone's going off.

They've cut into programming on the news stations, the radio is, they've got the they've basically got their warnings going off. And then if I hear the sirens outside near my home, that to me is the full on like Okay, this is really dangerous. I need to take cover and I need to, you know, say some prayers. So everybody's situation is probably different, But I mean, and I've heard I've heard people complain about the sirens going off and they

felt like it wasn't justified. I've also heard people say, why why didn't the sirens go off? And we didn't know it was going to be this bad. So clearly there's there's still a level of I mean, I don't want to say clearly they're still important. I was gonna say there's there's a level of it that's important, but I'm sure every way, like it's like these things are

in place for a reason. So that's I didn't plan on that coming up on the show today, but I read it during the break and I'm like this, this almost doesn't seem real, but it is real. But at least now we know in Saint Louis, they know who's responsible for making sure those those sirens do in fact go off. All right, it's Coffee and Company. We are few about Thornton's here on Sports Talk seven to ninety. Appreciate you hanging out with us here on a Tuesday afternoon,

real quick. This this came up on the text line earlier. If you guys want a text in you can five two four three eight ninety seventy three. It's the L and N Federal Credit Union text line. This text says, Nick, it's starting to hit me that I'm going to lose you as my afternoon sports guy, big Louisville fan. Before you, before you run off and leave us, who would you say are the five best Louisville basketball and football players

in your lifetime? All right? I don't have that list on me right now, and I've never thought about putting it together, but I'm I'm eager to give it some thought because if you think about it, if you talk about my lifetime, there's some in my lifetime that I don't remember because I was too young. Like I didn't watch him play, So if I did it, I would give you not just my lifetime, but like players I

remember watching. Like let me give you an example. I could be wrong here, but there are some people that claim Clifford Rosier when he was at his best at Louisville, and I guess that one season where he was the first team All American that he was like that good, that special, But I wouldn't be able to tell you because I don't remember him, Like I was too young. That was right before I was old enough. And on football,

I feel like I could do that. But Austin, don't you feel like with football like it's more about positions, Like when you think of like best player of all time in football for a program or for a franchise, I mean can be like if you're the you know, a guy who's the best defensive player of all time might be just as impactful as the guy who's the best offensive player of all time. So I don't, I don't,

I don't know if I could give you. I feel like if I did that, I would be leaving off certain players that that because the football is just harder to do. I mean, although in the NFL there's more people on the fields were in the NFL, the MVP award is always going to go to a quarterback, right, I mean, you can be phenomenal as a receiver, phenomenal as a running back. I mean, this day and age on offense, you're you're gonna need to be a quarterback to win the NFL m VP. So quarterbacks, like, I

don't know. I'll give it some thought. I'm not sure if I'm gonna do it today, but you've given me a nice challenge as a sleep on it. Yeah, give me a nice challenge here, And it's not really a challenge. I mean, it's it's it's my thoughts mout. But but a top five for both sports. Basketball I could do pretty easy. I think football would be tougher, but I'll give it a shot. That's a that's a good recommendation as we count down our days here because after next Friday,

it'll be It'll be it from here. It'll be it for me here on seven ninety. So if you haven't heard the news, starting on June second, I'll be making the move to news radio eight forty WHA has taken over for Tony Cruz as the host of Kentucky and as morning news. I've talked about it probably more than

you want to hear since Friday. But I also know that some people just they catch this show in doses here and there and want to make sure I do as best as I can to make sure everybody is aware because I don't people forget about I mean, I think I just you know, fell off a cliff. I'm not leaving. I'm just you know, moving to moving down the hall. Actually I mean and also I'm moving. Just up your radio dial, right, if you just go from seven nine zero to eight four zero, then you'll find me.

But you won't find me at three pm. You'll find me at five am. Between five am and at nine am. All right, we'll talk a little more about this coming up on the other side, But I also want to share some news that I think is big for college sports. If you have not seen this, this is I believe a substantial piece of news when it comes to the

future of college athletics. Ross Ellinger of Yahoo Sports reported it last night that the power conferences, the ACC, the SEC, the Big Ten, and the Big twelve were working together to put together basically a contract for all programs all universities within those conferences to agree to follow specific guidelines. And with this agreement, they are all going to sign off that they're going to follow these rules and not try to get out of following said rules by hiring

a lawyer and taking it to court. Because I think what everybody's realized is that because of how long the NCAA waited, and they didn't even really wait to do anything. They didn't do anything. It just finally bit them in the ass. That's what happened. I mean, quite literally, they wanted to give us the archaic amateurism model from you know that's from hundreds of years ago, seemingly, I mean

it's not an exaggeration. It probably does go back one hundred years or so, and they just never wanted to make any kind of adjustments as society evolves and people can start to see that you know what this is, this is becase coming more and more of a I lucrative business. Right, college athletics. The NCAA tournament is a billion dollar product. And yeah, these players get free room and board, they get a free education, and that's certainly valuable.

But the optics of the NCUBLA bringing in a billion dollars and yet no revenue from that being shared with those who actually are performing, right, that are the product, right, the tournament they're playing, they're the athletes. So because it just they waited and waited and waited and waited. Finally, finally there was somebody that got the courts involved and told the NCAA, yeah, what you've been doing is illegal.

That's why there's a billion dollar settlement that's going to happen, and moving forward, you're going to be required to share your revenue with student athletes. So that's been in the works. But as they try to finalize this whole thing for seemingly, you know, roughly a year now, feel like they keep hitting roadblocks. And it's because by technicality, there's certain things that through the court system, they're telling the NCUBA, yeah,

you can do that. So they're trying, I do think right now they realize, we got to clean this thing up. We've got to figure out how we can have some regulation, how we can have it not be such a free for all and you know it be the wild wild West, as people say. But they're kind of helpless in what they can do because again, the way they've existed since the beginning of time is not practical this day and age, and it's really not legal when it comes to certain

things that they try to ask of you. So these schools now realize that that it's going to be an endless, endless battle as far as the court's getting involved and telling the NCUBLEA they can't have this as a rule. So these schools are working together to say, look, we all agree, we're going to abide by these rules, and if you don't, you can get kicked out of your conference. You can have you know, you can basically just not exist to us anymore as far as your athletics department.

So this is huge. And to hear of this last night, I mean, it was still a big piece of news. But then today it's now been confirmed that Charlie Baker, the president of the NCUBA, who took over from Mark Emert, he has confirmed that the nc DOUBLEA is going to seed enforcement of amateurism and the Power Conferences are going to take over. And again just saying that out loud, it's it's crazy, and it was Front Office Sports that

broke the news. But yes, the Power Conferences collectively and not the nc DOUBLEA, will be in charge of enforcing rules that are going to be created by this house. First in Cuba settlement over athlete compensation. So this, I think will be a good thing. It won't be back to the way it used to be, and I actually think that's okay. I don't want to go back to the way it used to be as far as I mean players getting paid doesn't impact me at all. I'm

not bothered by them getting paid. In fact, good for them. But really, more than anything, the portal has made to me, college sports so much more interesting because you have free agency, you do and sometimes a free agency transaction can be a net negative for your program, right if you' lose a guy you didn't want to lose. But then also you can actually go and take advantage of it and go build a team from scratch like Pat Kelse did in his first season and brought us back to life

really out of nowhere in no time. In the previous world that would have taken many, many, many years. So this is good news, all right, quick break will come back. Keep this thing rolling along. I don't know if you guys have seen the story about the food delivery driver. I don't know if he was doing Uber East Door Dash or whatever it was, but he ended up on the tarmac in his vehicle at the O'Hare airport in Chicago.

And I can't tell if this guy is just like an absolute, you know, idiot not realizing what he was doing, or if he's maybe the best guy ever at realizing I've got a McDonald's value meal, I've got a chicken sandwich from Chick fil A, And I'm gonna make sure even if they're walking, even if they're bored in the plane, I'm gonna get it to them, because that's my job, that's my duty, the service I provide as a newber

each driver. Also, he may have, you know, really, he may have had the folks at O'Hare realize they don't have security tien up the way they need to. But we'll get to that in a lot more. Keep it locked right here on Sports Talk seven ninety.

areas and even crossed over the runways. And I think if you see some car out there, and by the way, he's driving what appears to be like a Geo Metro, Like it wasn't some I mean, I guess you can drive anything and deliver food, but I mean it, nobody would have Nobody would assume that the person that got their vehicle out under the runway would be lost trying to deliver food, right.

the world. It's wild. But I also want to know what food he was delivering, And I want to know who ordered it and how it ended up out there, because if it was me, I'd have fun with that. Like, yeah, my guy, uh he I told him I was at the airport. Mean, you can't deliver food to the airport, Like, I have so many questions. That's so odd.

his little beat up car. And when he says, hey, I'm I'm a food delivery driver and I got lost, I feel like nobody would believe him. You would think, Okay, yeah, sure, buddy, you're trying to this is a terrorist attack or something like it. Just none of it makes any kind of sense. But I do have to ask you. Are you someone that often uses the door dash Uber eats? I mean, how many different is there? Postmates still a thing. There's a lot of different ways you can get food delivery.

I just think if I'm gonna eat somewhere, if I want to eat food that's not in my house, I'll go get it or I'll go sit down and eat. But I think maybe the reason because I'm not against it, it's just two things. I would I just assume that the food is going to lose twenty five percent or more of its quality if it's been prepared and then in a car and delivered to me. It's not coming from the back of the kitchen out to the drive

through or to my table. Right. I also, when you over eats or door dash, are you getting fast food, fast casual? Are you doing dining restaurants? Is there a type of resins just something like wingstop or like like McDonald's taco bell, Like would you do that?

pretty good, right. They're making good food that's convenient, and yeah, all we've talked about here lately is how much the prices have gone up, but you know what, people are still eating. People are making it work because they love fast food that much. It's probably something we shouldn't do as a society. When it comes to other countries other cultures making fun of us, one of the things they bring up is that we're fat, and they're probably right.

They also unfortunately make fun of us for school shootings, which is terrible, but you know, it is a thing. Yes, So anyways, when it comes to like if we're gonna have if we're not going to eat at home if the wife's not going to cook, which I love when she cooks. She's a great cook. And I don't say that just to say that she's a really good cook.

But when we're gonna not eat food that she prepares at home, we're probably gonna go to like an Elma pol or a Roosters or a Texas roadhouse, one of those kinds of places, and for what you pay for I just think I'm not going to pay that price for that food and then add on a delivery fee, knowing that it won't be as good as if I just went there and sat down an ate, because you know, because of the time. But clearly it's a booming people do it all the time. But Nattie said the other

day I was listening listen to him. I think it was last week. I don't know if he was an empty nester for the week. I think maybe his wife, his wife and daughter were gone, And he said he did it every day for a week.

have like you don't have a boss. You know, you can just pop in like a podcast, just kind of drive around, but you kind of deal with all the stuff that basically people are paying to not do, like sitting and waiting in line because I mean the service that the service industry is still suffering, and just terms of waiting forever for food, them not having enough heads back there in order to prepare the food, Like I would get like a dash and then it would maybe

take me about ten or fifteen minutes to get there, and thinking all right, the food should be ready, and I've sat there another twenty minutes waiting for the food. So you start to deal with traffic and all that, and I guess that's the I guess that's the stuff you're kind of paying a little extra for when you're the person paying for the door dash so you don't have to go through all that yourself.

It's not too bad. But also like I'm sure there's days where you're like, man, I dealt with either an employee at a restaurant that I really had a tough time not losing it on, or I dealt with a customer who was a terrible tipper, or you know, like that you have no control over that. That that that's what would be. I think the downfall for me is you never you never know what you're gonna get as far as the customer or I mean, I've I've been in restaurants where I've seen an employee and a dasher

screaming at each other. Oh yeah, over some There's been two instances. One was a lot worse than the other, but clearly the like it's.

I'll do it at some point. But I got I kind of feel like, given my you know, my my, I feel like it's probably a rarity for someone like me who does eat out. It'd be different if you never eat out. We eat out more than we should. But it's just never been ever in my mind, like, hey, I need to eat, let me let me pop open, Like is it an app? I guess I found Like I thought, I'm such a dinosaur dude. Well I wouldn't even know how to do it.

the door Dashes pay for it. Because even when you go on to log one to be a dasher, to ask if you want to make hourly or if you just want to make what door dash pays you or just working off of tips, either what DoorDash pays you, or just go workoff tips. But you know, and you

could probably sign up. If it's your first time, they probably might give you like your first thirty days of like door dash plus or something like that, to where you link it up to there and you can be able to basically order from your couch the same prices that you would if you were standing right there in line for something. And then once that runs out, that's when all the fees come up. But they want you to keep upgrading that subscription.

that's just not I'm not I'm not up. I'm not up with the times, I guess.

Chips are just different. They're they're thin. They're crispy though, and there's the saw. It's so good. They're salivating. Yeah, yeah, they're they're they're thin and they and you get it's like you get you get what you need from the chip, the crunch, the salt, but you get so much more of the salsa and the cheese because the chip's not too much, right, It's it's the perfect balance.

Because they didn't hit the portal in time. But there are some that are picking schools, like Boogie Flann will tell you where he decided to commit earlier today, big news for one program, it's already done pretty well lately. And then also r J Luise, it sounds like he's going to come back to college and I have no clue what schools are in on him, which it almost kind of feels like he was dead set on going pro and then got humbled at the combine. And he

was an All American last year. So somebody's gonna get a good one. We'll get to that in a lot more. Keep it lock right here on Sports Talk seven ninety.

their final couple games. But nonetheless, he at the portal, went through the draft process and decided to not go back to Arkansas but to go elsewhere, and he is committed to Florida. So this Florida team that's fresh off a national championship, they're now getting Boogie Flann, one of the best guards probably in the country at least certainly in the conversation. And now if they can get Alex Condon back, I mean, that would probably solidify them as

a top probably a top five team next year. So Todd Golden clearly has a bright future there at at Florida, And I don't know if they're going to be able to be in the conversation to maybe run it back. But that Florida team last year, part of me says a lot of what they were they were able to do was was was, you know, a collective effort, because they were they were pretty deep, pretty balanced, and he's

a really good coach. But I don't know. I think the guard who transferred from who was a star there for two years, I can't think of his name because again I'm terrible with with with names. But he played at Iona for I think Patino one year that ended up and he's one of the best players in the country last year, and his name will come to me in just a moment, is it will something? Here we go Clayton Walter Clayton Junior. So I don't know. Again, they may be able to put together another really good

team have a really good run. But I kind of feel like at times last year he was just he was just that good. But Florida gets Boogie Flann and then r J Luis, who was a star for Rick Patino at at Saint John's and he started his career at UMass ended up transferring to play for Rick at Saint John's and he had a breakthrough season in a big way. And now it sounds like he's gonna pull out of the draft and where he ends up, I

mean no clue. Sounds like at the combine he he was smaller than advertised, had some turnover problems, and it's going to go back to school and whoever gets him is getting a really good player. But it's almost as if he didn't have really any I mean, clearly his backup plan was to come back to college. He'd entered the portal and left that opportunity open for him. But I've not heard much of anything as far as what

schools will be involved. But again, we're talking about a guy who was an All American last year that's now on the board and available, so we shall see, all right, So let's see here the latest mock draft here, and this is from Let's see this one's from Yahoo Sports. This is Kevin O'Connor, who covers the NBA. He has, as you could expect, Cooper Flag going number one, Dylan Harper number two, Ace Bailey number three, which real quick, I'll move on from this because I don't it's not

worth spending a ton of time on. But anytime I see mock drafts and I see Rutgers with two guys that are believed to be certainly top five picks, both maybe picks two and three right after Cooper Flag, like, how demoralizing would it be if you're Rutgers and like you did have a year where there was a tension surrounding you, these two freshman phenoms alone were the reason that you were, in fact in the preseason top twenty five.

I think they were like right at twenty five, but you weren't good, didn't make the tournament, didn't really sniff the tournament. These guys were there for a year, They're still gonna go top two, top three in the draft, maybe certainly top five, and you have like nothing to show for it. That that that would suck. But that's what I used to tell myself. Remember, Austin, we were so desperate for some five star, one and done players.

Kentucky was getting them NonStop, and we wanted them. I remember we wanted them so bad, and I would you know, I was, I was. I was with all the other fans thinking like, why can't we get one of those guys? Man, that'd be nice. I was one of those fans too. And not to say that we were wrong, because I think, get there's no harm, there's no there's nothing wrong with

getting them. But if they're there for a year and they still go lottery and you didn't have a good season with them, like quite literally, what do you have to show for I think in the end, I would feel underwhelmed if we didn't have a good season and it was like it was because you know, you just didn't have good enough players or you didn't have a good enough coach. Whatever it may be, that's still that's

still a situation that sucks. But at least you can understand it, Like it makes sense if you have guys that used you for a year as just a place to hang out and in your team. Yeah, and your team stunk and then they move on like it really there's no bit. I mean, I guess the benefit would be you have a better chance of getting other guys who can see that your program can be a pit stop before they get to the NBA. And that's why, to be honest with the CALLI Perry, he did a lot.

This is gonna sound like I'm contradicting myself, but they rarely were bad, you know what I mean, Like they usually were built off of mostly freshmen, and then there were some good complimentary pieces. There was the rare guy that came back for a sophomore junior season. It ended up being pretty good for them, but there were also Like Texas always comes to mind for me because I know Rick Barnes did it and Shaka Smart did it

when they were at Texas. Texas had a bunch of top twenty lottery picks, even over a stretch of time and their teams were never good, and I just remember thinking to myself, you know what, like if louisvill would have gotten that guy, I think I'd be pissed. As far as how it has, how it worked out, right, I mean, it's not like, you know, again, there's no

net negative. It does keep you in mind on draft night, but because we care so much about our programs succeeding more than we care about draft picks, it would be a reminder, Yeah, you had NBA talent and you didn't get a lot out of it. And I truly believe that that over time did run. It did run. It became stale with Kentucky fans because I think they want to support their guys in the NBA, and early on they were getting NBA players every year, reloading and having

good seasons, final fours, one national championship. But then whenever you were getting Rob Dilling and Reed Shepard both in the top five, and you lose to Oakland in the first round of the tournament, Like at that point, it becomes a big embarrassment. Right at that point, it becomes all right, now we're just really propping ourselves up to be made fun of and that's why Cal, you know, he'll still do it. Although he will come to an end.

He will, he will not his storak of having a first round draft pick is going to come to an end this year just because there's nobody on There's nobody from Arkansas that is even sniff in the first round. It looks like according to this most reason mock draft. I guess that can change. But nonetheless, Cal right towards the right after the Oakland loss. I mean, I feel like the embarrassment was at the top for him in

Kentucky because you do it once. It's you know, to have all those NBA players and not win a title is bad enough, but you can just you know, you can say things that just make it easier for you to deal with, like, well, what do you know the ns double A tournament's random when really it is, but the championship's not. Championship's always won by a really good team.

Final fours can be random anyways. Having one title to show for all those NBA players was starting to become like a noticeable thing nationally, like damn, why can't how do they not have more success? And then they started to kind of tail off a little bit, but to then, you know, lose to Oakland and Saint Peter's in a

three year window. To end your season in the first round of the tournament at that point by bringing up all the guys you put in the league is really a self own for Caliperry, right, How you got all these dudes and you don't win? Now, he did this year, do what he's done sometimes previously a Kentucky where he didn't have a regular season that was that great. It looked as if they were in trouble and he found

a way to make it work in the tournament. Like that Kentucky team that went to the championship game and lost to Yukon in twenty fourteen that had Julius Randall the twins. They beat Louisville in the sweet sixteen. That team barely got in the tournament. I think they made the championship game. Is like an eight seed. They had another year I believe it was in what was it?

There was another year I feel like where they were great, but man, they got they got hot and made a deep run to where you didn't remember their their struggles quite as much. So Anyways, let's get to a quick break. We'll come back on the other side. We've got the five o'clock hour coming your way. We'll finish strong and get you set for the evening. Here on a Tuesday, it's coffee and company. Yobut Thornton's right here on Sports Talk seven ninety