This is I on the Ball on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Want to take part in the show? Call up, Steve now went five to two oh four one six seventy four four.
D Hey, welcome back to win on the ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steven Bear, You're Dave Siler. Now we have Juan with breaking news.
This is I on the Ball, Breaking News on Fox Sports fourteen fifty one.
Before you start, you said that you had a lot of calls coming in. So if we finished early, I don't know if you go, maybe take another call or too, and you can call try to get us a call if you want to in between, because we're gonna have picks. We'll go through those quickly too at the end of the hour so we get more calls.
Thangat perfect Welcome to breaking news, your guy, Juan, mister goody two shoes, two shoes back on a Friday.
It's been a while. Yes, I missed you, Steve. Don't make me cry so good tear up.
Starting off breaking news, going into some Arizona athletics. Obviously, Arizona volleyball wasn't invited.
Into the NCAA tournament.
Probably should have been, but they do get a chance for some postseason action.
Ah in the n i v C. I've never heard of that, never heard of it, yeaheah.
They they're hosting, they're part of one of the hosting teams. They hosted Pacific and we were State who played earlier today and Pacific came out on top three to two. They'll play Arizona tomorrow at six pm.
Yeah. I think those games are going to be real close because they're all similar teams.
All all teams that wanted to wanted to shot at the the NCAA A but obviously didn't.
Right, So it's the sixty four teams in the in the in the Is it like that? I believe so so that the best sixty five and more is going to.
Go to the next best sixty four.
Yeah, well do you know, to to bring that up a little, what a great year they had, I mean for not a very good year last year in her first year. Yeah, you can tell that she's probably a very good coach.
A complete turnaround, right, right, that doesn't started off thirteen to zero.
Yeah, they got the number one recruit.
Right last last offseason, so there's a lot of momentum building for momentum, What the hell is that?
Momentum is just another word?
Right pretty much?
So, I mean, good luck to them tomorrow, good for them, right? I think the first they ended on a seven game conference wins stream. That's the first time I think since two thousand and three or.
So, right, right, And doubt they were going to get in, didn't they?
Everyone thought they should have. There's a lot of teams that God, what are they finished in the Big twelve? They must have been in the top half of the league. I'm assuming we can look at top half for sure. Yeah, I know there's there are some good teams. They finished nine and nine overall in conference play, so I'm sure that'll put them at least above the top half.
That's good. Two women's basketball.
They played the game last night against Grand Canyon, and.
They did lose, sixty six to sixty nine.
I think the world of Ada. She's done tremendously here. Who would have thought that that place would have been packed for the NIT, packed for the NC double as packed in general?
What the hell's going on now? Though?
I mean, honestly, yeah, because it's not just one time, it's a couple three times. And last year there wasn't any well, I'm sure it was better, but you know what I'm saying, It's been some strange losses.
You know, Grand Canyon, Nau, things like that, players leaving players, you didn't, switching.
School, well, switching around exactly. I mean that doesn't happen normally. I mean normally. And I wonder I didn't see any press conferences. I didn't see any stories. Uh and did you guys have you guys must have had something from camp of how these things are being treated.
Yeah, I mean, and let me say this, these aren't Obviously, no loss is a good loss. But I'll this about this team. They look a little bit more together. They're just losing these games.
I heard you all. They're young. I understand they're young. Someone said who went to the game, that they're out very good, So maybe that's the explanation. They're not even good and they're young, which which is gonna which is going to be an issue for DiDia who hits the loose. I wonder how those press conferences were. I'm trying to find what Kim did yesterday for tonight from last night.
Yeah, okay, So I mean, I mean they're still seven and four.
They got a lot looking looking ahead, a lots to look forward to.
Uh.
They they they'll play their next game on next Tuesday against cal State Bakersfield.
Than uh we were stated the next week. So the first time the Wildcats have lost the home game this year, I believe.
So.
Yeah, Well, the thing is it's who they're losing to.
You know, it's like football Northern Arizona.
And then they played to uh neutral site games against Vanderbilt in California, right the Palm Springs area.
Yeah, those games as shire holiday and.
Then switching gears to men's basketball. I know we had Rhino on earlier, but obviously they play game tomorrow twelve o'clock.
So they in Utah.
Yeah, where all the things will be Okay, the world will be a writer, the sun will come out and shine tomorrow where the damn song get Yeah, tomorrow is tomorrow.
I hate to ask this question because do we know what channel they're on? Are they on? Are they on they're on real TV, or are they on the ESPN network? Okay that sort of counts. Yeah, so you don't have to go, you don't have to stream it. This is coming from the TV guy exactly. That's you know, whatever his name was. It was calling talking about the the PAC twelve network and stuff. At least we kind of knew where it was. They did have some shows and
they were good. They were just a matter of finding them, whereas now there's really nowhere, no central location, Like, hey, it's the Big twelve wrap up show. That would be nice to have because I'm still spending more time looking at the old back twelve teams and oh, Oregon's playing Oh yeah, they're playing Penn State. Do we really care now? But that's a big game nationally.
I got a question for you, Steve, so he kind of asked me this throughout the football season when when they hit their low point.
So tomorrow.
Blank makes Arizona fans feel better about the team.
Go after tomorrow, give it to me one more time. You probably have to talk to me slow because I'm not smart.
So blank makes Arizona feel better about the team after tomorrow's game?
What what is that? Blank?
What's gonna make Arizona? I know, I know, I know, I know, I'm trying. I might not have an answer for you one. Yeah, but this will make Arizona better, make fans feel better. But obviously a win you're sound what you're talking about football or basketball?
Basketball? I thought you said foball football is over.
Yeah, I know, but I thought he.
Said, I said, you kind of asked me this kind of question, George during Okay, Okay, basketball, now.
Caleb, Caleb has a great game. Okay, but it doesn't mean tomorrow means nothing to me and me it means nothing to me because they play. If you could be gnacious and you can beat ex Or and you can beat South South Southern Utah, who gives a crap at the grand scheme of things? What does that matter? Because those teams, you don't beat those teams in March, you don't. Yeah, Okay, I've said this. And people are fans of Sean Miller. That's fine. He won three hundred games. Here a lot
of games. Sixty of those games are about were NAU or below quality. If you went to where'd you go to school?
The university?
No?
No, no, high school, university high school, university high school.
Okay, let's sen assume you went to some point just to think, by example, at some point beats green Day fifty fifty out of fifty one times? Okay, shouldn't they? Yeah, I mean what do you get out of it? Not a damn thing you gotta wreck. You're gonna win. I mean, I'm not trying to be different.
Put together a run of wins, not not just tomorrow, but like I said, tom yes, I will mean you know, do you say that be a little much more high profile game.
And usually it's not that good. New Mexico beat him on a neutral court. So I don't know, but I think the thing that needs to happen is Caleb needs to play better.
Uh.
The caller and we didn't get his name. Do you get his name? He calls her out again. He's very funny. He talks about the point guard situation. Well, if you're the guard and your and your passes are two players who miss shots, you ain't gonna get an assist. And this team is not shooting the ball well one and two. Jayden Brownley doesn't doesn't assist the ball anyway. Last year, My biggest criticism last year was he got the ball, put his head down and attacked the basket. Right, He's
not gonna get rid of that ball. He's just not. That's not who he is. Uh. And guess what they need this year. They need him to do that because they need someone to score. So now he's in a tell situation. Do I do this or do I pass the ball? Who they may not make the shot.
So so overall, would you say just the improvement of Caleb Love wouldn't make Arizona fans feel better?
Yeah, that's that's my But my answer is not there's no right or wrong answer. Mine's the simple answer. But don't you don't you hope that he kind of gets on track finally Caleb? Yeah, of course. I mean to me, that would be the priority. Just make him feel good, like for the rest because he looks like a guy who needs that.
Yeah, he needs someone to give him some encouragement, and there always seemed to be that. I hate to keep going way back in the past, but like the Josh Passners of the world, who you know, he's kind of like the coaching I mean shooting, the shooting, the shooting guru, you know, go out there with you know who, Mike Bibby and those in that group where he had somebody helping it.
David, let me say this, I think you're right. However, do you think that is Caleb a guy who looks like a guy who's going to take it advice for a coach.
Like Josh know, yeah, I know you're right. Well, I mean, somebody.
Leave me the hell alone. This is leave me a hell alone. It'll be okay. That's what Caleb bother me. I got my shot. I'm gonna be okay.
Yeah, he certainly has confidence. Yes, I don't. I don't see lack of confidence there. Maybe maybe just even more so, Dave, don't talk to me. I know what I'm doing, but isn't that what a coach is supposed to do? Let them star players. You know, there may be something.
Kayla Williams. I have suggestions for you. Could you shoot the ball better? And I think your motion? Shut up, Dave, Shut up, Dave.
Okay, I'm still making three million a years.
That's right, That's all.
Right, So continue to breaking news. I'm not trying to go track to quid. You got run out of time a little bit.
The NBA is returning to China next season, with a preseason game between this Nets and the Suns, first time since twenty nineteen.
Yeah, it's been a while since all that criticism, right with the with the torture. I don't, I can't, I shouldn't say don't even don't but you know all that trouble world.
What are the odds Kevin Durant is injured? Just kidding, He's always hurt. He's hurt again. Yeah. I was actually there for that. I didn't really see anything. I don't know. It was at the Spurs game. I went up for it. Did you go see because your Spurs guy? So I dropped a quick or whatever the hell is. Yeah, you're at the half. I said, Wow, this was worth the price of admission. Uh No, he had a good he had to end up having a pretty decent game, but they still lost to the Spurs. Yeah.
Uh So, the NBA is gonna find Rockets head coach Im Udoka target Easton el Frid, Singoon for their little I guess tire eight or act against the refs on Tuesday fifty fifty thousand for Udoka coming out of his pocket.
Wow, that's probably twenty dollars to you and me.
Yep. Uh so.
And then the NBA is also finding Jalen Brown for a throat slash gesture against the Pisto. Yeah on Wednesday night, twenty five thousand dollars bucket change.
I don't do that, Yeah, that's kind of like a half game, half of a game.
Yeah, Stephen Curry expected to play today. He should be back from an injury. Didn't even know he was injured. Yeah, you're a Golden State guy. I'm a Golden State guy. I like him. Jersey today, Yeah not Jersey.
But you know, again, you know, load management or whatever they call it, and they're not supposed to take time.
Off, and so how would you have felt if your guy did not play when you went to buy a.
Ticket to I was actually really scared about that because I know he had been dealing with lower In the next game, he actually sat out for lower back inness or lower back uh management.
A few years ago, I went to Son's Calves when Lebron was there and he did not come out on the court literally until like thirty seconds before the game, and everybody was freaking out, like oh my god. And next thing, you know, it's almost like this grand introduction. He just comes racing out and he played, but it was it was looking sad like all of this went up there just to kind of see him in person.
Yeah, I thought it was gonna have a situation put on a show, but I did not, Thank goodness, Green Jaremond Green is also possible for that game.
We'll see what happens.
Chris Middleton for the Bucks is making his season debut against the Celtics, so it's good to see him back. Going to men's basketball college men's basketball. But do lost to Penn State. They got crushed. Yeah, they got crushed one to seventy number eight eight.
Yeah.
The basketball world, the college basketball world is kind of crazy.
It's gonna be that's gonna be fun. I think it is. Then, Yeah, Penn State wiped him out at home.
It's gonna be a fun time in college basketball, and not fun for fans who think that their teams are going to be crazy good. But the opposite.
I mean, Kansas losing, I mean, you know, it's it's even a funny week. Funny.
Yeah, there's a few of the top ten teams lost.
I think is in North Carolina four and four. I mean there's teams that lost to Alabama at home. I might go right, try to run through this.
Randy Moss is taking an extended to leave from ESPN due to a health issue.
Wishing all the best for him.
Continuing Jets, Breese Hall and Sauce Gardner are expected to be out for the Dolphins, and Leak Neighbors is questionable with a hip flexer injury. Green Bay beat Or lost to Detroit last night Thursday night, thirty four to thirty one, and going to the College Football World, Arizona starting offensive line to windel Mow did enter the transfer portal too.
Yeah. Yeah, I think we're going to start seeing more and more of that from you of a people leaving and depends who comes in see if they equal the talent. We won't know till we know.
Yeah, I mean that's the good thing. I guess that it's happening here in December early December, So now there's time as players are thinking about what they want to do. The semester's ending for school if that matters, and now it's kind of the time when that's going to be happening here in the next month, right, Okay, So a little bit more.
Bronco mende Hall was hired by Utah State after his first year in New Mexico.
So obviously I have touched on New Mexico and I'm not in Mexico. Grab but uh, if you think that people were pissed about Jetfish, they're pissed about brock Mendy. He was there one year, he went five and seven. Uh, he was kind of like a truck stop for him and saying all week that he was not gonna leave or he's you know, denying Denine until he leaves. And because they saw, they saw what you guys saw, just a gradual improvement there. We're going to be back finally
playing rally competitive and then oh the dude just left. Yeah, and well the quarterback. You guess people here loved that quarterback. Yeah, I mean I was.
He was good against Arizona, he was real good. He was good against teams like Auburn. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what does Utah State offer that New Mexico does.
Well, he's going back home. He's a Utah guy. Is Utah goud coach at B Well for a long time, probably hasn't made in New Mexico. Let me tell you, it's a crap shoot, man, because you don't know from year to year what you're gonna be good at all. Now they're going to go back into no good land. But it's tough. It's tough.
Where did they get most of their players, like from Texas?
Yeah, it's it's it's the it's like the third or fourth string people that Arizona doesn't get because they get the second third, you know, you know how the tier goes. It's the second or third. And there's a few good players in New Mexico, but it's New Mexico good that makes.
Well a quarterback is from Arizona, right, isn't he from from area somewhere?
Yeah?
Yeah, I always wondered how they stock their their their roster.
Every every school has its you know method, and there was almost kind of like that middle tier school, middle tier school in New Mexicans, you know, not below.
Yeah.
So last thing I got, obviously Conference Championship week in college football, Iowa State playing Arizona State, Penn State, Oregon, Clemson s m u uh and then even Georgia and Texas.
I got a funny little thing about that.
So inside of the Mercedes Benz Stadium, they don't have room for Bevo.
What are we gonna do with him? Keep him home, have them roam outside, and don't forget to feed him. This is in Atlanta, yeah, Atlanta. Yeah, yeah, So well I thought it was a little bit funny. You know, they come go to Texas earlier this season. They there was the whole thing with throwing the stuff onto the field, and then the conference championships in Atlanta, and now they're not allowing the They had no room for the Texas mascot mascots. Still my favorite mascot is Mike the Tiger,
if he's still called Mike the LSU Tiger. Years and years ago, they used to bring him into the stadium. They did that for the basketball caged.
Let me say this, I covered two games and the most scared I've ever been at at an event in my life, and not because of the Tiger, but the fans were vicious, mean, brutal. In other words, I cannot say because it was bad. Arizona got the worst beating of their life under Loot, with Luke and and Richard and all these guys. It was just bad.
I've had a chance to visit, you know, not a game, but just going to the campus, which is beautiful, beautiful place in Baton Rouge. But he's got his own like zoo. He's got like a peneting and you can walk out there on campus.
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This is I on the Ball with Steve Raman Fox Sports fourteen fifty Subscribe now to the podcast on the iHeartRadio while just search Eye.
On the Ball.
Hey, welcome back to I in the Ball hero Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. I'm Steve Roverta in today with me is Dave Silver. Now on the phone, we have Evan mya Kawa college basketball guru or our analytics guy. Evan, how are you.
Doing well?
Doing well?
Happy to talk to who's I know?
We haven't talked to you in a while. I saw you at the Final Four. It was great to see this up and coming dude kind of making your name. Now I see college basketball coaches drop your name like it's like it's you know, like yesterday, it's it's fantastic for you.
I know, it's been really cool. Honestly, I just feel so blessed by God to be in this position and get to do college basketball analytics is my full time saying it's really fun.
So let me tell let me kind of give some background and you can help me fill in the holes. So we've met with you where I found you on the internet thinking what this kid doing? It's great, great stuff. It's it's really busy. You had a real job. You had a job in Texas, I think it was, and I'm thinking, cool, I guess how where do you find time to do this stuff? And you said, hell with the job, I want to do this. Yeah, that's right.
I actually think I remember exactly where I was where we had our first radio interview. I was like in my in laws one of their bedrooms doing a radio hit with you guys. It was back when I was still in grad school at Baylor working on my PhD and statistics. And now we're here.
HOLDI mind, and how has it gone? Because you have a subscriber service, and tell us where they can find it, and tell us what's in it before we start breaking it down.
Sure.
So the website is Evanmia dot com e v A n M i ya dot com and.
It's basically a treasure trove of.
Basketball analytics for college basketball specifically and so on.
There.
I do a lot of player evaluates stuff where I'm looking at who are the most valuable players in the country. I do a lot of lineup analysis, game predictions. It's really popular during the transfer portal as well. Obviously you can find team rankings on there, like you'll find it a lot of other sites, like a ten Palm, where I'm rating and predicting to the best teams the rest of the year will be. It's a subscriber model, so there's a lot of stuff that's available just for free.
But if you're a die hard and really want to get more into the nitty gritty, there's some different tiers there you can access, you know, more complicated levels of data.
Yes, so right now you have Gonzaga number one, Tennessee two, Duke three. What does O rate and D rates mean? What does that on your statistics here?
That's just telling you how good their offense and defense is on a per possession basis. So basically, you know, rate is how much better your team would be I could say an average D one team in that category on a neutral court per one hundred possession. So basically all you need to really think about there is how strong is your offense, how strong is your defense? And then kind of summing that up as a whole is how you end up seeing the team's ranked on the main page there.
Wow, yeah, and so tell me, I don't know if you know this off the top of your head. So fans for Arizona can maybe relax easy. They're twenty thirty in year poll. However, where did they start.
They started I think number eight or number nine in the country, so definitely a little bit of a slide from where they were in the preseason, but I'm not overreacting too much to their record as some people are. I still think this team will get better and will be one of the you know, in the top half of the Big twelve, and will make the tournament and you know, could potentially make a Sweet sixteen. I still think they're talented enough to do that, and they just
have faced some early hurdles. Obviously, none of their wins so far the season or anything to write home about. But also all of their losses are going to be to teams who are going to make.
The tournament or in the conversation, to make the tournament.
So again, I don't think they've had their other teams in the country who only have one or two losses but they've lost, you know, to.
You know, the Middle.
Tennessee or something like that, doesn't have any losses like that. So I'm not super concerned by any of those those results in isolation, right.
I think last year I remember talking to you or using your analytics for a story I did for the Arizona's like blue guy, the best guy, the best guy on the team, and I think it was I think it was Jayden Bradley. He had all these numbers, and I remember it could be wrong. He could have been
Pee Larson. I have to but that's how deep you get into it, assists and all this stuff, and it was just kind of like, that's the best guy, but it was all it was everything encompassed, right, and you throw everything in there.
Yeah, it was definitely Jayden Bradley. I remember making a lot of emphasis even going back to December and January of last year, basically looking at how much better Arizona was playing when Jaden Bradley was on the floor compared to when he was on the bench, especially when you you know, sort of put that in isolation with with
other players on the team like Kylin Boswell. And that's something actually that in talking to Arizona staff members who use our website, they kind of understood that they understood that Jayden Bradley really was what was making their team tick, and you know.
It was a bit unfortunate that he couldn't.
Get more playing time last year. The surprising thing is that, you know, he has obviously stepped into a bigger role this year, and I've been very excited for him, and I think he's still been fairly you know, impactful, but The really.
Interesting thing with Jaden Bradley.
Has been a lot of that stuff has flipped this year where the team has not been performing as well when he's on the court, specifically on the defensive end. I mean, when you look at how well Arizona's defense has done when Jada Bradley's on the floor versus on the bench, it's really bad. And of course we're only.
A few games into the season, so I think.
Some of that will correct itself. But he's definitely been a bit more disappointing than I was hoping he would be from a team impacts perspective, because I was really thinking that, you know, going into the season at least that he was going to be a bit better than he's been.
How often is this site updated? Do you do go game by game? Is it updated? And how does that work?
It updates every single day. I have kind of some automated processes and servers that grab the data and compute all the stuff, and so it's updated daily, which is really helpful.
So you PhD is in what exactly a smart statistic basketball? Could you do this for other sports? If you thought about doing something, you know in other other sports?
You know, I have, and certainly some of my you know, academic uh and technical skills could be put to use for another sport. But I think part of it that people you really have to understand is that you can't just uh, you know, use maths and statistics to just build uh statistical models in something that you don't really
have expertise. And I think a lot of what has made my work really successful in college basketball is that I really understand the sport of basketball, and I understand what people are trying to do, what coaches are trying
to do. And so if I were to say apply this to football or tennis, a sport that I watch but I don't have quite as deep an understanding in, I think it would be a lot less accurate because a lot of what I do really combined both my sort of technical background and expertise with my my not college of basketball, and I think that's what really those two in tandem work really well together.
I can't remember, looking at your site if chemistry was involved in this too.
Yes, there are certain ways that you can view how specific players on the same team play together and have chemistry basically, and so there are ways of looking at essentially when you have two players who on the court together, do they really elevate each other's performance in a way that you might not expect based on how they perform sort of individually. So, for example, I just pulled this up right now. One of the best teammate duos for Arizona this year has been Trey Townsend on the floor
together with Carter Bryant. When those two players have been on the court together, not only has Arizona been really successful as a team, but individually those players.
Have played better.
It's sort of in tandem with each other compared to all their possible combinations of teammates they could be with. And so there's different ways of looking at things like that, which is super fun.
I guess that really hasn't played much at all, and play much? Yeah, right, right, no, No, I'm sure you don't sleep much of it. That's okay.
Well, the nice thing is that I don't. I sometimes joke that I watch every single game in write down stats for every single game.
But I don't have to do that.
All the stuff I've set up, you know, it's sort of can can do all this stuff, you know, in the cloud, so to speak, overnight and so obviously I spend a lot of time on it, but I'm not having to manually gathering compute data, which would be a nightmare if I had to.
Are you saying that the coaches will come to you to look for some information? Is that would you provide to them? Yes?
Yes, I have. Yeah, well so I mean a lot. There's close to one hundred different Division one college basketball teams or athletic departments who have subscriptions to my website, and so they use it for a lot of different things, from you know, in season lineup optimization to you know, sort of minutes allocation during the off season. It's big
for the transfer portal and evaluating players. I know directly that the in Arizona coaching staff has used it the last two off seasons to evaluate a lot of the players that they've brought in, and it's a really useful tool for that.
I think I remember looking at last year. I don't have the subscription, but it looks like I probably will end up getting it. Where you have like like next week Ucla versus Arizona. Don't you in there and make a prediction too? Because of the points president stuff?
Yes, yeah, and I can actually you know, pull up Arizona's upcoming game. So basically, yeah, so for every single game, based on my team ratings and all of the variables that I take into account, I predict scores for all of those games win probabilities, and you can even pull up previews of those games that will break down strengths and weaknesses for each team and why I calculate a score to be a certain way. They'll show you exactly.
For example, you know, if a team if a game is being played at Arizona, how much home court is worth in that game, and things like that. It adjusts for current injuries as well, so if a player is questionable or out, it'll show you specifically how much my prediction to that game is being adjusted basing those injuries. So there's a lot of different stuff to dig in there with.
Yeah, again, we're talking to Evan Miakawa and the site is evanmia dot com. If you're a college basketball fan, it says this is great stuff, this is awesome. That's why I like you. I give crap to to the geeks of the world. I want to be you, Evan, I know I want to be you. No, this is one of the things on there like you're looking like Baseball Reference and basketball. I love those kind of sites where everything is kind of cross cross referenced and.
Right right, So let me ask you because of the site and I, you know, Jay and I at the time, I love this site, uh and use it for things and even my stories. Like I said, last year, did it how did it kind of turn out at the end of the year when you have your rankings and all that stuff. Did it have Yukon easily the winner? Did it Havedue doing what it does? Arizona kind of faded in the sweet sixteen as usual? You back through that in you know, history in the tournament.
Yeah, to that second point.
Team specific history in the tournament is pretty hard to use as a rely will indicator what's going to happen.
You know.
I think this is generally understood by a lot of people, but march madness can be somewhat of a random results generator in the sense that you'll only remember the way a certain game played out, but if you played that game ten different times, it might go the other way nine times, you know what I mean. So you know a lot of that, it's kind.
Of it's difficult to use things like that.
In predicting future tournaments. But broadly speaking, my models often do a really good job of pretty early in the season identifying who the national title threats are going to be. I think last year, by about mid December, my top two teams in the country were Purdue at Yukon and it stayed that way for the rest of the season. And they were not ranked number t one and number two in the A people that whole time, but my
website had them as the two best teams in the country. Obviously, by the time we got to the tournament, I think that was pretty well understood.
But I was picking up.
On that way earlier, and obviously that's what ended up happening in the title game.
So notes to self, go to gold to draft, look at his one and two teams. Bet them now, I'm just making a notable.
You know, So who do who do you have? Now?
Do you have the one and two or executive?
Oh? I mean, yeah, that's there? Is that your pick? And Zach at this point?
Yeah, I mean there are several teams at the top that I think really have you know, a lot of potential here, but my top three and I think they are slight here I guess you could throw Auburn in here, but Gonzaga is number one, slightly ahead of Tennessee at two, Duke at three, and Auburn at four. I think those are comfortably according to the advanced analytics in terms of how they're predicted to do the rest of the year,
those are comfortably my top four teams. I think you could pick any of them really to win the title. I think from a results standpoint, Auburn's probably been the most impressive team of that lot. But you know, Duke has winns over Auburn and Arizona already this year. They're probably the most talented team.
In the country.
And I really like Kendagga and Tennessee can Dagga has the best offense in the country. Tennessee has the best defense in the country. I think what they've shown so.
Far for both of them, especially.
Tennessee, they've really been a notch above what people expected in the preseason. But I really predict a lot of success to those two teams.
So if I'm having to pick, I'm picking a dagger right now.
It's my national title pick. But there's really a group of three or four up there that I think you know, if you're trying to predict who the title is going to come from, there's a good chances from one of those four.
So just real quick, So you're we announced, the police announced the website again. How much does it cost for people too? Maybe to subscribe?
Sure, so I mentioned a lot of stuff.
Is free, but there's a sort of basic fan level subscriptions for five bucks a month or thirty a year, or if you're a diehard and really want to.
Get into more of the really specific.
Stuff like player projections and lineup optimization and keys to victory for every team, that's available for I think twenty nine to ninety nine a month or about half of that per year. But there's really a lot of different options depending on how in detail you want to get.
Man, can you adopt me down the road when you're loaded? Because this is fantastic, Evan. You know this is the difference between you and me. Evan, this is and I'm being funny but serious. You call it random results generator. I call it a crapshoot. That's how our educations are different. A good way for you, I think, thanks, man, You're always good to hope to see you or talk to you in a couple of months just to get an update of what's going on.
Sound good, Let's do it, Yeah, Evan.
Thank you, Evan, appreciate it. It's good stuff. Yeah, yeah, I love that stuff.
Yeah.
Thanks a good Evan. Let's take a break. We're a little over. We got to make our picks. You can give us a call if you'd like to get it to get us some thoughts of yours. If you're an Arizona Man's basketball fan, you know it's been successful for nearly forty years. Now take a look back at the
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Breaking down all the xs and ohs. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Box Sports fourteen fifty.
Hey, welcome back to the ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, he's Dave Silver. You got one acting as Jay Gonzalez for our picks. Let me tell you, we're gonna try to get through these picks pretty quick. I know we had some callers trying to get in on one of those segments, So we're gonna go through quick, and then we're gonna maybe leave about six seven minutes for the callers. So don't disappoint me with the callers. Go ahead and go first.
Yeah, starting with the game tonight in Boise, Idaho, Boyisese State looking for concert spot in the college football playoffs.
Jay's got Boise State, okay against U and LV.
Right, Yeah that's in Vegas, right, Okay, Alperson Stadium.
Boys. Yeah I like that too.
I was so.
I think boys, you beat him by four or five first time.
Yeah, there is no way UNLV wins in that weather. Sure, it's gonna be like thirty.
Yeah, it's a half, right, Okay, I'm gonna go mostly pro so I'm gonna go with Pittsburgh beating the Browns minus six and a half. Pittsburgh has kind of been on lately, which is a surprise to me. But and the Browns played well last week last week. But I'm still gonna go with Pittsburgh.
Yeah, he's also gonna choose Pittsburgh.
Okay, who's okay? Yeah, okay, cool, I'm gonna go with Buffalo. And who are they playing?
Rams?
The Rams? And it's minus what.
You said? Buffalo?
Yeah?
I can I find where are they?
Oh?
Okay? I got around three and a half and a half.
Okay, he's will also do Buffalo really and that his his luck?
Okay really? Yes, I gotta pick my lock too, Okay, I can pick my luck. I guess money.
Man, not a great week and then oh no no it's not games.
No, no, no, not a lot. I'm gonna go Buffalo too. I'm gonna go Buffalo too, not only because I might pick her.
I mean the Cardinals Seahawks is maybe the best Overhall matchup.
Yeah, that's that a sexy game. Okay, so go ahead. Uh, okay, I'm gonna go with a team that hasn't played well and doesn't look good, But what the hell do I know? San Francisco the forty nine ers, even though they looked bad last week? Forty nine ers, are they gonna play.
Chicago?
Oh, because they're even worse new coach. Actually it's playing Not a good pick because everybody plays hard for the next coach. But I'll do it. I'll do it anyway.
Is four so Niners Bears. He's got the Niners. So you know you have the Niners. Uh So this is the rest of his college games, Texas and Georgia.
He's got Texas. Okay, it's taken on that bandwagon.
Yeah, which is fine because I'm going I'm going the opposite. I'm going with Georgia. It's find this what is it?
Uh three?
Yeah, Georgia's three Texas. I'll take points with Georgia, no problem. Okay, So he's going with Texas. Okay, what's his final pick?
Uh So he's gonna go with the old pack Tall School the Oregon Ducks number one, been the most consistent.
Team of the year.
Okay, So it's Penn State, right.
Yep, and that's at three and a half for Oregon.
Yeah, I didn't go I want to go with Miami over the Jets, figuring that the Jets are funny, figured out our season is open.
Yeah, there we go. That's it. Well, the the Monday night excuse me, the Sunday night game is a good one with the Chiefs Chargers should be a good one.
That's about it, right right. The Monday night game is Monday.
Night is since the Dallas Yeah.
So my pick, okay, pick, I have SMU beating Clemson. Where's that at Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte, North Carolina?
Yeah, okay, I got, I got.
I think s is one of the most underrated teams going into the playoffs.
Their one loss was to be YU early in the season. I think they got a great quarterback and I think the Ponies will do it. That's it. Yeah.
They were surprising surprising year, right, yeah, yeah, no, and they've been good verad good year.
Are you guys not going to pick the a SU game?
No we can, yeah no, And that's we only have five So what's the issue? They're minus two?
I don't know what.
They were very impassed, So how impressive? Can we will take calls? If you can give us a call? Five too? Oh? Four, one, six, seventy four forty you have about ten minutes. Uh did you see the game Saturday?
Yeah?
We did, so how good you think they are when they're playing against a bad team? That that's kind of the gauge I was looking at. There was almost not a good team, So how do you gauge how good a issue is if to beat the crap out of a bad team.
Yeah, they haven't. They have not had the hardest schedule in the world either, but I always state it's ten and two. Let's see. I mean, freshman quarter back, talented receiver, defense is good.
I think the one game that showed how good they were was that BYU game. I know it was at home whatever, but I mean they for a good half. They handled BYU. They had a big lead and they kind of gave it up. But in the running back they're real physical team. I haven't seeing them that physical in a while.
He's pretty much unstoppable, and I heard that Iowa State's not a great rush defense, so that could be a problem.
They're kind of like a Kansas State program where they're always just going to be physical. They know their brand, they're established, so I think it'll be interesting.
I personally have Arizona State coming out. M No, it's it's kind of strange. I just don't know how good they are. Just Gotta Boo is very good. Just one of those old school dudes, right, Yeah, I wonder why Arizona. And again, I don't know what do I know. I'm not the practice that they use the CDO guy. They probably use the CDIO guy in the same way. Uh luke luke oah, yeah they should.
Yeah, I don't think he'd have to lose a little bit of I don't want to say wait, but just getting a little bit more faster.
Do you know?
Do you know wrestlers. I'm sure you know wrestlers when you went to school or whatever. Kind of those dudes are the toughest dudes on the planet, and he would be a could lose like a three four time champion, state champions, just a tough dude, tough dude, angles toughness, stuff like that. We'll see what happens with this, with this new new look for for football, it's.
Gonna be you know, big weekend. Obviously the games are tonight and tomorrow, but then the rankings come out for the College Football Playoff and all the other bowl matchups come out on Sunday, so it's a fun weekend for the fans to just kind of anticipate the next month or so. Yeah, taking us into January this time.
I one aspect I forgot about the playoffs is these this these first round games. You get a team like Notre Dame hosting a playoff game against possibly on.
The state team. Shot, yeah, Boise and Notre Dame. I mean, there's gonna be some fun games we've never seen before. I don't know. I'm there home in their home stadium.
Did they say why they only went with twelve games? And I asked that maybe naively, because wouldn't it been simpler or better for sixteen games? Just even even you know what? Do I know?
Again?
But sixteen instead of twelve, instead of these tiers? And yeah, yeah, but guess what eventually's gonna happen. They're gonna go to sixteen and maybe this is a test.
Yeah, exactly. They'll play out for a couple of years. Yeah, I mean, yeah, the fourteen playoff was a test.
So yeah, yeah, why not eight instead to go to twelve?
Why not sixteen?
To make it kind of you know, everybody has a game, No one has a rest.
I think it was because of the fact that they want the conference championships to mean something in my opinion, ben caa yeah or whoever. Yeah, they want those conference championships to mean something. You know that you go win your conference, you get that first round by yeah, okay, yeah.
But I think they're trying to phase out eventually these conference championship games because you know, like Indiana, for example, isn't there's they don't have to play. Yeah, so they're not going to get hurt Ohio.
State, right, So that's the advantage, whereas the Big.
Twelve, you know, you win and you're in and if you lose, you're out.
Basically that's the loud Olsen, Why are we playing in the tournament? We already proved ourselves for eighteen games pretty much. I mean, who is the worst advocate for the tournament or a toughest advocate for the for the tournament?
Lowton didn't make either.
Well. Also, they were one and two in the league and they didn't want to go to the tournament and everything hurt right at times, it did hurt them, you know, well at least they didn't perform well in the tournament. But okay, anybody want to call, please do five two oh four one six seventy four forty if you were trying to get in, uh one here is ready for you. We got about a minute. We got about five minutes. Yeah, so maybe we can get a couple of quick calls
in a good week of shows. Guys, we had this or is fun? Today was good? Thanks Dave. It's good to be back. Yeah, good to be back. Yeah, I'm going to ask you on the air, what are you doing for a break? You wanna have to come in more often for spring break?
Or no, I'm working a lot at the rec center towards towards right before.
They will need you, I need you.
Is it open?
Yeah, they're in the bear open until the twenty second that's the Sunday, and then we open back up right right after the New Year on the second.
See I can have I can have you come in do the show.
Then unfortunately, our not unfortunately. I'll just say, our staff is mainly out of town, so they got intouners like me who stay, who stay.
That's that's why I have you. You're an encounter who.
Everyone everyone hates tooths on until you have the homesteaders staying here and working our butts off and doving all the fun stuff.
I think you need the money, not for me, but you need for the for the because they pay you. Right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm probably and I'm not even figuraturely speaking, I'm probably one of the oldest employees there.
At the wreck.
Yeah, at the wreck, we've gone through some even the professional staff members came out, came out.
And I've been there since twenty twenty not spring of twenty twenty one. I've stayed there, and.
I'm more than I'm more than likely one of the oldest people there.
And you're like twelve and you're like, like twelve, Yeah.
I'm a baby. One of the one of the great things about working at the u of A is that break if you're an employee, as you may know, I mean, we basically got two weeks.
Off, oh because you did too, even though you.
Yeah, we got to They shut the doors basically on you know, a few days before Christmas and didn't come back until after New Year's and people would stretch it out. Oh, I'm going to take off you know Monday, Tuesday. Christmas is on Wednesday, you know. Yeah, you wind up on like a three week vacation almost. Yeah, yeah, I have two weeks of paid and maybe a couple days of ages.
And that's in addition to your your normal break, your normal vacation.
You're an employee, Yeah, yeah, I didn't.
You're like a teacher, right, look at you, and what did you left the TV world? You never got that.
You never even could use my vacation in TV. It was hard because somebody had to be there every night, somebody.
Sure one you only have two people? Was was youre a chance or time when you had three people?
Very briefly and it was nice. My friend Mike cos is here in Tucson still. Mike was our number three guy at the hospital guy. Now, yeah, Mike is Mike has got a great career going. Yes, and uh. He came in as a super talented photographer, and hey, you know, I can do some reporting to next thing. You Knowlway's reporting next thing. You know, always anchored on the weekends or during the week and we had some good time.
So that changed because you got out of it, or that changed because of the TV change.
I don't remember exactly. He might have been interested in moving up or moving to a different situation. He actually stayed in television and worked in sales for a while and kind of drifted that direction, which is where his career has taken him.
Now, right right, I see him off and everything a lot with the better, better group, and he's he's one of the higher ups now, which is great for him.
Yeah.
Good Yeah, and the industry itself, don't listen to this one.
This kind of sucks. It's tough. You got to find your way, find something. I'm ready. I'm ready for the challenge.
You're ready for the challenge. You just gotta get the challenge. That's the whole thing. And and Dave, realistically, there's no guys that look like you or me on TV anymore because we're too old.
True.
I mean, that's that's a young person's life.
You have to have some stamina, honestly. I mean, I think that's kind of what draws people out of the business as they get older. It's like, man, I'm you know, I don't have the energy necessarily to work twenty days in a row sometimes when people are on vacation or there's games to cover and you're going to tournaments and
things like that. I mean, if you remember the months of like March especially March when we had spring training here on top of March madness, softball, baseball, spring training, all that stuff mixed together. You did not get a day off. You just didn't.
And and when how long was your longest section? Three and a half four?
Hey, I mean it averaged three and a half four minutes? No, no, but you know, big nights, you'd get five minutes if if you were lucky, if it was a slow night. And hey, you know it's a busy night in high school football, Like aren't there there's playoffs going on tonight, I believe? And yeah, like we talked to Michaeh. We talked to uh Pat Newton about Micah Mountain. So anyway, those would be big nights. In fact, he started already right today. They started at four o'clock.
Okay, no, great, Thanks thanks one, uh for coming in Dave as usual, Thank you very much to you next week at some point. Thanks everybody for the calling in this week. What a great week.