This is I on the Ball with Steve Rovera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services insure your most prized possessionets.
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Everybody. Welcome to Eye on the Ball Hero pok Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera and with me today is Troy Hutcheson once you gets here, and one, of course one, how are you doing great? It was a great weekend of sports. It was so let me, did you get surprised by anything? I got surprised on one game in the NFL. I thought the Bucks beating down on the Charges. Was surprised. That was my lone miss last week. I got my pick right. Who was it? Bronco? Oh yeah,
the Broncos. They were struggling. I was okay with that until they came back.
And won that game.
Defense showed out for us again. Yes, they're doing well. They're doing well, but I was thinking more locally than nationally. Men's basketball game. That doesn't surprise you, did it?
Now?
We both Jay and I said that they would lose.
It was the result wasn't surprising the way Arizona performed a little bit because they they've kind of found a rhythm for for a little bit and they lost it.
In the game. You mean yeah, yeah, because they were able to do the things that the we used to doing, you know, running, scoring, on a transition. They just got physical too.
They matched the UCLA's physicality at some at one point. And then they couldn't find anything in the last nine minutes.
Right, right, And then all went to hell after that. In the first in the last eight nine minutes, they couldn't hit a shot, couldn't hit a basket, blah blah blah. But that's been the fate the whole season. And you probably don't read me, right, you probably don't read me by Colin was about how disappointing it's been and to the fans, to to to Tommy, he admitted, they're struggling right now, and okay, and even a blind guy can
see that. Uh, they're not the team that we've seen, not the thing that not the team that we thought they would be. And there so many things. If you're reading my story, I even said, there's too many things right about to put it in there.
It's too much inconsistency across the board. It would be one thing if they weren't hitting shots, but they were good on defense, or not good on defense but hitting shots.
It's it's all across them all. Yeah, it's just inconsistent. You're exactly right with a lot of things, so much, too so much to look at, and I'm not sure it's fixable because there's too many things. If it was just one or two things, it'd be okay, But too many things.
I think, I think right now you have to look at possibly just changing up the starting lineup. I thought, I thought, give me your give me your lineup right now, Jaden Bradley, kJ Lewis, Carter Bryant, Trade Townsend and Henry Basar.
Okay without without uh, I don't mind that that that lineup, uh, knowing that you could lose uh, mister Caleb Love emotionally, physically and all of the bove.
I think this might be something he might need just just to get out of his own head. Maybe give him a little bit of perspective, give him a chance to just come off off the bench fresh, no pressure to being the starter, having to make plays. He's just trying to create something.
What's this fix? Truly?
You know.
You look at it right now? To me, the biggest problem is the sister turnover ratio. Arisone has twenty two turnovers in their last game. I think they finished with like sixteen assists, So that's under usually doing. That's one of Tommy Lloyd's bread and butters, the sister turnover. I want to bet bench Love. I don't think you lose them, to be honest, but I look at a guy like Trade Townsend.
What's he doing on the court for Arizona. Yeah, he's doing more harm than good. The positive there, Yeah, doing more harm than good.
So if you go, if you go small and sert kJ at the small forward position, have Carter at the power forward and kind of just run the floor and.
Well yeah yeah yeah. So give me that lineup, and I'll compare this lineup to another lineup that I that I covered a lot of time ago. So you got Jayden Bradley, You've got kJ Lewis, you got Caleb Love, you got Carter Bryant, and then you go o waka walka. Okay, so that's not bad. So let me let me give this and this is this is twenty seven years ago, okay, so so bear with me, and the names cannot be compared.
You got Mike Bibbie, you got Miles Simon, you got Michael Dickerson in the back court, you had a J. Brownley in the middle, marginal a J. Brandley right, and and you had Bennet Davison. So so you small ish throughout the whole lineup, right, but able to do a lot of different things. During the season, they were not very impactful. When the tournament came, they were impactful. Uh
do I like that lineup? You may have no choice because creevs Crevas has one hasn't played well and two now he's out, So what are you losing?
Exactly? And I still think even with that lineup the end of the day, who on Arizona's roster is the guy that makes off? And as a distributor, only one guy is there? A guy jayde Bradley and not that. Let me tell you something.
You and I. You and I sat next to each other a lot last year, and what was my biggest complaint? His head down? He dribbles with the head down, gets to the basket, doesn't look at other options. He'll have to change that a little bit. But and I asked the question of Tommy, I mean, if you don't have Caleb Love. Do you have to go to the guy next to you Jayde and Bradley more often to kind of pull you out and in a role He probably
didn't remember that. She's probably too young when Jason Terry in nineteen ninety nine took over the team and had this college basketball player of the year type of stuff because he had no choice but to score thirty points a game. And not that Jayden needs to, but he's the guy with the ball. He loves having the ball, he loves shooting the ball, loves attacking the ball. They have none of that outside of Jayden Bradley. Yeah, that's about it.
And you look at this gun man's UCLA twelve points and a fishing twelve points four seven shooting. He only took seven shots, right, you weren't very aggressive. Meanwhile, Caleb Love, no offense, Caleb Love, but three of ten from the floor, seven points, one of seven from the three point line. You're just chucking up shots. How could a guy regress so much?
Honestly, the guy we know, the guy could play right eight games now, nine games now, and give me a good game, give me a pick a game, any game. And he had a good game.
I think he had one in the Bahamas, but they lost that game. I think it was West Virginia.
So how could a guy who regress so much or just being a funk so much? I mean, okay near me now and again maybe, but nine eight of nine games, Well, I.
Think it's what we saw at the beginning, well not sab, but heard at the beginning of the season from Caleb Love and from Tommy Lloyd.
Changing is that they're going to change his role.
They're going to make him play off the ball and not have the ball in his hands and dictate the offense. You're asking a guy to do something he's not used to doing or even capable of doing.
Well. Well, I talked to an NBA guy over the weekend and there's so many issues with him that I asked, why is he eighty fourth among the draftees And there's obviously more on court, off court type of things, personality, Uh, but he's not impressive. He's not impressive to the NBA. So this is his NBA season, Yeah, because he won't have a shot next season if this continues. And I'm talking to even just a shot, because he's apparently not
good enough at eighty fourth being. You know he might be, but well, I mean, as you packtroll player of the Year, and it wasn't good. It wasn't good, right, right, And you're thinking, wasn't How is that possible? But you kind of other know other things, right, Tommy, Tommy's getting paid a lot of money. Now, he's gonna get paid to figure this out. You know, just got that extension not too long ago. Yeah, I think it's five millions something
like that. Five years, right, five million years right. Now, he's gonna have to get paid. I just don't understand his regression. Kj's regression. Carter hasn't been amazing. Carter hasn't been the McDonald's all American that we expect to see. Uh And okay, so you were there with me and we won't go into names, Troy, when we were sat down to write, right, and we were talking to some people in the in the media kind of what's wrong with this team? They were talking talent. Yeah, they were
talking talent. So the transfer portal was not kind to Arizona at least to this point. A Waka is okay. Townsend has been not so okay. Dyla also has been more off and on and they were coming from smaller schools, and you're thinking, maybe they're just not good enough to play here. I mean, that's what they were saying, and I trust what they're saying. I don't know that yet. I don't know that yet. But you have to look at it, don't you.
Well, And you know, coach Cronin talked about it after the game in his own kind of crone In way. Yeah, it's like, Okay, I'm used to seeing a waka in the SEC playing that's style basketball. I'm used to playing in town, seeing Townsend at Oakland, well, all those schools that they named, very different styles and very different pieces.
So well, it's funny because I foolishly look at Twitter and Facebook foolishly because I'm it's just too me, some mess everybody all we wish we had Sean Miller. They're half Sean Miller. It's his offense right now because Arizona can't Arizona can't run, they can't do what they've done in the past.
And I'll say this, if Sean Miller had this team, there'd be no hope. No, Tommy is a much better offensive developer, and I think a developer talent than Seawan ever was Yes, yeah, fans don't like to hear it, but you had five star recruits. He had top ten recruiting classes that he didn't do, you know anything? Well, sure ended in the Elite eight Aaron Gordon? Did he get that much better from beginning?
Dan? No, They the guy they relied on was TJ. McConnell and uh someone Johnson Solomon Hill. Yeah, and that was really that was really the yeah, yeah, no, and we gotta hello, you're on the air and eye of the Oh, who's this this?
Brian?
Brian? You are you alive?
Okay?
Okay?
Are you okay?
It was terrible Saturday.
It was like the worst drive home I've ever had.
Oh, so you you went to know, I know, and hey, there's no excuses, right. The crowd was in their favorite you know.
I thought, you know, with seven forty two to go and we had the big lead and everything, and then you know, the one the big change I thought is when they brought that big man in the game, when he took the center, the skinny center out and they brought the other kid in.
Yeah, he just ate us up alive in the middle.
Was that the organ State guy? The guy who ate you up last year as well for Oregon.
State, right right, he did. Yeah, he hammered us last year. Wednesday brought him in, but then also too. I just thought, okay, but we didn't match them shot for shot, which was really a problem. We came down the court and all of a sudden, we're jacking up threes instead of working the ball and working the block. And I just thought that, you know, Tommy Lloyd did not make any kind of adjustments, you know, bring somebody in maybe to put a physical body on that guy, you know, but we we didn't
do it. You know, Uh, you had all kinds of fouls to waste. Why not, so you know we're shooting that welpon a free throw line either And I just I would just shock about how no adjustments were made the last almost eight minutes of the game.
Well, I was going to say to Tommy's not defense, but you have to look at it in this way. He had one time out in the last eight minutes and forty six seconds of that game because kJ Lewis called that time out to change to save the possession, which you know what, take the turnover there, Jayme and Bradley called that one time out before you step out of bounce.
I do like that time out, right, And I know that there was two up.
One on one on the floor where they had to jump ball. Yeah, it was going to be a jump ball called the time out.
I believe it would have been the UCLA's ball and that jump ball.
Even even so, you kind of eat that if you're able to have two timeouts in that last eight minutes there, I think Tommy's able to call time out in the five to four minute mark kind of reset things without that.
Even when a call timeouts, we didn't make adjustments.
So let me say, let me ask you this, Bud. So you're driving home an hour, an hour and a half, two hours, whatever it was.
What do you think eier than that? I had to go to the bar Furst.
Well, when you're drinking and thinking, are you thinking they have a chance to get out of this mess?
You know the way you look at it, I don't think they do.
It's gonna be tough. And I wrote that. I don't know if you're reading me bright, but exactly they're going into it steeper, steeper, Uh, get harder now, Yeah, it's gonna get harder against easier team, against stuffer teams for not just one or two, it's seven.
It's it's it's game after game now. I mean, if you look at it, you know we've lost five games. We lost five games against quality opponents, and we really haven't looked that great against quality opponents. And you're right now, that's all we're going to have after starting in January.
Well, let me say this, Okay, you put U CLI in the big twelve before they finish. You put Duke in the where they finished probably at the top, near the top.
But the other teams are don't know if U c l A does, but I think Duke doesn't.
Yeah. Yeah, but that's my point. You're gonna have teams better than Uclah. Yeah, Wisconsin, Wisconsin. I mean, come on, and you're gonna be on the road trying to win with this. I you know that for the first time, for the first time. And I don't doubt Tommy at all, because I think he's a very good coach. That he made some decisions that were just kind of strange to me.
In fact, I turned to my right one one moment in the first first the first half, I turned to uh, to Brian Peterson, I said, this is a weird lineup. It's not gonna get you any points. It's not gonna get you anything. And then he says, well, they're kind of resting the other guys. I'm thinking, you don't need rest, you don't need rest. You got this course of moment.
You've had a week off and now you've got another week off. Yeah, yeah, and I got you know, I just don't know if they're using Carter Bryant the right way, you know, I mean, you know, put him in a couple.
Of minutes a game. It's like anybody needs to flow.
The game to play. Yeah, and he doesn't. He doesn't seem I mean, he played well at times, and then to take him out and.
And then if it was non existing in the.
Second half, and I'm sitting there going, why not put him on that big guy for a few minutes or put the other guy who they took out never brought back in again.
Well, here's my thought on this, and I never said this before, just out of it. He's a McDonald's All American, and of all the McDonald's All Americans I've covered here, especially in loose time, never failed to be very impressive in their first year. Brian has not been that guy yet.
Yeah, well I would just like I would liked to scene, you know, you know, I mean, balls are going out of bounds. You still could have put a sub in whatever to put on that guy, just to kind of slow him down a little bit, you.
Know, because you know, pleasure the turnovers, I mean, twenty seven.
Points off the turnovers ridiculous.
It was unbelievable. Yeah, we gotta go. We gotta go, guys, because the break is coming. We have a couple of good guests here early, so let's go.
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This is I on the Ball on Fox Sports fourteen. Fifty Want to take part in the show? Call up steam now went five to two oh four one six seventy four.
Hey, welcome back to Eye on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera and today with me is Troy Pittchisonngoisycats dot com and our guy Juan I mean's he does resfarm dot com.
One.
Everybody, thank you for coming in. Uh, it's always second guest. Mondays right. It's been like that for football and for basketball for months now. This this, uh, this program has been kissed with us, kiss the death for a lot of things. It's it's probably one of the words we got to call. Okay, Hello, you're on the air and I on the ball. Is this coach? It is? How are you fine? Coach? How are you? Thanks for calling in? Uh? What a fantastic run you are having. How cool is it for you as a coach.
It's wonderful. I really enjoyed it.
Uh. You started very well, obviously with all those wins. I'm assuming you especially because your second year, after your first year of maybe a little struggle, that was welcoming in as much as you got the players to learn how to win.
Yes, my goal was to go out and recruit athletes that were Gator eight Player of the Year, state champions, won at the club level, just so I can come in and already have that ingrained, and then while we were still teaching up the ones that were in the program that were great athletes and understood the game but just hadn't had a lot of success being here at the time.
This is a dumb question to ask your coach. Has it even surprised you?
You know, I haven't really sat back and thought about it, just because I'm trying to take one day at a time, but not if you say it that way, and because I paused for a minute, yet I am surprised in a good way though.
Yeah, yeah, of course, of course, But I'm talking about the entirety of the season. But after the wins early, probably some struggles, but also doing well in the Big twelve and now this it probably not so much because you've seen it and you realized it.
Right right, you know. I've been on teams that have won and teams that have lost, and you know, there's a formula to it each year, but it's slightly different. You just tweak it here, you tweak it there, and get the right players into those pieces. And so every day is a new day, and so I just tried to prepare myself just to be ready for this day and tackle it and then be ready for.
The next day.
So, as you guys have gone through this run, just seeing the fans support from Arizona for volleyball and seeing that re energized after not having postseason volleyball for so long, what does that mean to you? Helping this program rebuild it self in that way.
You know, we have a great base with our season ticket holders. I mean they email me all the time or they'll send me messages or green treats and things like that. So to me, it's really exciting to be able to give something back to them because at the end of the day, all they want is for us to work hard and put ourselves in a position to be the best that we can be, and they'll show
their support regardless. So being able to be in an environment where they can come out and watch us play even more and then go to this journey with us is amazing. I mean, I love every minute of it.
You've been here for a while, so I'm sure you saw the surge or resurgence or surge of idea when she was going through this and the WNIT and stuff like that. And I've been here a long time, coach, and I didn't ever imagine ever imagine that the women's basketball program would sell out a wnit and now reach the heights that it's done. And that's just because you know, we've been here so long, we never saw it and
then it happened. I'm assuming that you're wishing something like this catches fire with you.
Absolute because I've watched men's basketball, I've watched softball, and I watched women's basketball go from picking any seat you want at any given time to now having to reserve the seats and you know it be in a packed environment. I know that we can do it. For volleyball, it's just a matter of everyone coming out and seeing it because it's a contagious sport. You know, you may not know all the ins and outs of it, but it's fun.
You know, when the long rally goes and and then the players are running across the court getting the ball up and cheering and celebrating.
It's amazing.
So my goal is to get our arena packed and put fans in the stands.
Is there any chance that coach Rubio will be there for the big game coming up?
Yes, he's actually been at the last every game that we've had for the in IBC he's been there and he'll be here tomorrow night. Yes him, yesterday.
Very nice. Let me tell you I covered volleyball at the Olympics in Greece a while back. In the craziness of that was because these athletes are unbelievable. And then the last week or so, I've been watching the NCAA's right, last night, i watched the big Penn State game, and I'm thinking, these women are fantastic at what they do. Balls coming to what you give me the speed because it's coming fast and hard. Just the kind of maybe underappreciated talent that they have.
You know, it's such an unforgiving sport, especially when you start out young, because everyone knows when it's your fault. So if the ball falls near you, whether you know the game or not, you go, oh, that's your fault, or the ball you hit it out of balance, Oh that's your fault. Where there's actually different areas of it that determine who's going to do what. But it's a sport that you can just get with and then you
explain it. So one of the things that we did this year, which I think helped with our Zona Zoo, is that we brought them in and taught them how to play volleyball and gave them an opportunity to kind of see what we go through. And then at the end they played and the players were the ones in the stands cheering them on or booing them.
And things like that.
And so that's something I want to do with our season ticket holders, and so we a plan for that this spring as well.
Very cool, very different, good.
So how can you guys use this as a And Steve kind of brought it up in terms of the boosts that I gave women's basketball, but the recruiting side of it for volleyball moving forward for the program.
Well, we're still marketing. You know, there's six teams plan right now. Everyone else in the country is finished where you know, two will be here and others will be planned this week in Louisville. So it's like, okay, now what Arizona volleyball? You just continue to become relevant to them, and we want to present that to our recruits that we're going to always expect and plan to be planned late in December.
How did the Big twelve schedule prepare you for this one and two? I'm sure you had to be disappointed that you didn't make the tournament.
Well, definitely disappointed that we didn't make the tournament. But I am of the mindset that you can't be happy and sad at the same time. And so once that day was over, I said, okay, let it go. Now we got to go out there and I got to show the players that you know, yes, we were set yesterday, but we have a job, we have a mission, we have a goal, and being in the Big twelve has put us in a position where now we can compete across the board. You know, it's different than the Pac twelve.
Not good, not bad, but it's definitely different in the sense that being in the Pac twelve, everyone knew about Stanford or knew about UCLA, or when you come into the Big twelve, the players aren't as familiar with the programs in there, even though there's been some programs that have done well over the years. But it's a different feel altogether, and so we just want to put ourselves in a position to compete all the time.
You could call me a full coach. I'm fine with that, but let me throw this at you too. I don't believe in I don't believe in momentum. I just don't because every every game is a different game, and you move, you know, you win one. Every game is a season if you will. But you can go on runs and
I'll call it more confidence than momentum. So your players must have realized back in the beginning we have we're getting confidence, winning a lot of games, getting confidence, and now regain that confidence and now almost feel not invincible. But you know what I'm saying, Yes, it's confidence.
Winning is contagious, just like losing. This contagious. And so for this group of athletes, I knew that we had to put ourselves. I had to put them in a position where they could know that they could be winners, that they could be champions. And it wasn't just idle chatter. And so you know, when we went off and we did well in preseason, and then we got into the beginning the Big twelve play and we went through some bumps and bruises, it was still an opportunity for us
to say, but we did well there. But now we have to reset and recharge and get our focus back and put ourselves in a position where we can then know that we can compete with anyone. And so when we are texting in the midst of the NC Doublea's and saying are you seeing this?
Do you see this?
Or do you learn what's going on? Now? It's something that they can relate to because we can actually still go in the gym and.
Work on it.
So from time to time. We had a coach here as my guest last week, a guy I know, very successful, and he said he's been coaching close to thirty years and that team that he coached most recently changed him become a different type of coach more, I don't know, more, more of a coach, a player's coach or whatever, because he's a tough dude. Has this been able to maybe enlighten you, change you or maybe you didn't need it?
Well, every year is a new year. Every group is different, and funny that you should ask that. I was having a meeting with a player earlier today and I asked, I said, essentially, am I hard to play for? Or was Dave harder to play for? And she was like, you are? And I was like why you know? I'm like, oh, I'm the cool coach. I'm the one that you know
does all these different things. And everyone's a little bit different, and part of it is based on the athletes that you bring in sure, and them understanding who you are as a person. I do know that I am the type of person that will ask a lot of questions, and my expectations never changed, nor did Dave's expect But it's something different when it comes from someone that looks like you versus that doesn't look like you. I don't know that that's good nor bad. I just know it's different.
Well too too, Since you brought in these winners, right, you brought in these winners, they probably know the expectations. They don't like to lose, they don't like failure, So your system probably fits in with theirs.
Yes, I would agree with that one.
Yeah, And how do you facilitate that? Because if winners win, how do you push them to win more?
You continue to challenge them. You put a different obstacle in front of them. That's good, But okay, why would you? Why did you do that? So I ask a lot of questions.
What were you trying to do?
Was that your entire hand? Were you really trying to serve there? Did you think that was a good idea?
Why is that going on?
And so my goal is to always challenge and stimulate their brain to keep them on their toes. But then in the same breath, sit back and say, Okay, tell me why you did that, so that I can hear what they have to say, because at the end of the day, the athlete has to be able to clear their mind and tell you what they're thinking, otherwise they're going to harbor that for a long time.
One of those winags you brought in was Carly Ciscenaro is obviously GATORA Player of the Year coming out of high school, and early on in the season you said, she's really good at swinging down the line. How what else have you seen improve in her game as the season progressed And is she someone that Tucson can look to when they think of Arizona volleyball.
Absolutely, you know, for Carly, she was one of the things with players who have great vision as she does, you think to go around the block, and that works very well in club, but when you get to college, they want you to go around the block so you can go right to their defender. And so what Carly has learned over the season is how to attack the block and not be afraid to go through the block. You know, you got to go up there and you have to hit harder. You have to if you go
around it. That's what they want you to do. So that is something that doesn't always bring success right off the bat. And so teaching her that it's okay, you still pick the right line, it's gonna work, stick with it, and that's what's happening, and now the game has become that much more easy to her.
Sorry to spoil this great conversation, but let me bring bring up an il. Uh. Has it affected you? I mean, it's got to affect like the sports like you and softball and all that, because you guys are trying to do your job at a great pace, but it's tough to partly find the numbers or money.
You know. It's I have a love hate relationship with it, for sure. I love the fact that the athletes get a chance to, you know, capitalize on who they are and what they bring to the table. But the reality is not everyone gets the opportunity to capitalize on it. So there's going to always be someone left out for whatever the reason is. You know, be it they don't play as much. Be it, they're not on social media.
Be it, there.
You know, they don't have that look that someone's looking for, and so you know, it does boil down to the money. You know, there's a lot of athletes in different conferences that we won't even get a shot at because we don't have the funds to be able to say, hey, look at us, even though we have a great product, we have a great city to have a great community,
and so it is frustrating. But at the end of the day, I want athletes to be here because they want to play and they want to compete, and then we'll find ways to, you know, sprinkle some things their way should that come available. But I don't want that to be the first question out of an athlete's mouth. And now coming out of high school, that's the third question, how much money.
Can I make?
And I'm like, well, you haven't done anything yet, why are.
You ask me how much money?
You know?
And so that that puts a bad taste in my.
Mouth when I hear that you coaches are under the gun. It's just I don't know if i'd want to be one, because it's it's a lot of facilitating in a lot of different directions.
Well, you know, we have great people here, helping to raise money and working within our athletic department, which I appreciate, and you know, you just kind of go back to them and say, hey, we need this and can we do this? And it's about forming great relationships, which is why.
You know, the more fans I can get in the stands, the more that you know, the right people will be there to say, hey, we want to help your program out, because it is still about the student athlete at the end of the day, and then you have a good relationship with them, you can navigate that relationship.
A little bit more.
Okay, so how many how many attendees do you hope for tomorrow? And how can they get to the game and tickets and all that.
My goal is to have four thousand fans tomorrow, and that is an ambitious goal of mine. But I believe in aiming big and going hard and don't go at all. And the game is at six o'clock and they can get tickets at by two year old six two one cat is supporting the athletes. No, we've done our part.
Now we need fans.
Let me say this, You guys are a breath of fresh air with what's going on in the spree in the fall sports with football, biz basketball, whizz basketball. So that's a great thing. You're you're holding up the fort here at U.
Yes, it's We're one big family. We're going to always bear down together. So I'll pick up the slack now well.
Within the championship with that'll ease some tension over there.
Thanks, thank you so much.
All right, thanks stuff ball ball. Hey, let's take a break here and take a break, take a breaking, and then take the breaking. Take some calls for an Arizona men's basketball fan. You know it's been successful for nearly forty years. Now take a look back at the Ludelsen era. In my new book, Lessons from Loot, it was a labor of love through the eyes of twenty five former players, coaches, and friends to give insight to the coach and the man who led them, competed against them, and inspired them.
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This is I on the Ball with Steve Bravera on Fox Sports fourteen to fifty. Subscribe now to the podcast on the iHeartRadio while just search Ie on the Ball.
Hey, welcome back to trying the Ball here at Fox Sports fourteen to fifty. I'm Steve Rivera in with me today as Troy Hutchinson from Goazycats and my guy one from azydesertswarm dot com. Go make sure you read both of them, and you can read me at Dallasports tusun dot com. There's so many people with so many theories or solutions. I saw over the weekend. You know, Ballo's gone and they used him so much and blah blah blah. Ball was ballow. He was not gonna help this group.
It just wasn't. He still has swash. He's getting a lot of beef out of Indiana. They're not any good too.
Uh.
He's getting paid one point reported at one point one point three. Everyone's not gonna pay both at one point two.
Come on, no, And you know they spent over seven million dollars in n l and and subpar so well, what what was the solution they be looking for a new coach with their oh very much.
So.
You know, Woodson's a good I think developer and a good exces and OSE guy, but he's not a college guy and that was clear from the beginning in terms of BOLLO.
You look at this team right now.
Okay, remember that Caleb Tarzouski team that lost in the tournament to which DA State. Yeah for sure, Okay, if you took Tarzuski off that team on that team pretty much the same team. Same with Ballow. He's not going to make an offensive difference as much. It's not going to fix your issues.
And he was still a liability. I mean, come on, just remember go back to last year at the same time. Yeah, he's still the same dude. Yeah, there's no solution. They just got to play better, as simple as that. But it's very very convoluted. I tell you.
The one thing that you know, we kind of talked about in terms of what's missing from last year in terms of the facilitating Kylon Boswall got a lot of grief here at Arizona, and I get it. You know, it's probably time for him to move on, right But he's a true point guard. And then your other facilitator was Paula.
Larson who's in the NBA.
So yeah, two guys that were facilitating and making the offense click giving up their game.
You don't have that right now. If you're a coach, if you're a coach, if you're Cronin or whomever, what are you going to try to do against Arizona? What's the number one thing? Yees? Now slow them down in a f court because Luke couldn't do it, Sean couldn't do it. Now time he can't do it. They don't know how to score unless they have Salim or something like that. And that's you're talking one off signs you guys who can shoot, or a guy who can shoot Deloro or he needs to step up. They need a
shooter to step up. And if he's if that's the only thing he does, that's the thing he needs to do. Because the half court game since nineteen eighty five eighty six has always given Arizona tough I want to say cuss word, but I can't tough situations.
Well, it's because you know, you look at the game in college basketball and you see that in the NBA shooting is premier. How many times do you see an NBA player that can just shoot a three pointer and play a little bit of defense get paid a ton of money because not everybody can do it. You don't have those skill sets just going around shooting, and the development of shooting isn't where it used to be twenty plus years ago.
Solution, Senor, I don't have any right now. There's not I mean there's not. We talked about that before the show began. There's so many, so many issues. Even if they're little, they compound into a lot. It's across the board. Yeah, yeah, And you're using your word consistency. You know, there's head games. Now are they gonna stay stay afloat? I mean he talked about that they can't disband or they can't disengage. But but if you're not winning and you're in Arizona,
guess what you start to do? You start to thinking second guess. So we got to call Hello, you're on the airline the ball. Who's this?
Hey button? Rick?
Hey? Rick? Oh you're gonna tell me what? You're gonna tell me something? Saturday?
Yeah, Well, I.
Got to camp out and watch a lot of the Big East, not the Big East excies me sec the Big Ten, so Bow follow and Boswell play as a matter of fact, But two things I noticed about Arizona, even auburnon what a team. And they get some players, but even in half court, they are constantly moving at three quarter to full speed. And it may not look like it, but they are so synchronized. And Arizona's biggest
fault it slows down. It gets on a move. You know, the second ten minutes of the first half and then the first ten minutes of the second half, they were moving quick, not just fast, but quick around. There's even in the half court game, which translates to.
Better full court pressure, it translates to better.
Fast break opportunities. They were just faster. Then all of a sudden, they start playing that prevent defense that prevents them from winning, and they start slowing down. And that's when UCLA got a second brass and it choked us off. And I think coach is probably seeing the same thing. He's smarter than I am, for sure, but I think you're going to see these guys moved much quicker in the half court and allow them to transition back and forth.
Even on defense. And that's what I noticed about.
The SEC and the ACC and even in Big ten they move quicker at the half court game.
So one of the things that Tommy said, I think it's the presh Converson Thursday and were you there Thursday. Well, we talked about Caleb specifically and what he needed because Bruce asked the question, and we'll have Bruce here the next hour about what he needed to do. Move without the ball better, they'll be more engaged on the other side of the ball. And offensively, Grick, if you noticed this, he doesn't move without the ball. He stands there. He's a sit and wait for the ball guy or calls
for it. Come on, good players don't do that well.
And that's completely opposite of what they were trying to have him do, which was score without the basketball, meaning moving around screens, moving around the court, making your guy work for it, and then all of a sudden, you get it off of a screen, you hit the elbow jumper, and you're there.
You're just seeing them stand.
At the elbow and then hey, yeah, but he'd been.
Doing that much better in the second ten minutes of the first half and the first ten minutes.
Of the second.
Yeah, but it's got to be consistent.
But it's got it.
You're right, that's the problem that they're losing that consistency.
Yeah, it's just it's just you. You've been a long time fan, Rick, I know that. How frustrating is it because stuff like this and I've covered this team a long time, thirty some years now. Uh, this is the one of the more perplexing teams I've I've watched over the years because I've seen Sean's teams kind of kind of disengage and loots maybe at the end at the end of his career. But this is just bizarre because you think they have enough talent. I think they do. Maybe I'm wrong, Well.
They have enough talent, and they just I think they probably part of that problem is in their heads they think they're better than what they're actually producing.
Well, the whole is always going through that they're not as good as they.
Think they are, right, and I think, but they get so much hype from the media, they get so much hype from the national press. But a great player, Caleb's Caleb is a great example, comes here from North Carolina. He's like he's the next second coming, and you know, and these are still kids, and you can't feed them all this you know, prime rib and then all of a sudden, when they're getting chicken and they're getting you know, raw hamburger, they're not used to it. And guess what, folks,
the world is made of chicken and raw hamburger. And that's what you better work hard so that you could earn the primary.
Well, and there's your problem. There's another problem. You earn what you get. Well, these guys are already getting paid with what they're could you imagine, Rick, You're giving kids whatever you get you whatever, you give the three, two hundred and fifty, whatever the numbers five fifty, and then this is what you're getting for it.
Well, that's I mean, that's the system that we all live in now. I mean, as far as we don't have amateur sports anymore.
I'm going to shop at big lots, That's all I know.
And you know what, this isn't just at Arizona.
This is across the cutry.
No, you're right, you're right.
You've got kids getting paid a lot more than their worse. And again, their.
Heads are getting swollen, they're walking around, they're wearing roll lectures and they should be wearing time X.
Yeah. Well we'll see if they keep on ticking after this. Thanks correct for the r Yeah no, I think there's a lot of issues and it's not exclusive to Arizona.
We know, and you know, it's just not college sports. He's either you see it at the high school level. You see at AU level. That's really how college athletes and the mindset is coming from high school all the way up to college. You know, my whole entire what they call camp. There group of people that's around them. Tell me I'm the best thing ever. I don't have to listen to my coach. Well, you know what, sometimes your coach is right around the time.
That's been I'm doing that for a while now. I've been following it. For the worst thing that I did was recruiting. I hated doing that because even now everyone's all you're talking about the UA football program. They lose thirty right now, they're getting people in and people coming from all over Texas and YadA, YadA. Okay, what does that mean? Okay? One, they have to be good when they get here and how long are they going to stay?
So why would you why would you get you know, why would you get all giddy over a guy who may or may not show up, and if he does show up, he may not be that good.
Well, look at Colorado in the last year, two years, they've had ninety five transfers in then out of the program m. I think it was the year before this one they had ninety five total in one season, and about twenty of those transferred in for spring football. Went through the workouts and what saw what Dion was about and said, you know what, No, I'm good, I'll transfer out. Arizona got one of those, and Taylor Upshaw he came to Arizona after spending one semester at Colorado for spring football.
And then all of a sudden, you know, you have ninety five transfers and you're trying to gel ninety five different players. It doesn't work all the time.
And who's the kid who's the typhenated name? And you thought another one, and you thought you got a very good one, very good one. May you saw me in the spring game over there. He had a pretty decent year last year. Decent, it is good word, somewhat decent.
What happened this year disappeared, didn't even play the last five games.
But my point is. That's why I don't like recruiting, because you can say, well, this guy, oh, he's set you. It's like with Daity, he's such a good guy, he's such a good he bought me dinner, and then a week later he's he's hating you or something. You know what I'm saying to the extreme of he's a good player, and then all of a sudden he gets on he can't play, he can't play, but we're giving him this money. It doesn't to me. To me, it's silly. Yeah, And
you know, you do these recruiting evaluations. You know you're the Yeah, you're the problem. You're the problem.
I'm not I'm not the problem. But we go through it in terms of you're evaluating these recruits. Oh, you know what, they have this good skill set, they need to work on this and this and this, and all of a sudden they're not even there come day one. So you did all that work of all these articles and evaluation and telling player people and fans of how good this player is are, how good he could be, and they're not even there week one.
Yeah, it's a crazy time we live in. And that's that's why you see the coaches leaving, stepping down. It's not it's not my time anymore, time changing. But it's nice when you have people within the facilities that.
Can help you.
But they're also the product of it all though, Right, the money and everything and oh, you know what, we need to get these kids paid. Let's open everything up and okay, you opened up door's box. Here here's the result.
Here you go.
This is what everybody wanted. I don't know, you know exactly. I remember just yesterday. I think he was a coach of football coach. I don't remember where he was talking about. It's the more power to the kids, because you know they're benefiting, but the one who created this massively adults and now there's no there's no quick fix in sight. And then we talk about the the revenue share that's going to be. That's that's gonna be a message. Just from talking to you the last few days, I'm thinking,
how is this gonna work? If my daughter played and she's not getting much or whatever, and she's working as hard as a football team or whatever, and I'm and I and they're getting this, and these guys are getting that and they're going three and eight.
Yeah, because what what makes money on a campus evening.
No, no, no, I get that. I get that. You know we're bringing in the revenue. But also if you're bringing the revenue better be damn good. It should be good.
I remember coach Andrea used to say every now and then in this press conferences, I always hope football is good because the football is good. That means we get more revenue. Yeah, you you eat staball is better. Football is the better we are.
Yeah. Everyone eats steak or whatever. Everyone gets to benefit from that. Yeah, and now who knows what the future and basketball too. You know, basketball is self sustaining or we thought it would be uh, the worst thing to happen to the city. The city could happen if the basketball team collapse. And not to say it it would, but god, fans like you who've grown up here, how bad would that be?
Extremely bad? Because for most people that's one of the selling points of Tucson. You know, you don't have Arizona, but you don't have an NBA team. You don't have an NFL team, but you have Arizona basket.
You have good weather, great weather, Yeah, very good. No, right, you have good weather, great weather. You have a little hot, and then you have Arizona basketball.
What do they say if they have every football season when it doesn't go as ball? When's basketball, you can hear the basketball bounce, Well, now you can hear the bats I guess clinking for baseball.
I don't know.
I really don't know what's going forward to if you're an Arizona fan. Well, to be fair to guys, Arizona has has had a lot of steak recently past. Now, maybe that's one of these years where it's cyclical and it goes bad and they'll or if it continues to go bad, it continues to go bad. You can't you can't guarantee that it's not going to continue to go bad.
Because I think this is the first time they're under and correct me if I'm wrong. There are under five hundred. This is Shawn Millers first season.
Yeah, well his first season, right, because they were there were four and five.
They finished I think they finished like fifteen sixteen with Derek a freshman.
Yeah, that team wasn't supposed to be good. Yeah, this team was. Yeah, unless we all missed. And who do we know about the transfer portal? What do we know about the We don't know I mean, you're all speculating because it's e whether the media told you they're good or you're trusting Tommy's evaluation stuff. They're just not playing well together and they're not playing Arizona basketball.
I think the biggest two things we talked about coming into this season was could creev Us step up and become a tougher guy?
And fresh that we have two many So okay, go ahead, give your list.
Crevas stepping up and becoming tougher upfront, okay, Jayden Bradley becoming a true point guard okay two and the development of the bigs behind Crevas.
Okay, strike one two three, strike two, Strike three, and if you give me three more, Caleb being better and maybe better but less aggressive. Uh, there's so many Brent being good coming off the bench or whatever. Two. That's a zero for two there, and you can give me another third. The transfers coming in being halfway decent. I mean, come on, And if that's what we're talking about. All these things that you can come up with have been negatives.
What's the one positive? Give me a positive, Give me hope. There is none, right, I mean, there's.
No waka look stuff, Waka book stuff, their jerseys match.
I don't know with that, I think we gotta go. We canna have breaking news, breaking news, and we'll talk more about all this obviously. On the other side, Bruce Pasco is gonna come out about four thirty ish for thirty IS Show. We'll be We'll see what we say then