Thursday, January 16, Hour 1

This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services Insure your most prized possessions.

Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to I on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera. It's gonna be a busy show today. Today we have Dave silver in with me in the studio and Troy Hutchison fromgoasecats dot Com, so it's a packed house. And then we're gonna have some pretty good and we also have our guy here, mister Kobe. Kobe. How you doing, Kobe,

How's it going?

Okay?

Troy?

Are you okay?

I'm doing better?

What does that mean?

I can speak now? So you know? Is that what you call speaking somewhat someone?

Okay? Do you don't have headphones? I don't okay. I thought you were one of those guys up right.

Do you have battery.

It works. Welcome to the Step Aware Crack Studio. Bring your own equipment. Yeah, you have higher tech stuff than I do. That one those were used on mine. Welcome everybody, Welcome to Thursday Show. I think you should be a lot of fun show, talking a lot about college basketball and the state of college basketball. I saw Ben Hallan out of game here maybe two three weeks ago and talked to him briefly and said, could you come on

Yeah, you gotta wonder what, you know, if he ever wanted to come back, he's he's still sixty seven, that'll be a question that we asked. Yeah.

Yeah, we talked about that briefly in terms of aren't you glad you're out?

I'm sure and he probably said, oh yeah, damn straight.

I'm gonna say a lot of coaches you know of that, I coach k coach Williams retiring all at once. Yeah, you have this nil thing going on, nobody wants to be.

I would assume that there's going to be more after this year. The Miami coach, that's right. You know, he's a seventy seventy four to seventy five. Yeah, so you know, we'll see more and more of that happening, just like the guys when we have Kendre and Lopez and all these guys coming in and saying, I'm glad I don't have to do with that stuff anymore. And it's crazy. I mean, all the transfers and all that. What'd you see recently, Troy about quarterbacks getting paid x amount of money.

I saw that recently in terms of viewers from Texas turned down eight million dollars to stay to declare for the NFL instead. So he's not transferring, he's going to the NFL.

What do you mean he was he was going to be given eight million.

Eight million from another school. Yeah, so that's the number.

But you know, and he thinks he's going to get that much in a signing bonus or something with.

You gotta move on sometimes, I guess you gotta move on some time. And there was something like the Miami guy who from Georgia who went to Miami back Beck.

Yeah, I'm sure he got some well his girlfriends at at Miami as well. That's free, you know, it's a free move. But I'm just saying, you know, there are other other things around there.

Yeah, it's not like you couldn't have got a girl at Georgia too. So we'll see what happens with all this stuff. Welcome to the show. We talked a lot about basketball. Basketball, let's talk a little about football. There's still a lot of news there. We're not gonna we might do breaking news. I'm not so sure, because we're gonna be so full. Some more goings on to Detroy with tight end coach.

Yeah, you know, hiring Josh Miller, the tight end coach. Spent one year with Seth at Marshall for you know, leaving Marshall when that coaching staff had their changeover. Was hired at Mississippi Southern miss but decided to join Seth at Arizona. So one season at Marshall and coach with him at Purdue as an offensive analyst as well.

Yeah, so more comings and goings anymore holds.

The special teams coordinator would be the number one thing now on the list.

Is that's what's left?

That is what's left.

Okay, Well we had who do we have on yesterday? I can't remember, glev Michael Laff. Yeah. He talked about just the things going on with the right moves. Seemingly the right moves right at least you think there'd be improved moves. Do you think that?

I think they're improved moves. They are easy moves. There are moves that should have been made with previous coaching staffs. Joe Salavea, obviously that's a huge pickup for Arizona. You have the associate head coaching title with him, plus the d line coaching title as well. He got that at Miami. He probably got paid more at Miami. So this is

Right right, and I think he's going to be the associate head coach. Yes, is that right? So you never know the coaching wait, just in case, but how old is around fifty? Yeah? Yeah, I'm talking about Brennany Brent. They're both around the four Okay, okay, so fifty so yeah, long and blog careers ahead of them.

Salave was super popular here too as a player, and everybody kind of followed him and watched him get into coaching and wondered why wasn't he here. So it's kind of nice and it's kind of comfortable.

Well, one of the reasons, I think, Dave, you might know this better than me. Oh, Troy Rich had a chance to keep him, right or Rich.

So rich when he first came in, let go of Joe Salavea, I'm not going to go into details.

Well I I can go ahead, I can speculate.

And then wanted him back several years later, realizing the mistake he made it to begin with, and just said, no, I'm good. You didn't want me the first time. That's right, that's not good.

Well go beat you from Oregon or Washington State.

Yeah, we didn't. He kind of Rich kind of feel threatened with having in house people kind.

Of here from from my understanding talking to other alumni, that was part of it. But also the Polynesian influence that Joe Salavea and the previous staff had on Arizona wasn't something that Rich was really willing to explore. He didn't feel like that meant his system. He wanted to explore other recruiting options.

Yeah, okay, how'd that go? Yeah, And that's why you probably wanted him to exactly.

Once you realized that mistake. It's hard to mend those.

And he's already started with that.

Yeah.

With that with give me a couple of names in terms of the kids coming back to players coming here.

Oh yeah, you have ta coming in from Texas, who was here previously a season ago, transferred to Texas, played the season at Texas, is now is coming back. Salavea recruited him obviously at Oregon. Uh he went when ended up going to u C.

L A.

But Uh, Salve and have a strongly relationship and he's here at Arizona.

And also goes to show guys that gress isn't always greener, right, you know, and you're not gonna be you may not. You may be good here, you may not play somewhere else, and and here we want you.

That's definitely the case I would think for Joe, he was you know, he was here in the early nineties as a kid and you know, kind of saw what Tucson was all about, had some good wins, part of some great teams, goes away, wants to come back. I mean, it's just like I said, it's just kind of a fairy tale finish at least or at least stop for him, because I think he wanted.

To be here for a long time and Slavia specifically where yeah he was here, wanted to get whatever he got at Texas, didn't get a whole lot of playing time, so there that's that's women what sal Yeah, so that him so he left, didn't play a whole lot. Now he wants to come.

Back, and you know the relationship, it's a good relationship. Joe Salve obviously strong Polynesian connections, has great recruiting prowess and just a very good fit. And you know, we've seen Joe Salve here in this defensive line coaching position before under Mike Soups and had a tremendous success building that defense.

Yeah, so we'll see what happens with that.

Uh.

Anymore news with the football. I think that's about it. Throughout recruiting right now.

They're out recruiting right now. It's in recruiting. Was some offensive and defensive analysts in Texas, so.

You you followed closely, h Troy. How much did a issue success help them or hurt Arizona.

I don't know if it hurts Arizona a issue did it a lot? With the transfer portal, you know, you bring in the quarterback from Michigan State, you bring in Cam Scattaboo from Sack State, and some of those things fell into place where I don't think anybody thought Cam Skattaboy was going to be that type of player. Yeah, you didn't think Levitt was going to have that good of a season. And they had bumps and bruises along the way, But yeah, scheduling and it just fell into place.

Yeah, we'll see. Did you you didn't cover? You didn't cover you? You were more unobservant. I'll ask you again of both of you guys. The kid from CEO, the running back team, No, no, no one's on the roster now. The scataboo kind of guy player, uh Luke King Luke Oh? Could could they use him like that?

No?

Because I think he's more of a traditional full back. I don't think he could be in every down back for Arizona. I think I think he's more of a full back.

There's not too many skataboos out there.

No, No, But you don't know until you know. You know what I'm saying. And they used Luke as a full back a lot early. Did he use him a lot late?

No?

And I think what happened was when you saw Luke on the field, it was one hundred percent going to be a runner. Oh yes, yes, So it was very predictable, and eventually they had to stop going to it because they were never throwing the ball out of that formation. Yeah. So with the new offense coordinator, everything can change.

Your secret weapon because no more secret weapon.

Yeah.

Yeah, we'll see what happens.

Especially when you have journalists writing about it that they never pass out of that formation.

Well, you're getting paid to observe, right exactly?

Why are they running anything.

The time he's on the field. Yeah, we just got a tweet on the sideline he's in, he's in the field, be prepared for a run. Okay, okay, anything else, you guys, uh football. We'll talk a lot about basketball, obviously. Your thoughts on what you saw. We haven't seen you since the game, right, No, since Tuesday? What did you say that stayed up?

You stayed up.

I had a little snack and made it through to about eleven fifteen.

You and I are part of the ones that Timmy was saying, Oh, look at the good crowd tonight. I'm surprised some of you guys are here. I didn't expect some of you. And he was looking at right at me, and I was laughing.

Because it was, you know, kind of an atypical UVE game where they have the big lead and things kind of dwindled away. But they played great in the first half and Caleb was nowhere to be found and kind of, you know, what did he did? He even get ten points?

Nice?

Yes, like that.

Andy's still you know, three strong performance.

Three for ten. The thing that impressed me the most, guys, was that they were very aggressive and very physical, something you never you I shouldn't say that rarely see for America.

I don't know about you, guys, but I mean, Henry, it's just fun to watch this happening. As I'm watching him a little bit, I'm going he's like Paul Gasol. He kind of reminded me of that a little bit, kind of looks like him, kind of built like him. You know, he's got that great outside shot. So far, so good to watch. I agree with uh, I agree with through. I think he's gonna be a pro.

And it's still way early, but he's got the tools to be the pro.

I think the difference is the hustle. He's able to hustle get the fifty fifty balls. I tweeted out and kind of jokingly because you can't be this physical and this type of era of college basketball or basketball today. But he's kind of got that Billi and Beer feel about him, kind of like I'm going to get that ball and you're not going to get it.

Yeah, he's yea feisty at feisty some energy they need, no question, let me say that they wouldn't get that from Cretis Crevas, and they wouldn't. I don't know. If I don't know if he would be playing. It's hard to ask a question like, you know, how would you be playing if Crevas was still here? He wouldn't be playing as much, he wouldn't be dependent on as much, and Crevas would kind of slowly offense down.

I think not only that, but just the team in general. I think one of the main things of why Arizon has gone on this winning streak is Henry Vassar and the energy that he's brought off the bench. You don't have that energy of Crevis. It's no offense to him. He's just limited right now, and so I think that's one of the keys.

I mean again, kJ and Vassar were the basically top scores in.

The game off the bench, and they're not bench dude.

I mean they're playing yeah thirty minutes.

Still.

So I said this a couple of days ago, or even yesterday, Dave. In the history of the big man, Arizona big man, they're not really known for big men, right. Who who's the last good big men from Arizona?

DeAndre Ayden?

Oh yeah, he was pretty good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but even even you know what, I'm not sold. I'm not sold on the Andre in terms of the yeah yeah, good, good, good answer. I'm not gonna take that answer phoneo, friend, and I'm gonna believe in. I like it, and I can't like him to Lauren Woods. But uh, this place is not known for big men. He's not a Tarzouski, he's not a those big guys, because those guys are just big dudes, right.

I think the last I think what you're looking for is consistency, and the last time Arizona had that was Jordan Hill. George, Yeah, yeah, nineteen ten. Yeah, you're in and you're out and that's a good.

That's a good one. Yeah. Yeah you not the same build but still kind of tall and thin. That's not a bad one. Yeah yeah, I'm thinking more. Lauren can shot block and stuff. Well, let's take this call real quick, just.

Just because it's Lauren on nine one.

Hello, you're on the air and eye on the ball.

Yeah, like a mine.

Hello, Okay, can you hear us? Can you hear us?

I heard him for a half a half a second.

We can hear you.

You're there, well, coach, is this you?

Yes? It is?

Oh good, good, good good. Hey you're a little early. What time is it you're about to do? We're inserting. Let us give you a quick call back and we'll go break here and then get ahold of you? Is that cool?

That's fine?

Great? Thank you, Thank You's Ben Hollen. We're going to reach out to him. Let's go to commercial right now and then come back right away. Thanks so much.

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Breaking down all the xs and os. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Box Sports fourteen fifty.

Hey, welcome back to have the ball here Fox sportspoorteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, You're Dave Silver, You're Troy Hunchesson, and we're gonna wait for Ben's call any second now. H I just texted him, so okay, cool, what do you can ask him?

Guys? You know, I'm excited to talk to him and really talk about those old back ten airs on the UCLA matchups and really the atmosphere of those games at poly in McHale Center. When you talk about West Coast basketball and rivalries and college basketball, there's hard hardly any rivalries better than that game right there.

There's so many good players like you mentioned briefly earlier. I mean, guys like you know, Kevin Love and college with Darren Collison, people like that, Jordan Farmar, Ryan Hollins, Aaron follows so many guys who went to the NBA Westbrook. I mean it's just he had a lot of good, great talent there those years.

Coaches, Yes, it is, yes, great, great. Can you hear us? Okay?

Yeah, I can hear your fine?

Okay, great coach. Great to see you a couple of weeks ago. Did you get some heb gbs when you came to McHale? But you you played pretty well down here with UCLA, So we had some.

Good games down there.

You know.

We played there ten times and a great, great fan base was allus. One of the loudest places that we played every year. The band especially, I love the band there. The band is really good, so it was fun. I have great memories of playing at McHale.

Yeah, yeah, no question. Let me give you a little memory. I don't know if you'll remember this, so I covered the teams from nineteen ninety to loots years and a little of the Shan's. There was a guy named Ben Helen. We'd go meet with you guys in between games, and this guy bought us lunch. Well, we had our fireside chats with you before the games. You remember that you're trying to smooth us.

No, that was not, but yeah, I do remember. You know, Luke had the program that he would do it had the opposing coach come in and talk, and we're doing that a couple of times, which was fun.

I mean great.

I mean it's one of the all time great coaches in the history of the game, and it was an honor to compete against his teams.

Before before we get into the thing the stuff is going on today, could you talk to us real quick about your time at Northern Arizona. Typically, typically and this is didn't have to coaches go to there to get, you know, experience and eventually get fired because they don't do well. You did tremendously well.

Yeah, we were really fortunate. You know.

I took that job because no one else would give me a chance, and it was a great opportunity. It was a one year contract, so you know, there weren't a lot of guys I had to beat for the job because no one else was going to take a one year deal, and so you know, I went there in nineteen ninety four and luckily I hired Jamie Dixon, who had been our graduate assistant when I was an assistant for Jerry Pim and TSP in Santa Barbara.

And you know, Jamie really really was good.

I had Mike Adris who ended up being my replacement right and was there for a long time as well. But that was probably, you know, the hardest I ever worked in my life. Steve and we were in the office every night to twelve. He was trying to find guys you know, would fit our program. Uh and we you know, we ended up going for a profile of kids that came from smaller communities so.

They wouldn't be uncomfortable and.

Flag staff and we got some really good players and guys that were really under recruited. Ross Land was a great player, and we got Andrew Mavis who was MVP the league. Charles Thomas who was a jac kid that was MVP the league. Damn McClintock. We got a really good player out of Phoenix area, Casey Frank that was an outstanding big man that really really he played for another seventeen years down in the So we were lucky.

Hi, this is Troy Hutchison from God's Acts, coach, and I was wondering, you know, I grew up in that era when you were the coach of UCLA. But just your thoughts reminiscing back of the Pac ten and just not only yourself and coach Olsen, but the coaches in the conference and the strength of the conference of that era.

It's so sad to me.

You know, I was at the last Pack ten excuse me, Pac twelve game last year at Paully when UCLA played Arizona State. And to see the conference no longer be a conference, it's really difficult for those of us who participated in it. It was a great conference. I mean when you go back and look at some of the coaches, I mean, Mike Montgomery's one of the great coaches of the game. I mean, Mike Montgomery is as good as

At Washington Obviously.

Tony Bennett, you know his dad, and he came to Washington State and turned that into a juggernaut. And you know at Oregon they had good teams. Joarning did a great job. And then obviously, uh, you know what has been done since uh has been tremendous and uh with the new facility, you know, it's it's you know, Dana is just fantastic there.

You know, it's it's been you know.

You know, Trent was it at Stanford and did a great job, following Mike and Johnny Dawkins, I mean, and then at SC you know, Tim Floyd, Uh, you know had some really good teams when I was there during you know, when we were at our our peak, at our strongest with those three Final four teams. We had some great battles with his teams and Kevin and Henry Baby was there when I first started, so you know,

You know, so it was really really a good league.

And then Utah and Colorado came in at the end and both had good teams and both had you know, great basketball programs.

You know, Arizona like kind of talks their family atmosphere. They've got guys who kind of come back all the time in the offseason. And same way with UCLA. Is that kind of similar. We always hear about these pickup games on Magic Johnson's playing some pickup game Paula with with the UCLA guys.

Things like that with our players, but also the former players. I mean, you know, any give him back. You know, I was really blessed to coach.

So many good players during my tenure.

You know, Russell made the big gift for the back facility, and he comes in and works out there all the time. And in the offseason, Kevin's giving back a lot of was giving back a bunch of money to u C. L a and his you know, promoted mental health research with funds. I mean, he has done great things. But we had really good teams and great players and mess you know, Drew Holliday and you think about Aaron Aflalo

We had some guys. Yeah, and that's what it takes.

Yeah, no question. In fact, I remember when you went to the three final fours. People here were telling me, uh, there's no way, Arizon, who's going to match these guys. Ben's got something going there. It's fantastic. They're not gonna They're not gonna do the same stuff. And it was true. You guys did very well. Uh how do you remember or reflect back to those three great years?

Well, those were all special teams. You know, I mentioned a bunch of the players. You know, Josh Shipp was on.

Those teams Jordan Farmar, you know Farmar.

Flalo Calls and ship we had said Bozeman was was big in that first Final four team. Bob Mute, Alfred Aboya and Lorenzo Motta were just tougher and heck and

You know, you had.

Fifty starters and I think I counted.

Twenty one of them were NBA players, you know, Buttinger.

Was down there.

They had the really good six to ten Jan Hill, Jordan Hill, and they had a really good guard.

That I mean.

But but it was throughout the league, I mean it was everybody had guys. You know, James Harden was an SU. They had someone else made the low Paz Twins. They had another pro on that team too, that that end that he's a GM now in the league. Uh, children that that didn't play a lot for Stanford at the time. They kl had Ryan Anderson and I mean, it was just up and down the conference. You know, Washington had pros.

They had the little guy.

That Isaiah Thomas, and then they had Brockman, they had a pondexter. I mean, Oregon had pros. You know, they had a really good guard.

I mean it was just unbelievable amount of NBA players in the league, including.

Usc sc I guess, TODs Gibson.

And Oj Mayo. I mean it was just everywhere.

It was like, it's so sad. You even look at football this year and how good the teams were that were from the former Pac twelve, including a s U. I was so happy for them and how they did and how and you look at Oregon, I mean they were number one, undefeated all the way to the playoffs, and there's some great teams.

It's just tough, you know.

I see now, for example, you know the Washington Oregon sc U c l A by traveling three thousand miles to play the league games. You know mc cronin just got back and playing Maryland, sitting on the rope for three days and then playing Rutgers.

That's a long way to go.

Yeah, yeah, I bet you. And I said I said this to you jokingly at the game a couple of weeks ago, says, I bet you don't miss this stuff, But do you miss this?

You know what I missed. I missed the practices. I missed the players. I missed the relationships with the coaches and and the fans.

I mean it was really, really.

You know that's special, the other coaches in the league, the competition, and obviously the games. The games are great.

I think it's so difficult now though, with this transfer portal.

Where you're allowed to move every year and you have.

A lot of you know, people behind the scenes trying to move kids because you have people making money off their moves right getting a piece of their new deals. And I don't think it's good for players.

I get it.

You know, you go somewhere and you want to transfer, leave without you know, having to sit out a year. But you can't doing it every single year. First of all, you know, hurts you academically.

And that still matters. There's still the same percentage.

Of people are going to be in the NBA as there were ten years ago, twenty years ago, and you don't have that you know, relationship, Like think about the Arizona guys that come back every year. They're not guys

Basketball.

It is going to end for every player at some point point. You know, I have no problem with them or any money. There should be a salary cap. I mean, you know, it's just a wild West right now. There is no salary cap. And you know, if you're going to pay them, then you've got to run it more like they do in the NBA, where there's some fairness to it all and in terms of, you know what, what you're allowed to do, so it's not just a bidding war, which is right now what it is.

You know, I was going to ask you about that. You have to deal with the navigating and the upcoming of the one and done during that era of the back ten and having guys you know leave after one year and everybody was kind of like, oh man, this isn't this isn't Fina scene players leave after one year.

Yeah, and it really is minimized freshmen in recruitment of freshmen because everybody wants to play old everybody, you know, honestly, there aren't that many guys that end up being one and done and being in the same system, you know, from one year to the next really helps a player and helps a program. Uh, you know, have stability and continuity is key. I mean you see it in the professional leagues, you know, and that's what they're all striving to be. They're all trying to get to the you know,

You know, just a ton as did Sean.

You know, that's great for the program and great for kids, but you know, you want to have I think they've got what were they had at originally, which was when they put in the transfer portal.

You could leave after one year.

But the second time you pulled the transfer, you know, you were in the city, and I think that made sense, but you know the powers would be obviously disagree with that. So I think that's the toughest part of this whole new new age right now, is that transfer portal and and and and then pulling on kids behind the scene to make moves for you know, uh, the wrong reasons.

And during the season too. I mean, I think they were talking on the broadcast of the Arizona game the other night. They were saying, you guys are already already planning for next year. They've already got their agents, you know, looking at their next deals.

That's how do you focus on what you're doing?

I mean, you know, the most important thing.

Is to live for today and try to get better. And a lot of players get a lot better fighting through adversity.

If as soon as you see.

Adversity, if you just say I you know, quit and going to move somewhere else. Ultimately, that hasn't help that kid in basketball or in life. Uh, you know, some adversion. We all have adversity that we've got to fight through and battle through. That makes us stronger, It makes us better. I think Luke would say the same exact thing.

You were alive right now.

No question, no question? Uh yeah, he'd be upset with it. Let me ask you how's life now? I know you're you're in the cushy Santa Barbara area. Are you okay? Safe with the fires one? And would you ever come back? Or is golf life too good?

You know?

I don't golf, Steve, but I love being in Janna Barbara. It's where I grew up. It is absolutely the most you know, beautiful community. And I feel very, very blessed my wife and I, you know, we were living in a lot of different places over my coaching career. You know, I'll be sixty eight in May. I'd like to, you know, stick around, watch my grandkids who are here in town growing up. We've got four grandsons, which is really fun.

I bet, I bet, are you making up?

You know?

One of the things I read recently and I was gonna ask you this, Uh, in the today's world and the kids. They want to play fast. They got to move, you know, that's how they score. Blah blah blah, and money of your regrets was not doing that more often.

Well, you know what, the last year I was there, we played really fast and led the league and scoring. If you'll remember with the you know, the Wears and with Kyle and with Larry Drew and Baz and it really helped us. But you know, we we played fast and we.

Had the ball.

I mean, I think we played really smart. And you know, I'm still you know when I look back right now, I don't know how many Pack ten teams have gone to the Final four since our three in a row. I think Oregon went to one, La went to one, and I'm not sure there's been very few.

Yeah, that's the sad part of it. Are you by Arizona hasn't been back since two thousand and one?

Yeah, And what I'm telling you is, you know, the whole goal is to get there. And you know, at the end of the day, when you look like Yukon's last two years, they've been great offensively, but they win at the defensive end because of the toughness and the consistency and to be on the road. You know, that's where I thought Sean was really good. I mean, his teams are so sound defensively. That's why he won so many games. Is that's what's most consistent. You look at the NBA teams.

And who wins.

I mean, everybody's scoring a ton of points. But you get to those playoffs, you better be able to fit in the half court because the only rebound one guy on offense. Yeah, everybody's back.

It turns.

It's the whole point of defense.

Is to turn the offense your guarding into a half court game where you have a better chance. And that's what teams do, the highest echelon teams. That's not changing.

Defense wins where you're talking about.

NFL, you're talking about Major League Baseball, you're talking about the NBA, you know, and yes, you have to score, there's no question. And the change it's really changed just a three point shot. I mean, you know, college Bacto still has a place for a low post player. There's no such thing at the next level. Everybody wants to be able to step out and shoot threes and open the floor. And I get it.

Yeah, my favorite.

Player in the whole world and has been for the last years. Is watching the Joker Denver just how special he is. I mean, he is truly like today's epitome of what a great player is.

You know, to be third all time and triple.

Doubles at the five spot is mind bottling.

Coach, you got to go. Well, you appreciate your time. Thanks, So it's good to see you. You look great.

Thanks, Steve. It's great to see you, and all the best all the Wildcats. They're playing really well right now. Tommy has Tommy was a terrific higher and uh, you know, he is really really good. I have no doubt that he will get Arizona to a Final war and most likely a national championship in time. And he's got to stick with him because he really knows what he's doing and he is an outstanding recruiter.

Well, you just got the fan based crazy against fell on the truth.

Thanks.

They're playing really well right now.

I watched their play Baylor the other night.

Oh my god. They I mean they're playing and I was at the TCU game.

They're coming on and without their big guy who's still out and hurt.

Yeah, right, so I have no doubts.

Thanks Ben. Make sure guys Thank you, Ben Helen, but we got to go. We're way over, so we'll come back on the other side. If you're an Arizona men's basketball fan, you know it's been successful for newly forty years. Now. Take a look back at the Ludelson era. In my new book, Lessons from Lowton, it was a labor of love through the eyes of twenty five former players, coaches and friends. The insight to the coach and the men

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Steve Rivera, He's got his Eye on the ball on Tucson sports station Fox Sports fourteen fIF day.

Hey, welcome back to Why the Ball here on Fox Sports Fortune fifteen. I'm Steve Rivera in with me today. Troy Hutcherson from Go Asy Cats, Dave Silver from his broadcast days at Kega nine. He's retired. I hate you, Dave, Go cool, Go cool, and we got our guy here. Uh Gobe Bessie with the digits. That's good. That was a lot of fun A good memory from him. Obviously, it's funny because his his one of his last year's

Yeah, and then look what he turns into interesting too, because I think if I remember correctly, well, there was a lot of run and gun in that era. Holland seems slow to down. He was, he slowed down. That's why you see you you see all games in the sixties and Arizona wanted to play in the eighties and nineties.

That's why I asked him. That's why I asked him. In fact, in doing some stuff research for the show Today, there was a USA Today story when he had gotten let go by had go by UCLA that he regretted going slower because he was pretty good in transition. Yeah, So that's why I asked him.

The question if I remember, didn't Bill Walton kind of get on his cast a little bit too on some of the broadcasts. I can't, you know, I'm not enjoying watching my alma mater play.

And no, he was that. He was the defense, he was the shan he was shown before Sean.

Was showing without efficiency.

Yeah.

I think his teams were so efficient offensively and they could they could do this, they could do that, but they wanted to be in that and half court set right right, and that's why you get to a final four.

It's funny when he was listing off the coaches that he competed against, some thinking is he can mention Bill is issue, and then it wasn't Bill Frieder, it was Herba his Herbitt.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's just so many great coaches of that era and once once they left, they couldn't replace them, and that's kind of when it started started falling apart. For the basketball side.

Yeah, yeah, no, there was some greaz mia Montgomery, especially especially with Loot and those matchups of those big games, big games.

You know, he's Holland's still coaching with john Wood and looking over his shoulder in those years too, right. I think he was still coming to the games. And that's not easy. I'm sure never was for the guys who dress him.

And he's sixty seven, he says, you canna be sixty eight. He's probably done. He's probably done, got a great career, lives in a great place in Santa Barbara.

What it's not a bad career. Three final fours, three final force, I'd coached UCLA, made a lot of money, Yeah, I take it. Yeah, five and thirty three wins.

Yeah.

I thought he had a lot more more than that too.

Yeah.

H but he's been out, you know, he was out before after the u C l A. Well, and it's also, you're not gonna win a whole lot of a You're gonna you're gonna survive. And and you, like I said, come on, you go there to either get really lucky and win and get the heck out or you get fired.

And hearing them say he had coach Jamie Dixon on that stuff, I was like, wow, yeah, okay, I didn't know he started there.

I didn't realize. And you you were here in ninety four obviously, yeah, uh that uh, then it was that late. I thought it was like earlier than that when he was there.

When he was there, yeah, yeah, I'm sure Arizona played them, yeah, series, I used to play them all the time every other year or whatever. He had the issue. So yeah, I mean he was there for five years. That's a pretty good run in NAU. A lot of the coaches like asked Jack Murphy how long did he last?

Right, And then he needed to get the heck out of Dodge because he was you know, yeah, he was next a tough, tough place to coach and have success you win. It's like it's like I say with Colorado State, New Mexico State, if you win, he got out.

Yeah, well he goes right from there to the Big East. Yeah, Pitt's Pitt well there too. That's a good gig. That's a pretty big jump in your career.

Yeah. And you know, you look at all those all those guys that came through U. C.

L A.

And just the rivalry game, and what a tremendous job that was and just a tremendous career in Mississippi State. They're better in basketball now, but they were so bad when he got there, and he got them kind of in the right direction, even though it wasn't six. That's fall. Then it was in the right direction, right.

No, coach jans Now from ch he's the heck of a coach. He had in trouble before he was at New Mexico State, but now he's found away, he's found a way. So okay, no cool, good to talk about college basketball. He'll be back on the show probably before the NCAA tournament to talk a lot. And he was very uh no surprise, right, talking highly about Arizona. Of course, of course you're on the show in t so well they suck, no, And he's right, he's been. They are playing well, the.

Middle of a seven game winning streak, and what can you say?

Yeah, yeah, right, what do you what do you think before? Because I'm not gonna have both you guys on the show tomorrow. Are they gonna do okay on the road next two?

I think they sweep the road trip.

Really, I think they sweep the road. Really.

That's gonna be tough. Another tough one, that is. I think Texas stacks they're playing very well. I like how Arizona's plane. I think the aggressiveness of Henry Vassar and kJ Lewis off the bench, and how they're extending out the defense is going to cause Texas Tack some trouble. And then Oklahoma State they have a winning record. It's a tough place to play. I don't think the talent's.

Yeah, no, I agree with you. There, I agree with you.

So I think the hard one is going to be Texas Tack.

Yeah. Let me ask you, so we're halfway through. I asked this of Tommy a couple of days ago. He did not want to hypothesize or to speculate or whatever. Uh I mean asking this question. But today today, as we speak, who's the MVP so far.

For the team?

Yeah? Can it be a tie?

Yeah?

Co you go first, I'll go, Jaylen Browsing and empty Vasar.

Yeah yeah, I would think you say, yeah good, Ques kJ right behind them. Yeah yeah.

And I think Bradley, the biggest thing is you no longer have to have Caleb Love have a big game to win well and true, because everybody's picking it up and you know, at those moments, throughout those whole entire winning streak, Jayden's been offensively efficient five for seven, four.

For as he's running the offense. Yeah, yeah, David, you agree. I agree.

I was gonna say Jade and Bradley right off the top, and Henry the last month, Yeah, yeah, has emerged.

Think about it, And I said this yesterday. I think you're You're right on the guys. You're right on the guys. But I still believe at some point, at some point, maybe in the tournament, you need Caleb to have one to light to go out fire.

Well. I think for Arizona to get from a Sweet sixteen to that a lad eight final four level, that's going to be the difference. I think you can get to Sweet sixteen with what you got right now with Caleb Love having terrible games.

And then play out of his mind.

But then you need him to go off in the lead eight and final four. Yeah, we'll get to that one. We'll see what happened.

Yeah, They're gonna need him at some point because we know how good he can play, how dynamic he can be. You just don't trust.

Yeah. I mean they shot fifty eight percent for the game, and he was three for ten. Yeah, I think so the other guys, you know, Henry was nine for eleven.

I think I think they're shooting over fifty three percent in the seven game winning streaks, which you said fifty eight percent. So they're shooting poaty being be fifty four per fifty three this past game. Yeah, okay, so they're shooting about the same and you shoot that, you're gonna do okay. Yeah, but then again, and I hate to the poop poo and I do it all the time. Right, guys, uh, we got we we got to go already, We can probably have to go already. Let's go take a break