This is I on the Ball with Steve Ravera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
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Hey, welcome back to I the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve, He's Troy. Now we have Ryan with breaking news.
This is I on the Ball Breaking news on Fox Sports fourteen to fifty.
Arizona volleyball.
They struggled last night against coloradly lost in a five set.
Inconsistency. Right, what was it? What was the final final score in the last set? Eighteen to sixteen. Oh, so they had a chance to get through it and they didn't win.
Yeah.
No, And they've been playing well, right, they have been playing very well them and the soccer team.
Virginia's Tony Bennett is retiring ahead of the basketball season. Yeah, we're talking just now, Chroina. He was fantastic at Washington State.
Obviously, if you're fantastic at Whisington State, you can get a hell out of there and get a good job.
When you make Pullman one of the toughest places to play in the country, you're doing a great job.
Yeah, And he's, like I told you, Troy that he's the guy finally, the coach that was able to knock off Arizona after Arizona beat him for like ten straight years forty no, ten straight years longer than that, probably almost twenty years when they beat him like forty some in a row. I even did a math. I talked to a mathematician to see how difficult that would be of winning against the team forty straight because of all the probabilities and blah blah blah. He did it, and
he did it more than once. They were pretty good with the two guards back there, I can't remember their names. And then he and then he was able to do well Virginia. I remember talking to him when I was in Pullman. What would he be doing if he was in a basketball coach? Because what would you think you'd do? I think it's obvious two things, two things teaching. I don't know that's exactly what he said. I'd be a teacher. I'd be a teacher. And he's a religious guy too, so I didn't be a pastor.
Yeah, you know a lot a lot of coaches football, basketball, you're teaching. You're teaching not only the sport, you're teaching life so it makes a lot of sense.
And if you're really good at it, you're teaching really well, Yes.
You will.
And Saints wide receiver Rashid Shahid is going to miss the rest of the season. He had surgery to assess an extent on a miniscus injury, but he will be out four to six months. So they payed a night, right, pay a night by the BRONCOSA go Broncos. Yep, exactly, go Broncos.
Was that what you wear in the jersey?
That is that's why I'm wearing the jersey. But you left no, no, no, no, always Bronco pride ideas. Okay, hey, I don't cover the Broncos.
Yeah you can. You can't be, but you're allowed.
You're allowed.
What do you what do you think of bot X this year?
You know, I like the growth. There's been up and downs, but you're gonna have that with any rookie quarterback, but very good understanding of the system can create for his own uh and every single game he's put the team in a position to win. You know, three and three they haven't come away all the way with the win. But for a rookie quarterback to be that fundamentally sound is rare. So a lot of positives, still a lot of growing pains, but positive is moving.
Forward and there's no quarterback controversy like last year.
Yeah.
No, and well quarterback controversy or you know, coaching controversy, Yeah that too. But anytime you can have a rookie quarterback that is progressing and you don't have to pay somebody one hundred and seventy million dollars, Well they're still doing that, aren't they. Well they're yeah, they're still paying them, but they's no eighty million dollars in dead money. And now he's in Pittsburgh and he's about to take the starting job away from their quarterback despite the four and two start.
Right man, I wish I could see some of that dead money, just a million of it, A million millions. Good.
Yeah, Cleveland Browns are moving ahead with the plan for a new Dome stadium in suburbs.
Yeah. I saw that this morning.
They were I think they're I think their contractor lease or something's up in like twenty twenty eight.
Yeah, so maybe they'll be better.
You know, I'm gonna be a I hate that You're Cleveland. It's like okay in Pittsburgh, Denver, Kansas City. You should not playing boards. Be part of the weather. That's part of your tradition, that's part of the aura that that's how you win football games.
Stay outside, says the guy who's in the nice Tucson. I don't want and that's snowing minus two.
Hey, Cole brings toughness. I just don't need it.
Okay, mister switz nigger.
Freddy Freeman is not going to be in the lineup tonight for the Dodgers in Game four.
Who won Game three? Dodgers big, big time. Yeah, it Mets tied up tonight. No, Freddy Freeman, Mets tied it up tonight. Who's pitching? Did you say nothing?
It matters.
They're in New York, though, they have to tie it up. Yeah, and it's over Yamamoto for the Dodgers in Jose. You can kind of go to Mets. Okay, Okay, good matchup. See the Yankees it is right now. It's two to one Guardians in the bottom six Game Game three, three, they can tie it up. We'll take it to too.
Game no.
Two to one at Cleveland wins it today, then it's two two right, No, this is game three. Oh Oh my bad, Yeah, my bad. Where have I been?
Uh?
You were in your your bunker's jersey? You're asleep?
Hey.
Once the dinmonbacks were out, I was done following.
Yeah. God, that must be a tough life follow The time back has its rewards.
We're in the World Series last year.
But yeah, they'll stop talking. Olympic snowboarder wanted for cocaine distribution and murder. Wowow who's when? Wow?
Who form more? The Olympic snowboarder for Canada has been charged running running a drug trafficking ring that shipped vast amounts of cocaine across the America's killed several people. Authorities geez trying to truck him down. It's probably on the beat somewhere.
God, yeah, in Mexico somewhere maybe.
Yeah, yeah, you were. We either were kid Luke as press commerce.
I was not okay, but a lot of good stuff came from I did watch it.
Would even tell me what.
You think, you know, I think it's it's a guy that has this folk hero vibe to him with the city that gets buying them. And and when you have a walk on like that in that situation and you're playing it. It's always a fun story when a guy gets snaps like that and is a key contributor.
Sure, yeah, no, no question, And he's a he's a hell of an athlete. I mean, come on down. Some of the toughest athletes I know are wrestlers, toughest.
And hard school football players.
They could probably play in Cleveland in the snow in Pittsburgh. I can't, but you can't. They can.
After I do, I shut off the PlayStation game.
But to my point, thank you, Top Sorry, Top twenty two twenty five commit Terry Shelton still locked in to Arizona despite the offensive struggles football. Okay, there was another one. There was a baseball. We got a baseball recruiter. We got a baseball recruit.
Chip Hill's been hot on the recruiting trail, and you know, anytime you can pick up baseball talent here in Tucson, I don't think it's a surprise, but it's always a positive. And getting Sheldon locked in, if they're able to sign them again national letter and ted, that whole thing has kind of changed. But if they're able to get them, that's that's a massive pickup for they lost.
They lost a guy with a week or so ago from telling if they continue to slide, possibility of more probably, I do excactly there is a likelihood of more. I do expect at least one more. I'm not going to go into the details of that, but news coming. We're not going down that road. But and you know how I feel about recruiting.
But Alan gant to me it wasn't necessarily how they're playing Texas Boy near Lubbock and Texas that game calling and left not a big surprise.
University of Arizona Baseball will include their fall schedule tomorrow afternoon at HI Corbett one pm on Central Arizona.
Yeah. Two people show up for that game because of football obviously. No, that's tomorrow.
Now you're getting confused, like the color I think it's Monday. What the hello? But you know, fall fall baseball and softball is always interesting to see. And they played multiple players. They get the whole rotation out there, and it's a fun watch.
Did you go to baseball baseball? I did not just a baseball guy. You didn't do it? This the Hispanic guy. You didn't do it? No, No, not this year. Okay, it's a lot of fun.
I bet.
Yeah, my first time there had a lot of a lot of music and dancing.
I hear their Uh they're playing in the middle, in between pitches, in between.
Yeah, as soon as the picture releases it, then they cut the music off. And then as soon as the you know plays over, then they'll go back and play music again.
I just play it all the time like that bothers or swinging. Come on, you gotta be quiet. Yeah, sure, that's about all I got today. So you got kind of a quiet day. Okay. I was looking at you. I think you got all E was all the stuff, Uh that needs to be said? Anything else, mister mister goycats.
No, I think he got the Arizona stuff again. You know, uh National signing Day right around the corner or whatever that means now in terms of uh signing your letter of intent and therefore you know all that changing.
Uh.
So it's a busy time of the year. You're gonna see recruits flip commit and uh it'll be interesting.
Yeah. What do you think that's gonna happen in Virginia?
Ah?
Man, I mean that to lose a coach this late into the process and right around the season, right around the corner that's a killer. We saw that kind of at Villanova. When Jay writes down, I think it was closer to the season, and you saw how that season turned out. It's always a tough situation.
Right, Yeah, no, no, no question, did a wonderful, wonderful thing at Virginia got the title in twenty nineteen, after a year after becoming the first number one to lose to six sixteen. That was a year that when he got beat by number one. That was when Arizona lost to Buffalo and Boise. I remember that well because I was watching the game in Boise, thinking this can't be happening.
This can't be happening. It happened, and then I think it was maybe that same day, same day, I'm sure Arizona, or maybe the day later Arizona lost to Buffalo in a horrible showing.
I think it was the day later Arizona. I was a day later, the night before Arizona lost and then the next day okay, in that time frame, in that time frame.
Yeah, because I was a chilis eating in our media meal or whatever, and I'm thinking and Boise say, what the hell am I still doing? In Boise twenty eight degree, whether yeah, I'm thinking Troy would love this. I don't. I'll pass they you weren't there, right, No, No, it was not coold at all. He was just raining.
Okay, that's not that bad.
No, no, no marching Boise, no problem, anything else. Patino to Virginia, who knows. I don't. I don't know.
I don't think that. I mean, we've seen Sean Miller to Virginia come up, and I don't think that's happening either.
No, No, I don't think. I don't think that's good. That's let's talk about this. I don't think Sean would do that, given that Xavier was so loyal to him in bringing him back after all the brew haha. And you know, I think he'll stay loyal to Xavier.
I think he will retire at Xavier. To be honest, I don't think he is leaving Xavier.
Yeah, yeah, I won't go that far. But no, he's fifty fifty five ish actually, Benet just I would just the retired at fifty five, So Miller's fifty five about that time. I would think that Sean partly thinks he has one more shot at it.
How many more years do you think?
Ten?
Thirteen, Sean Sean, Yeah, at least at least ten. Yeah, he knows this is this is what he does. He eats breeze, sleeps collar. I wrote that story a number of times. I think he might stared at me one time or no, he actually threw my lead back at me one time. They say I live this thing in twenty four to seven. Who doesn't know that, right? I mean there was no nothing wrong in that lead because it's factual. Yeah, and he is. I mean that's part
of who his makeup is. And I think his year off though, and Troy, I don't know if you agree with me, gave him a sense of of Okay, maybe I've been doing it too seriously or too something too intensely.
He took a chill pill.
Did it really did not? Not that it's affected right now because you know he's back on thinks and I don't follow him that closely. But yeah, I mean it could have been the best thing for him.
And really that first year at Xavier again this past season, they lost a lot of guys you know, to graduation, and one got hurt. One got hurt, that's you. But you saw the offense open up. It wasn't the same old Sean Miller's style of coaching in terms of offenses, that you saw a little different things here and there, and you know, you gotta wonder if that time off.
He saw what coaches were doing around the country and said, you know what I got, I gotta change a little got to be willing to change.
No, no, And that was his problem here. He was not. Yeah, he was down, he was stubborn. He was doing his own process. I remember, well, I was gonna say he was the little kid. You know, you had to fit the shapes into a certain he has the square trying to go into a circle. Yeah. Yeah, did you ever
see my going away call him on him? And it was partly because this is when he had Nico, he had Green and he had the one in Denver Ziganji, and he let him play and let him play until the semester came and then enough of a play, and you're gonna listen to me because they couldn't transfer. That was my impression of the whole thing. And I wrote that, and a lot of people said that was accurate, that you know he and then he stared me down a time or two because they said let him run. I
mean that's the formula here. Let him run. Imagine if they had a coach who slowed them down and he did it, defends weren't happy with that.
I always think imagine nic Omnnon and Tommy Lloyd.
No with Green, with green, and my god, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, they would have won a ton of games.
Yeah, they would have been on the border. Are we in the tournament or out in the tournament?
Oh? Deep?
How deep?
Are we? Yeah?
Yeah? No question, no question. Okay, let's take the break. We're gonna get a old Todd and talk about Pima basketball.
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This is Eye on the Ball on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Want to take part in the show? Call up Steve now went five to two oho four one seventy four to four night.
Hey, welcome back to I'm the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty on Steve Rivera in today's Troy Hutchison of gooazycats dot Com. And now we have the female women's basketball coach, Todd Hometouse. Todd, how are you.
I'm good. How you guys doing today?
We're doing fine, doing fine. It's no longer summer. At least it's less summer, thank goodness. Yes, yes, yes, let me before we get into your Pima team, your fantastic PEMA team. I'm sure you saw that Tony Bennett is retiring, right, yeah? How old are you?
I'm fifty four years young?
Oh? Perfect, perfect, Okay, he's he's fifty five. I think Sean's fifty five. I'm a little older than that. You've been doing this for a long time. How old have you been doing this.
I've been coaching when I first started at Falling Wells back in ninety seven.
I've been doing this twenty seven years.
So no, you're just a rookie. You're just a young kid at this.
So I'm sure I haven't hit the forty yard forty years.
Mark or the forty yard line mark either, but you must. Is this your calling? And I say that because a lot of coaches today, younger or older, maybe being old, but younger on the on the younger side of the old, are getting out because of what they're having to deal with. College Junior college is a little bit different.
Absolutely, I honestly, I absolutely love what I do and just watching how the division won, like the NCAA, how that's all changing. I have a lot of friends that are in that business and they're the same way. It's just a lot like it's just it's it's not so
much coaching anymore. And I think a lot of them got into it because they enjoyed building relationships and you know, you get to know the kids when you're recruiting and develop relationships with their families, and it really is like a special thing.
And so that's it's more transactionary now.
And so I think a lot of the people who got into it years ago for the reasons that I said, are now realizing now it's just about money and who can pay you players the most.
And I don't think it's a fun or is enjoyable.
For them because you can invest a lot of time in, you know, building relationships, and if they're not happy, they're gone in a year. So you've spent two years recruiting them and they're gone after one. And so I don't live that life, so I can't say that's exactly what it is, but just from my friends that I talk to, it's not as fun as it used to be, I think.
And I think the nice part about junior college is it's still that way, and I'm sure some of that stuff will trickle down, but there's not the same money in the NJAC as there's an NCAA, and so I just hope it stays a little more pure, so to speak, for our level, because I still enjoy getting to know kids and spending time with them and helping them at like a very crucial moment in their life and kind of being there as a guiding light, and I love
that part of it. The x's and o's are a lot of fun too, but the relationships are what make it special for.
Me, right. Yeah.
And you know, obviously coaching is a twenty four to seventhing. You're constantly involved, you know, helping players and whatnot. But it seems like with this new age of NIL and everything, that that's even broad in more that it is a non stop job. There is no off season anymore for them.
Yeah, And I just think that that adds up.
I mean, I think those guys also have families and wives and kids, and once you start losing a lot of that, I think, you know, what are you really doing it for?
And so I think.
That's I think you'll see a lot of people who have been in it a long time, probably start dropping out of it, and I'm sure there's younger coaches that are willing to take that spot, wanting to grind the twenty four to seven. But at the same time, I really enjoy what I do because I get to be around my wife and my kids. I get to go to their high school games. I get to be part of it, and that part is especial for me. I'm a husband and a dad first and a coach third.
So I like it because we're able to balance all that.
So let me paint this picture two before we go into the team. On a scale of one to ten, how tough are you on the kids or students one and two? Well, answer that real quick, and then I'll ask my next question.
Okay, I consider myself a tough coach, probably tough when I need to be tough, but not.
Over the top tough.
Like I always tell recruits when I'm meeting with them that I want to take care of your daughters off the court. You got to know that I'm going to take real good care of him as daughters. And so I always try to coach just as I would want someone to coach my daughters, because I have two daughters, so I always kind of keep that in the back
of on our mind. Now at the same time, and it happened today, like I have to get on them because there's certain things that certain standards and expectations that we have seam that I'm going to hold you accountable for. We're not going to let that slide. So today the speech was about effort. I don't want to coach effort, attitude, or enthusiasm. Those are three things that I shouldn't have
to coach. And so you know, we have a young team and we're learning at the beginning of the season, so I just had to kind of set that standard at where we need it to be today and so we were coaching hard today. So tomorrow morning the sun will come up and we'll get back at it and have a great outlook.
So it'll be fun, wash, rinse, and repeat. Right. Yeah, So here's my follow up to that. And this is what I've heard too from coaches, not at not at the j C level, but other level. It's almost to a point they have to coach a little bit differently, right who they have to soothe the savage beasts for the chance that he might leave you know, you don't
want to piss them off. You know, you got to coach them a little differently because at the end of the season, you know they might jump and then you need this kid.
Yeah, and I think that the bad part about a lot of that is they are the kids nowadays, and I don't coach kids that are at that level. So I'm just saying what I've observed is that I think a lot of them have been told how great they are a lot of their life, and so I think they go into it thinking all those things because that's what they've been told. And then you get a coach who's going to hold them accountable for certain things, and
they don't like it. So if I don't like it, guess what, I'm out of here, right, and they turn them leave the door, and so no, but you're right, I think coaches have to kind of adjust that way.
Coaching is hard.
Yeah, sorry about that. It's amazing because you talked about them and telling Now I was just thinking about that. How you know, you're the greatest thing on earth, You're the greatest thing. Slight spread and you know, if there's a problem, it's not my problem, it's the coaches problem, or it's the teammates problem, and I'll just leave for a new area. And you see that a lot in college basketball today. But what I was going to ask you is being at the JUCO level and having kids
for one, two, three years max. In terms of if it's a red shirt or not, how do you sustain success in cohesion and build that chemistry and that situation where you have kids that are maybe there one year.
Yeah, I mean, I can only speak to how we do it, and a lot of it is in the types of kids we recruit, and so I think their mindset is probably a little bit different when they're coming JUCO because they haven't been told all those things and sometimes, you know, JUCO is their best opportunity to keep playing, and so.
We probably get a kid with a little bit different.
Mindset, whereas Tommy and Adia probably have you know, they want to go off to the top players because they want to, you know, be good, and so they probably have developed those relationships. And I think for me personally, I think it's my job as a coach to understand how each kid is motivated.
Some you can yell at and get them to do what you want.
Some of them have to be brought along a little softer, which is okay, But I think it's the coach's job to kind of make those connections so I can maximize the best out of each kid.
So, having coached a long time, I'm gonna throw a little another curveball at you. Has there been a time that you have you have a player one year, very good, very good, and you said, you know what, you're probably too good for this spot. You probably need to leave to go find a better opportunity for you, knowing that it's going to hurt the team down the road.
Yeah, we always call that, like addition by subtraction. I can't remember it happening recently.
I mean last year we had Ailie Waugh was our point guard, but she was all world and she left because she got a great offer to go to San Jose State.
So it wasn't it wasn't a situation.
Where I was kind of like, you know what, I don't want to deal with it for another year, so let's find you a different spot.
Yeah.
I haven't had that. But at the same time.
You know, we try to avoid recruiting those types of kids, and every once in a while you take a chance on a kid, yeah, what junior college is about. But hopefully you can get them to kind of buy into your culture. And if they do buy into your culture, they're going to really reap the benefits of it because of the reputation that we have and the possibilities that you can get after you leave Pima.
Yeah, let's talk about this year's team. You said relatively young.
Yeah, I mean we're probably fifty to fifty in terms of freshmen and sophomores. But you know, part of being the juco coach is you do a lot of teaching at the beginning because you have a lot of freshmen that have come from different programs, and we try to get them to, you know, understand what we're about and
how we're going to be successful. So there's a lot of teaching at the ben But I will say this, I have a great group of sophomores that are great four point OHO students, that are great workers, and so that part of it's been easy because I have such a great group of sophomores that kind of can pick them up, you know, by the bootstrap, so to speak, and walk them along how to become good students and what we expect to practice and what we're supposed to do when we're out in public, and so I've been
blessed that way. But yes, we got a lot of new faces, and I think a lot of those new faces will actually play a few minutes. So it's gonna it's gonna be a lot of fun.
In terms of you know, you're having a lot of freshmen and younger players, especially at a JUCO level, when you're dealing with freshmen and sophomore how much of your guys coaching is the basics? Is the is the fundamentals, getting back to the fundamentals and fine tuning those things and preparing players for that.
I love that question because we do a lot of fundamentals and a lot of that's because we preach a lot of details, Like we work on the details, I mean down to like how we box out for free throw situations, how we jump ball, how we get open.
So I think that's probably the part of it that I enjoy the most.
Is I've always enjoyed teaching the game, and so we make sure at the beginning of the season, preseason, in the beginning season that we are doing the most basic of fundamentals so we can understand what we're capable of in terms of basketball IQ. So we do a lot and then as we get the you know, fundamentals down, now you start putting in more of the reads and things like that more advanced level, but try to get them all on the same page at the beginning and then kind of build from there.
What does this is a dumb question because I probably know the role, know the role, and know the answer. Jim's been with you a while now, right Rosboro. Everyone knows Jim loves Jim. What is he his role and how does he make your life easier?
Oh that's a great question because he is like minded with me and the sense that it's the details.
So his role, I guess if you really want me to.
Find his role is he spends a lot of time prior to practice, Like we have the film set up, and so we watch film and he is up there with his pointer stick whacking on the TV, pointing out the small things like our foot placement, how we get through screens? Are you straight up and down on your shot? You know you're penetrating too deep. So his mind is great for us because he knows all the details like
the back of his hand. So it's just the you know, the constant back and forth teaching the kids, like closer is not always better, make sure we're coming off two feet on our jump shot, make sure we're squared up.
All the details.
So that's where Roz really excels in terms of helping us and helping us grow, is that he just let he enjoys the nitty gritty details, and he enjoys teaching the kids both on film and on the court. I mean, we do such basic stuff every day, but we harp the same thing and so you'll really see it kind of evolved throughout the course of the year so that you know, in March, hope hopefully we're playing our best basketball.
And so far it's been a formula that works.
Yeah, no question. I think back in the day when he was the lude, he was the soothsayer for the guys, you know, the middleman, and he was a master of the of a scout. You know, he knew the tendencies of other teams. And I'm sure he does that for you because that's probably undersold.
Yes it is, and I think you can be a little bit less talented team.
And better team because you're just better prepared.
You're smarter what we try to do, right, no question.
You know, And you talked about in terms of the details and the fineite and developing that aspect of players and whatnot. I want to ask you because Arizona, uh in terms of the men's team kind of is going through this development. How do you if you have a point guard, how do you develop a player in terms of their passing ability? How do you how do you change that mentality and a player?
Right, that's a good one too, because a lot of it is personally.
I like to watch them play, like I don't want to take away a kid's strength because you know, we have a freshman that hear, Melisia Nelson, who's from Window Rock, so she's from up on the res and she sees the game at a completely different level than.
A lot of our kids.
So the last thing I want to, you know, do is kind of like hold her back, so to speak. So I think my biggest challenge is to try to elevate the other people, Like, look, you got to be looking for the ball at times, maybe you've never had to look for the ball before, because she's gonna find you if you're open, and you got to be ready and at the same time teaching Malicia that you know, you got to be patient with them and communicate with them so that they can understand what you see, so
that we're maximizing both ends. And so point guards are fun to coach because every one of them is a little bit different. Some are vocal, some are scoring point guards, some are ask first question. So to me, I've always enjoyed the challenge of trying to maximize what our point guards are. And we've had great point guards. That's probably why we've won a lot of our games. Just if I think back, we had Sid stalwarth JJ, not Guy Riley Watt. We've had such good point guards, but I
never wanted to really change their game. I wanted to kind of learn how they play the game and then adapt how we do things so that we can maximize.
Their abilities as well as elevate everybody else.
Yeah, no question, So give us an update. I think you start this weekend right with an exhibition or something.
Yeah, I'm excited about this.
Over the years, I've coached so many Native American kids, and I've really learned to appreciate and admire their customs and either cultures, and this weekend, Steve, we get to go to Window Rock and we're actually gonna go to Fort Defiance. They have a seven thousand seat arena at Fort Defiance, and we're going to scrimmage Fort Lewis, which
is an NCAA four year school in two school. And so we worked with the Fort Lewis coaches because basketball is so popular on the Res that bringing these kids kind of up where they grew up is gonna be awesome experience for the kids.
And while we're up.
There, we're gonna have some of the novel and elders speak to us about the significance of Fort Defiance just in his historical terms.
And so I'm just super excited because you.
Know, every year, every year we do an Indigenous People's game, and now you know this year, I've been trying to get up to Fort Defiance for the last couple of years, and this year it's gonna work out. And so I'm excited to just go experience that and have the kids experience that because a lot of our kids who grew up maybe in Tucson, On or Phoenix don't understand what a basketball means up on the Res.
And so I'm super excited to go up there and play.
It'll be my first time in the event center, and so it's gonna be fun. We're gonna leave tomorrow and stay in Wholebrook tomorrow night and then make the rest of the way on Saturday and come back home.
They're nice. Well, we were talking about that earlier. You know what coaches would do if they weren't coaching, They teach, right, and this is a teaching moment.
Yes, for sure. And that's what I wanted to be educational for everybody. We all can learn something every day.
Book reports are due next week.
I don't know if I'm going to grade any book reports.
I promise I got on a great teaching because I didn't like grading anymore, so I probably let them pass on the book report.
Hopefully, you know it will be something that they ll always remember.
Yeah, No, fantastic, Tom has always Thanks a bunch.
Yeah.
I appreciate you guys so much. Great to hear from you. I look forward to talking to you. Yes, let's have a great basketball.
Yes, well, once you start going, we'll have you back on.
Okay. Sounds good, Thank you guys.
Thanks to all right. That was Todd hold House for the women's basketball coach at PIMA. A pretty good program out there. Uh, let's take a break and come back to pick. Take some calls.
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Streaming live on the iHeartRadio AaB. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty.
Hey, Welcome back to I'm the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera. You're Troy Hutchison. Have you got Ryan with us behind the screen here or the on the keyboards? Thanks Todd for coming on. That's great. That's great. A lot about philosophy right rather than basketball. Thanks to Khalil Tate for coming on honorary captain. This weekend should be fun. Big Game, the Big Game. I
gotta get into some Casino Del Soul stuff. From the moment you first walked into Cassino del Soul, you're greeted by a diverse and robust selection of restaurants that cater to any craving you may have, from the award winning p Y Steakhouse to the laid back diner of Moby's. You have to discover the taste of Casino Del Soul during your next visit. A lot of bingo on Friday nights. Sometimes they have Cosmic. They have the spa there, great spa,
great food again at Mobi's, ume Wulita's Steakhouse. All that stuff, and obviously the Sportsbook will be there a week from today. In the Sportsbook. It was a lot of fun last time we'll be back again in a week, so we'll hear from Jay and all his complaints about picking games. We'll see what happened. I thought he's like the Swami this year, he's gone like, holy crap, who you been talking to you? Because he's better than he's ever been, not ever been, but he's better than what he has
been lately. He's not as much kod anymore. One point lead on me, So we'll see. Anybody want to call, now's your time, because you know, now's the time to get him in five two, four, one, six, seventy four forty. Don't get beat at the end of the hour, so we can get you in. You know, Miguel, if you're trying to get in, get in now, Tea Money call us. You know you tried, both of you guys tried and couldn't get in. Jim, if you want to call, there's a freed line. You can always call tomorrow too, as
we break down the game even more. Okay, okay, yeah, what else Khalil tate this weekend? We mentioned it. Yeah, you know, Halloween's right around the corner. And for Colorado that's like they're Michael Myers, that's that's there, dude, that's true. Let me ask you, so you're Khalil Tate, you come back. I don't know. I was gonna say this, you get do you have to buy drinks? Do you think he has to buy drinks here? One? Do they recognize him? And two do you think he has to buy drinks here?
I don't think he has to buy drinks here. And Arizona fans are older, so I'm gonna guess they recognize them.
Yeah, you know so yeah, yeah, but the older, older people. He probably doesn't go to the establishments for people.
That's true.
You know, the kids are saying, no, you buy your own crap. Yeah, but like Miles, Miles, I'm not sure if he would have to Miles, Richard Richard right, Richard uh Channing, Luke, Yeah, Steve Kerr.
Really you can name a whole laundry list of basketball guys. Now football guys. I think that list is shorter.
Well, first, they don't recognize them, Teddy Brusky, Teddy Gronk, true true holes.
I think I think that that's kind of the good. Ricky Yeah, Ricky and his brother Chuck of course. Yeah, yeah, if they drink. You know what I'm saying, but yeah, hey, it's on me door.
That's why these risk people like, hey, you know that that platter. You just bought that food platter. Don't worry about these.
Rich people have money. They don't have to spend enough food or drinks. That's smart. You save money that way. Yeah you remember me? No? Oh, yes, sure, I.
Gotta try that. Hey, I'm Teddy Brusky. You you have to do a lot of changes. First, tick off that the Denver bronk or juice. You don't think it will work? No, No, I don't either.
It's too No. I was gonna try to say something with a cold, but it's not cold enough for Tonight will be game with New Orleans and who oh okay we talked about that. Yeah, good luck with that. What are you watching it?
No, I will be watching at Louise canteena tonight. So who what is cantina on twenty second and gold? Oh you're an east side guy, I am.
Yeah.
Yeah, we'll break the breakout or shout out to Louise. I never heard of it because it's on the east side. You know where that is. I think I've probably seen it. You probably driven by the.
Time too, right by skate country, right, Okay.
Yeah, that's why, that's why I rarely go out that way.
You're you're in the north side, on the north side, Yeah.
Yeah, Yeah. What else? Anything else going on? Uve Tommy Tommy game right around Monday?
Monday?
Monday? Yeah, I think we're going to try to have Bruce on Tomorrow and a couple other people maybe talk about the game on Saturday, and then the basketball program on Monday.
Now, how do you think Arizona fans when you look at the Big twelve and they don't finish, Let's say they don't finish in the top five, what is.
Is that's a possibility, That's a possibility. Yeah, what's the reaction? I want to say, realistic. I think they're gonna have to be realistic. Whether they are or they aren't, I don't think so. I don't know, Troy, I don't try. They're gonna freak out a little or a lot, but
doesn't really matter. I mean, if you're second or third, or fourth or fifth or sixth, it's gonna there's gonna be a lot of it's gonna be a logjam there, Yeah, a lot of the same times it's gonna be and then luck of the draw in March and then see how you play.
Honestly, I think a nightmare situation for Tommy long term. What if you win the Big twelve the first year and now you have those expectations and those aren't realistic expectations.
And you were exactly right. I think you've been this long enough to listen to me. No, when we went to Duke, and I don't think I said this to you, but the worst thing that happened to the team, as we found out, was beating Duke because it was unrealistic expectations. You said a standard, Yeah, you think, well they could play, Hey, we have a chance to win the national title. Did you ever think before that game that they had a chance to win the national town?
I thought it was a team that could if it came together at the end. Okay, And when I saw that two game, I was like, wow, you know what, this is a team that could do it.
Yeah. And I've seen too many games in November where they play out of their mind and then do really well and then eventually don't have the same juice.
And you know, we talked about it at that game. The way Kylon Boswall played in that game, he was tremendous in that game and that was going to need to be something that needed to go from start to finish. The way he played and to be honest, that that was the key where it wasn't me.
Let me ask you, and we've never really talked about this, either a car or a press conch or something. What do you think his situation was? Because he didn't play confidently at all in the first after the first month or so, Uh, he just didn't play himself. Had he played better, this team would have been much better.
I think if he played better that Arizona would have been in the lead eight, maybe even final four. But you know, I think you look at a guy. Yes, he came out of Phoenix in terms of high school, but most of his life was spent in the Midwest, was spent in Boswell. Yeah, was spent in Illinois. And you're so many miles away from home, You're on your own, You're in a college town where basketball reigns supreme. Right, you're the man on campus.
You're probably able to get away with stuff.
One hunder and you know what, do you really at that moment do you love the game? Does your love for the game kind of fizzle a little bit.
Yeah, do you think that anything happened on the court or otherwise off with teammates or anything like that. It just didn't seem not that he lacked uh something, but he lacked something. I don't even know how to say this, because he looked indifferent. There was a time or two he had Tommy had to get on him on the sideline because you know, you have to be more engaged. I think it was you know when you remember yelled him on the sideline.
Be more active.
Yeah, just more engaged, and he just wasn't. Then he realized okay, yeah, and then you know, he did it, and then he didn't do it.
Yeah.
You know, I don't think there's a lot of games where a point guard where you have the ball in your hands so many times, right, you finished with zero points, zero rebounds, zero assists.
That happened.
That happened to three times, Yeah, throughout the season. So you know, I think it was growing paid pains. Again, a guy that should have been a freshman last season, you know, did the reclassification the year prior, and you went through growing pains, and you went through a situation where I think he got down on himself and didn't know how to get out of it, and it just kind of spiraled with no end in sight.
Yeah, I want to I don't disagree with you there. I think something had to do with love too. I mean his ability to kind of maybe take the ball from his hands time or two. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's just me. I played a doctor on radio, not on real life.
And then the pressure of Bradley playing while off the bat.
Yeah. In fact, Tommy probably did a bad move by not going to him earlier. Yes and no, but if you didn't that didn't matter if you're gonna lose Boswa, No, probably not. It's not like Noah.
Yeah.
Oh, by the way, we talked about that with Noah. Uh did we already talk about this? We didn't go into details. Okay, but Noah, okay, place mediocrely or whatever and pressing too much. Blah blah blah. The callers said, why did you just bench him? You talked about no, no, because you might lose him. Yeah, but what's behind him? There's nothing behind him, and that that's the situation.
You know. You do have Brandon Dorman, who had a horrible spring and training camp. Who is the number three quarterback in the depth chart and you have a walk on that's number two, and you know, cold Tannerbaum played phenomenal. I'm not trying to discredit goal, but it's a walk on from a guy that won Packed Fell Freshman.
Of the Year.
Yeah, that's a huge gap, right, you're not going to make that. There's a point though. There's a point though, and I think we talked about it before we got
on the air less drive. They're down twenty five, whatever it is, Yeah, go ahead and do it ten Well, yeah, for safety reasons, Yeah, why is he in the game taking shots, throwing more interceptions, getting down on himself when the game is well in hand and you give the other guy a chance just to have a chance, Yeah, just to get reps to be honest, to let you know what you have behind them. Well, there's a lot to see you. If they lose this game, then there's gonna be some more questions.
Well, to me, this is kind of like that moment of the season, where are you going to be a bull team? Are you going to be four, four and five for well four in eight, five and seven on the outside, look.
At you if it's five and seven that's a disaster. Yeah, it's a disaster. Four in eight is a real disaster. Six and six still bad, Yeah, still bad given what the circumstances were coming in seven and five underwhelming.
Yeah, eight and four Okay, you're fine.
Okay, you're finding What took you so long?
Yeah?
What what changed between now.
And right right? With the schedule? Maybe one, well that's it.
But but then again, you know, everybody looked at Okay, the schedule is going to get lighter. Arizona State right now is playing better football than Arizona sure, and I don't think anybody in the start of the season thought that was going to be the case.
Sure, And who knows the trips they're going to shake mm hmm.
Yeah to Central Florida. That's going to be a tough road game on the road in Florida. That's a lawn trip. TCUs. I don't think they're that good. TC is not that good. But you're in Texas. Yeah, so that's that's tough.
So you doing you're still doing recruit right, Yeah, but were the target spots at Texas and Texas?
The Houston area is the main target, you know, when talking to coach a Lonzo Carter, who's very well known on the recruiting circuit. A lot of guys know Alonzo. He said their main focus was the state of Texas and specifically Houston. He took that on himself. He's been there like three four times during the off season trying
to recruit. So anytime you can go into Houston and try to pull some players, that's critical for them, and that's really the battleground that they're trying to get their feet into.
So I think that they're gonna debut some new helmets.
Yeah, the cactus logo on the helmet from you know what that means to me, They're gonna.
Lose, not a damn thing, because I was still win games. People. Oh they gonna look nice, to look nice playing dice, to shut the hell up, just win some games.
Hey. It's like the old saying, yeah we lost, but our uniforms match, yo. So we got that going for us and that that gave us what six ten points? Yeah exactly, I mean, not a damn thing.
I'll say that to anybody that says, ye know, oh they look good, what the hell? Play hard? Play well?
But seriously, your your thoughts on the cactus logo and that logo or Arizona, because usually I think of that as a basketball logo.
I have a hard time matching my clothes if I If I do that, I have a good day. I couldn't tell you.
I couldn't. You're like Tommy, I don't know what they're wearing.
I don't know. Yeah, he's and he's probably serious about I don't care.
And just give me to get them.
To the game on time and let me play them. And it's I'm showing my age or whatever, but it just doesn't matter to me how they look. Just play. No, I just play a win.
Honestly, I agree with you and I personally, I'm tired of the uniform switching. Just where the desert's warm. Uniforms get rid of everything else.
And he said, didn't they have well Ua basketball, they had the games, the uniforms on red blue. Right, Yeah, those look sharp, and you didn't like them a lot of people like them. They're simple, big nice.
I like it when they and they do it during big games, the UCLA game, the Duke game, whatever big game you want to talk about. They do those mid nineties to mid two thousands jerseys that they won the National championship in just go back to that Arizona basketball. There's no magic in those, but that's your brand. Yeah, No, I get that. Stick with your band and go with it. You know, none of this fancy's great. Great, you're not an Oregon. You're not Oregon. You're not it's you're Arizona.
Just kinda do the nitty gritty and just win some game. And you don't have for Arizona basketball. You don't have to be Oregon. You actually had tradition, right, So we talked about the whole time. There's some thing that we didn't talk about. Maybe next time you show up. It was the Vegas thing, the biggest thing. When I had you on and no no on talking about the payments and not getting paid and deciding to leave. You guys were spot on, and I was like, what that's happening.
And a month or so later it happened.
Yeah.
They checked in clearing and said, okay, checked in clear. No, I'm not playing, And.
Look who's bad at it? Looks bad at it? The quarterback.
Yeah, because now they're off and running.
They don't need they don't need that, dude. The backups better right, right, Sometimes you might not get what you wish for.
Or sometimes you get what you wish for and you regredit later.
Yeah. Yeah, we'll see what happens. Okay, were good, let's go. Ryan take us away.