This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services and Sure Your Most Prized Possessions kat z R two SAD and iHeartRadio. Steve Yet be good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Eye on the Ball. You're on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve, He's Jay got e with us today. Welcome to the show. Uh and I got nothing, no jerk, you get artist show like that. I'm joking. Hold on, I got a couple. Oh no, though
you missed. You missed some things today. I did, you know, Steve, you know, it's just there's so much going on and this news button. I didn't. I was. I mean, I was busy all morning and then I got here and You're like there was a press conference, and I'm like, you're right, there was. It was. It was kind of an eventful US time. You met with us today, about a half hour after it was scheduled at two o'clock, went about for fifteen minutes
just about the games. I asked some one question just about you know, back in the day, in the good old days, that we covered the teams with loot this is how it used to be. Three consecutive games or a lot of games against the heavyweights or near heavyweights, to see what you are made of, to get you ready for what's going to happen down the road. Uh. And and here he is he agreed. I mean this,
this will tell them where he needs to improve on. Well. And then and that's again as you talk about you know when when lut would do that, you know when you got to conference play, you know, with Loot's teams, you felt like you had a pretty good idea. Right, they're pretty good or they weren't, right, and they were usually pretty good right. Well, and don't don't forget uh this this not this game,
but the next game. And Loot's time was the disaster game. Yeah, they lost it every year the game kids just wanted to get the hell out of town. We don't care. We played with will come back and figure it out? How right? I just say every every December because they had to get Remember, they had a certain time. If they didn't get to get back in time, they were not going to play the next game. Right, So that was the story as well, but it was it was
a major, major number in the bad side. Right, it was a big deal. I mean it was I mean it was a thing. You know, the fans knew, Okay, here comes this game that we always lose. Then they would lose against anybody. It couldn't be. It didn't matter who, right, it didn't matter who was the guy. I just wanted to get the hell out of town and played like it too. Yeah, but here we are. It's a three it's a huge three games scheduled. I said, when you made this up, did you have this in
mind where it would have been boom boom boom. Yeah, and not easy guys, And he said, yeah, you know, kind of get ready for it. It's it's better off. And Sean didn't do this, that's for sure. Much less any And who's this tougher them? Looking at Alabama schedule. A week ago Saturday they played they play Purdue number four at the time. Then this last Saturday, number eight Crayton got beat and got beat again, both close games. And then now coming up Wednesday, they got
number four Arizona. Yeah, four and eight and a four. You know, their stretching games. I love this. I love this because you know there's gonna be a lot of fans up in PRIs. It's a late night game, so a lot of fans from here are gonna be traveling up there. And then the uay alumm base up there is very big. So it should be a lot of fun and it's gonna be a late late night but
this is what college basketball should be about. Yeah, and again, you know, you know, you look, you look at the Alabama record, they're six and four. But this is not a cheap schedule. No. They opened their you know, they opened the season with an exhibition against wake Forest, lost ale and go down. Okay, okay, So then they go Morehead State beat the hell out of them, Indiana State beat the hell out of them, South Alabama beat the hell out of them, Mercer beat
the hell out of them. Then they played Ohio State, got beat they were this was a neutral court game. Uh the it was. I guess it was an event because then they played Oregon. Uh the next day beat Oregon ninety nine ninety one. Then they went and played Clemson and the acc SEC Challenge lost that. Arkansas State beat them, then Purdue crighton. Now Arizona, I mean that's not that's that's a tough go from there, very much so. But but at least you know what you need to get to
and guess what Arizona. Arizona should be able to win the PAC twelve, right, at least we think so, you thinkody else. But the PAC twelve is not what they're guiding for. They're gunning for. It's the Purdues of the world, the Kansas of the world, the Houston's of the world,
because that's how they're gauged. And about the Bama game, anybody needs to is there history with Bama. There is a little little bit back in the day, well the last the last game that I covered as the sports writer, they lost ballop Bama Long Beach and Luke got mad at me for ten years. Well Long Beach State. They were in Long Beach there at Long Beach. Right, it's the game that that Brian Williams did not show up to play or anybody. Nobody showed up played that day. Robert Ory
just brush their skull. But there is a history with the coach. Yeah, people need to remember the coach was at Buffalo, yep. And he after he won that game or game or two, greg Byurn went and got him. Yeah, and as he should have. So yeah, so you know, again, like you said, these are fun. Yeah, I'll tell you what I was just I don't know why this came to my brain, but what I miss is that game that they would play like this.
But during the conference season they would play as US January. There would be a game in January February on a Saturday. I remember they played Illinois one time they played I think it was they played a bunch of teams, you know, during that they play a su on a Wednesday or Thursday, and then they used that Saturday to play a game against against somebody, I think Illinois. They had a home and home with Illinois that during the time that
I was covering the team. Well, they played Kansas, who we remember the Kansas candy gate, right, and then they played the year before once they're getting crushed and Salim had that great game in the second half and crushed me at at at Camp at Kansas. So no, they but the question was, look, what are you doing. You don't need to do this in the middle of the country. He would, And I thought it was
a good thing because it really it really raised their level of play. And again as we you know, as we talked, you know, we talked to Josh passed. We've talked to players. They get excited for those games they're not thinking of. You know, I'd rather have the weekend off than play short North Carolina, you know in the middle of the conference. They'd rather play those games. You know. Let me ask you something, because we talk about Ludo, and we talked about Dick Tomy. We had a
call from was it Vic somebody I can't remember. Uh, talked about Dick about yes yesterday and do you do you and he's a friend of yours. I covered him. I was in as close as to him as you were. Uh. Is there a sense of revisionist history with him? They're absolutely as fans forget how crappy they him that plus how good he and how good he actually I think they think about it that he did better than what happened. Well, does that make sense? It makes sense? And it makes
sense. I think from the standpoint that they feel better about what he did because of what followed, correct right? Correct now that they think, you know, I wish we would have had this. Yeah, you know, we we were doing okay, we we kind of messed it up, you know, and and the problem and look had and somebody had it had not been John mcavic, and it had been somebody who really who elevated the program instead of taking it into the toilet. I think people have fell out him.
They you know, if somebody come in and take it what Dick had done and then improved on that going forward, and we didn't have that those dark ages of of of uh, of John mcavick and then later Kevin Sumone, I think people would think of Dick's time differently. It wouldn't be so romantic to that. Yeah, right, I think that's a great word because looking back over the last twenty two years or three years, that people miss those days because of even if because the mediocre came up a lot, he'd
have his years. He had, he had some good you know, seven and four years where he'd go to a bowl game or whatever, but he only had two great years. Right right when they said this yesterday to us, I'm thinking, here we go kind of again, not again, but you know what I'm saying, here's a guy who who's speaking highly of him. But you know, he had a great career. People loved him. Here of those who loved him, but there was a bunch of the people
that wanted to hell, get him, get him out again. They think about think about when he thought when he spoke to the media on the night that he quit, right, he resigned. I mean he was going to get fired, but he resigned, and he said the fans were just too vicious. He used the word vicious. I remember him using the word vicious because they were. How do you think he would have how do you think he would have handled today? Give him the bs it goes on? He
would have hated it. I think I think so too. I think if he was still coaching in it, he would have managed it and he would have done it. But I think he would have hated it and probably would eventually said I don't want to do this anymore, kind of like Andy Lope, like Mike Ken, I've had enough of this. He was an old school blue collar I'm going to bring in this guy. And I think he would have hated having to go recruit a guy who said, well, I'll
come, but you got to give me six figures plus a plus. He was not a five star guy. He tried that. It didn't work and and you know the BS on the internet, Well, he's not going after big guys. He's not going out to the It doesn't work that way. You gotta get him. And if you don't get him, look uh uh. And we're gonna find out more about this tomorrow. But Jetfish is getting those guys right, he's recruiting, he's doing something that happened done right.
How is he doing it? We don't, you know, we don't really know other than you know, we've talked to recruits. Remember we talked to North Alfida and he said, it was just the relationship. I just felt, you know, really close to him and all that stuff. And that's what you hear from athletes, high school players that he recruits, or anybody that he recruits. But there's something more right. You know, he's he's managing all of this, whether it's with nil or opportunities or whatever. You
know, he is. He is managing it better than I think maybe you know some others. He's certainly more skillful at it. There was Michael V did a tweet he was talking to some kids today. You made some people available. You might want to go on his twitter. He talked to uh, Wiley, I think it was Wiley, and he talked to what's the different, Oh No, he talked to stukes. You know, what's the
big deal. Well, it's it's more it's it's a little bitbe clich ish, but it's about the family and they actually really do care about You can go to any program in the country and why did you go there? It made me feel like home. Blah blah blah. Two weeks later or two years later, guests where he's played for somebody else, what happened to the home? What happened to the home? I mean, yeah, uh here here. But it's true, it hasn't It hasn't really affected people go leaving
right right, yeah? And I mean and again you look at you look at some of these guys who have left. They went to places they thought were better that turned out oftentimes not be you know, so I I you know, when you ask the question about how would Dick have done this, I don't know Dick was. I think somebody who would adjusted things. Sure has needed you have to, but I you know, I could also see
him being the guy that said, nah, it's not for me. You know, they've done it for a while and then realized this is why I came into coaching. Here's the Michael I asked. He says, I asked Arizona dB Trading Stukes, how Jackfish was able to keep the team together in the portal n I l Era, This is not a fake program, like
like when you come here, it really is a family. I feel like those guys are my brothers in there, and the coaches, I feel like they truly care about me as a person and not just as a football player. Yeah, of course. I mean if you can do that, God bless you. Sure, and I'm sure that sense happens in a lot of places. But some people's a lot that it doesn't. A lot doesn't, no question, because that's a factory. You know, it's a factory,
and people leave even even if they feel at home. I mean, do you think they have this brotherly family feeling that usc where guys are spilling into the portal? You know, like crazy Colorado? Colorado is another one. You know, you know a lot of good players come in in there, but you go into you're married to marry into a family that says, what
the hell did? I just do? You know? You heard a really interesting thing last night on the on that College Football Inquired podcast because they were talking about the the hearing that were the shot where the judge shot down the preliminary injunction or the temporary junction on the transfer wort. They spoke to aquarterback from Colorado who wanted to transfer and was denied a transfer. He said the reason he transferred was when Dion Sanders he testified to this, so this is
under oath. And when Deon Sanders got there, he was he said, I was sitting in the front row of the whole. I'm here with my bluggage kind of thing said. Then after that, Deon Sanders held a meeting with the quarterbacks and Deon Sanders told the quarterbacks other quarterbacks, you are here to make my kid better. And that's why the kid wanted to leave. And the NCAA denied his transfer, and and he and now he's you know, he's he gets transferred because but he said that that happened in a meeting
room with Deonce. Is that a family atmosphere? No, absolutely not, because you know what what you hear Jed and his coaches talk about it is we're here to make everybody better, not just certain guys. And here's a coach who and I'm not here to alibi Ali by him, but he here's a coach that stood behind a guy who's in the storting quarterback and was steadfast and standing behind his under all conditions. Right, he was gonna let him play as soon as he got got healthy enough. And it took too long.
It took so long that it got to a point you could not take no feet off. And I'm not even referring to that and refer the trouble that he had come up with the other stuff. Yeah, I mean he yeah, yeah, no, he's he put his luck his skimu and you know what, and and players will know that. Ye, yeah, without question. I think he is then. I think he is that guy. He's legitimately concerned where we go. All Right, We've got Evan Mayakawa coming
and he's a he's got that uh analytics program that he does. You're gonna tell us a little bit about you know, who are the best players, who are the best combos, who are the best teams? Uh with with this analytics h that he's developed. Uh, So we'll talk to him. We've had him on the show a couple of times before, a very interesting uh discussion with lot smarter than us. Well, he did a lot of math. And then now we're gonna, We're gonna, we're gonna bring in
some holiday chair with George Mortis from Showtime, Cards and nuts. You know you can go get yourself a Babe Ruth card, you know, one hundred thousand dollars Baby Ruth card to give to somebody for you left that in the countrait exactly all right, So stick around. Evan Mikawa coming right out.
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since nineteen forty seven. Go to azpest dot com to schedule your free evaluation today. This is Eye on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. Subscribe now to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app just searching I on the Ball. Hey, welcome back, joining the ball here on Fox Sports fourteen. I'm Stieve Rivera. He's Jacob Saws Down on the phone. We have Evan Mayakawa college basketball analysts who we needed to get you
back on the show before you solve the world's problems. Evan, because you're such a smart dude. I'm not laughing because I'm disagreeing Evan I. I'm laughing because he's Yeah, that's why we have a body can tell us what's gonna happen in the future. How you doing I'm doing good. I mean, what's more important to the world than figuring out college basketball analytics? Right outside of the final four for the football team? Yeah, with the football
programs, you're exactly right, and they need you for that. You need you need to go do that. You get get them, get them the right four teams into the into the get them straight down into the down. Sounds too controversial for me, I think, yeah, yeah, well, you got a great gig. About a week or so ago, I was watching college basketball somewhere and uh, they're talking about Ken Palmer and they're saying the Maya Kawa report. I'm thinking, look at our guy, he's kind
of made it already. Only Moly, Well, I didn't even know that happened. That's great. Yeah, yeah, so you're being quoted out there in the real world of college basketball. How are things going? Is this yours third year? Now? Boy? Let's see, I started my website in twenty twenty, so I guess this would be my four fourth year season that the website's been running. Yeah, yeah, And let me speak before
we get into it with this year's stuff. I want to ask you because last year we talked about when we had you on the show, we talk about Arizona all the time, maybe the year before with Ben Mathrin and the analytics and some of the players, and Arizona had a good chance and then they lose in the first round. How has the analytics panned out in terms
of finding the eventual winner or the final four teams? You know, I think one of the real challenges, which is what makes March Madness so fun, is that the tournament every year gets overanalyzed to death, and so every possible trend, every possible deep nugget, people are pretty aware of. You
know this in this sport. You know, one of the common ones, which I think has been floating up around this time, has been looking at the correlation between last week's ap pole in week six of the season, right, and how often one of the teams in the top twelve of that ap pole has won the tournament almost every year out of the last two decades except for maybe one year. Yeah, So there's random things like that that people
are, you know, often very aware of. Nowadays, and so I feel like, even with a website like mine, just because of how deep people dive into the numbers when it comes to March Madness and trying to figure out who's going to win it. At the end of the day, there's still so much noise in the tournament. It's really hard to predict with much
accuracy, you know, who's going to cut down the net. So, you know, let's let's start to dive into some of this stuff, because it's really fascinating stuff with the ratings and things that you that you put together, and you know, I really don't even know where to go. But let's just say first of all, you know, you in your team rankings, you've got Arizona at four, which is exactly where they are in the AP. You've got Houston, Purdue, Connecticut, Arizona, which is sort
of where everybody's at right now. You know, how much do these things fluctuate? You know, does it take a game for it to fluctuate? Does it take a series of games? How is the movement when you're talking about let's say the top ten teams in your in your rankings. Well, I think one of the interesting things to monitor as the season goes on.
Is when you start the season on a website like mine, I have preseason projections for each team so that we don't just treat everyone as being you know, equally skilled as every other team, with no knowledge about how good they're going to be. Obviously, when we come into a season, we know that Arizona is more likely to be a better team than say Northern Arizona,
right. But with that said, once the season goes along, as we start to collect new data and gain new information about each team, we have to kind of move away from those preseason projections. And so one of the challenges with an analytic model like mine is how much at this point the season, or in January and February even into March, do you rely only on current season data versus our pre season expectations for a team. And so that's
one of the really interesting problems to try and solve. And at this point in the season, obviously current season success really matters, but there still is a decent amount of emphasis on preseason expectations for each team because a lot of times that ends up still being very predictive of how a team ends up doing. Come you know, March and April, and I don't think we've asked
you this before, or at least I haven't. Is it kind of like a credit report where some things are weighed twenty ten percent in your categories that make the top ten, top twenty teams. It's a little more complicated than that. Part of that's because a lot of things are specific to each team.
So there's not one formula that says, you know, multiply this number by this amount, because you know, say, for example, as I'm building preseason rankings, there's different variables that really affect what we have much certainty
or uncertainty we have about a team. So for example, a team like Kentucky who's bringing in a lot of freshmen, obviously those freshmen are supposed to be really good, but there's a lot more possible outcomes for how that team could perform compared to a team like Arizona, for example, where even though there's some new pieces, it's a very veteran laden team, and so we can be more certain about the kind of range of outcomes for a team like
Arizona. So because of that, things are individualized to each team. So some teams are treated differently than others. Okay, So I recall when we brought I think this was during last season that Azulus to Bellas was consistently ranked, you know, one of your one of your top players all year long. We all saw, you know, how things turned out for Azulis and
Arizona by the end of the year. Then I look at your rankings this year where you feel like Arizona's got all these guys and none of those guys are in your top ten, and then people will be surprised to hear that your highest rated Arizona guy is none other than Pelly Larson as opposed to to Caleb Love Islan Boswell. Yeh uh, you know, Keisha Johnson. All guys who you know from the eye test look like they're bigger, better,
more important contributors. How does a guy like Pella, uh, you know, establish a rating where he's seen as sort of the you know, one of the more indispensable players, or among the Arizona guys, the most indispensable player. Yeah. So that metric that you're referring to is my player metric called basing performance rating, and the essential idea behind it is to quantify how
impactful a guy is on the court. On offensive defense kind of whether they're a high score or a low scorer, regardless of volume, regardless of position, purely trying to figure out when this guy is on the floor, how much value is he adding to the team. And so Pella Larson is one of these players who he's not typically going to be Arizona's main playmaker, main scorer, but he does a lot of things and is a big connector piece
for this team. And when you look at both his box score efficiency and just how well Arizona performs when he's on the floor and the effect that he has on other teammates, the data suggests that he is the most valuable piece when he's on the floor for Arizona. Now that being said, Arizona has five or six guys that are all really close together, all inside the top seventy nationally invasion performance rating, which are the you know, the main six
guys on the team. So even though he's first right now ahead of those other guys, it's not like he's leaps and downs ahead of everyone else. You know, a lot of their players are contributing in their own right.
It's funny because you say this and now you're saying it I'm thinking that's maybe one of the reasons why they lost against Burdue because their main guy, Pella, didn't have a good game, right, right, and he didn't And does the do the numbers get kind of skewed in terms of if you have five or six guys double digit scorers, they're all kind of even in terms of stats. Yeah, And it's also do if you have, you know, a lot of the same guys play consistently together, that can make it's
a little more difficult. You know, if you have two guys who are always on the floor together, it's a little bit harder to separate, you know, who's having the impact between the two, which is why it's really helpful to still look at box stats a little bit because if you have, say, two guys on the floor who are have a plus minus of ten, but one of them scores thirty points the other scores three points, the thirty point scorer probably has more of an impact than the three point scorer.
So that's you know, still a definitely important part of the formula in calculating my player ratings. Well again, looking at your your five man lineups, the ratings of those you know, Arizona's got. Their starting lineup is the fifth rated lineup that you have here and again, which goes to what you were saying, because then I looked at the player ratings and you said they
were bunched. You got three guys bunched together, Caleb Love, Kylan Boswell, and Jayden Bradley not a starter thirty one, thirty two, and thirty three in your player ratings. I think that's really interesting. Yeah, And actually you mentioned that five man lineup of Ballow, Boslow, Kishad Johnson, Larson, and Love, and they of all lineups in the entire country, across all teams that have played over two hundred possessions, they are the most
efficient lineup in college basketball so far this season. And I think this is a trend that I've seen under Tommy Lloyd in his time at Arizona that his starting lineup is usually really, really good. I'm looking at the data from
last year. Their starting lineup from last year had similar results. So that's something I feel like is one of Tommy Lloyd's calling cards with Arizona so far, is really getting that starting five in lockstep with each other and being really dominant when they're they're on the flour together, Evan and having covered the team for a long time three decades, and Jay being part of it and watching
it too. It all means nothing. It all means nothing come March, right, we already talked about that, because you can have these great guys and these teams and then come March it starts over or you play one bad game and it all goes away. That's why we love the tournament, don't we. Well, people at Tuson are kind of still the voats or the votes out because of what happened last year. So so another one in the stats, you've got it. You've got a box here on the fastest teams.
Okay, and you got Arizona and then a bunch of teams that you know, where's Alabama in that miss They're well, they're not in the they're not in the top they're not in the top ten. You got Kennessas State, Arizona, U, NBC Long Beach State, Tulane, Samford, not Stanford, Samford, Tennessee, Martin Bryant, New Mexican, Marshall. So Arizona's really the only Power five team that that that you see in there. Tell it, what's the fastest team rating, and how does that what does
that measure? Yeah, so I have a metric that basically says, if you if you take out information on you know, how fast other teams are that you're playing, and you basically adjust for the pace of other teams. If you were playing an average team that ran a average pace, how how
many possessions would be in that game. And so for Arizona, they're second in the country in true tempo, which basically means, you know, adjusted for opponent, their games are going to have a lot more possessions, a lot more down and back than most most games are going to have, and
that definitely plays into their hand. They have a top ten offense in the country and so not to mention a really good defense as well, and so especially in most games where they're going to be favored, it's a really good idea for them to try and get as many possessions in a game as possible because it just further it further secures their chance of winning that game just by
having more opportunities. Yes, well, so if you're the opponent's coach, the one thing you don't want them to do is to do that, So you kind of milk the clock and milk the clock and you know, shut clock and all that stuff. So and that sometimes most of the time doesn't work because if Arizona gets a good lead on you, you can't do that.
Yeah exactly. You know, once you're if you have a lead that Arizona builds, then you're kind of lost because you kind of have to keep the tempo up in order to have a chance of catching them, which of
course plays right into their hands. Right. Yeah, So looking at your overall strength roster strength rankings again, Arizona, you know at three, but and you got you know who you would expect to be up to Connecticut, Purdue, Arizona, Houston b Uyu who's doing really well, Creighton, Iowa State, Marquette, Duke Tennessee. When you're talking about roster strength, that
tell us a little bit about that one. Yeah. So roster strength is as an attempt to kind of separate out a little bit of like historical team success and coaching ability from the actual pieces talent wise that a roster has.
So roster strength is more focused on like basically adding up a sum of the individual talent on each team, as opposed to also including other variables that we also, you know, typically considered when we're talking about how good a team is, like, you know, has this team of good in previous years? How good is the coach, et cetera. Yeah, well, all right, well, when we're thing and so looking at all these numbers that you have in terms of you know, individual players, rosters, lineups,
you know, all these things. When you think when you think of Arizona versus everybody else, you know, top five team, top two team, top nineteen, where where did you know? Where did that? Where do they sit in your in your eyes when you take in all this all this information that you have. Yeah, so you know, uh, Arizona, as you mentioned, I have number four, and that also lines up with
their APE franking as of yesterday. I really do think that there right now is a kind of consensus, at least according to my computer metrics and some other ones that are out there, there's a clear top four. It's Houston, Purdue, Yukon, and Arizona, and I have Houston number one. But they haven't really been tested in the same way that those other three have, you know, so we'll see how they hold up as big Big twelve play goes. But Arizona certainly arguably has the best win in the country right
now, you know, on the road at Duke. You know, I know Duke has been a little disappointing so far this year, but I still have them ranked in the top ten in the country, and I think they're going to be a great team, you know, the rest of the year.
And I really I think Arizona has been one of the most pleasant surprises in the country because they were expected to be a good team this year, but especially bringing in a piece like Caleb Love, who everyone was kind of on the fence about how he was going to translate, that's really clicked for
them. I mean, he's been way more efficient than in previous years, and I think because of that and the reliability of other pieces they have and Kylon Boswell running the point, you know, I think, you know, the sky's limit for them. And when you look at a guy like Umar Ballo, who I think of all of their main rotation guys, he's probably been a little below expectations. We saw how dominant he could be in stretches last year, so you know, if he takes a step like it's expected,
the team only gets better from there. Yeah, before maybe last a couple core questions before they lost to Purdue. Was Arizona number one? I think Houston was still number one at that point, Okay, but I'd have to check, yeah, and I can't remember. I think, don't you do plusure mine us if they play a Batma tomorrow game predictions? What's what's tomorrow? Do you have tomorrow? Yeah? You got yeah? Yeah, go ahead, you tell yeah. Arizona is favored by six in that game.
And I think the fun part about it is the predicted scores ninety one to eighty five with a you know total of one hundred and seventy six points. And I was looking at the whole rest of all the game predictions for all D one games for the rest of the year. This is the second
highest predicted like score total of any game the rest of the season. Because of how fast TV teams play and how good their offenses are, so this should be one of the most you know, high paced, high offense games we're going to see all year hopefully, Yeah, no question, and we're looking forward to it. Baby, take the over. It depends. It could be one thirty five. Uh So you just maybe a personal item, you are you still in the job, you know, nuclear scientists somewhere in
Texas. What are you doing now? I have a day job in sports analytics for a company that works with professional teams, So I do that during the day and then I do my college basketball analytics on aside and outside of that. You're the modern day Josh Bassner. A lot of things going on. That's it. That's a good thing, Evan. I know Josh has been fired from a job, but no, he's We think highly of Josh. He was actually on the show yesterday, so yeah, he doesn't sleep
and he thinks basketball all the time. Do we call you doctor yet? You have the pH d? Are you still getting it? Yeah? I had. I got my pH d as of a year ago. All right, doctor, doctor Mike Cowe. Wow. Nice well doctor, we'll see you have another appointment and maybe in a couple of months. Yeah sounds good. Okay, I hope you take our insurance. Evan, thanks a whole bunch, man, appreciate it. Thank you, Eving. Oh that's fine, that's right, cool, all right, thank you. No, that's
fine. That's interesting stuff. Go to his website. It's Evan my E v A N M I y A dot com and you'll see all the stuff that we just talked about on his website, incredible information analytics. If you're if you're a day if you're a data junkie for for sports like this, this is where you want to This is where you want to be, and he talks about it, does a lot of does a lot of media and stuff, and you can subscribe to get deeper into a lot of his stuff.
But it's a fascinating stuff that he does. Right right, it's all college basketball. If you want to know, he was quoted not too long ago. I saw her as all we got to get him on the show yet. Yeah, okay, all right, let's take a break. We'll be back. We'll take your calls. Five two zero, four, one, six, seventy four, forty We're right back. Change. If you're anson a man's basketball fan, you know it's been successful for nearly forty years.
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Bash featuring fireworks presented by O'Reilly's Chevrolet. Start your put Shanga journey and get your tickets today at the Arizona Bowl dot com. Steve Ravera and Jacin Salads. They have their eye on the ball on Tucson Sports Stage yet Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Hey, welcome back to you. I'm about hero Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve. He's Jay got be with us today. Have ten minutes and because what a call. Please do. Good to hear from
you as usual, yep. Always always love to hear from you. Yeah, always going to talk to him. The dude, the smartest. He he's a phdeve. How would you even you know, cross a te dot the id crist well carry the one. Well here here's the thing. You know, uh, you know, people who just have a knack knack for something like that, they can not only can they do the math and suff like that, but they can get creative with you know, they're trying to
get to a point. You know, I'm guessing he decided, Okay, I want to develop a system and a program that will tell me, you know, all these things that I want to know about you know, college basketball, and then you use that brain to figure out, you know, the the numbers and and and that that you need to have to you know, spit out you know, these uh, these rankings and things that that he's got so you know, just way above our pay grades no very it's
very cool stuff. Good insight. I do like it. We didn't ask him when he said it was the second most points scored in the in the season for the rest of the way, I wonder what the number one would be, because there's no question this is gonna be a huge, large scoring Yeah. Yeah, they're you know, they're gonna want They're gonna run up and down the court. They know it's gonna be on you know, the national TV. You know they want, you know, everybody wants to show
and you know they get fired up for these games. Plus you know Arizona's coming off for loss, and I think it's so Bama. Yeah, they're coming off too, and you know Bama saying we got to get one of these and we've had three. This is a third opportunity to be the top ten team. Let's go get this one. So I think you can expect both teams to be pretty pretty jacked up to you know, to show out on Tomorrow night. The question is when is the game eventually gonna come on?
Right right? It could be nine, nine thirty, whatever it is. But to Arizona goes back to Obama next year, they're going to play in the right place, all right. So it's a home and home kind of a home and home kind of a home home. But yeah, the event tomorrow is the Jerry Colangelo twenty twenty three Hall of Fame Series. It's up in Phoenix at the Footprint Center, which is to those of us who've been around America West Arena, it was also called Talking Stick more recently.
But there's four games tomorrow up there. First, at noon, you've got Fresno State against Arizona State Women. Then the Arizona women take on Gonzaga, who is ranked at about two thirty. Schedule for two thirty, probably closer to to forty five or or so. Then at six thirty, got Northwestern, who's beat produced so they're actually a pretty good team taking on a su who's been struggling lately. And then at the schedule for nine o'clock on ESPN,
you've got Alabama and Arizona. So those four games. If you want tickets to that, it's the two sessions. The women's session is session one, of the men's session Session two. It should be a lot of fun. I don't know. Well, here's a let me click on the tickets. Nobody are gonna have to take a nap tomorrow. It's be late late nights. Start about nine to fifteen, nine o'clock whatever time, play two hours, it gets to even fifteen interviews. Oh man, don't we'll talk
about it. Tickets upper level tickets run about forty five bucks win lower down low let's say down low center court side. You're probably talking one hundred and sixty bucks for two games. Yep, yeah, gip, both games. Get both games, you know, in a session for one of the premier games of the year. Yeah, it'll be good, you know, and again close you know us at home. You know, we had the Wisconsin
game here. You know, you'll have you know, you can watch watches and then you know this, These tend to be games where fans who don't get to go to michale a lot of times, you know, they they uh uh, you know, get get tickets and go to these games so they get a chance to see them. It's like one of the reasons that you know, Vegas is such a you know, such a big dea Arizona fans because you get so many fans and go to Vegas because they don't get
to see him here. And of course the debauchery. Well, there is the debauchery. I know. I don't partake in any of that. No, no, you're too tony, I don't. I don't have much debauch left. You don't have no time, no time, walk by a walk in the hotel at two in the morning, you'll see it. But but again, it should be a good game. ESPN has it here, so uh uh you know, if you can step till nine o'clock and watch that game, be sure, and the women go up two and they're gonna be
on channel thirteen. Yes, that game will be on channel thirteen and you
can watch it. You can watch it here. So it could be a you know, a nice little, nice little thing for them to look they're they're playing better, you know, you know, I know, there's just so much of the conversation has been about players who have gone and stuff like that and injuries and uh, you know, they got nine players now on you know, on their bench, with Myanaji deciding she wants to go be a doctor instead of a basketball player, and which is great for her.
But they beat the hell out a su you know. Yeah, well they bounce back from that. Kentucky lost and they didn't actually look Texas, Texas. Well, that's the problem, Jay, in terms of they played a very very very good team, top five team here, got beat and then
they played a very very not so good team here. So there's someone in between this and yeah, well they're gonna have plenty of this, the Texas side of it, coming up with a with all the teams that are ranked at ranked pretty high in the in the back twelve, did you I want to put you on the spot. So it's been three four years removed from the final four, three or four years whatever from the one that was the Phoenix, No, no, from the women, oh, the women final
four. Yeah, that was twenty twenty one, twenty twenty one. Surprised, surprised that and they've kind of sustained it, but surprised they didn't sustain it. And I used that loosely in a sense that it's not what it was, yeah, because in the sense that you know, what what what a deal was able to do that she was getting recruits McDonald's all Americans, you know, yeah, yeah, yeaha all these players and for whatever reason, you know, weren't working out. And I don't know what the reason
is behind that. Miss evaluated didn't you know, didn't didn't like the program, didn't get they didn't get their shot right away, so they left because they could. Sure, you know, all the reasons that those players that she recruited coming out of that, so many of them have left. I mean this team, you know, Helena Playo, you know, last is the last remnant of that team. So yeah, in a sense, surprised that it didn't. It didn't, it didn't stand. But you still don't
feel that they're that far away either. You know, if this, let's say, if this core group group holds together, if you don't you know, there's nine players left on this team, if five of them don't leave, you know, if they stick around and she adds to this as opposed to losing three and picking up three new or four new players, then you think, you know, she just hasn't been able to have any continuity with with the roster for what for whatever reason, whether it's the kids, whether
it's her, whether whatever, or a combination of ball. Yeah, you know, and that's you know, that's been an issue. She hasn't been able to sustain that with with the with the group that the group of players that she's recruited, you mind not she is McDonald's all American and now you know, boom, here we are in her, you know, halfway through her sophomore season and she's gone, yeah, you know. And there's some other of those. So man, I think it's it's one of the toughest
things to do down in college. And and actually, if you read read Peterson, go to tweet tweet Twitter, go to the Twitter world, and uh Lev asked Tommy about the new rule, the double transfer. He he's not happy, not happy, he went. He was asked twice about it, and he's not happy because they're not prepared for it. You know. The rules are yes, no, no, no, no no, and then all of a sudden you can okay, you can do something, and you were yeah, where you planning, what are you planning that? No?
No, no no, and here they are not that he said it would have affected him. He did okay with the guys that he got. Yeah, yeah, don't cry for Tommy Lloyd exactly. Don't cry for Virginia or Tommy Lloyd exactly. Well, we'll talking to each other in March.
Yeah, but yeah, but you know, against Steve, you know, it's just everything I listened to you know, everybody you've talked to, you just tell us how absolutely nuts it is out there in all of this, you know, Yeah, you're probably gonna hear more of that from from Jetfish tomorrow. Is recruiting a press con. You just look at all the stuff on sports on the ESPN dot com or wherever you go to in the A l stuff. And did you see what Utah was giving the kids? YEA
trucks. Yeah, everybody got one, the gymnastics and basketball. Where's this money coming from? I thought we were in a recession from somewhere. Somebody's got it and they're giving it. And not just one. Everybody got one. Yeah, a whole bunch of them. Yeah, no, yeah, I mean you know, and you look at that and you go, okay, how am I supposed to compete with that? Right? Right? Right? How do I compete with that? All right? That's it, man, top of the hour. Here we go. All right, so we're
gonna be back. We do have some breaking news a few things and some more bad stuff coming out of Las Vegas. But uh, and then in the say, in the second segment, excuse me, Georgia, mine is coming in here. We'll talk to them card trading and that kind of stuff. If maybe give you some Christmas gift ideas, So stick around for all of those. We'll be right back. Don't believe it is one, don't believe it is, well, don't believe it is