Tuesday, March 18, Hour 1

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

Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Iron the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera. Welcome to the show. On Tuesday, got my semi usual guests, Dave Silver, semi usual back twice a week, and Kobe survived Cabo. Hello.

Maybe not.

Good to see you, Kobe.

Uh?

Dave lostuff going on?

Right?

Football? Spring football? Yeah, spring football is underway. I guess Ua men's basketball.

Men's basketball has a big week a little bit. There's baseball tonight. Oh, they played Kansas games, one of those mid whatever midweek games. Are they playing a seriously, they must be No, it's one. It's like a one gamer, which I'm real. I'm quite sure how that all worked out. Kansas coming all the way just just for a game. I gotta look at that schedule. They must have something else going. Maybe they're going to play Issue or something.

Yeah, okay, no, cool, a big game on Friday obviously. Women Thursday will get to all that and the football thing as well. We had a press commerce with the with the Brennan yesterday, insightful for what it was worth. I guess, you know, they have a lot to do, a lot to work with or a lot to do, a lot to recover from. I'm gonna ask a levels there and ask a lot of questions.

Yeah, I mean, what's he thinking with this? I mean the roster is pretty much turned over. But yeah, with with with Brendan, what is he?

What does he?

It was hard, It was hard to gauge. He's an engaging guy, but he's not an excitable guy, right, so you're not gonna you're gonna get what he gets, which which she gives you, Right, I don't know about fifteen newcomers gonna be at the roster here at the end of the semester. A lot of changes and then don't forget the the scholarship numbers have to come down and there's a lot to work with some new coaches.

I mean, did he say kind of how he's going to approach this offseason maybe a little bit differently than last year where he didn't have a whole lot of time. But no, there was some talk. I remember when the season began, like, you know, we don't really know this guy, and he's not out there in public. You wonder, you know, maybe with uh, you know, some of the changes in the administration and athletics, if they're going to kind of focus on on some of that, Yeah, these next few months.

That's those are great questions, Dave. Too bad you weren't at the front conference. Oh, I don't do that job anymore. No, no, no, But but those are questions that I think. I didn't ask any questions. I was just there to observe and see what he said. But my question and I thought of it, and I said, I'm want to wait for this for the fall because he's gonna give me a standard answer. But how much pressure do you think? How

Yeah, I mean it's a bit you know, it's a big conference. Uh, there's a lot of a lot of coaches of it. There's probably a handful of coaches that are probably feeling that way where you you know, you get there with with all these teams and relatively high expectations, you don't you know. They I don't want to say they laid an egg their first year, but it wasn't what people had hoped.

It was not a five dollars egg, right, it was a bigger one than these.

It was.

It was no those price of eggs. Now, well, he kind of drove it into the ditch.

Yeah, I mean that's that was kind of how he saw it play out. And that was disappointing based on what we saw the year before and with a different coach.

So, you know, he has a lot to prove.

I think, you know, I'm sure he's got some pride in him and he's like, you know, wait a second, I'm not I'm not that guy, and I want to I want to make two soon proud.

And here's the two soon proud and desiree. Well, because that's the one you have to impress with the with the wins and the and the culture and all that. He mentioned that yesterday. So we'll talk to to Michael about all that when he comes on in about ten fifteen minutes.

Yeah, when does basketball take off tomorrow?

Tomorrow? So you have a press conmerce on Thursday at two Seattle time. So I'm sure they got to get out of here tomorrow to night, get ready over there on Thursday and then the game of four to thirty five right on Friday. Did you have you looked at brackets? I haven't really looked at mine yet. I mean, you know same thing. You know.

I've looked. I filled them out you already did, of course. How many do you do you do? I do two a contest? Two contests? Okay, I need to get in those three contents. Huh do you have like, oh I got friends?

Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, like five bucks right, ten bucks whatever, twenty yeah, okay, high price friends.

We do a really good well, I don't know if one explain. We do a really cool one with some of my buddies too. We use an Excel spreadsheet and we have the numbers sixteen to one, and you put a team in that in that spot.

Some part of that one.

Have you done something like that?

Yeah, we do that with with of course, my partner here. You know, you know that cockroach is going to walk up the wall or no, how fast is he going to do it? If he does? Yeah? So Jay's Jay does one of those.

Okay, Yeah, it's a lot of fun. So you follow along that way.

Have you really have you found out if there's a trick to that. No, there's no trick to that. There's a trick to everything, but it's trying to figure out what's the smart move and where to put people's teams strategically.

Well, I mean there's pretty much an obvious top whatever welve.

Made, but you don't get much points for those ones exactly.

So you stuck, you know, stick somebody down with the three or two and you keep they keep going, yet you don't get You get points, but not many.

Not many, right, Well, that's why you need the tens or the twelves right to win some games. It's fun, it's a fun pool.

But yeah, it's interesting too because like you go on ESPN's whatever it's called Tournament Challenge, you get all the other you know, the guys from ESPN have their pools. You can actually literally just click and take their pool. Yeah, your own.

It's funny. As you say that, I've said this last couple of days, there are no experts in this. They have no idea what's happening.

Now.

It's how they play that day, right, But you oh, the guy from ESPN says this. I was at USA Today in eighty nine and working there, and one of the horse racing guys, the horse racing guy who covered horse racing, was giving his tips out and this is some guy he was, I guess, doing the thing at the counter and says, well, if the USA Today, guy, I think this is gonna win it. I'm gonna be on it too, right course, didn't have a chance.

I don't know you you're probably there, but I used to love the USA Today's Monday after the brackets came out. Yeah, Page, I mean we would go to that instant. We're huge because it at every game, every matchup.

We've already got a call day. Oh you're kidding. Yeah, No, No, you're on the air and I on the ball.

Who's yes, Hey guys, this is Doug.

How you doing, Doug? What's the word?

Okay?

Man?

Hey Steve, Hey, Dave. You know yeah, I'm trying of jumping the gun on your show, like right off the back because I have an appointment coming up. But I thought I would just put in my two cents on what you mentioned about football, and it kind of ties

What are the things I continue to say? I say it all the time, at least maybe not on the air. But enjoy the moment because they're fleeting And yeah, Doug, you've been around a ton. We're friends. I know who you are, and you've seen some great moments. You've seen some ugly moments, but you've seen a lot of good moments, and people just don't enjoy the moment. Well the thing too.

Yes, as I was working, I had so many people jealous of the fact that I was covering the tournament every single year. We really are pretty lucky here in this town to have had that into the business. It's why, it's why you stayed. And you know, there's my appears all over the country. How many years you been I don't know, maybe twenty in a row, you know, so it's pretty amazing it was. You know, I think we need to understand how cool that's.

Been before you go to your appointment.

Doug.

I'm a little upset you've been cheating me, cheating on me with the other station, But I'll let you go for that.

Yeah, well wait, but how do you know that?

Because I was like, I'm listening, not calling in I'm listening not calling.

Yeah, I actually I'm not a frequent caller with the other station either. I've just kind of backed off a little bit. But you know, what I was just gonna say is like I don't want to get too heavy, but like we've all gone through some really serious things in our lives, loved ones and everything else. You know, jobs, you lose a job, or you've got some big house repair, whatever it is, and it just people need to remember that sports is fun, you know. It's that it's the

Just to just to your point real quick, Uh, you know some people I guess read it or some players actually read it to your point of the Facebook or Twitter, and kJ Lewis has been kind of been not fighting but pointing out, you know, the negativity that he's been playing, hadn't been playing well. Now he's playing well again. But you know, they they pay.

Attention, right of course if you. I mean, look at what happened with Zeke Mayo at Kansas when he was getting death threats after they were on a losing street and Bill Selth had to kind of get his you know, have his back. It's just, you know, and some of it's probably sports betters where they don't actually have any fan and the fan interest. They're just kicked off because they lost their bet. And I'm at sports Better too, but and I'll be upset about something but not it's

I wanted to get across it, and you have, you know, thanks, Doug Cool. Appreciate the call. I appreciate it. Shure, we got about two minutes.

It's good that weird.

You know.

We live in a town too where people care. People care, I do care about They go to the games and they care about it. They call in and they listen to the shows like this and read the paper, and there's a lot of outlets to uh, you know, check out online and stuff.

So I mean they we're we're lucky I think to be here in this situation.

You know, And to be fair from my end, because I do kind of rag a little on the fans. Uh, they're pragmatic, A lot of them are. It's the it's the one or two that you know that kind of pop off right for no really big reason. They just do it because they can and things they're funny. I mean they think they're funny when they post these things.

I mean it drives me crazy.

I know it does to you when you go on Facebook during the game and they put stuff up that just looks so ridiculous that the game what you get? And then they don't take that post down every game's over, like what's wrong with these guys? And then they wind up winning by right?

Right though?

I never understood that approach, right, I.

Don't get that points and I've posted a couple of things on them because it gets me so pressured. Okay, Dave, what's your point? What's your point on saying this team, this guy played poorly? We all see this, right, Are you trying to say that you know basketball chast what's your point? Yeah? And it's not just one or two, so it's a lot of stuff. They fired up to their computer or their phone to write this. Are you a better person? Do you feel better after writing this?

I mean, everybody, you know, we're in the world now where you can do whatever you want online.

You can.

You can have your own you know, sub stacks and things like that and just post your opinions.

Yeah, you don't have to do that. No, No, what's the point. I really don't understand. You're not making any money from this. Why wash your Timeue? Oh you could possibly if you're really good at it. Well, Jim Bob, I'm sorry, I'm not reading you. We gotta go. We're gonna talk to Michael Levan just I'd love to talk to him about about the last couple of days. He's been prolific with some of the stuff he's been doing.

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Streaming live on the iHeartRadio app. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty eight.

Hey, welcome back to win the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty I'm Steve Rivera and with me it is Dave Silver. Now on the phone, we have Michael Lib from the Arizona Daily Store. Michael, how you doing good?

How are you guys?

We're good. You've been busy, You've been busy.

I'm gonna I'm going to agree with you this time. Other times I'd say I haven't been that busy.

But yeah, between the World Baseball Classic, coll of Guard Classic, the end of you know, the regular season in mental women's basketball, the start of the baseball season, now spring football starting, there's a lot going on, right.

So I guess today Day pointed out you had a story about the uh uh, maybe the possibility or this maybe suggestion that the U should hold or host Attorney game. This is my idea, this is your idea. You came up on your own idea, So so explain it, explain it and why?

Okay, so I can just say for a while. So, the basic premise is the NCAA tournament is going to expand, right. It seems like that's the way the tide is pushing right now, going to.

Be seventy two. I don't know if it's going to be s doesn't really model whatever it is.

Whatever it is, there's going to be a you know, a second first four. Right, you still have the one in Dayton, but they'll want to have one on the West coast so they can kind of stack the start times, you know, and kind of.

Spread the love a little bit.

And my idea was, why not Tucson to be this home for the.

West coast first four? This? You know, Tucson is no Steve used to host NCAA regional all the time at McHale Center. They stopped doing that.

Basically, Greg Burn Sean Miller decided that it wasn't in the UA's best interest to do that because it would you reduce the number of possible sites on the West Coast where Arizona could go and play this that that would not be a problem with the first four, because we're talking about the first four.

I wouldn't have anything to do with the first and second round. I think it would.

It dovetails really nicely with you know a lot of the initiatives that have been undertaken recently to bring more, you know, big time sporting.

Events into town.

The you know, the economics are pretty obvious when you have these kind of big events, you know, more people in restaurants, more people staying in hotels.

For Dayton, it's.

Been upwards of six billion dollars in economic impact each of the last.

Two years, according to media reports and I.

Also feel like Tucson is you know, it's a bigger city than Dayton, but it's sort of a similar vibe.

You know, it's a college town.

We don't really have we have pro teams, but we don't have the Major League teams here, and.

People love basketball. They love love basketball in this town.

I came up with a spreadsheet looking at combined attendance between men and women's basketball this season and any among schools west of Texas. Arizona was number one on that list. So these are all kind of the reasons that I think that.

How do we how do we make this? What's the process going to be? You think, I mean, do we just well let them know?

I think, yeah, yeah, I mean if this happens, and it could, I mean Brett your Mark suggested there could be some meaningful discussion about this and then you know, the next two to three months. Then once it becomes established and they figure out what the format is, it'll be up to schools or cities or arenas or whatever.

To put in bids. You know, you'll put your bid together for however long. You could be like a three year contract.

I think Dayton currently is locked in through twenty twenty eight.

What's the return? I mean, do they get paid or do they have to shell out the money.

It's like the costs are shared by the institution and the NCAA. I mean, I tried to get kind of concrete figures on that, and I couldn't do so. But it's kind of this idea that you know, if it's if it's good for like the city.

Of Tucson, it's probably also good for the u of A.

You know, if it's beneficial, it's beneficial for the economy of Tucson. Let's say, you know, let's say it helps restaurant owners, helps hotel owners. I mean that puts people in a more advantageous position financially to buy tickets to UA sporting events later on.

It's also really good brand exposure for.

Your school, right Like who talks about Dayton three hundred and sixty three other days of the year, I mean, not very much, because two days a year like that is the the focal.

Point of the entire sporting world, and you have that here at the u of A.

Yeah, it makes sense, it makes sense. We'll see, we'll see. Okay, okay, let me move on because we don't have a whole heck of a lot of time with you yesterday. I hope to talk to about football, men's basketball, women's basketball. So yesterday we were all with Brendan. You know, you guys asked some great questions. Uh, it's not my lane there. I had maybe a question I want to ask. I'll save it for the fall. H What did you take from yesterday?

My biggest takeaway from yesterday when he first met with us was that he's just more intentional, which is messaging.

Remember when he first got up there, Steve.

He was like, I brought notes, yeah, right today, Like.

I don't think he ever brought notes with him in the past. You know, I felt like he was just kind of waiting a little bit.

Yeah, maybe he didn't fully understand like the scope right job and never really was in a lot of situations like this at San Jose State where it was basically zero media coverage.

Yeah, and not nearly as much fan interest as the race here.

So you know, if they've had the the fit of time, Uh, they've been here, you know, his regime has been here for a year plus now. I think that's where I read France was. I'm sure most assuredly had some conversations with him about, you know, just how to organize your thoughts a little bit better or present yourself, And he came in with talking points, you know, the things that he's looking for in players, the things he's looking for

Whereas last year, I mean, you know, they came in and had to.

Scrambles, yeah, just to keep the roster together, and it was kind of like partially the old roster, partially the new roster. This feels like it's more Brendan's team and Brannan's operation.

I was gonna say earlier we were talking a little bit about off the field things and the program and how it presents himself in Tucson.

Did he go into that at all or maybe you know, what are we going.

To see from you of a football say in July or June when there's no games, but people need to buy tickets and the program needs to get some attention.

Did he talk about that at all?

I mean a little bit, A little bit in the sense of the Spring Showcase, which is a different concept and reimagining of the spring game. A lot of schools are ditching their spring games altogether, in part because of injury concerns, in part because they don't want to put film out there for the world, in part because you know, sometimes guys get seen and they get poached by other schools. So you know, Arizona is doing I think a smart thing and basically turning it into a fan fest.

Right. You talked about there.

Being an easter right hunt, and there's gonna be autographed, there's going to be a beer garden, maybe there will be a little bit of football sprinkle games.

This is kind of what it should be probably.

I mean, they do most of their meaningful work in those first fourteen spring practices. It's okay if you utilize the fifteenth one to build a bond with the community. He didn't talk about this other thing that I'm going to mention here specifically, but they did announce the next round of the coaches Caravan, and I don't know if it goes in the summer or not.

It maybe starts in May.

But there's only three stumps, and I think overhelf of them are in Tucson, So they're trying to hit other parts of the state. But they're also we're really trying to kind of double down on the Tucson communities here. I mean, the population of the city is I think over five hundred thousand in the metro area at post to a million.

You know, if you do it right, you should.

Be able to fill up with fifty thousand seam football stadium six times every fall. Obviously, costs are an issue expensive so to these games.

You have to pay for players.

These days, so you know, there's a lot of obstacles in that regard, but it seems like they are making efforts in that in that area, which is super important. And Brent Brandon seems to understand how important that is.

Since you were offering suggestions for the final four, you know, for the extra four here. Let me let me ask you this. You came from la You covered USC when you first got here, and I think you've been here six or seven years now, what did you think You're thinking? This is college football? And I say that with all due respect. You know, we go and I covered football before I did laschool a long time ago, many years ago. And you go to Oklahoma and you go, you see

Well, first of all, Steve, you can believe it.

I've been here for nine years going on ten. So yeah, I know it's been a minute, but okay, the time is fun by time, plass when you're having fun.

Right. It was definitely a.

Shock to the system for me coming from covering USC to covering Arizona, just in terms of the the quality of athletes, the depth side, the speed, you know.

The number of draft picks each year or lack thereof.

So to me, like it's if you're not talking about the same things necessarily, Like USC and Arizona are just not recruiting the same caliber of players. That's probably never going to change. So the challenge is, and you know my suggestion is and I think they're doing this, is you've got to unners, James. You know, you've got to find You've got to find the players who aren't board and five star but have four and five star potential.

You're going to get a better caliber players here than San Jose.

State with a Big twelve, you know happening now you now have like the Texas market that you can tap into, and they're doing good job of that.

There's tons of good players in Texas.

So that would be the pass to me to to towards some sort of level of sustained success.

And I would say to the those players the parody in the Big twelve, I think is gonna be We're gonna see that and saying that it's gonna proably be a diff a different champion every year, unlike the the Pac twelve, whereas like I kind of knew it was gonna be USC or Oregon basically like the last ten years Washington.

I would think.

I completely agree.

I don't know if it's necessarily good for the conference if.

It plays out that week, because I think I kind of.

Like to have those kind of couple premier teams that get a lot of attention.

But it certainly makes things more interesting and more foreign.

I mean, who thought Arizona State was gonna win the conference last year? Nobody? I mean, they were picked to finish I think last, right, Well, I don't think was.

I don't think that was very wise.

I thought going into the teams that Houston was the worst team in the league, and I think they ended up finishing.

No, I want to actually Oklahoma State finished last, which also no he saw coming.

By the way, a lot of people picked them to win the league, so things were kind of upside down. But I agree, like d Yu, it could be really good this year. We think, right, you should be good again this year. You think someone like Oklahoma State's gonna bounce back Houston as a quarterback now, so they could rise up.

I think I always State brings back a lot. It is a wide open and fun lead.

Again, it will be very very interesting to see moving forward if they expand that tournament the college football playoffs, like whether they're going to do you know, X number of a lot of mental qualifiers. And while I don't like that idea in general, it probably would be a good thing for the Big twelve if they were to secure too, because most of the time they're going to be a one league.

We're gonna try to go a little longer if you if you can, because I think some of the topics we want to talk about it are important. So you had some a chance to sit down with Desiree. I'm sure you have extended titles department. Do you have more than two parts?

No?

True?

Two?

Okay, the second part was the second or two?

Yeah, okay, so I haven't read much except I did read about your coaching one of the evaluations. I'm sure you already kind of expected that answer to come from her. What was the most interesting things that you got from her? Because it is her year anniversary, there's a lot of things going on to you, anything interesting, maybe a tidbit or two.

Well, she said that she's basically been able to wipe out that the set that they face, wow, or will have wiped it out by the end of fiscal year twenty twenty five, which I.

Guess is next to June. And maybe that's fistically your twenty twenty six, that's next June thirty. It's not this one, Okay, the next one. And she's done that in a variety of ways.

I mean, it's kind of what she was brought in to do, right, Like prime primary objective was to get the department out of the red So I mean that's been us.

How did she do that? How did she do that so quickly? What did you say?

It's a gradual process. And some of it has been like finding ways to save money here and there. Some of it has been, uh, finding ways to generate money. The new Nike contract is a big thing because that was costing them And this just blew me away when I found this out. It was costing them two point five million dollars a year basically to get all the stuff that they needed because the previous contract was so insufficient. So I mean, that's that's a nice chunk of savings

I don't know what the official name I was. I was called the Tech Practice.

Yeah, so that'd be good. So so another quick thing, and I'm gonna have to go back and read it because it's to me, it's interesting and maybe we'll have you on again down the road. Uh. But in order for a new person like like her, you might as well have been Dave Silver. When you're you're asked, you're asking somebody to come in and be the new person and to make changes. Guess what they had to make? Changes? Well, she she did some of them probably not popular, did you go there? No?

I mean yeah, I mean the headline of the first part was something like the change is not easy.

You know. That was one of those one of her quotes. And there's been a ton of turnovers.

Yes, and I'm sure like a lot of people that left or you know, weren't happy about what was going on. And she's brought in people that a lot of people that she knows, some people who are you know, she didn't work with before. And yeah, it's it's was not It's not an easy process. And when you when you are in a position where you have to make difficult decisions, not everyone is going to agree with those decisions, and some people are going to be unhappy.

Uh.

And change is really really difficult, and it's especially difficult, uh in these times when the entire industry is changing and you have to rethink a lot of things, you know, like you she talked about it as a one hundred and tifty million dollar business that she is in charge of, you know, basically like a corporation, and that's just not like how we grew up thinking about athletic departments.

But that's the reality of the situation.

And she talked about the coaches that I'll have these contracts coming up from from Caitlin to Ada, Barns and Chip.

I mean, it's a lot to do here next year.

That Yeah, that list is extentive.

She went over all to list them all, but like I think the majority of the quote unquote non revenue sports coaches contracts are up in either twenty twenty five or twenty twenty six. Wow, So she has a lot of work ahead just figure out like who she's going to keep and who you know, and what sports maybe we'll we'll have a change of some sort.

She's very methodical about that.

And the only coach that she's given any sort of contract extension to so.

Far is Tommynis oh Tennis Tommyhip.

Yeah, but that was that was orchestrated by the previous regime. I think it like it might have happened like on the day that desire started or a couple of days after, but she had nothing to do with it kind of already in the works. So yeah, and yeah, obviously did Dean Bornes. When I think we've talked about it that something's going to come to a head here in the

Did she talk about the TV deal and how things have gone this first year where you know, we hear from the fans. No, I can't find the game on ESPN Play. I mean, if she talked about how fans have adapted to the TV situation.

No, that that was not No, we did not bring up that particular topic.

What about the Arizona what about the what about the radio deal with you know, the Brian Jeffries one of them, Yeah, Arizona Sports.

Oh yeah, that's that's pretty good.

Yeah.

Yeah, she said that they've done uh he said that they've sold ninety eight percent, ninety eight percent of their goal in terms of.

Sales for that So yeah, and I thought that was a pretty.

Bold yes that she made.

I was recommended to them in that instant young audit that they received.

But you know, sometimes when you're in this position, you've got to pick some risks too. And I think you know, if you listen to a radio broadcast. The quality is the same. Brian Jeffries is still there, which I think was a very very big deal for Arizona fans, Like when that was happening, like his contract was.

You know, a little bit up in the air and a little uncertainty about how that would go.

Regarding est and Plus.

I think that it has been enough positive to have the ESPN Plus that's an option. The one thing that's kind of weird though, is like during the Big twelve tournament. I don't know if you guys noticed this, but like the game would end and there'd be no like shoulder programming or whatever in between, which was something that you got a lot of with the Tack twelve networks, especially

Okay, the only time they had any kind of shoulder was during the last couple of games when they're really on the Big ESPN they had some stuff going on. But you're right, during the week, correct, Yeah, they did.

Have an ESPN Plus only like post game championship ceremony kind of thing.

But it was you know, I don't know that was that was one difference that.

I noticed, you know, when it came to those those big postings and events that were really a great showcase for what TACK twelve Networks was able to do.

Lastly, we got about to We're way over. But so give me a minute, just us in office. On the men's basketball situation. Are they going to get to the sweet sixteen?

I think there's a very good chance, I think from what I understand and I came to here and Jason Akron playing basketball single time this year. But the team that plays really fast, yeah, doesn't play a lot of defense, doesn't have a lot of side I think, you know, that is a team that Arizona I think can handle. Hopefully they won't have their full focus and attention on Akron.

We know what can happen if you don't right then, you know.

I've heard some people say that maybe you know, Oregon could be susceptible on the other side, which would be interesting to say. At least I personally would love to see in Oregon Arizona matchup definitely would sort of be nostalgic kind of thing for those of us you know who grew up in the Pac twelve or came to love the Pac twelve after moving out to the West coast.

That would be a lot of fun. But I do think that they have a.

Very reasonable talent to the Sweet sixteen and that might be where their season ends two because Duke is on the other side, and we I've all seen what Duke is capable of if they unhealthy.

Right right, Well, Michael, thanks as always. I we'll talk to you soon. Good luck, Thank you. I think Michael love from the daily start. We got to go. We're way over. We'll come back in about five minutes. If you're an Arizona men's basketball fan, you know it's been successful for nearly forty years. Now take a look back at the Ludolsen era in my new book, Lessons from Loot.

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Steve Rivera He's got his eye on the ball on Tucson's sports station, Fox Sports fourteen fifty eight.

Hey, welcome back to the ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty I'm Steve you're Dave got Kobe at the main gate here. We got about five six minutes. We went rather a long, but I wanted to get as many questions I could anything strike you.

No, I think it's I think we're seeing year two of the Desiree read Francois Era kind of underway. He's talking about this caravan. It's going to mostly be in Tucson all over town. She's making appearances. I know she's going to be at the Rotary talking later this or next month.

You know.

So there's and I'm sure Brent will be.

You know, he's been available too. He's been doing that too. It's funny, he hinted to this if directly said that he was very He had his notes right right away. He said, I brought some notes about Well, I'm sure that came from somewhere else. Yeah, you know, you need to be more this. Yeah.

I mean they've got communication people in the in the department, and I'm sure either conversations that he's had with the with the leadership has probably prompted that.

I think it's, you know, it's important again.

I'm looking at it now as a as kind of a fan and a spectator and what am I seeing?

How?

My?

How is this the image of the program you know, playing out here and what it's going to look like in the summer? Like do I want to go to that game on you know, early September when it's still going to be one hundred degrees?

Was the team going to be any good? One of the things I should text him. But he answered the question that the debt could be done by next what thirteen fourteen months? Fifteen months here, next year in twenty twenty six, that's what he said, right. What was the number? What was the overall number? Even if it was forty five million, that's pretty impressive. Yeah, even if it was twenty and five. You know what I'm saying, Because everybody, everybody across the board, most everybody is in debt. I

The whole school when it hit, as opposed to just athletics. Right, what about this twenty million dollars it's coming?

Is another thing?

Was that helpful in this debt situation?

I don't I don't think so, I don't know but that's another thing coming.

Yeah.

Right, you're gonna have a student athletes making two hundred thousand dollars a year, right, if not more because the nil on top of that.

Yeah, and again talking to some people over there too, you know, so much that depends on the position that they play to, Like the offensive tackles are going to make more than the offensive guards because they're protecting the quarterback. And it's amazing how that money is broken out.

Right, and the teams and the team is not a title line issue right where the women's teams will not get as much as the men's teams.

Yeah, but a lot of these schools are really making sure that the non revenue sports athletes are getting to getting something. I know Arizona was early on in that. I don't know where it stands now, but you know there are people in town who are like responsible for trying to get that collective put together.

Did you when you did your your magic for the fundrating? Yeah? Did you? Did you? I'm sure you have a lot of people scouring Tucson. You were not one of those, right.

It depended I mean, yeah, I mean most most of the alumni are in Arizona here in Phoenix, Americopa County, so they're all over the state. So, yeah, people, there was a book I don't remember who wrote it was called The Millionaire next Door. You know, sometimes you just don't know that that money could just be sitting there, you know, close to town, but they're there.

To my point is, how did you have clients locally? Yeah? Okay, was it difficult?

Not really because you could take them right to campus.

You know.

That was that was a key in the world.

And if you know, if you've ever been on the other end and you're getting approached lots of times, you want to see, what's my money going towards? And here was right here in town, and you could maybe if it's going to be something significant, you know, maybe get a lunch with Brent Brennan or a lunch with the athletic director where they can really lay it out for you how important your.

Gift would be. Yeah, so it was in a way it was nice to have them here in town.

Yeah, okay, because we all talk about you know, there's not a lot of money here, but I guess the millionaire next door is the millionaire could be next door, you ever know.

Yeah, I was in Foothills today walking around there, it's pretty nice up there. Most of those people, many of them are not from U of A or what and they just happen to move here or they live here part time.

We're gonna talk a lot, We're not. We don't have a guest here at four seventeen unless I get one in the next few minutes. But let's a story about the possible ability of having the postseason here, you know the other four I'm not too sure. And I say this because, uh, these teams would not be for any who are close to here. And yes it was one of two sons of basketball town. Would they go see you know, Illinois State or some other school? They have no ties there, who knows?

I mean what tonight we have with San Diego State and North Carolina Lane and the other game is the sixteens A right, two sixteen So I don't even know those two. Yeah, that's gonna be right.

I think if North Carolina paint center, you State, you'd have a pretty good turnout. Yeah. I'm curious just to see what's Carolina because they're the they're the car wreck, right, they maybe not should have been in they're in. See how they react, we'll San Diego State step up.

You know what I'm saying. There's a lot of intrigue there. How did how did Dayton get those games? Do you remember how that happened? And all of a sudden it was like Dayton and dating, you know, and they I mean I can see and sort of understand being in the middle of the country, and you know, they win and they.

Get to go easy to get to get to get in and out.

But I remember you and I remember going to Dayton in nineteen ninety five.

Or whatever it was. It was brutal. Yeah, we flewed Indie Apple. Yeah, we had to drive. We had to drive. Yeah we didn't fly into We flew right by and drove.

But I wonder how that would work, you know, I guess you know, we would have quite a month. We be right on the tail end of the book festival if they had it. You're right today, Well there's.

Timing because right book festival break, women's basketball is women's tournament. Uh, there's a lot of things around that, around that that you have to accommodate.

Ya.

I mean, even if whatever this, you know, the tournament while the women are playing in but you know, if it was an n C double a thing as well. It would be this weekend too, so I don't know, they'd have to put the put the calendar together.

Tell us well, the games would be.

What Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so it would be pretty quick and they'd be they'd be gone. But by the time the real tournament started.

A good idea. It depends it's just the teams that would come in and how much interest there would be from the locals.

Right, I don't know, make it, make it part of the season ticket package.

Good for Michael f to be to uh to take a snap. Yeah, we'll see. Uh we got about well, we're ready to go, are we, Kobe? Uh, we'll come back and the other side of your breaking news. Okay, cool,