This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteenth fifth Day powered by Nova Insurance Services Insure your most Prized possessionets.
Hey you, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Eye on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera and today with me is Dave silver Henry running the board. There's no problems today. It's Wednesday. And as I like to call it at you of eight, the future is here. The future is here. What does that mean? It doesn't know. We will know till four or five years, if Brennan is still a coach and the recruits are signed and
delivered and if they're already good. Yeah. Always takes a while, huh. It takes a while. How many times I don't even know as a freshman coming in and you know, done really really well and say, oh good, I'm glad we got him. Yeah.
Not very often t mac, especially especially in football, and it almost always seems like it takes, you know, a year or two at least, once they get here and get drunk.
You got you. Gronk was here in first year. He was a quick one, but he was so highly touted. Yeah, so he was as promised, Yes, as promise. Tem Mac was as promised. Yes. I remember seeing him right away against calendar. He would come up with these catches as if they did for anything they did that was a good thing that they did. Yeah, Kateen, I think was that way a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well the thing is too, Team AC wasn't supposed to be theirs.
He was somebody else's. Yeah, yeah, Kadeen, There's been a few, you know, you know, I'd have to go back and see, but today was that day. They got a few people right, and after three five d five months of what are we doing? There was a little hope. There was always hopeful.
I mean you almost have to kind of turn the page when when days like this happened, where you can look to the future, as you said, and you sort of see who's coming. And but so much is going to happen between now and say spring football. You know, the roster is going to probably flip almost completely. I would I would think in some of the coaches might be working for other jobs, or new coaches are coming in, so who knows.
Well know tomorrow, because he said Brett and said in the press conference initially early that he's meeting with them tomorrow and he's going to have a talk with the media afterward. So I guess is he'll lose two or three, well, not lose talking coaches, coaches, Yeah, yeah, and playing. I'm sure players are still going to decide what they're going to do, because if you get rid of their coaches, right, you get rid of them.
Was it yesterday? Was it Speedy Luke? One of the one of the guys Luke?
And there had been rumors and maybe I fell a trap into that hearing that Fafita may have decided to go, but that's not true at this moment. Yeah, so we'll see.
I mean, really, it's we just have to kind of wait, there is there's I mean, unless you're in the family and know these guys personally, sure, so many decisions will come, you know, influenced by parents and friends and and different relatives and you know, other coaches that might see an opening where they can get this guy.
So who knows. So you're in the sports business for a thousand years. You went to the academic academic say you went to this the charity side, Yes, uh, academics last charity? Is that fair to say academics kind of No, no charity, it's it's fundraising, fundraising, okay, development, development, Okay, whatever the hell that means. So so I was gonna ask you. I was thinking today and watching the press coverage. I'm thinking of the eighty kids that they get or
on roster, how many of them care about academics. I'm a serious question.
Yeah, I would think most of them with I would think the reason they're coming to a college is they understand they have to take care of some academics. Well, it may not be the number one priority, Okay, fair, I mean I would think most sixty Yeah, I would, I would.
I would guess.
We would, you know, we would sort of have a pretty good idea way back when when kids were not going to class, usually had some grad assistant that was running around, had to go look for hey, ill come a cornerbacks not in class today kind of thing.
And I don't know, I think nowadays nowadays you don't hear anything about academics. Yeah, because they have a thousand people trying to make sure everything is.
Okay, and so many classes are online now, so sometimes do you even know if you're if if that student is there. I guess there's there's got to be a way that they've sort of checked in. But physically being in the classroom maybe isn't you know, something has to happen every day now. But I would still think that, you know, they're going to a college and they someone's you know, helping them out with you know, either with tuition. Some of them are art on scholarships.
So so those eighty, how many of them are thinking about pros? Probably fifty? Oh that's all I thought. You could say eighty? Is that what they agreed? Yeah, they if they're coming here, they think they have a chance. Thinks to have a chance. Yeah, that's what everybody, all the ex guys, Oh no, they're coming. They're coming because they think they can play. I don't know. I'm curious you and I think six to fifteen maybe.
Yeah, yeah, But I mean, like with basketball, it seems like it's different basketball.
You know, damn, I'm going to sign in Arizona my next step, that's right.
The Nuggets, Yeah, sometimes, I mean they got Aaron Gordon and.
Zeke Well sometimes it's very rare. I don't know what the percentage is. You probably google it, you know, to five percent something like that. They go to the pros you go to the Prosy. Yeah it's not even that. Probably yeah, probably not even that. And they go to Europe and they play. They probably make more money in college than they will ever professionally in any sport.
That's going to be interesting some decisions these guys are going to be making, uh, with the with the with basketball.
I'm talking here in.
Terms of whether or not they go to go to Europe or stay you know in college where you can make you know, some good money here.
Take cut a couple of years to get a pay cut, going to.
Go playing you know, Belarus or something. Yeah, who knows what you're gonna.
Get, And majority of them do because it's very rare that they get an NFL, NBA contract or they have to go overseas, and hey, let me take something. I wish I had that future rather than mine, because you know, you can get half a million, four hundred thousand whatever it is, sure h and play basketball to your you know whatever age and then come back and then the real world and then you become Dave Silver and Steve Rore.
I just remember, and we'll see this, you know, in four years from today when they look at this recruiting class to go, well, what happened to that guy? Well, it's always you know, half the class first of all doesn't maybe doesn't even qualify to get into college.
College. Yeah, tissue. We did that all the time, because you can't evaluate a classroom. Now, No, you know, Hey, how are you? I love you? Okay? Four years later we're up to the girl you were, Well we were no longer together. Yeah, I mean, how many four stars are they going to have? Oh? A few? Hearing? Does it matter? Do you know where you're at? Well? No, they did a couple four stars in this class. Yeah, two I think so. Oh, I didn't even I watched a past press conference and who was on the press
conference Brendan. Oh he's already talked about Yeah, come in twenty five minutes. Okay, yeah, he's he was. He was fine. He was good. He was more affable actually talking about the future and tomorrow with the other coaches and things. You know, he just needs I don't know what do I know? I guess had this radio show. It's the Fraser Crane syndrome. I've told you this way, the Fraser Crane Show, Remember the show. No, this is what he did.
He could figure out everybody problems, but he couldn't figure out his own. Okay, and you know what, I'm Frasier Greene. I could figure out the football program, but I can't pay my ELECTRICI well, you know what I'm saying. I know what you mean, you know what you mean. So we'll see what happens with him. It's a lot of moving parts. You know.
He's got you know, these coaching situations, players coming and going. You know, he's looking at his peers that are going to playoff games and things like that. And then the fans here kind of turned against the program in the last month especially, so.
He's got a lot to think about, right and guess what, he's on the clock. He's on the clock, and we've all been told he's going to short lease. Yeah. Now he's got to make things happen, make things change, maybe change his personality, uh, to be more vocal or out there or whatever.
Well, definitely, you know, he can't in with with some pretty good fan fare. There was a lot of change, you know, in administration wise at the UFA with the new president and a d and everything, but they didn't put him out in the public and he I don't know if it was his problem or.
Decision, that it's the choice of the coach. Things have changed so much. In fact, she had a good, uh a good tweet out yesterday that and I'm gonna ask you this, and you have no touch to Arizona, right, They're not going to cut off your your no after what even better you just be really uh that the Arizona, Arizona as a whole specifically, you know, the school doesn't have a good emergency system. Uh. For for I have to go back to to Christis managed, Cristist management, and
they just don't. In sports, they definitely don't. And and you you were in the business where if something happened, they shut up, they shut down, and the less said the better. You'd always get that.
You know, there's not available for comments type situation right for sure.
I mean I think they have to be careful.
You know, there's legal issues if there's something like that where privacies involved.
Or there were legal issues. When we covered it, they were less, they were less reluctant to talk. I mean there were more they would talk more about it. Now it's like what you know, sorry.
You'd find about you guys are good reporters. We would we could find stuff I used to dread. Again, it was different TV maybe was different. But you know when I get that call, you know, at ten o'clock in the morning, like oh, you know, so and so was arrested, and like, oh gosh, Yeah, it was hard.
It was hard to do.
That was just basically had to flip your job description from you know, kind of you know, just giving the facts and talking about the game and talking about these players to something maybe a little bit more serious.
Yeah, more police reporters. Yeah. And I wasn't trained in that, just didn't. I didn't even know who to call. Yeah, honestly, right, no, because you're dealing with the Toy Department and that's what we all thought we were getting into. And then you have DeLaura with his accusations or what are alleged stuff, and right, and then Khalid back in the day with
his ledge and Stoff you remember that, I'm sure. And that's when I first came on board, like ninety one ninety two, and I was chasing people down and calling no one talking and blah blah blah. But you know, some people talk than Thankfully.
Some of those guys had like agents almost when they were here.
Yeah. Yeah. They had to retain lawyers too. Yeah, they have lawyers.
There was there was a few lawyers that were kind of like the U of a athletic lawyers.
Yeah.
Yeah, whenever there was trouble. Yeah, and that's the downside of the business. But but it's part of the business. Oh yeah, Yeah. We're going to see how how Brendan handles the next year. I think he'll be out there more. I think it stopped, to my point earlier. I think it stopped after Alive and Good left. Greg came in, buttoned it down a little bit more, became more corporate. He he had a coach and Sean Miller who didn't like the media to begin with, right, so he shut
it down. There only a couple of people talking.
Now.
The whole system is that I'll bring who I want to bring in and talk. If I were the guy, if I were the SID guy or had some kind of I would say, make more people available, become more of fan friendly, more media friendly. What do you have to lose next year? Guess what? Not very many people going to buy tickets. What do you have to sell yourself? For sure? Yourself?
I think they have been pretty good about doing these little remote events in the summertime. I think they did, like a road trip or something through the state of Arizona, but they need to expand that. They need to get it back into southern California or go to Texas.
You're talking about the administrators. I'm just I'm talking about the coaches. Yeah, yeah, coach including Brennan, who should be part of that. I think he I think he was.
But those road trip things, I mean they were they were little news stories that we could cover in the middle of July that had no other news going on, and those are good chances.
Well you were going to get a camera out there, though you had a camera somewhere, did you shoot? So sometimes I think I like your the footage. Yeah, and I think they do. They do photos now, at least with social but I think you're onto something. Do it more locally and go it's a big it's a bigger city now, I mean it's Mayberry has expanded northwest side, east side, south side, central, make them more available. They
have to sell themselves a lot of ways. If Tommy doesn't do well this year, there people already bitching honestly, Yeah, and Tommy won't mind it. He's you know, hey, how you don't he kisses babies and shakes hands. Brennan has not Jed did, I guess to agree, but he was kind of maybe doing it because you needed to.
I mean, even Jed was good with social media too, kind of it was part of his personality was I don't know if that was really him, but or for you know, he came off as him, whereas I don't think does Brennan even do anything?
I don't know.
Well, there's another tweet. There was another tweet that came out early. I guess I'm Facebook friends with him. Mo, a very bright guy talks about why doesn't Arizona do the same or better that that Jed did with social media all that stuff, you know, dancing conective because he had he either was him or he has a social media team out there and they still do apparently to the same people. So if that's the case that they slacked this year compared to last year, why did that happen?
And let me ask you, does that mean anything to you or to me or to anybody. Well, I mean we're talking about it, that's about it. I don't know if it was I wanted you to talk about it, not because I purposely with it.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if if it helps with ticket I think it just helps coach interest changing. People are looking at their phones all the time. They're not watching TV as they used to. They're looking at the smaller screens and whatever you can put on those small screens, whether it's a dancing cactus or you know, some kind of emoji. We're you know where you're forecasting. Hey, my recruiting glass is taking shape. You know, something would
be nice to hear from the coach. And I don't know, again, I haven't really looked today, but it would be kind of nice to hear that other than just Arizona Wildcat football says.
You know, it'd be nice to hear from him. Yeah, good for his image.
Yeah yeah.
So always you see what happens. And it's a long year. We're only halfway through. Football is done and now we have the winner. Sports volleyball guests is playing right playoffs this weekend, and some other things going on. But you'd be basketball and men's and women's and then the winter sports will start up, right, I mean the spring, I guess spring with softball, and so we'll see what happens interesting. What time do we have there, Senior? Twenty seconds? Okay, perfect timing. Good, Let's go.
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Breaking down all the EPs is and ohs. This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Block Sports fourteen fifty.
Hey, welcome back to why in the ball. Here I'll Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera in today with me Dave Silver Now on the phone. We have paton Nugent and coaching Mike Moutain. How you doing, Pat, Hi, Steve, how you doing?
Thanks for having me?
Yes, No, just a few weeks ago you were wondering if you could make the playoffs and here you are in the finals.
Yeah.
You know, a great opportunity for a kid. You know, I've been a great year thirteen to Oh. Not a lot of people have that opportunity. So the kids have been playing good ball, and here we are getting chance to go play it up at ASU and hopefully try to bring another one back to Tucson.
Boy, Dave, Pat, you guys are in quite a streak, twenty eight wins in your last thirty games. What what has been the secret to getting this program rolling like this so quick, so earlier?
Yeah, well, number one day, it's been a long time since it has heard from you, So it's nice to hear from you again and back in the flowing wealth.
Days there exactly go cabs.
Yeah, you know, we took a chance to come to Micael Mountain. You know, I followed Neimar Hasse, our principal over there. I leave in Sienaga, and you know, the whole thing with our kids had to buy into the program, and it was hard because we had nothing at micro Mount when Sienaga had it all and kids this group, you know this, We got a few of these kids. We got about five of our seniors that played all
four years and really started the program. And you know, here we are in our third varsity season and you know, a lot of success. So you know, last year's senior group was our first senior class, and now here we are with our second.
We're senior heavy.
We have thirty one seniors this year and those are the kids that came to micro for a reason and they turned the program to success.
So I had Jim Monico on I don't know, maybe ten days ago or so, a great guy as you probably know, and he's just randomly talked about you, saying that how meticulous you are with your job, and how you know on point you must have got that from somewhere, and what older kind of secret sauce makes you who you are as a coach.
Well, I've been fortunate to grow up in a football family and my uncle was a head football coach at Florida State Maryland, and my dad was a high school and coach for years and you know, a Hall of Fame back in New York. And then I had a great experience of work with Dick Tomy, and Dick Tomy was a guy that got me into this profession and I learned a lot of great things about what a team.
Was and what you needed to do to build a program.
And you know, I take a lot of that success from coach told me who taught me a lot, and you know, and that's just what I'm working with a lot of great coaches and a lot of believers that you don't know how to work hard and that's what we've done since my younger days. And John Casher, who was my first coach I worked with ever at Solongwell, has taught me a whole lot about the game of football.
And it's been fortunate to have these great coaches teach work with work with me, and you know, lucky we've had success.
Was there some type of a mentorship program going on with Tony because a number of you guys kind of got the end of the business. Yeah, I mean, it was interesting that that's I don't know, a stretch of maybe five ten years. A number of you you know, kind of came through the u of a you're on the sidelines.
You were there. Well, let me say that's too. You must have been really young, because I had Lamont Hunley on the show yesterday and he said, oh, yeah, yeah, Nucca was one of our ball boys back in the day.
Yeah, you know, I was a manager back and told me Daves and that's you know, just the opportunity to work coach told me and see what went on. And you know that just a great human being he was, and you know he mentored me throughout. You know, I had a lot of down years of PIMA, and I know my wife would call Dick just to kind of motivate me a little bit. And then you know, I worked with Dick, put in a few camps and clinics
together with him. Was just an honor and you know, just you know, we just wanted to follow his lead a little bit.
And that's who they told me was what.
Did you know? What didt you know? Because you already had the foresight to do all these things, meet the right people. You were a ball boy, Like I said that you wanted to do this.
Well, I mean, I fortunately it really My sister knew Dick Barts and back in the day Dick Barts was over at UVA if you remember that.
Yeah, right.
They got me into McHale, and I, you know, was very fortunate to grow up in the McHale era.
You know, I'm working. I did a lot for Uba basketball, Ubay baseball.
I was kind of the McHale manager of the first couple of years before I got really heavy into the football part and.
Then just kind of grew up in the system.
I didn't know what I wanted to do in college, and next thing, I know, I just realized that I loved football and coaching and got into education. And that's kind of where thirty four years later, here.
I am, yeah and doing the wonders. I mean, I know last year you you were at the door, knocked on the door. I think CEO was one of the team to put you out right and they eventually win the title. And now and now here you are you did you see the I'm sorry if I already asked this question, did you see the potential in this team? Once you lost last year and said, okay, this is going to give them the hunger to get back.
Yeah, without question. You know, we we felt good.
You know, the first time we played CDO, we were right in the game, ended up losing by two points. So we had thought we had a chance last year to play. We had a great senior group athletes, and you know, but once we lost. Obviously CEO was senior heavy themselves last year, but we had a ton of
kids playing semi final football that were juniors. You know, we had returned seven bars to see the kids on offense and then eight on the defensive side of the ball, So we had that experience and those kids had been in big games. And you know, I go all the way back to our first year and we were.
A JV schedule. We were killing teams.
So we went out searching for games and we ended up playing Mason, Mountain View and Southpoint with freshmen and sophomores. And I would tell them that day, I said, Hey, playing these games now are going to help you in the long run.
And here we are never thinking those games would really matter.
Sure, so now you go to a championship game, what you've been to them before? What can you tell your kids about you know, that environment what should they expect.
Well, you know, we're very fortunate. Right now, we're sitting here about to walk in.
The UK stadium.
I made a few calls the other day and nice they're allowing us to practice stay in the stadiums from four to six thirty, which is trying to get the big game atmosphere out of their heads a little bit, because you know, anytime you want to say championship game, it's unbelievable.
You know.
I was fortunate to be in Glendale Stadium for our game in two thousand and seven and it was quite a show. You know, our kids played their butts off, but we lost for three seconds left on a late field goal, and you know, you never forget that. And one of the things we've been teaching is, you know, you don't want to go to this game and walk out remembering the loss. You want to go out and win it. So that's what we're hoping to do. And we've been fortunate. I don't know if you know that.
Richard Sanchez has been on our staff for the last three years, and Richard's got a couple of wings.
And he's always talking about what it took to get there.
And rich has been a tremendous mentor to these kids, and his work ethic has just really propelled our program.
Yeah, I'm sure he adds a different element that you don't add.
Yeah, yeah, Richard's a little different.
Now, yeah, yeah, sure, yeah.
Right.
That was quite a stretch when because they were winning their championships early two thousands and you kind of followed it up right after that. So that was a pretty good run for the Tucson schools when you had Kadeem and you had Blake and that, I mean, that was quite a stretch.
Yeah, I mean Cdo had some talent, no question about it. And obviously Dusty had a great run over there, and you know he's got those two titles and he retired and he was living a good life, you know, so you know, that was a great run.
I mean, once you have the team carrying a.
High school level, you you donna win a lot of football games. And you know, it was great being there, and I made the choice to go to Pima and Dusty wanted that following year. But you know, you don't regret doing those things, but it was, you know, something to remember.
You what did you go in as what was your seating for this.
For we were number four even though we were you know, ten to o because of our strength to schedule. This year, it was just a kind of a down year where last year, you know, we were competing for the Open division because you know, we had Sabino who won a state title. Cdo want a state title, and just kind of a random year this year where a lot of our teams we had that were high level last year had a down year. So I really heard our strength to schedule and so that's why we had to go
to Uma Catholic last week long trip. But our kids played work great and our defense has been lights out all year. They've only given them three first half touchdowns and that's what's We're hanging our hat on our defense and then just winning games.
So you play, who do you play again? And what see do they?
We played the number two seed Arizona College Prep. OKAYO, Yeah, I don't think they're new, but this first time they've been in the state championship themselves.
Right. In fact, I just saw a blooper from them. I guess channel Channel four some kind of thing today's show. I guess they were running through the little mascot thing and it didn't open.
I think that happened last week. Yeah, yeah, I got some line lights. So I'm hoping that TWN gets stuck on him again this week and.
They can't it out. No, no, no, you must be go ahead. What is your crowd support going to be like an a issue this week?
We are we're at hard time. I was starting on Principale. We have thirty one teachers have called out for Friday.
Of course, we're.
Basically I think mister Hase he called to see if we could have a half day, but our superintendent said that wasn't going to be a good idea. So we're going to have a great We got four buses going up students and we're excited about that. But you know, that's a big thing for mikeah Mount. It's a brand new school and you know, we've had a lot of success. I actually two weeks ago, my daughter played on the
volleyball teams. She was on the volleyball team for four years and they got a chance to play for a state title and that was need. Our soccer team played for a state title last year. So here we are the you know, three years in the varsity level and we're playing for a state title, and maybe we get the first ones from MIKEL Mountain High School.
All the success that you've had winning in different places, and all the accolade stuff, and you worked for some great coaches. You mentioned your father, your uncle. Could you give me two. I'm sure you've got more great lines from anyone you want to talk about, because Dick told me Anthony and I Jimino talk about this all the time. One of my favorite things that he said when I covered him, Anthony covered him a little longer. You know,
there's no such thing as experts. You know, he had all these wisdom, but I'm sure you got them from your dad, maybe from your uncle, maybe from Minuco some other people. What do you have?
Oh, it's you know, just so many that were talking. You know, we're not allowed to say what Monaco say in public.
Got a whole different one there, you know.
And I think the biggest thing our you know, our biggest modo that we talked to our coaches and our kids, and that's what carries us every week is don't look stupid. You know, I think coach told me, used to say it all the time. And you go out there, you don't want to look stupid, you know. And that's the preparation that we try to do in our program. And you know, and I tell my coaches all the time, hey, kids, mess up, we're gonna look stupid.
And that's our goal.
Don't look stupid, you know, And that's something we want to live by. And that's what we hope to do every week.
Yeah, simple but smart. What was he's saying, was it burn the boats?
Now?
What was something about? Tell me had something? You had a bunch of them, a bunch of different.
To them, you know, and you know, and that's hey, one of the things kind of our model this year. I laugh now because my coach is sitting here with me right now. We kind of thought about it too, is you know. That was one thing coach Tomey said, you're either teaching it or.
You're allowing it to happen. Right, That was what coached we said all the time.
You know, you're the teaching it the wrong way or you're allowing it to happen, and you better in produce one or the other.
You know, I got to take care of it. So that's what we've been working on this year.
When Neimer called you and started a new project here in new school. What do you think? What'd you think? Okay, okay, maybe I have a future. You know what, what were you thinking?
Well, we had it rolling at Sienic, and it was really hard because the program was on the top of the level. We were five A and our staff, our kids, our weight room was everything was going. But Nima wanted to go on back and he wanted to build his own school and that was his dream to do that.
It was hard, but you know, I think one of the things when you start working for Neimar Hasse is you realize the support you're going to get, the effort he's going to give you to build your program where you need to be.
So it was really a no brainer. As much as a lot of us.
Didn't want to leave Sienica, we all call it kind of followed, and you know, we're fortunate we've had the success we had because there's been a lot of hurdles. There was a lot of nights I was over there and beginning going what the heck am I doing here? I mean, a terrible decision, but you know, so far it's worked out.
Yeah, no question, Okay, Ja, this could be I mean, I'm sure you're looking forward to it. It's going to be a nice celebration one way or the other for you know, a good good team, good season, and then a big game. I mean, I guess you have to just kind of embrace it and have the kids realize that this could be maybe the highlight of their whole, you know, football careers.
But you know, I think we were at an AIA meeting the day and they really wanted us to stress the fact that this is a big deal and they're going to make a big deal out of it. And you run out of that tunnel, Asu, We're gonna have a tremendous support from the veiled community there, and you know it is It's something you know, I'd go back seventeen years when I was in it that these kids are going to remember this for the rest of their lives.
And I'm very fortunate to have a great staff and the kids that have bought into it, and you know, my family can't wait to go. And because you never know, I mean, like I said, when you're seventeen years ago, you think you get.
Back, but you may never do, so you better enjoy it why you can.
Well, we had maybe last question Pat that we had Couch Middleton yesterday. With the win and Push Ridge, it looks like the Phoenix folks might have to start paying attention if they hadn't already about the Tucson football getting pretty strong sell point you guys, you know all these teams.
Yeah, I mean, I think two Sound football has always been around, especially at the you know, the four three A, four A, five A type levels.
You know, we just don't win those big school ones.
But you know, I mean, Ciego we were number one seed multiple years, being undefeated, but you know, we just couldn't get past the big dogs, you know, the Centennials and those type of schools. But you know, I think obviously it's the second year in a row. Last year we won the three A four A and obviously Push Fridge winning this year. Hopefully we can bring back the four A and it'd be two years consecutive we win
the three and four. So be a great honor for Tucson and I you know, two Sound football is always going to have their powerhouses. We don't, We're not too deep in all of our programs, but you know, the four or five great schools of Tucson are going to compete every year.
Ye, great, Pat, thanks, thanks again. We'll talk to you soon. We'll go in one another one.
All right. I appreciate it, guys. Always great talking to you.
Thanks, thanks for Patt Nugent and Mike about and head football coach thirteen and zero. Yeah, I mean he was talking about the two thousand and seven game.
I was there too, working for Channel nine, and that was that was a Kadeem carry game. I believe he returned to kickoff for a touchdown and he was so good for that team. And yeah, he was a very cool moment. It was in Glendale as the Cardinals stadium was pretty new. Might have been it might have been the first time I was in that stadium and they came so close.
It was a big It was a big deal. Yeah. Yeah, Okay, let's take a break here and come back and maybe take some calls. If you're an Arizona Man's basketball fan, you know it's been successful for newly forty years now. Take a look back at the Ludelsen era in my new book, Lessons from Loot. It was a labor of love through the eyes of twenty five former players, coaches and friends to give insight to the coach and the man who led them, competed against them, and inspired them.
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Wall on Fox Sports fourteen fIF day. Want to take part in the show Call up Steam now went five.
They will come back to my on the ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty on Pie Roberta in today Dave Silver Henry with me wording the board. If you want to call please do we have plenty of time five to zero for one six seventy four four zero. Like to hear from you here? What's going on out there? Will you please? With the recruiting? What did you find out about that recruiting? Dave So, I'm I'm just looking at websites. I don't know.
There's a few four stars possible. There's a number of three stars for Arizona for Arizona yeah, yeah, I don't know.
I still think everybody kind of for you and I maybe Larry for you. Uh the Mendoza line or the where you kind of judge all this stuff, right, and I do it with told me because I covered him, and that was so long ago, and we've had so
many I've seen so many coaches come through. Uh. The thing they have to do is coach them up, right, you know, you get you get maybe a couple of diamonds in the rough and you and you get three stars, you get two stars Scooby, and and you get guys who you can coach up or who are just maybe overlooked or just damn good because no one thought they were any good.
Well, there were so many of those guys in the tony years. Yeah, I mean Teddy Bruski was the perfect example, who was what was even a star?
Start coming on and give you two more John Fina under side, he had to move positions, right, and then you had Glenn Parker who didn't even play football much to the JC level.
Uh.
So you know you but you also Dave, and you know this. If you you've had interns at your TV place, you see that they have potential and some guys think they have potential, but you see the ones that really do for sure, because they put extra time in it. They care and you think this guy may not be polished, but that's why I'm here. Yeah.
One good thing that that Dick Toby had too is his assistants were phenomenal. He had Ron McBride, who that's a first guy I came up with you who wound up, you know, having a nice long career at Utah's the head coach McDuff on defense. I mean, there were those guys that were his buds and he was able to get them to come in and and he would get the players to come in and they bought into the system.
I mean Glenn and Feena.
I know Glenn for sure, you know, had a great relationship with McBride and probably wouldn't have come here had McBride not been here. And he winds up, you know, wind up being you know, a long NFL career for both those guys.
But usually that was the case.
I mean, Teddy had other coaches as well on the defensive side, where you know McDuff and you know others well were great.
I'll give you another guy because I didn't cover him. You did at least knew him back when he played is Chuck? Chuck was just a dude, wasn't he. It wasn't like Ballyhood that he was little. He was little. He was like, you know, five eleven, one seventy five. But now he's still bleeding from his head. Yeah, did you see that? That was a great I did. I saw it. Yeah, I saw it after after.
I guess they showed it during the game, but I I saw it, like with Scott Van Pelt showed it I think on Bad Beats or something like ESPN.
But yeah, the blood coming down. But that's the type of player, and obviously he's a one off kind of pretty much that you need to got to prove that you belong. No one saw me, no one looked at me. You cared too small, not fast. But watch what I can do.
Yeah, I mean most of the guys have are kind of baallyhooed when they come in. They've got their videos and everybody's sort of seeing them on websites and things like that.
If they're really really good.
Back in those days, you didn't know, you didn't really necessarily know. Oh wow, we got you know, someone like Chuck Cecil who's going to become an all time great, or Glenn or John who we saw maybe locally and sort of knew they were good. There was a couple other players at Suarro that had a chance on Sunnyside as well, so we got to see them. But nowadays, you know, they're marketing themselves and they're no big surprises.
Right right now, you just kind of cross your fingers and hope that they turned into the player that you think they can play. I mean, they wouldn't be recruited here if he don't think they could play. Yeah, So we'll see. We'll see what the next year of Bredon comes up. But like you said, you got these guys here, there's gonna be some more movers and shakers leaving and coming from the transfer portal, good and bad.
Uh.
Like we said yesterday, I think we do, we do. I didn't do breaking news. Maybe did Speedy Luke is gone. Yep, we'll see, and there's been a couple of others.
The transfer portal is always I mean, as we've been sitting here, I've been looking at some different different sites and you know, players are already making their decisions. They're they're the quarterback from USC yesterday decided he want to go somewhere else Michigan may or.
The state had the state quarterback left? Really Yeah, Well that's the whole thing. I'm we talk about the people who left and land. I wonder what the numbers are the people who leave and don't land. You know what I'm saying, They don't go something they want. And that's the education part. I'm asking you. Okay, so you leave the school you want to pay, and then nobody wants you.
Not what I don't understand how that all works. I mean as a dad or whatever. And I've had kids go through college and you know, it's just it's true, trecky, just to get them through. How do you do it when you're transferred like three or four times within six years?
Sure, I just don't know.
I mean, education maybe isn't isn't at the top of the list for these for some of these guys.
Yeah, if you land, it's paid for. If you don't land, then and you're on your own.
Yeah, but chances are too if you know, if you're smart and you want to get through and take advantage of the system a little bit and wind up get your master's degree. You know how many U of A basketball players are you know past they've already finished their their degrees.
Tray Townsend k Oh because yeah, the fifth years and and that's a rarity to nowadays. If you're here longer than three years and back in the day when Luke was was coaching, and maybe a little of Sean, if you're here more than two maybe three, you're not good enough, right, that's why you're here.
Yeah, So you stick around, maybe take advantage of the system and get you know, get that degree, get your master's degree or something if you want to if you want to coach sometimes you know, you want to go become a high school coach, you probably have to.
Have a master's right. So we'll see, we'll see what comes of this. Good luck to him. He's gonna have to change a little personality wise. He did kind of today he was he's kind of hamming it up a little where that was the beginning. I don't roll, but you know, maybe he's more official more. I don't know.
Maybe some of the pressure's off now that he knows he's he is coming back. He can he can just concentrate on really having a whole full year, because remember he came in last year gener middle of January, so he didn't have a chance on this first transfer portal situation, which we're in like like right now. So he had to put together his staff, he had to put together a recruiting class, so he was he was behind the ball.
How we have one hundred percent here of the one hundred percent, what would you put that percent of the demise of the U of a program? Just the five percent? What do you mean? What are you saying what you just said, coming in late, putting together staff pressures. If you're going to make a stew, how much of that do you put in the stew? Yeah, I mean there was a lot.
It was a lot going on that just wasn't good and the timing was not good. And that happens when they make these coaching changes kind of last minute, and that whole snowball of Jed leaving and you know Nick Saban leaving, so Arizona was kind of caught at the at the end of that and that's what you wind up having having.
To deal with. Yeah, and that's a super second two just because Jed left, because you're you're assuming facts, not into evidence. I learned that in Perium Racon that Jed would have had a good year. Maybe Jed knew something was wrong. Maybe Jed knew the depth wasn't going to be there. Yeah, we assume. We can't assume that he was gonna have a good year, but maybe not. Although you know, when you have Coleman, you have some of those guys that would have stayed. Things would have been
a little different. He took.
He also took a couple of the top recruits maybe would have had a chance to play here because they played at Washington.
Yeah, you can't assume, you know, I leave here and go somewhere and who knows what could happen, car crash, whatever. But you know what I'm saying, it's it's assumed. It doesn't mean much. Okay, And if anybody, what's the time? How much that we have.
Got that?
Okay? Yeah we got time? Okay, Okay? What else? Basketball starts on Saturday again? What did you say when we first started? Chance for them to get good again? I guess playing in Southern Utah? Or yeah? Yeah, what did I say? It's time for them to play a team that they should kill?
Yeah, well the Southern Sure, you guys. Have you guys have dissected that whole Bahamas thing.
But Southern Utah is not going to be in the tournament. No, so they Arizona. Actually we're friends in baseball. Did you see my post? And I paid no attention to this, but I thought it kind of curious that here we are in early December. Well last year, early December. Guess what they were like a number one seed after beating Duke and how'd that go? You can never take these things seriously. Now they're not even in the tournament.
For I love the Joe and Ardi stuff because because he can go all the way up to selection Sunday and then you never hear from him again after he's made his.
Picks until he too soon bracket. Yeah. Yeah, oh yeah, I say he does the too soon bracket right after the tournament. Yeah. And I'd like to go to that now and say, okay, you know what that meant? Not a damn thing.
Yeah, I mean, I you know, we've talked about this every time I come up, but it's just about the.
Big twelve and what we can expect to see. And you know, did you be tough? Did your analysis change a little?
No?
I mean I haven't really watched that much, to be honest with you, just yet. I mean, I've seen Kansas. That Kansas Due game was pretty impressive. I've seen a couple of home games at Kansas. Again, that's going to be pretty intimidating. I know you went right.
I've done three times those years back.
The Big Twelve. Those road games are going to be a challenge. It's not going to be like going into Oregon State and Stanford and No.
But you know, the toughest places Arizona went to when I covered the team on a daily basis, where the Oregon States were, the quiet Stansords, the Washington States because Arizona, yeah, all we have to do is show up, play and get out. No, No, those were those were the more difficult ones because and I've said this, I've said this a lot, the guys at Arizona and lut Had were the Richard Jefferson's, the guys who thought highly of themselves and all you had to do is show up and play,
And no, it doesn't work that way. Yeah, it's gonna be.
It's gonna be cool just to see how the environment is and how the players react to it, because most of them have never been in those situations, at least through the PAC twelve games. Right well, they had pretty tough road games and tournament games, right.
The Yeah, and we'll see how that is because Wisconsin was like that, right yeah, and see what happened there. The Duke was here, so it didn't really matter. Bahamas wasn't wasn't. It was an empty pretty much gym except for a few pants. So so we'll see.
Somebody was saying too that this team, it's kind of an interesting expression, doesn't have a glue guy. It's kind of like a Pelly Larson or they referred to like Dale and Terry or I saw that somebody who's gonna just, you know, get in people's faces.
And say, you know, come on, well, I'll give you one further. Who's their leader? I don't know. I don't think they have one. I nominated Jayden Bradley because he has the ball in his hand a lot. He's tougher, he doesn't give a crap in terms of what people think. He just puts his head down and gets to a taxi basket. They got to find somebody.
Yeah, he seems pretty much a leader, though he does. You can tell when they gather at a free throw line or something like that, or a timeout.
He seems to be the most vocal. So so let me ask you what does that mean?
He's the leader?
Anybody's the leader? Who knows what does that mean?
I mean, I.
Guess it's just a matter of being able to lead the troops. And if they respond to him, they may look at him like you're crazy.
I don't know what he's talking about. So so in my time, I would think, and your time to Steve Kerr leader And he does it subtly, but he did it. It's like Henry Harvey told me, they didn't want to disappoint us deep so they played their ass off. I guess he had something, you know, you don't want to disappot him or loot. Miles was that same way. Oh, definitely my Miles that way. There's been a few uh Luke to a certain degree, uh Luke Walton in a in a weird way. Uh And he had a talented team,
right with those guys. So we'll see and probably i'll give you another one. The most recent guy, if I'm correct, TJ McConn.
Oh, yeah, yeah, I mean you know Steve was was a.
Kid when he was here too.
I mean, these kids are all, you know, eighteen to twenty two years old, but he had that little something extra, you know.
Yeah, guys would look at him even if it wasn't basketball. It was more of a respect type of thing. And you know those guys, I'm sure when you worked at the station, you had somebody that you were very impressed with. You You're in the business, right, so you saw somebody God, he has he has it. Yeah, you know you yeah, I mean I think.
It's a little bit different, but I you know, when you're doing what we did, a lot of it was just you did it a long time, and he kind of garnered respect because you'd been there for a long time.
Trumple the young kids would come into.
The into the business and go, wow, how does he manage to stick around for twenty five years? And basketball it's a little quicker and they're younger, but they usually have to have somebody to look up to, some type of a role model.
Maybe maybe it's just somebody who's been there.
You're you come in as a freshman and you're looking up to the juniors and the seniors who are on it.
If they have any juniors and seniors. Well, and you have to be good. I think that another guy that they respected the hell off and he'd probably didn't say a whole lot, was Mike Bibby. Yeah, because when you're good and he has the ball and you want the ball, you're kind of nice to Mike Bibby and you respect the hell out of it. You know what I'm saying. And back then, who would have thought ninety seven would
have been that team? Who thought I'd guarantee you nobody. Yeah, and then ninty ate that team was only better, and look what happened. Those guys were all there. Yeah, Mike Bibby didn't say much to us though he didn't say. No, I'm friends with him now I'd give him grief on the text and we talk, but yeah, now he talks. Yeah, it was good to see him at the Duke game. That was a nice collection of players they brought to
the Duke game. Yeah, including him, Him and Gilbert. Well, they're trying to get Gilbert's kid to come here, are they some some Yeah, I forget his first day, but someone text me this morning. If I don't get Gilbert's kid, I'm gonna forget. I'm gonna I'm gonna forget about Tommy. I said, haven't you already These guys are all complaining about Tommy because they didn't win a few games this year.
Well, I think the development people would like to get Gilbert to come because Richard made a nice little gift ten years.
Ago or so. Gilbert's not spending any but he's not gonna spend his mon No, no, he's not gonna spend it.
Richard Gilbert about that, he oh yeah, joke during that whole stretch where I was like, what's Gilbert gonna do?
Is his big gift right build? And he did this is all joking. He did it because he didn't want He wanted to be before Gilbert gave yeah. Yeah, So okay, we still have a couple of minutes, right, well yeah, okay again, if you want to call on the next hour not now five to zero four one, six, seventy
four forty You guys know the drill. We're gonna have breaking news from Henry at the top of the hour, and then in the second hour we're gonna have Matt Moneno from Go Aisy Cats, uh talking about the recruits that we were talking about earlier. Just maybe break down who they got and his philosophy and and maybe you see what fefeed us up to, because you know, people are denying that he's gonna leave, or at least you know, saying it's not repeating the news from yesterday. So who
who said something? I've been on it. People were repeating what they were saying and it wasn't true. But then they hadn't talked to his folks, his folks yet. But his dad did kind of leave the door open. He's gonna leave it up to God and to you know, saying he's not leaving, but dot dot dot. It's like when we go and we interview people, Well, he didn't deny. You know, you pick apart every word. He didn't deny that. He didn't deny. You know, we're a salad, don't we call it that?
Now?
Yeah? Yeah, pretty much. Okay, ready to go, let's go,