This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jay Gonzalez sound Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Subscribe now to the podcast on the iHeartRadio WIP just Surgery. I on the Ball, boy, it's me right that Mike. For Steve to say something, he's not here. Welcome back behind the Ball on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Jay Gonzalez normally in the side Jair over there, but Steve is out today and the Sammy's running things and ID know, Sam, I don't put that on you. You didn't cue me to say something,
So welcome back. We've got Sammy here with breaking news. This is Eye on the Ball, breaking news, Fox Sports fourteen fifty. That's new, that's new. That's see. That's I'm off a little bit. Okay, well yeah, okay. So we talked a little bit about Yukon, the number one team in the country on the road at Creighton and they got thumped Creting eighty five, Yukon sixty six. Some other top twenty five teams were in action last night. Tennessee took care of business on the road against
Missouri. It was a little it was a little ugly, but again we they're on the road. You win that game. Interesting thing there that the new ad her kid plays from Missouri Way. That's why the press conference was at nine o'clock in the morning. She could watch the game. So she so, her kid was he was here, oh so, and and her husband was here. So then they all flew back to get him there in time for the game. Oh wow, he's a player the team. I
don't know if he plays or anything, but he's on the team. He's on the team. So Tennessee squeaked one out. Baylor the eleventh, the rank team in the country on the road at BUYU lost lost, seventy eight seventy one. San Diego State nineteen threan team in the country on the road. Utah State lost lost. Texas Tech took care of business by one point at home against TCU, good game. And then San Francisco at Saint Mary.
Saint Mary's one of the hottest teams in the country. Actually they're first in the WCC, which has been ran by Gonzaga the last however many years. They squeaked it out without their leading score at home seventy to sixty six. So an interesting night in college basketball last night and tonight. Some more top twenty five teams on the road. Illinois, Duke, Florida, Dayton, Kentucky, Colorado State all in the top twenty five on the road tonight.
So we'll see, you know, I'm gonna parlay just all the road, the home team, all the home town in that one. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go big. I'm gonna go big on that. It's tough because I don't know even this. This was a little bit later, but some of these teams are kind of heavily favored on the road, right, And so Illinois seven and a half, Duke seven and a half, you have Dayton three and a half, and Kentucky six and a half, all on the road, all favorites. It doesn't make a ton of sense,
but I guess Vegas knows way more than us. They do. They do, and I've always thought that. But you know, again, as you said, if we've learned nothing now, so we've learned the winning on the road, particularly this year, is really damn hard, no matter who you are and who you're playing. And I wrote it down, it's like in theory, if you're so good, if you're one of the top twenty
five teams in the country. Sure, you should be able to go on the road against a quote inferior team and come out with a win, but that just hasn't necessarily been the case this year. Right It's you look at Kansas's track record on the road and it's it's not good. And Kansas is one of the best teams in the country. And Purdue on the road at Ohio State just fired their coach. Dogfight, they lose, and they lose.
You come last night, it's it that was ugly. Did you see Danny Hurley walking off the walking off the court, he turned it off. He said something bad to a fan. He said something like all he didn't say I'll kick your ass, but he said I'll knock your head off or something like that. And he said something like that to a fan on the way out. It runs in the Hurley blood. What can you say. They are passionate about the players, their teams, and sometimes yeah, you
know, you just go yeah, okay, you know. And look, I sit there at the Arizona games and I see I see Bobby Hurley and he's uh, oh, he said, I will knock you out, you know. And the stuff that our fans say to Bobby Hurley, and I'm like, I wouldn't have. I got to respect him for the fact that he just doesn't go up into the seats and wail on somebody, and in fact, I know he has to hear it because they're right there, and he just doesn't react to it. And you gotta have some respect for that.
No matter what you think of Bobby Hurley, what you think is a crybaby where you hate the way he acts on the on the on the sidelines. You know, you just don't like him because he went to Duke. I mean, whatever the reason is, you certainly have to respect that. When coaches come on, you know, come here like that and the fans are on him, and look, I'm gonna say too, with the fans,
nobody cusses at him. Yeah, you know, they don't call him, you know, no f bomb, but they chop at him all day long, and they chop at them all day long, and it's it's you know, packing, packing, pecking, packing, and to not react to some of that stuff, you got to have a lot of respect for these guys. I have a I have a question for you, who's more not
crazier or whatever, who's more animated Mick Cronan or Bobby Hurley. Bobby Hurley is more animated, the arms flailing and and and stomping on the Mick Cronan more serious, is serious and grouchy as all hell. Okay, you know, Hurley gets upset. He's coaching his guys. He's flailing his arms, he argues calls. You know there there were a couple of calls that I and he rightly argued and then we're like, what the hell? There was one where Ku Kyle Boswell goes into the lane and he slips. It was
a travel. It was clearly a travel, and they didn't call the travel and he lost his mind over that. Three trips up and down the court. He's still you on at the rift about that being a travel. That's what Bobby Hurley does. Mick Cronan says things that you go, wow, you shouldn't be able to say that to a referee, right he called He called the you saw it. You can read his lips. He called the referee in m effort in the in the in the Utah game the other night.
You don't do that. He can't. You know, I'm crazy. I want to tee him up when I see that. So when you say animated, you know, Bobby is more demonstrative, you know, animated Mick Crount is just giant steaming turn. Yeah. Fair, Okay, Okay, that's that's that's what I was That's what I was thinking. The answer. Yeah, I just I just want to make sure. So that's your college
basketball breaking news. Just a little bit golf breaking news. Charlie Woods, son of Tiger Woods, has entered a pre qualifier for the Cognizant Open in here in Palm Beach, Florida. So he's fifteen years old, say fifteen, fifteen years old. Well, he's trying to beat his dad, who played in a PJ Term Tour event at sixteen, right, yep, sixteen. So we'll see. That's that's something to keep rye on in the golf, in the golf for how much have you seen him play? You know,
I mean a dec amount I see damn good. I mean have you seen the side by side yes, Em and Tiger. Yes, it is. It is unbelievable. It's uncanny. It's it is. It's two peas in in a pod and he has a great swing. So we'll see, that's something to keep Ryan in the NFL post Super Bowl World, justin Field's unfollowed the Bears on social media and quote, he just wants it to be over. In terms of the Caleb Williams the draft, right, who are they gonna trade? What are they gonna do? And honestly, I don't
really blame him. I mean, they drafted him with a top ten pick. He was supposed to be their guy, and he hasn't played like a top ten pick. But he's shown some signs, right and so and why hasn't he? Right? How much of it is the people that are you know, the guys that they've got him surrounded with and stuff like that. You know, I mean, you know why is Brock Purtty so damn good?
Well, Brock Purtty so damn good because he's pretty good. But he's got guys sure, right, you know, so I can I can understand the frustration. We're gonna have to get Patrick Finley on. He covers that he covers the Bears for the sometimes he's a buddy of ours, and get engage that conversation with him, you know what what he thinks might happen.
But you know, it's it's a it's a soap opera when it when it comes to that kind of stuff, you know, back back to when you when when when uh, the Packers you know, drafted Jordan Love and pissed off Aaron Rodgers. Their relationship was never the same, you know, to the point where he's left. So you know, so we'll see, Yeah, we'll see. And then the last thing show, hey, Otani came out saying he wants to get at least fifty preseason at bats, spring training
at bats? Is that a lot? I don't know. I mean spring training A lot of guys just try and get some reps in, stay healthy. I don't know if fifty is a lot, Like he played three innings back twice, and are you gonna are you gonna go down and see him? Well, we thought about it, we looked into it. We couldn't find any weekend games where the tickets weren't already like a hundred bucks, So we may just wait and go see him in you know, regular season.
I'd love to. I'd love to go catch the spring training game, but between doing the show, I can only go on weekends. Yeah, exactly right, And and we've we looked into tickets for those and it's not working. Yeah, no, I don't blame. He's someone where you want to see you like I do. Well, I saw him with the Angels a couple of years ago, and I was really upset with him because he batted four times and hit like a lame ground ball single up the middle, and
that was it. I wanted to hear the sound, right, the sound of of you know, him hit a rocket. You know, I was a little pissed. You'll believe me, You'll hear. I've been to Dodger Stadium one time in my life, and uh, I think Cody Bellinger hit like a third inning home run and you would think the World Series they just
won. It gets loud. So no, he's yeah, I can hardly wait, and we're we're already planning a probably a July trip up there to catch a couple of games and see you see what that what it's all about. But yeah, I did, Like I said, I did see him that one time, and I was really disappointed in him. There you go, But at the time I didn't think he was I don't know he's gonna be a Dodger or so I'm not disappointed anymore. I'm ready. It's gonna
be fun. You know, I watch I literally I watch probably at least a piece of probably seventy five percent of the Dodger games. You know, we buy the MLB package, and so I'm sitting at home, I get home from the show whatever, if it's on, I put it on and do my work, and so I watch a lot of that stuff. So it's gonna be fun to be able to watch him, you know, in those games every day. Gotcha, I can't wait? All right, are you ready for this? I'm gonna do my NBA second half storylines in under
three minutes. Okay, let's go, right. The New Orleans Pelicans can point can point zion get them to an NBA finals? Who's nos? Luka Don Fitch and the new look Dallas Mavericks. Will they get out of the playing game? The Los Angeles Lakers Golden State Warriors currently ninth and tenth. Will they or will they not? Be? Playoff teams? Not playing teams? Playoff teams? The Phoenix Suns my home. Can the Big three A stay healthy be lead them to an NBA finals? The Clippers, I have
one word, It's health. The Denver Nuggets have the best player in the World. Will Jolkic win his third MVP? Oklahoma City Thunder the youngest current current competitive team. Can the youth get them to an NBA Finals? The Minnesota Timberwolves, Rudy Gobert, Klar Anthony Towns. Will it work in the playoffs? We may never know? The Boston Celtics the best record in the NBA. Can they get over their playoff woes? The Cleveland Cavaliers are currently
twenty one and three in their last twenty four games. They can they stay as hot as they have been? The Milwaukee Bucks Doc Rivers is three and seven in his first ten games, and Jiannis does not seem to be extremely happy about that. Three more teams, The New York Knicks Madison Square Garden is begging, begging for an NBA Finals appearance. I can't imagine what that would look like. The Philadelphia seventy six Ers. Joel Embiid, was the front runner of the MVP, is hurt. Can he get back and be
as healthy as he was before to lead them on a playoff run? And, last, but not least, the Miami Heat, the team that seems to just waddle their way into the playoffs every year. Can they do it one more time. Wow, Steve, I did Wow, j I did that in a minute fifteen seconds. That was awesome. That was a rundown. I feel like I've learned so much about the NBA in just the last
couple of minutes. How many how many games have those three guys played together for the Suns since it's you know, this season, so bial just the last game kind of tweaked the same thing, but they they have played I want to say, twenty two games. I know in their first eighteen games they were thirteen and five, so the sample size is beginning to get a little higher. And all the all the immediate results are really dang good. Yeah, they have a five man lineup. They're starting five that is in
the top three in offensive and defensive efficiency. So I like where they're at. Just need to be healthy, and I don't know if I don't know if my sanity is ready for the NBA playoffs. It's what I care about. It's one of the things I care about most really. Okay, wow, okay, all right, Well, look, you know, as somebody you know who's lived down here all you know, all my life, I'm
aware of the Suns. I don't live or die with the Suns. But when they're good, and when they're you know, when I see him in the playoffs and I'm pulling for them to get you know, I wanted to win an NBA championship. I mean I really wanted back when Barkley was there, I really wanted to see them win one, you know, and then when Kurt took over his GM and stuff like that. But I root for him. But I learned a lot more from you just now than I've known
about them all season long. But you know, good luck to them. Hopefully they can get something done. All right, We're gona take our new break. Craig Everson, the head foot basketball coach at the Gregory School, small school one A, won a state championship over the weekend, his third, the school's fifth. We're going talk to him about winning that title again and what it means to him, what it means to the school, and what it means to you know, one A basketball. It's small school basketball.
But you know, I want to saw them play and they were pretty damn good. They looked like a state championship team. So we'll talk to Craig about that as we start wandering through state champions in the high school high school playoffs, so stick around. The Windows Depot is more than a Windows store. The Windows Depot is a one soft warehouse with everything you need for
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and Southern Arizonas in nineteen forty seven. Go to azypast dot com to schedule your free evaluation today. Steve Rivera and Jagen Salads. They have their eye on the ball on Tucson Sports. Stay Chef Fox Sports fourteen fifty. Welcome back on Bagging on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm your host for the day, Jay Gonzalez, my partner in crime. Steve Riveras is out on a
different assignment for today. He'll be back tomorrow. I've got Sammy the interron here running things, and now on the on the on the phone, we've got Craig Eberson, the head basketball coach at the Gregory School, one A school one A state basketball champions. Craig, you know, I know it's your third time, but it still has to sound really dang good to hear that got a great ring to it. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. We appreciate you being here. You know. When i've you
know, I continue to follow. You know, my kids all went to the Gregory School, saying Gregory back in the day following my son was on the basketball team got to state semi finals. I've always kind of paid attention when I heard that you guys were going into the state tournament. You were in terms of your I don't know how you how you phrased this, but you guys were eighteen and oh in the games that you count for, you know, towards your rankings, undefeated. I had to see what this looked
like. And I went to saw your first round game and I was, you know, really impressed. And I'll just tell you what I thought I saw was just more than the you know, the offense here, the relentless defense that you guys played. Was that sort of where you were hanging your hat or how did you how did this team develop into the team it became, Yeah, this one, It's really been a number of years in the
making. A lot of our kids came through up through the middle school ranks, and we've had, you know, we've had some decent talents, but the senior group was a was a group that really really really hung their hat on defense, and you know, had been for several years and we just couldn't quite get our scoring up to par until you know, the last last
year or two we've started to emerge a little bit. So we've we've been a defensive team for several years here, and we knew we were going to be a strong defensive team and and then we added enough offense to kind of put us over the top this year. Explain to me you talk about, you know, several years of putting this team together, and you go to middle school. You know, we know the Saint Gregor, the Gregory School
has always had you know, middle school program and all that kinds. When do you start seeing these kids and you know, both at the school and and do you get them, you know, do you get them outside summer camps things like that. So five of my kids, uh were in fifth grade, and that was my very first year at just at the end of the fifth grade season, and so I started training them that summer in summer
camps and and you know, fall training and et cetera. So I kind of try to train year round, especially for the kids in our school. And so I was lucky to have five of them, you know, stay with us through high school. We got another couple of them in eighth grade. So I think about, you know, eight of our fourteen were you
know, with us since middle school in some pacy or another. And then of course, you know, kids at the end of eighth grade decide which high school is to go to. And we were fortunate enough to get a couple of you know, really nice ball players that came in and and that that had some good skill and then you know, just kind of had to
integrate them into our way. Well let's talk about then, your way is, you know, you build it in for you know, for quite a you know, quite a period of time, and so what does that mean to a player And how do you instill that how do you get them to say this is the way we're going to do things. Yeah, at the core, the core of it really is, you know, I'm from the I graduated from Wisconsin. I'm a big ten guy, and I kind of say, if we can play a big ten defense in West Coast offense,
I'll be pretty thrilled. And so the defense is a must. And we've played symbol of Man de Man and this year we really had you know, probably eight six or eight guards who could on ball defend. That was you know, it's difficult we've had in all my years. And so what you saw that night was right. We we just kind of pressure the ball and and so you know, it's a lot of ball pressure. It's a lot
of you know, team five guys stop the ball from scoring. Uh. And then the second piece of it for me is you know, really developing the kids into skilled basketball players. So we don't we don't run a lot of sets, we don't run a lot of patterned offense. It's I try to teach these kids how to play basketball and and build their skills. And
so it's a lot of skilled building from fifth grade on. It's a lot of layups, finishing at the rim, euro step, you know, rondo catch and shoot, you know, get to the middle, fine guys be able to knock down shots. It's a lot of skilled building over a lot of time. And we were lucky enough to have a group of kids who just really worked there both us. So I don't I don't really know your background, but you came you said you're from Wisconsin. You came here from
where and you coached where else. Yeah, my whole career, I've been in a business professional and I was looking to go into a second career after my kids got out of high school. And so I did coach in Wisconsin three years as a as an assistant to a JV team, and I coached
a lot of au travel ball. I was affiliated with a club program up up in Wisconsin that you know, was fortunate enough to we put probably one hundred kids into different universe these at different levels Division one, two, and three and you know, kind of train them year round and help them get into school colleges to play ball. So I've seen a lot of high caliber ball players and kind of know the target on how how to you know, build them into you know, elite players. And so that's what what we
try to do here. And I took I took our basketball academy philosophy and I brought it down here into the Gregory School. Sounds great, So what do you what do you think is the biggest challenge when it comes to you know, coaching one A one A kids. I mean, I mean there's still talented players or just at a small school, is what has been my thought all along. But you know, you still have to put together a
team. You've got fewer players to you know, to choose from what what where do you think all of those things, Uh, how do you think all those things work towards, you know, putting together a team like you put together. Yeah, it was you know, typically in my first few years, we never really had a rotation that could go much more below six or seven, you know, and because of you know, the depth isn't there at a small school, and you know, we're we're lucky to have
good ball players, let alone how many of them we can get. But this year, you know, it was just a it was kind of a perfect storm of of my senior group having done so much work to become good ball players, and then an influx of younger kids who really already could play. And and you know, in some ways, our seniors provided all a lot of the defense and the roles, and our our younger, our underclassmen
did most of the bulk of the scoring. Talking to Craig Eaverson, head coach of the Gregory School Hawks, one a state champions this last weekend talking about your season is okay at some point in the season, maybe it was before the season, you know, the way you're you know, you're saying you everything was coming together. You know, did you go into the season thinking not not its state championship or bust, but we should get there.
Yeah? Probably right right as spring started, in the first day we completed from last year, we all thought we had a pretty good chance to be a very good team. And I would say we all kind of thought there would before teams that could could win it all, with North Valley being the favorite still they had won it last year, and then Babo and Desert Christian were better than us to start the year. They definitely were. They were they were, you know, ranked ahead of us last year, and they
returned all their great players. So we probably went into the season thinking we were fourth. There's a lot of you know, people who said we were five, six, seven because they didn't know much about us. But we felt like we'd be a top four team. And then it was about us to see how much better we could get every day and see if we couldn't
overtake those three teams. Well and and well, first of all back when I was you know, you know at the you know, my kids were at the school Desert Christian was a two A team and so they've dropped back down to one A. That that surprised me when I saw that on the schedule. And Bob Kaev you just you know, Barbara Kave, you always came in with, you know, eight guys who could shoot from three and that is that still who they are, Yep, that's who they are.
Yeah, And I saw what but I saw you I saw a lot of guys throwing it from three, uh, you know in the game that I saw and then you know, we saw that that I think Jackson Dickinson hit a three pointer that was basically the game winner for you guys. Tell me a little bit about the offense that you put together with these guys. Yeah, so we we have some nice eyes on the team, three kids like six four six, five, six five, So we really had to pay
more attention to using kind of a high low. I watched a lot of Tommy Lloyd stuff last year because they do a great job of the high low. We don't run exactly their offense, but we have a little different spacing. We run a Villanova offense. But we can run high low out of that, and so it's a lot of attack the basket, attack the middle
through either dribble penetration or post touches. We had great post play this year, and we actually started out the season shooting really poorly for probably twenty games and just couldn't figure out how to knock down the outside shots. And we've really worked on it. For example, we were shooting twenty three percent from three point range halfway through the season, and I think we shot forty the rest of the way. So it was a real blessing for us to kind
of add to the offense, a real change. Okay, so you probably know I'm going to ask this, but you know, three state championships. Rather than ask you which was your favor, I'm gonna ask you how were the those three state championship teams the same and different? You know, what similarities did they have? And then where were they where were they really different?
Yeah, So the only thing that matters about three is just the the group of young men each of those three years that got to experience the this this success and and you know, have kind of a lifelong memory. That's really what's the most important, and so we don't really talk a lot about any of the other ones. You know, we're just happy to have this group be able to experience the you know, coming up on top and be
the best. If I had to compare, the first team was ultra talented, and we we had to figure out how to be a team that was more ulter talented than us, and we were able to do so. But it's kind of just between the two of us that year. The second team was was you know, maybe even though at the beginning of the year we couldn't figure out how to score without Addison Moore, and then we kind of came together and we ended up being as good, if not better than the
first team. And this year it's very similar to the first year's team, I would say, because they just kind of broke through and we didn't know whether it was very uncertain whether we could do it or not, and so it was you know, the boys just did a fantastic job of taking it over the top. Yeah, well, Craig, we do appreciate the time. Congratulations. It's awesome to see you know, obviously, you know we're
here. We love to see the Tucson teams win these things because it's we know, you guys put in a lot of hard work, you know, and whether your one, A six, A five, a whatever, we know everybody has to work hard. So congratulations to you, Congratulations to the school, and congratulations to your guys. Like you said, they're gonna have a lifetime memory with this, and it's a it's awesome that you can help them help them get to that. Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah,
thank you, all right, Greg thanks a whole bunch. Okay, Craig Averson, head coach at the Gregory School. One A state championships and boys basketball. Very cool, Sammy, you were in you were a high school athlete. I was. I was a high school basketball player, and we never we never got one of those. We lost in the state semifinals to a team we beat our second game of the season. It was heart wrenching.
We would have gone on to play Pinnacle and Nicomannon, Jordan Maynes, Spencer Ratler, those guys in the and who we had beaten earlier in the season. So we lost two games that year, one two team in Washington and state semifinal game to Mountain Point. I remember it like it was yesterday. So it's it's really cool that those guys want to stay championship, something that sadly never got to do. But yeah, yeah, no, you
know I can imagine. Yeah, you know, I mean I got my kids were all went to the Gregory School and they were all you know, two of my kids were three sport athletes. One was a two sport athlete. You know, they got to final fours, you know in volleyball, basketball, we got to one in baseball, and you know, your your
heartbreaks sucks. Man. There's literally like to this day, there's it's I still remember every game, like every season ending loss, Yeah, going home, not going to practice the next day, going to school, seeing the guys that you went through a season with your coaches. And then I mean, as a senior, it's the worst you can It's done. You go. You have the rest of your year as going to class whatever it may be. But then you're off to college if you and then as a freshman
sophomore, junior, it's like you get back to work. It's like to those kids, I want to state championship. As a freshman sophomore junior, it's like all you want to do is do to do it. Again, so right, it's it's pretty cool. Yeah, it's very cool. And look, you know I just again as an advocate of you know, play all the sports, right, you know, and at at the Gramary School, you know, we had to have those athletes play all the sports.
You know, you had to play three sports because you only had X number of athletes. You needed them all and you know, the specializing was just not in the in the cards over there, you know at that time. You know, during my son's years, the best basketball player was also our best baseball player. And he was the best soccer player. Yeah, and and and you he ended up getting a college you know, college scholarship to
go play college basketball. And you know, you see that thing, and you just see again over and over just if you're a good athlete, you're a good athlete, and all those sports they help in their other respectives. Right, if you're a good football player, you have that edge competitiveness to go play basketball, right, and and it just goes, it goes through all the sports. So the more you play, the more more fun you have. You and then you go off and do a radio show. It
a couple of old guys, so fun still having a good time. All right, we're gonna take our last break. We'll be back. We'll love to take take some calls. Five to two zero four one six seventy four to forty. Get ready for that Washington State Arizona game tomorrow night. Should be a good one. So stick around and we'll talk about whatever you want to talk about. Five to two zero four one six seventy four to forty. 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. 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. Twenty five chapters for his twenty five years as Arizona's beloved coach. Lessons from Lout is an insight to how he built the program into a national
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a second income. Come be a part of a winning team. The A Team apply online today at a Team security dot net. Steve Rivera and Jacon Salez they have their Eye on the ball on Tucson Sports dig Chef Fox Sports fourteen to fifty, streaming live on the iHeartRadio wam falcing back time in the
balling on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Jacob Zaliz, my partner in crime normally is gone today Steve Rivera's He's up in Phoenix working on a media project related to the NCAA tournament, and we'll probably have some discussion to that at some point when it's all cooked up and ready to go. I've got Sammy the intern here running things and adding to the conversation, doing a great job of it. So Samuel, you know, uh, we were talking.
I think, uh, you know earlier in the earlier in the show where you use the word under the radar for Arizona, who is ranked fourth in the country. So I don't know how under the radar they are, but I kind of agree with you in that. You know, they lost a couple of games and people just kind of, as you said, forgot about them a little bit, and and they're creeping back up in the in the rankings. You know, they had the sweep at the at the Mountain Schools
and now they're they're fourth in the country. But they're not you know, a. Yukon was looking like unbeatable until last night. So we were talking about who would you pick ahead of them to win the national championship. Yeah, there's some of it. Was thinking about a little bit, and then I went into went into some numbers on it. I think the only team that I could see winning a national championship before Arizona is still Purdue. I'm
still on the Purdue wagon. I think they have the best player in the country. Zach e Ed is probably the most unstopped player in college basketball. And they have really good guards. And I know that lost against Ohio State, they didn't look as good as they are, but you saw how good they can be in the game against Arizona. Yeah, and that's a team that's the only team right now that if I were filling out my bracket I would pick before U of A to win the national champion. Wow. Interesting?
Okay, Well, the odds makers have even today after that horrible loss by Yukon last night, They've got Yukon with the favorite at plus five hundreds or five to one, followed by Purdue at seven fifty or seven and a half to one, Houston at eight fifty, and then Arizona at twelve. So they got one. Yeah, that's actually a good number. I like it. It's not gonna get any It's not gonna get any higher unless we lose tomorrow, right, we lose a crummy game at ASU, win the
Pac twelve tournament or something like. I don't see that number getting any higher, even if we do have one loss left in US And like you said, the teams, the teams ahead of them, I think it's really really hard to repeat as Yukon. For Yukon, you have the pressure of you're the defending national champion. There's a large target on your back. And to be frank, they're a very good team, but they're they're not as good as last year's team. They lost some really good players to the draft,
and that that number is really low. It's it's hard to repeat. And in Houston's case, they lost Marcus Sasser, who's arguably their best player, and they still they don't do it efficiently enough on the offensive end to meet for for me to be like they can win the national championship. And Purdue, similarly to the U of A, I guess in the last two years, have not had good March Madness success. Right, They lost as a sixteen seed last year. Okay, so you got the schedule. The Arizona
scheduled reads Washington State tomorrow. Obviously Washington on Saturday, and I think that I think Lev made a good point of that. You know, they're going to put a lot into this Washington State game. It's going to be a quick turnaround, you know, the potential for coming out flat, you know, could be high. Wednesday, they go to a s U you never know. Then they come back the following Saturday against Oregon, and then they're on the road for UCLA and USC pick a loss in there or two.
I think the the Oregon game at home, even though we don't lose at home, and the U c l A game at u c l A, they don't have a ton to play for. Cronin wants to win on his home floor. I think that would be the one that I would circle and be like, if we were to lose, it would be at UCLA. At UCLA that you know, after what I've seen from them, and I saw them lose that game to to Utah. That is a way less daunting road trip than I thought, you know, going in even halfway through this
season. But you know, and then the UCLA game is Thursday night, so that's not the last game. It's the it's the Thursday game. Then they go to go to usc yes tomorrow, I mean, got it's at home. But it's probably the best team left on that schedule. Well, they're certainly the best team left on the schedule, no doubt about that. And they already beat you, So you have the the team that's beaten them before. I mean they beat us at home last year, Yes they did.
That was a weird team that was down as one of the weirdest teams because there were so that team and there's so many times that they just looked uninterested in in uh A a specific game, and that was one of them. Yeahah, that night, that was one of them. They look like they wanted to be anywhere but there. And it made no sense to me because they were playing for so much. They were playing for a number one seed through the whole through the whole season, and you know, they ended
up with A with a two. But it made no sense to me that they that that it was a sort of a through the uniform on the on the floor kind of game. And here here's my case for why U of A's I mean, I think perdue. But if you were to pick U of A to be the National Tighter contender, you would say, A. They're eight deep, sometimes nine, right, they're starting five, all averages
double digits. They can all anybody on the floor at almost any given time, can score sixth in offensive efficiency and seventeenth in defensive And if history tells us, you want to be in the top twenty and both both to be a National Tighter title contender. And the only team that has a lower number is yukon their second offensive and twentieth and defensive. So that number is really
close. And as much as we love, as much as we're the number one offense in the country score the most points, our defense is as not as good as anybody's in the country, but we defend a lot better than people give us credit for. They do and people do that because they see the offense and think, well, you're you know, you're an offensive team. They're not, you know, because the real one of the and I've said this before, one of the reasons their offense is so good is because
their defense is so good. Their offense feeds off of that. You know, they get out in transition. You know, Tommy talked about the importance of finishing and being in transition and and you know, doing those things that again, you know, when they when they go down on a basket basket like, that's because they you know, they got a rebound where they got to turnover and they made it, you know, and and they get down
the court and and that's why that offense seems so good. Yeah. So often when you average nine steals a game, like U of A does, that's going to lead to almost fifteen to eighteen just layups. And that's where I mean the scoring number is high with all five starters average in double digits. That's I would love to know another team in the country that has that
doing that. And then you have a guy like Jayden Bradley kJ or yeah kJ Lewis who come off the bench and are amazing they're both they're both part of you a's best five man lineup, right, And we talked about the stats Love and Jaden and he's he's one of the guys like Caleb that our experienced guards, right, and you everybody knows every People don't realize that they don't because he's knew here. Yeah, Caleb was an International Championship up twenty
points against Kansas. If you know college basketball, you know what happened. You don't happen after that, Kansas came back, they win the national championship. But Caleb Love has been in the biggest games any college basketball player can play in. And Jayden Bradley it wasn't a lot of minutes because the Alabama guardroom last year was great, but he's been in a lot of high level games too. So having those guys and even even Kylon we talked about minutes
played, He's played big minutes. Yeah, and those three got in LA two ballow knows and keyshad was just in a national championship too. Like if you're if you're defending this team, you give all those reasons. They've been in huge games, right, Well, and then a question is going to be crevous, right, you know, if you're in a situation Babo gets in some foul trouble in a game or something like that. You know, crevaus is a is a true freshman. How ready is he? You know
for this picture. He's he's been up and down, He's had some you know, there been times you got, okay, he's getting it, and
then there's been other times you go, he's not getting it. We'll see if we'll see how reluctant Tommy is too with his leash, because we've seen a little bit that you can play at the five if if push come to shove, if you think crevas isn't ready for the spot and Baba has three first half rous you can go to key Shot at the five and play small and kJ can play the four pla and then you have the two guards. So he hasn't necessarily had that great luxury of last year when ballagun foul trouble,
Zoo would play the five. But he wasn't. He wasn't a five. Five has that toughness to goa He wasn't even as much of a five as as key Shot is right, I agree, I mean the Azulis was a four leaning towards a three three. But that's just how a skill set was, right. He knows the best player. He would take some jumpers, even though I love him, but he he was a gifted offensive player that he wasn't he wasn't a five. Like you said, he's more three
leaning than than the five. So Tommy does have some of that at his disposal of some coaching decisions that in the first round, if Krefus isn't ready for a tight a tight game, and you can go to key Shot who's been Okay, I was just in a national championship, right, So there there is some that's that's my defense for why Arizona there's only one team I would pick ahead of them. Get convincing me to throw something down on him.
I still haven't. Well, one twelve hundred one twelve hundred plus twelve hundred is is a good number. It's a great number. Okay, Okay, you're let's let's say you've got like a real job and things or than you know, you're you're professional and you dabble in some gambling, but you're a ten, fifteen, twenty five, maybe even up to fifty dollars gambler. Sure, how much would you put on Arizona? I mean I would put one hundred bucks on him? Would you put fifty bucks on him?
So let's just let's just do it as this, Like if my unit normal unit is ten and say that's what it is now. But if I were if that were my profession, and say my normal unit was one hundred bucks, I would put I think it's a two unit play. Like if you put I'd put two hundred on it. Okay, you get put two hundred, you get almost twenty five hundred back. Right. I think that's a
good I think it's good, a good value. It's as good as a value out of those four teams, I would say, Right, juve A hasn't made a deep run in some time in a while, there's somewhat do with a new coup quote unquote new coach. Maybe he breaks through and you have you have the guys that are ready to do it. Yeah. So I think and this isn't me being a huge airs on a fan. I think guys and analysts should be talking more about this team's potential to be a
national champion, to get to the final four. Their plus two fifty, that's not a great number. Right, No, it's not like I look, when you look final four, you gotta you want to look more in that plus five hundred or above range. So I'm assuming like Creighton's there, Duke is there, five to fifty, Marquette is five fifty, Kansas is four to fifty. Yeah, Kentucky's what's Auburn? Auburn is a four hundred plus four hundred, yeah, plus four hundred, Yeah, you got you
kind of plus one ten. So basically an even money bet. Yukon, Purdue, Houston, Arizona, Tennessee, North Carolina, Auburn, Alabama. They're playing their finding. Kentucky's another team where they just they just went to Auburn and gave it to them. Yeah. I think Cow's got those guys. They're young, but they're they're really good. Yeah. Yeah, I mean this year we always say it, but this year, more than most, seems like a year where you really don't know what's gonna IDEA you could
do three or four brackets and have three or four different champions. Yeah. Last year was we kind of thought we knew what was going on, and we have had four teams that wow, okay out of nowhere. So we'll see all right, hey Sammy, nice job today, appreciate it. Thanks to Craig Everson, Michael lev for joining us today. Steve will be back tomorrow. We are going to have the beat writer for Washington State from the Spokesman Review, Greg Woods, will join us. We can preview the game
and so be sure to come back tomorrow. We'll be talking some more Arizona basketball, So see you tomorrow.