This is Eye on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jacon Zalis on Fox Sports fourteen fifty powered by Nova Insurance Services Ensure your most Prized Possessions katz R two SA at iHeart Radio Station. Hey, good up to do and everybody, welcome to Eye on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera, our partner jagmes as with our guy Jason in handling the work here. When was the last time you worked on your eyebrows? Jay? Never? Never? Never? Why Golden State needs to work on it? Oh?
Yeah, they have it. They do have a brow problem. At least they had hip. But you know, the good news for the for the Warriors is that the discussion today has been that every time Anthony Davis plays a game like he played last night, he either gets hurt for the next game or plays terrible the next games. You've got that going for you. I think they were just stunned and they gotta be well, he almost had it one fourteen zero run. Yeah, I'm a Warrior guy, and I'm
not afraid. I'm not afraid, not afraid of Jordan pool shot selection. He had a good game outside of when that last one. Yeah, you should have been more patient. Did you have a very good game? But yeah, I think now now is the time Green should beat the crap out of them, right yeah, just say said the photo of Steph Curry like bent over, just like, oh what are you doing? I can't believe
he took that shot. The problem was he had sixteen seconds, fifteen seconds, plenty of times, plenty of times take a step ain't get a better shot? House the ball? See if to see if Steph Curry can get open? Right? Yeah, right right, But it is what it is. It should be fun the rest of the way. Yeah, you know, the it's say, it's say what you want. The playoffs have been interesting, yeah, you know a lot of drama. By that, and by by the drama, I mean just that you know the uh you know,
the Warriors were down two games that came back and won. The Suns are down two games right now and people are saying they suck and they may well come back and win the next two at home. Um, you know the number one seed the Bucks got got eliminated. Uh. Just been a lot of really interesting stuff going on in these playoffs this year. Yeah, a lot of fun. People get start to watch more. Everybody starts to watch more to the playoffs. Yeah, well, you know what, I
think people are just watching more because they're gambling more in this stuff. We lost our bet last night. It's it's a burrito open deal. It was fun, though, I mean I didn't want well I watch well see see that's what that's what it got me to do. I put the game on and I watched it start to finish, and I was pissed off the whole game because you know both both You know, our bet was that Seth Curry, Steph Curry, it Steph Curry and Lebron would Yeah, I would combine
for sixty points or more. Um, you know, I think I think they had a combined twelve at the end of the first quarter and that wasn't good enough. Yeah, they finished with you know, Lebron got twenty Lebron got to twenty one. Uh, Steph got to twenty seven point. It wasn't close. It wasn't like, oh, in the fourth quarter we got a shot at it. Lebron wasn't putting any points on the board because Anthony Davis was doing all the scoring. Yeah, no, that's so cool.
It's still fun. Yeah, that's all right. We'll see what happens in the next couple of days. Big games to night Boston, right, Boston plays Boston Philadelphia, Philadelphia. That's the only game tonight. On the next couple of days, we have more of the games. That's where they they've they're spread out this week. Uh, you know, all week for some reason, like I think, but the Lakers don't play again until Friday, tomorrow. They play tomorrow Arts Friday. All right. The Suns don't play
to Friday. Yeah, yeah, okay, Um, you might want to do the old calendar of thinging. We need to know. Without a clock, we don't know where we're what we're doing. Uh, it's about twelve what's it gonna be about twelve minutes? Um? Jay? Okay. So we talk about who we have on the show today. All right, Well, today we've got to Adam Green, who we invited him because he wrote
a column that was on point. He's an easy desert swarm that was on point with what Steve and I have been talking about about Arizona basketball fans and how they kind of need to calm down and all these people who are saying that they've lost faith in Tommy Lloyd, his ability to recruit, YadA, YadA, yadda are just well, he didn't say really dumb. We've been saying they're really dumb, but he was just basically saying people need to relax.
So we'll talk to him about, you know, why he thinks, why he thinks that, what got him to write, to write the column that he wrote, and just some of his thoughts on what he thinks is going on with recruiting, basketball, recruiting, whatnot. Tommy lads gotta look, tom lads gotta fill up his roster this summer. But he's working on it, and you know all these people who are saying, well, he sucks because it's not full right now, you know, come on, patience,
Yeah, patience. And then Steve's gonna leave me halfway through the show. He's got an Neil Tour event he's got to tend. So it's gonna be Jason and I gonna go through breaking news, and then I've invited Greg Hanson to come in and just chew the at with us, talk a little bit about some of everything. Um, there's a lot going on locally, you know, you know, be Jean Robinson getting drafted and uh, you know, some local teams doing really well. You've got to Pima baseball is
in the UH is in the region championship UH tournament. You've got men uh Pima golf going to the Nationals. You had men's tennis in UH you know, in the nc DOUBAA tournament hosting and they'll be playing a match tomorrow. So just a lot of stuff going on locally and we'll just go into into some of that stuff and then you know, maybe some of the national issues as well. Yeah, okay, uh we and and your calls, of course, you can give us a price. We'll take your calls five to
two zero four one, six seventy four forty. Uh, we can take your calls anytime there aren't guests on the line, but uh, you know, feel free to go to call anytime five two zero four one six seventy four forty. So we've been talking a lot of NBA, talking a lot of Arizona basketball. UM some things going on with the Arizona football. There was kind of a cool ranking that came out today that we can talk about UM on three. Those are the guys that do the uh the nil valuation.
They came out with the top ten wide receiver unit rankings in the country. And in the top ten are Ohio State, Texas, Salasee, all the schools you expect, right, Ohio State, Texas, Selasee, Washington, USC, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, A, and m Alabama and A top ten Arizona A number nine in the wide receivers wide receiver bations because
of the team act and Jacob Colly. Yeah, and if they had if they had kept yet Glorian Singer so Ohise Stas number one, Texas number two, LSU was three, Washington and USC are four and five, then Georgia, Tennessee, Texas A and M Arizona and Alabama. I mean it was like Arizona, which one of these does not generally belong in that on the list of anything. No, you just have to get them the damn ball. Well, you know, we'll see how working on yeah, yeah,
so I have. I just saw something coming in and sitting on open my computer. Let me let me read you remember the guy from Michigan Hunter Dickinson, Right, Okay, he's thinking about going someplace blah blah blah. It's one of his finances Kentucky and they thought it was a shoeing to go to Kentucky. Right's blue blood. It's Kentucky for for for for sake, goodness sake, I guess is the word. According to somebody at Kentucky says, uh, the main reason he might not go there is that there's a lack
of NIL guarantees that they're willing to make. This is at Kentucky, no less right, Yeah, and he says, hearing things aren't looking great for UK and Hunter Dickinson. Kentucky hasn't given up on uk BB isn't guaranteeing nilney as the other schools in the process are. So if people don't believe in the NIL that it's a thing, it's a thing, and it's not just here, it's everywhere everywhere, and if you want to be part of it, you have to be part of it, right And you know, and
you have to think about how much money is there to go around? Right because you know, somebody raided Kentucky's recruiting class. Yeah, number one means they got the those guys. They probably come up with a lot of money for those guys. Now they can't maybe they don't have money for a guy like Hunter Dickinson. It's like when you know your your NFL quarterback gets a you know, three hundred million dollars contract, Well, what do you got
left for everybody else? And now those teams tend to suck because they don't they can't pay the money to put enough players around. Sure, you're gonna start seeing that in in college athletics, particularly football and basketball. It's, uh, it's it's a sad look. I mean, you've you've been a fan forever because this is the way it is. Yeah again, it's like, well it's just that's it. I mean, you just gotta say it is what it is. I mean, it's it's the changing uh economics of
of of of sports. You know, if you're if you grew up the way we did and watch sports the way we did, and I mean, yeah, we knew players were getting paid, but it's always under the table. It's like who can cheat better than the other. It was a little different than what it is now because everybody gets to do it and if you're not, then you're you're way behind. And and so we just have to get you see that that that this is what it is. Instead of saying
I don't like it. Or I hate it or I'm not gonna you know, I think it's crap. You just you just got to deal with it. Yeah, Amateur Hour is over now, and the schools who are more prepared, more organized with all of this, so the school is going to do well. Yeah, so so tell me. I read I think it was an Adam story, Adam Green who did it talking about collectives? Right,
but you said they're not collectives. That's not the right term. Well, the two that we're talking about in Arizona, I don't I don't think he called him something else. Remember, we specifically asked Adam Lazarus from from Arizona, assist, is this a collective? And he said it's not. And I can't remember what he called it. I mean, I have to go back and listen to that. He said, we're not a collective, and he defined what's the difference between a collective and what they are? And
I don't remember what that. I can't text him and ask him what the word he is. Remember, he can give us a call for a couple just clear that up, because you know, a collective, I think a collective is more tied to the university than what what the Arizona Assist is doing. Um uh. I consider to try and look up a definition of it, but I'm not really sure. Um you know, the the the what
what? Uh? What Arizona Assist is doing. It's giving It's a place where people can put money into this, but then they work to get the athletes to come and uh, you know earn that money, right, whereas I think a collective is just like handing out money. I could be wrong, Um I it probably That's That's part of the problem, Steve. So much of this is so damn confusing as to what's what right right and talked to have a couple of quick questions for them, because I've been asked.
I've been asked on Facebook. You know, how much go to do the student athletes if they do contribute to him? Uh, Arizona Assist, I should say, after costing all that stuff, Because I said, just go to the website. They'll tell you. Yeah. I don't think they're I think they're pretty open about that because people want to know that if I'm giving you one hundred dollars, I want to know that you know, ninety seven of that is going for what I'm giving it too, and you can take
the other two or three percent. Yeah, you know to operate this thing, you know, So I don't know. It's it's odd that we have this confusion, but like I said, that's part of the problem. And it's a it's not that it's a moving target. It's just so new to people. And then there's confusion. Yeah, there's confusion. Don't just don't know, and it's it's hard to understand. But if you want to be part of it, why not check into it? Right? But uh, you know, But in any event, what the bottom line is is it
taking money that hasn't been available, right, It's taking new money. They got to out gout to create new money, sure for this, and not that he does this or doesn't do it. The clicks of the world, the wetman's of the world, they go when they pay for a lot of stuff already, right, they've got their names on buildings and money's going directly into Stevens and ye're going nightly into the into the athletic departments. This is not they need more. They need more money from other places. They need
the Gonzalez money, they need the Reveria money. They need to even if it's a ten dollar thing or five dollars, ten dollars whatever they need. What they need more than anything, it's more participation for as you said, if you can do one hundred dollars a year, that goes to this. But on top of the seat premium, you're paying for your tickets or whatever you're doing. Right, they need additional money. They're asking for more money in order to stay competitive. Right. In fact, I think I gave
you an example. Someone said that we already paying ten thousand dollars for a couple of seats, we don't have much more. Well, okay, thank you, But that's different, right, that's different. Yeah, that money is not going to where you know, these schools now, we're trying to compete in the nil market, right, Okay. I just texted him he might have to cost after the after the breaking when we talked to mister Green, Okay, it's when you talked about read the call. You said it
to me this morning. I said, it's it's sput on, but sput on to what we believe, right, It doesn't necessarily mean what everybody else believes. Right. They don't have to agree with us, but you and I know that we're right at least we're the right page. Oh yeah, of course, Yeah, Jason knows, yes, he needs a good grade. You know, I just it's, uh again, the game has changed,
whether we like it or not. All the things that are changing, you know, expansion and conferences and TV deals and all this, and you know which all really tends to be related to money, Uh, is how things are operated now and it's you know, it's twenty twenty three, and that's just what it happens to be. And yeah, would we like it to be you know, nineteen seventy one again, where you know, coaches are making two hundred thousand dollars a year and players are you know, just
their athletes and their students and YadA, YadA, YadA. Sure, but that you know, we've come to this over a long period of time because this is just what our society is, and that's just swait it. Yeah. Hey, let's take our breaknow, sorry, three fourteen, come back talk to and then we'll see if we can get Lazareth on the Okay, okay, let's take a break. Adam Green from Mazie Desert Swarm talking about
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on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera. He is Jakins. Also, I think we got a phone call right now the black time, Adam is this shoe? Yeah, yeah, I'm a green How are you? We're trying to reach you and now we got you. Thank you for columns. Hey, how you guys doing fine? Thank you? So Jay wakes me up by this morning says, did you read this column? I said, well, now I did. And how old are you? Adam? Just real quick? How old am I? I'm a very old feeling thirty
nine. Oh so okay, so you're kind of older, which makes sense. It makes this stop. And I say this with respect because we're all dudes, right, and we're not young, cranky young kids thinking I know everything. Um. And so we liked your column today because it, um, it's kind of fits right on what we've been talking about. So now you're a sixty one year old man. Sorry, Adam, but we liked what you said because it's an agreement with what we've been talking about. Yeah.
Yeah, well, well now it's one thing where it's like, obviously people are stressed about recruiting, but the team isn't put together yet, right, coach has won a lot of games. I feel like time you like call me, there's a little bit of of the doubt at least early on, especially given the success he's already had. Yeah. Well, and that's the things, Well, that's the thing Stephen Aban Harper and saying, you know, a friend of ours Texas, and I've lost faith in Tommy Lloyd
and his recruiting. I'm like, well, what have you lost faith in the sixty one games that he's won in two seasons as a new head coach and what you know, Well, he doesn't have his team yet. Well, as you said, it's not it's he doesn't have to have his team yet, right, Yeah, yeah, I mean obviously the season has been his start for like other five months or so, and I'm not going to go into the season with six players or seven players, like we know that.
And I think it's fair to question things until it happened, sure, because you want to see this team filled out, and just because they were good last year they before doesn't mean they'll be as good next season. But I think the guy deserves a chance to put a team together. We know how many people are still in the transfer portal, and we've seen some of his recruiting of the high school ranks. It's been pretty good. So you know, as Tommy Lloyd does he need time to settle in and kind of
get his pipeline going and get his style going. Sure, you know it's only his second full recruiting class is going to have here for Arizona, But I think the early return has been promising enough, especially with the high school recruiting where he should probably get some ben for that do plus even a transfer port of last season getting Courtney Rainby, et cetera Henderson junior, those are
pretty good additions for the team. Both of them end up starting for them at the end of the season, so you know, it's it's only the guy can't build a roster. And of course now because it was Tabella's going pro, it's going to be basically an entire Timmy Lloyd roster next season, and that's where you can start to judge him. But now I think he's done enough on the court to buy that time off the court. I think you kind of put it in perspective too pretty well. With the guy who
who he followed Miller in his early recruiting classes, they weren't great. He fell into the USC kids leaving because of because of their coach, and I just lost the name right now, Lloyd Floyd. Sorry it's employd but you know that was kind of by accident, if you will. And then a kind of second year didn't go so well. There, you didn't go so
well, and then all of a sudden it took off. Yeah. Yeah, and that's not not Sean Millery. And obviously by the time he was no longer Arison as coach, people looked at him as a great recruiter and he brought a lot of top end talent to Arizona and he got there, he kind of got his legs under him. I know. The questions were being the East Coast guy, could he recruit players out west? And the answer was yes, he did. He did very well there. It didn't
lead to final fours or anything, but the recruiting wasn't a problem. But yeah, people kind of forget the early going. And yes, it helps you make an a lead eight in your second season to kind of buy a little bit of time. But yeah, if you look at the recruiting rankings and the players he was bringing in. Even one of the question that Josiah Turner, Nick Johnson like Turner was a really highly rated player, but it
didn't work out. So, you know, Tommy Lloyden. Also, it was just a different era and comes to recruiting, like there is a transfer portal now, which is I could be bigger than it is than recruiting high school players. But it's easy to forget, you know, the early Sean Miller days, how his recruiting wasn't great to start. So you know, it's not like Tony just done a bad job recruiting and building these rosters and filling holes. Could things go south for them, absolutely, there's you know,
until things go really well, things can go poorly. I just don't see the reason to believe that's the way it's going to go right. And and I again, you know, you know, people say, well, you know the proof is in the pudding. Well, the pudding has been pretty damn good for two years. And I guess I don't understand why people are just already writing him off. But you know, I think the thing that people need to get used to the fact that is the fact that recruiting
classes or teams aren't coming together until mid to late summer anymore. And that's just the way it's going to be. This team that he had last year that won a whole bunch of games that's when that team came together, right he got I mean he got Henry Vassar like in July, or oh no, he got Colin Boswell reclassified in July. I mean he was still putting his team together. Is that, you know? I know where we don't know. There's no way to predict the future. But is that just the
way it's going to be from now on? The teams will come together in the summer as opposed to the s when they're recruiting classes got signed. I don't know if it's the way it's going to be, but I think it's probably the way. People have to understand that the recruiting isn't done yet, right, Like, rosters aren't going to be finished until later in the summer, And you know that might be different each year, and certain players might
commit earlier. You have a bigger high school recruiting class that's already going to be gone to camp, has already signed. Maybe you hit the portal early and get some players that way. But like the time, the window with which to build a roster is certainly larger than it ever was, so, especially with the transfer portal, and especially with players who enter their names in the NBA trap and then end up pulling out and going back to school.
There's going to be a reason to wait. Patience is a virtue and it's tough. I get it for fans and I get it for everybody. You want to see a roster get built. You want to see a really good roster get built. But when you're waiting on the portal and you're waiting on some of the maybe international kids who are their seasons have to finish up before they can announce or commit to Arizona or anything like that, just you're going to have to wait a little bit. And you know what's the Tom Petty's
like, waiting is the hardest part it is. It doesn't mean that it just because the roster takes a little more time to get built, it's going to be a bad one. Your point, like, that's what it was last season. It took a while and that has that was with two waiting for guys like Dale and Terry Christian Koloko to stay in the draft and then you knew you get your roster spots. So you know, I wouldn't anticipate anything like this every year, but certainly with the international recruiting, with the
transfer portal Waiting isn't necessarily the worst thing in the world. You're quoting Tom Petty, I'll quote the ketchup bottle anticipation, Baby anticipation. Everybody can't wait. I'm curious, do you have access to your your your work for as Desert swarm dot com obviously, do you have access to the crazies that kind of comment on that line as well? I mean we see it on the
comments, yeah, and it happens obviously. I mean the way I've always seen commenters like, as long as they're reading and comment they're commenting, that means they cared. So you know, from a writer's perspective, I don't care if they're angry or they think I'm the smartest person in the world. Of course, I'm on Twitter and see a lot of that stuff too,
so I'm you know, it's Arizona fans. I know a lot of them too, so you know, I hear it, you see it all over and it's hard to be like, I mean, they're not necessarily wrong, but it's like just that patience that maybe people didn't need to have five,
six, seven, ten years ago when it came to recruiting. They need to have right now, because when you take that step back and you look at the bigger picture in terms of you know, like you were saying, like, in terms of building this roster, it might take till May, might take till June to really start to fill out. Yeah, that's just
how it is right now. And it's just tough to kind of get into that mindset, especially when you see all the players getting transferred to other schools and I like, af he's laying it like eight or nine transfers Arkansas and on every transfer it seems like, you know, that does happen for some programs, but it doesn't mean it's the only way to get the job done. And I know Timelod was quote on the Arizon on a daily start talking about he things are in a good place and things will be fine, and
yeah, I mean, I don't expect him to say otherwise. I don't expect him come and say, yeah, we're in trouble. It's not going to work out this season. But I also think he knows a little bit more in terms of what the rosters can look like by time the season starts compared to what it is right now than most of us do. And one of the things that I saw a couple of comments on was people feel like they have a right to no right, you have a right to know who's
Tommy Lloyd going after? You need like like you need our approval to go get that guy or something like that. I don't even know what it is. And it's like worse than ever that, you know, because stuff isn't out on social media about this guy's being recruited by Arizona or that guy, or you know, Arizona is the finalist for this guy that guy that that you know, we're being held information being held from fans that shouldn't be.
That part of it drives me crazy as well. Yeah, it's the world that we live in terms of like the oversharing and everything on social media. And someone puts out their list of like I've turned my list down to these seventeen teams that I'm interested in me or something like that, and it's kind of like the Nemahard kid who end up going to gonzagas no one knew. I was like, Okay, he's just out there being recruited and he commits
to Gonzaga. Our Arizona fans as episode it's like, oh, well, he just okay, he chose and Zaga, where as opposed to he was like, oh he's supposed to go to Arizona or Arizona's after this guy, they really want him. And yeah, there's probably a lot of players at Arizona wants and doesn't get and fans never hear about it. They don't know
about it, so they're not you know, it doesn't bother them. It's with so many players out there in the portal, you have to imagine Arizona is not just saying we're seeing these five guys and if we don't get them all, well, I imagine Tommy Lloyd's thinking, you know, he's got calls in, They got notes or texts out to all these players say hey, if you're interested, if you don't stay in the draft, we'd like to bring you to Tucson, and then when things can happen, when that
can progress and move forward, they'll act on it. But yeah, I mean, fans want to know everything, and in today's day and age, fans know far more than they ever did, which is great, but it also leads to two or can lead to some of that extra stress and angst because it's like, why don't we know this? And just because you don't hear if something doesn't mean it's not happening. You know, absence of that
information doesn't mean an absence of truth. So I would imagine, like, unless you have zero faith in the staff and think that they have no idea what they're doing, you know, the quiet approach may be the best one for them, and I would let them go ahead with it now. A year from now, two years from now, if things aren't going well recruiting, maybe you start to wonder. But I think right now it's fair to say, you know what, they have an idea of what they're doing.
Maybe Plan A, Plan B doesn't work out, but a plan is in place. They're gonna fill out a roster and they'll probably have some pretty good players on it. No, I think exactly right. You know, back in the day, when you were about twenty, that stuff was talked in bars, this at midnight. You know, people at the bar school saying, well, you know that time we though it guy, you know whatever, But now it's it's brought forward because of easy deserts worm or or all
sports tu son or the two sound up time. You know what I'm saying, it's much more talked about because you're right, fans no more now because of the Internet. Yeah, and you want fans to be passionate, you want them to be interested. You know, apathy is the worst thing that could happen for a program and for a team, So you want them to be into it and following their every move. But you know, I don't know how many players like Henry Vasa, how many people knew he was even
on Arizona radar last year? Right? Or Courtney Raymi or Sitah Kenderson Junior or some of the guys they brought in, you know, Philipthorovician, it's some of these guys. It's also like, oh they commit to Arizona. Okay, who is this guy? So it is different with the portal because
there's so many stars from different programs. You're like, oh, that guy would probably be good at Arizona. And yeah, like any good player I think would be good at Arizona. But you know, to not be in on all of them, or to not have a chance at all of them, maybe Arizona check it in. They're like Nope, I want to go this place, or nope, I got an n I'll offer deal somewhere else. That's where I'm going. And Aarona Okay, thanks, good luck to
you. But there are players out there that they're going to get that. I'm sure they've made contact with it, that they're going to bring it to Son And if you're an Arizon thing, you just hope that they end up being good players who form a great team. The same thing about this Jay, And I said this before, Adam that one one of the worst things that happened to the Arizona basketball program is it won a title in ninety seven. Now everyone thinks they deserve another one anytime soon. Right now, it's
gored have been twenty six years. That's one thing. And the second thing is he's had fantastic success. Now they've got the taste, right even though the recent people we want more, right, we want more? And how can we're not giving us more? Yeah, And I think Arizona fans should like Obviously, Arizona is not the blue blood that say a Duke is or a Kentucky has been, or I guess I don't know if you put ukin in that category. Night right now, that pains me because I've never thought
that highly of them, And yet look at all their championships. But Arizona's a really good program, and I think fans should expect success, but also what a success look like. And that is one thing I put in the column as he desert someways that it feels like Tommy Lloyd is, you know, kind of shackleder, has a cloud of all the failures that preceded him that he's wearing that. In terms of Arizona fans, like, they want success and they want it now. And yeah, he's won sixty one games
the first couple of seasons, a couple of PAC twelve tournament championships. Obviously this past season ended way too soon in the NCAA tournament, Like that's that's on Tommy Lloyd. But Arizona not making a final four in twenty something years, that is not on Tommy Lloyd. You know, having not won a national title in twenty six years, that is not on Tommy Lloyd. So he has to wear that in terms of he's the next best chance to end the streaks, but he's not the reason for the streak, right, So
what's what's your gut feeling on a Zulus. Has he gone or do you think there's a chance or how much of a percent chance do you think there is that he might come back. JAD used to get off the lids. That's what he's asking, No, because we have this great, this great clip of him saying they kicked our asses that we use all the time, But we want what's your gut feeling on him. My gut feeling is that
he's probably gone. Um. I don't think he's an NBA pick. I don't think he's you know, a first round pick or a second round pick. But I think he'll get hivited to a camp or just go back home and play overseas. It's one of those situations where I don't know how much you would benefit from coming back for another season. People think the things he needs to work on, It's like, well, what if he never gets
better at those? Or what if he comes back to school He's like, well, people needed me to shoot three, so I'm just gonna check him a bunch of three pointers. Like that's not what Arizona wants either, So I'm guessing it's I have no information and side information from my gut feelings having watched him played yet a great season for Arizona. The others of him improving on that end, being even better, I would think are too slim to
warrant coming back, especially since he will have options to play professionally. If that's not the NBA getting back to the dark side of the airs. On a fan base, do you think that that the fans ran kurk Crease out of town? So I would hope not k kirk Crease's sake. I would hope that he's not like leaving because of fans. I'm guessing too with that one. Kylin bosw is probably more the reason Kirk Cresa left than anything else.
Anything the fans did. You know, Cresa seemed to enjoy from what I could tell, the haters and the and the fans all at the same time. But you look at his role, Kylin Boswell should be ready to take over as a starting point guard next season, a more ball dominant type position than he had, and I think that's probably better for Arizona. So, you know, we're fans high on Kirk Crias, Absolutely not, especially after the way the tournaments went for him. But I can't imagine that's why
he left. You know, it's a better opportunity, maybe for more playing time or more nil or just something. I think, given him what he's going to be pushed by next season without he might guess, you know, but if he because of the fans, that's like, that's that's raw. Yeah, no question, Adam Green, thank you very much. I'm gonna go listen to Carly Simon sing anticipation and you go listen to Tom Patty. Thank you, hey, Adam, thanks the whole bunch, appreciate it.
I think everything he said totally agrees with what we said. Sounds so reasonable. I know, I lose my mind over here and I'm yelling and I'm cussing at the fans and stuff like that. He said all the same things, but he said him in just a reasonable, calm, orderly way. Yeah. No, we've been saying the same thing, just not in a calm, orderly Go read that column on Easy Desert Swarm dot Com. Is just a really good piece and uh just kind of a very reasonable piece and
everything that's going on. Let's go and take our break. We'll be back. We'll take your calls five two zero, four, one, six, seven to four forty. If you're an Arizona Man's basketball fan, you know it's been successful for nearly forty years now take a look back at the lud Olson era in my new book, Lessons from Loot. It was a labor of love to the eyes of twenty five former players, coaches and friends to give insight to the coach and the men who led them, competed against them,
and inspired them. Twenty five chapters for his twenty five years as Arizona's beloved coach. Lessons from Loot is an insight to how he built the program into a national powerhouse. What one email me at Steve dot RIVERA ninety five at gmail dot com. Hey Walcat Nation, Jake Fish, you're here,
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A Team security dot net and Jacin Solids. Hey, there, I on the ball on Tucson sports station Fox Sports fourteen fifty. They welcome back to I'm About here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve. He's Jay. Got a guy Jason on the base here. Now we have Adam lazarres from good Juju. How are you Adam? Hey, guys can talk to you again. Good dude. We've been talking to NIL a lot lately, obviously from your discussion a while back. You want to have you on again to
kind of clarify some things. I just read something maybe a half hour ago about Kentucky trying to get the Dickinson kid here but there, but they don't have enough NIL, and that's probably part of the problem. And I'm saying, if Kentucky has an issue, imagine Arizona's issue if people don't join in. So you know everybody has the same issue. It seems like it. And you know NIL is ever changing and constantly expanding, and you know rules
are changing and whatnot. So I don't have any specific information on the Kentucky player or that at all. I first I've heard of it is when you're saying it, but absolutely it is a we're building the plane as we fly it, as we like to joke around sometimes, so we're figuring it out as we go and making sure we get here to every possible rule we can, but I can't speak on anything with them other than to say I know
that they're experiencing challenges because we are fat as well. Okay, So for our last conversation when you're on the show, I think I recall you saying that that Arizona Assist is not a collective, but it's something else. Okay, what's a collective versus what Arizona Assist is. So, in our definition, a collective would be a group of people or a collection of either boosters or alumni, or people who are putting money into a fund or a pot
or a bucket, so to speak, to be used four players. However that is being used to incentivized players, you know, to stay, or however they're using nil. We do not do that. We don't have a fil of money. There are no minimum requirements, there's no guarantees to the players. There's no expectation that they will receive X or Y at all.
The more that we sell from a merchandise standpoint, the more memberships we generate, the more corporate and business sponsorships we can receive, the more money goes into our platform, and we pay all our builds, and we distribute that money back to the players, and there's no animals. Okay, how do you distribute that to the players? They they do appearances and things like that. Is that what happens? That is one way that they can do it.
They fully negotiate those themselves. We're not player representatives at all, but we are certainly a and shake or a connection to a business or an entity that might want that player to do something for them and the player themselves. We will certainly hand them or introduce them to all of those relationships, but
we don't negotiate or broke or anything beyond that. Okay, what would be and I spent some time with you, what would be the easiest and best way from h for a guy like me, a guy like Jay who you know, minimal means or whatever. But we want to help a great question. We've designed or Zona assist dot com to be a membership based platform that allows you to to become a member at as little as one hundred dollars a year that gets to the whole year. You receive some cool perks for that.
At that level, you have access to our discounts across our store, You have advanced notice of all kinds of cool events that we have. We draw names from contests and fun things and giveaways from that membership list, and then there's other perks. There's a thousand dollars level for those that maybe want to get a little bit more benefit out of it, but also have the means to afford it, and then we go it goes up from there.
There's a ten ten thousand dollars level, and there's also a corporate at sponsorship level that allows businesses, brands, local organizations to take advantage of it, support the players, support the program, and still get some cool phurt. Okay, now very slowly, okay, because I'm still kind of not getting this. How does the money that comes to Arizona Assist get into the hands
of players of athletes? What's a typical way. So we are tracking every dollars that is brought through Arizon Assist platform in the forms of the things I just mentioned, membership, memorable merchandise, event tickets, things like that. Those dollars come in. We pay our bills, because we are not a five O, one C three, We pay all of our bills. We pay for the shirts themselves, and the you know, the golf course when we have a golf tournament, all the things we need to pay, marketing,
mainance management, just like any business would. And then the eighty percent of that revenue goes back to the student nationals on average. And that's what I'm saying. How how did they get their hands on it? How do they how do they physically receive those funds? Well? Like, like how you know, how do you decide who gets some of that eighty percent of the funds? You know, let's say thousand dollars would have divided equally amongst
the players. The only players that received more on a certain month than others would need if their merchant site, their specific T shirt or hats, or they had an appearance or something that the other players didn't have. For example, if Umar Balo sells more shirts than a month than Pelo Larsen's, Umar's distribution that month would be more. Oh I get okay. So basically, whatever above and beyond your expenses, that money just goes out to the goes
out to the players on the basketball team. Exactly right. Oh okay, See I thought they had to do something for it other than being on the basketball team. No, there's no requirement for them to do anything, um, other than give us those rights to use their name, image and likeness. And if there's anything above and beyond a specific event or a player engagement or a talk or whatever they want to do that is negotiated outside of Arizona.
Okay, So that's a great question. Especially the percentage. Is that an estimate or probably an exact twenty percent? Because I know one of the fans put posted something on the on the internet for to get fans interested and donating. Then one of the things was how do we know where the money goes? One? And how much is there was on assists getting from this? Yeah, they're well that there is. The average amount would be about eighty per men. Definitely, you know it to be seventy seven percent or
the eighty two percent. I don't know exactly, but um, the only way to know that that's happening is the trust us that has happened. I don't know how else. Definitely, collect every single uh dollar that we that we collect is tracked and distributed it um. And we are a business, I mean, so we are definitely have built to pay. Once those builds are paid, then the balance of that dollars goes to those student athletes. No, this is great information because I'm gonna try to maybe even put this
podcast on that for an answer. I'm assuming that on Arizona sist dot com you have answers like this, you know FAQs or something. Absolutely, we have facs there. We're very transparent about our model. The fact that it's not a collective is what stands out about our model. We are doing this on the true spirit of nil, which stands from named image like that.
That is what we are focused on is utilizing that so the players can monetize that um and all the information, all those answers are available on arizonatips dot com and if anything else, I'm willing to get on any phone call and talk to any group to explain as much as I can. Okay, so
now let me let me close close the whole thing on this. So a collective then in that case, is like you said, a group of boosters or whatever, they group together, they pull all this money, and then athletes get that money by doing things right, by going to an appearance, going to work for Boys and Girls club or whatever. Is that how that money gets distributed to his student athletes or is it just handed to them and say, Okay, you're really good players, so we're gonna give you three
hundred thousand dollars. I cannot speak for any of the other collectives or any of the other groups, but my understanding of those with the performers, there's no situation that I'm aware of where players are getting a lump sum of money for doing nothing at all. Okay, but again that is not our model and not you know, I don't really know enough about it to speak to any other model beside art. It was like the kids used to go, there's some job to one of the law and the lawn was automatic. He's
not going to say anything to that. All right, the light bulb is on. I get it now. Yes, our model, our model was designed to be a conduit between the average fan and the program and allow the NIL world to be democratized a little bit. So it wasn't just a way for sort of quote rich boosters or the same people to give money. It's a way for everyone who loves the Arizona sports to give money and to be part of the NIL process and also get some cool perks and the benefits in
the process. That's why our models different, right, And the thing we haven't said, is that Arizona's assist is specifically just for men's basketball. Yes, correct, Arizona sists currently is just for men's basketball, and we're focused on just making the men's basketball program as good as we can and building the
foundation for the future of that program. Right now. We tell people, if you want to be part of this and stop complaining about the lack of funds or whatever, they can do this to help do their part and help right. Absolutely, the reality is if we don't adjust, we get left in the dust. And that is the truth. And so here's a perfect way to you still get cool swag, you get cool merch that no one else has. You have a way to interact and engage with the players in
unique ways. And every dollar you to spend, you know that that's the bulk of that, it's directly supporting these players. So yeah, it's important. Okay, Hey, great clarification, Adam, I get it now, Thank you, awesome, No problem. Yes, go to Arizona this dot com and you can always email me our emails right at the bottom. They're happy to talk to anyone who can want to learn more. Thanks a bunch, Adam, appreciate I get it. Yeah, I mean, just you
give to this thing and the money goes to the players. You know, perc of everything that goes in there goes to the players. Whereas the collective, like you said, you know, you you colect all this money. You say, Okay, come to the Boys and Growth Club and we'll give you X or sign a contract to endorse this and you get X. Yeah, right right right, No, And I saw they have if you go to the site, they have cool swag from follow to Larson uh to the
Whiteman kid. You know they have. It's very cool, very cool. All right, I get it now. It makes so much more sense to me now, and I'm glad we did that. Okay, So if you're interested. In fact, a couple of people texted me a couple of quick questions. So just if you have any more questions, just go to Arizonassist dot com. Yeah, and they'll they'll do or give them an email or go back to the podcast. You'll get like a step by step by explanation
of what all this is. We'll get that post and we'll post tonight. End up get up on our social media. Yeah, okay, but I'm glad, I'm really glad because I just kept having confusion and I knew that. I heard him say, we're not a collective, and but now he explains, you know what they are. So you know, the money just go get to divvy up to those players. So there's you know, a
source of income for those guys. And then they get that income because they've they've signed over, you know, rights to the name, image and likeness, and consequently for that they get X. And so the more the more Arizona fans contribute, the more they get, and the more the better Arizona can recruit. Right, Okay, not just about Arizona anymore. It's about money and yeah, everywhere, man, Yeah, it's everywhere. I feel like I want to go back in time and become a college. We only
we only have one fifty five. And I know I'm talking to a biased dude. I'm saying, you're biased so on the West coast, and I'm saying from let's say, from Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, West West. It has to be in the top five colleges in Arizona. Yeah, and we could. I'll say, Oregon, you got USC, Oregon, Washington. I think I think in terms of basketball programs. We're talking athletic
departments, departments. Yeah, you know, top five, top five six yeah, um, you know, usc Us, La, Oregon, and then every then everybody else in Washington and then everybody else is like in a tie for fifth. Not everybody, because I think Washington and maybe Colorado were a step below. Why do you state now you yeah, I mean so, I think everybody's kind of in a in a tie for you know, fourth or fifth place. But it's not bad to be San Diego State.
Now, it's not bad to be some of the other ones that we don't talk about Gonzaga, Gonzaga in basketball, health, football. Boise State is in that twelve thirteen because you know, I think Boise State is basically Washington State, well Washington that area Washington. I mean, I just think that there's sort of like a notch below down there, like let's say like cal Washington State, maybe Colorado right now, Um, you know, even a
sus Is. I think it is trailing behind Arizona in terms because because Arizone's got a basketball program to standoff, which you know, none of the other schools have that, and their football programs are kind of like arizonas so um, maybe you know, UT's got a really good football program, but their basketball program isn't great. Right now, Hey, we got to get out of here, and so do you all right, we'll be back. I'll
be Steve's got to hit the road. It'll be Jason and I and we'll have Greg Hanson coming on at four about four twenty, so I'll stick around for all that breaking news at the top of the hour.