Wednesday, November 20, Hour 1

This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera on Fox Sports fourteenth fifth Day powered by Nova Insurance Services Ensure your most prized possessionets.

Big Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Eye on the Ball Hero Fox Sports fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera these Day Silver sitting in today is my co host.

Welcome back, Dave. Good to be back. I hope you're the check cash that I send you to must be in the mail. I'm not sure ever arrived. Okay, let me know.

Okay, And we got our guy Henry working the controls, so you'll have a smooth day like yesterday, which was almost smooth, but it was not entirely smooth. Good afternoon, everybody, Welcome to Wednesday. I think we have a pretty good.

Show, Dave. I hope. So it sounds like we've got a couple of good guests. Yeah, a couple of good guests. We got Steve Wiseman from North Carolina. He's a beat writer for Duke.

We'll talk to him all things Duke and the ACC and all that stuff, and so that should be fun, informative looking up to or looking uh to Friday Friday Nights game.

You got tickets. You're going, I got tickets. I'm excited about that. I kind of last last minute.

If you if anybody mugged you that's about five and ten wearing dark jacket.

No I won't. I won't have the tickets on me for a while. No, no, no, no, I'll talk about who you mugged. Oh you're the guy that.

Yeah, No, I'm looking forward to that. I'm trying to remember. I know I was at the Duke Games back way back when, and then I was at the Duke Game obviously at Anaheim, and then you've probably been to some a few since then.

Yeah, but it's it's it's always fun.

I mean, way back when there was some good Duke moments and michale I remember you know, the Festabal Classic Games and things like that.

With with that that so era. So I'm going to ask you a question. There's no right or wrong answer, but there is kind of a right answer. Have you heard our discussions, me and me and Jay about if Arizon the blue Blood?

Have you heard those? I think?

So? Yeah, what what are your what were your conclusion? Well, no, no, no, I'm not going to buy a shoe. I'm gonna buy a shoe. So are they or aren't they Arizona blue Blood? I think they are.

I don't know what's I mean, they only have the one championship.

But right they have they haven't been to the Final Force in two thousand and one. And I don't want to fight with you now, but I'm gonna kick you out of this, all right, you're right, maybe they won't ever come back again.

Uh they long term, long term or even recent term, they're not. Yeah, I don't know.

I guess so long term I would say yes, maybe recent term no, But I mean in the last thirty years, they're definitely one of the best programs in the West.

Let's put it that way. You know, yes, this is even close in the West, but there's no one in the West.

True, there's nobody west. U clav was good for a while. Oregon, that's about it. Yeah, Gonzaga now it's Gonega and Arizona right holding the fort in the West. And you know, the truth be told, there's aren't There aren't many schools in the West. Yeah, you know, to this level. And you say East coast biased, well, of course, because there's no West Coast.

Schools, right. Well, I mean Yukon's dominated the last few years. Yeah, there's always North Carolina slides in there, Duke slides in there.

And some people have a hard time putting a U cut in that.

Really yeah yeah, now, but because you know what, they go old school stuff and there's one even old school stuff.

Okay, give me some old school success success. It's not that great. It's not that great.

And I don't want to bog down this conversation, but I'm gonna ask Steve that too, because what do they you know, how it is Arizona has Duke Nby. I've said this, I don't know if you agree with that. I think you think Duke has Arizona, and.

I doubt it exactly I did it, but I think it'll be interesting to get his perspective on what he thinks Arizona is. Yeah, from the East coast where he sees him maybe you know, on late night TV and a few national TV games.

And he's an older dude, so he can kind of give us.

He may have seen Arizona and Maui and in those kind of locations in those types of games. Last year's game, you know, was that Cameron, So I'm sure he saw that so he knows.

Yeah, yeah, no, and he's older.

She'll give me a good perspective like us, you know, although you're a little shaky with that perspective.

I don't know. I mean, I've always bragged about Arizona.

Well, and you should and you should. It's been a it's been a very good program.

It's It's one thing where I always kind of judges on how some of my friends, like, as we were all kind of friends growing up, we never heard about Arizona, and then when things kind of blossomed with Lout, Yeah, all of a sudden, my friends are aware of Arizona.

So it was it was breaking through.

Like my Bay Area buddies that we didn't know anything about Tusona Arizona when I was in high school. And then by the time, you know, I started working and covering the team, and they're going, whoa, he's at the final four. Oh wow, he's covering these great teams.

Yeah.

Maybe, yeah, that's how it worked. So I don't know, is that a blue blood I don't know.

No, I don't know. They got they they certainly got publicity.

Yes, yes, And it's a good program. It was very good throughout the Loots time, most of Loot's time and Sean's you know, twelve years maybe four good years of that, and now it's got to restart.

And you know, they get national TV games, they get you know, there when I'm sure that there's gonna be moments during Tommy Lloyd's career where they're going to be you know, the Game of the Week and Game Day will be here in Friday nights Big Night with the ESPN showcasing.

Well in Bahamas.

There's a good chance that they might play the Zags the Bulldogs. So h and Tommy doesn't want to do that, but guess what, Yeah, win baby, and they both win.

Yeah, he played in the final.

I mean, they just played Gonzaga, just played my school, San Diego State the other night. I wasn't it wasn't good. But you know, that's that's kind of the price you pay for being a maybe not a blue blood, but at least one of the marquee teams. It gets you know, TV ratings and people will watch even though it's going to be kind of a late night or on the East Coast.

Yeah, okay, and then at the four fifteen hour, we're going to get Aaron Torres one of our favorite Yes covers college nationally football and basketball. He's got a bias to Arizona, So we'll ask him about the big game on Friday, and as well as the football program because he's doing a lot of I think he's all by apologizing or whatever.

Is he a wildcat? No, but he isn't.

I'm gonna ask him why he's so hooked him too the program. Yeah, because he's got a little bias towards Arizona and that's and that's fine. I mean yeah, I mean he's all over the college football playoff now as.

I see him, you know, reporting that. So you can talk to him about that, right.

Do you Okay, you're in the you were in a business for a long time. Do you like Jay listens to all these podcasts. He doesn't do any good when he bakes picks, but you know he listens for advice or whatever.

You know.

Okay, good for you. That doesn't do anything. But do you have a go to? And if you do have a go to, what are you hoping to hear? The podcast or shows you when you're driving your car? You put it?

You know, I'm big fans of the College Football Inquirer there's who are they? It's Dan Lebtard And oh.

Is that okay? Is that with Pat Forty and those guys.

Yeah, they're on like three times a week. They do alkins in them and they do three shows. It's usually like a Saturday, like a Sunday morning show or recapping the Saturday's games, and they come back in the middle of the week kind of starting to preview the weekend. And they come back on Friday and do a big preview of the weekend. So that's a good one if you're a big college football fan.

So are they informative? Are they funny? Or they're both both? There, they're very they're smart there. I mean, Forty has been around forever, sure, and he's very good.

Yeah, he's good on the radio and Pat and LeBatard is not Dan LeBatard.

That's what Dan Welk. Welcome, Dan Welkin. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's the one. That's one of the ones that Jay listens to. Yeah.

Yeah, so you're hoping just kind of information and enjoyable. But I've never listened to him. And it's funny because I have a show here and if people listen to me, thank you. If you don't. Well, okay, that's fine, I understand. Uh but you know who do you go? Who you go to?

Henry? Do you listen to sports Time?

Not really?

Yeah, yeah, Actually it's Dan Wetzel. Then that's rough Sellinger. That's because that's who those are, the guys, and they're they're funny. Wetzel's from Michigan, so he's you know, he's got he's got that going forties from Kentucky. Daughter went to Stanford, was a swimmer on the Olympic, things like that. Really, I did not know that he talks about her all the time. I did not know that because I like to think he's a friend. We talked at the final

But they've got great jobs.

I mean, they just basically pick a game to go to every weekend up, I'm going to this game that game.

They got great jobs.

When the great jobs are still there, and guess what, there aren't many where you can pick and choose and jump on a plane.

Well, you know, they're they're getting paid by Yahoo, so there there's still money there apparently apparently.

How about Netflix. We'll get to that later with the breaking news from Henry. Okay, I was just curious because you know, if you shows for information, everyone, there's no did you remember back in the late ays when you covered they tell me one of the things that he said, and I thought, this is brilliant because I still think there's no such things as gurus or experts. We just happened to cover the team, you know what I'm saying.

I never consider myself an expert, especially on the nuts and bolts of you know, the offense, you know, the offensive line, what are they doing in football or what plays or basketball teams running. I just just never you know, I wasn't part of what I had to know or tried to explain necessarily.

So it's hard.

Yeah, and every once in a while, you know, not necessarily one they're trying to keep the information away from you and anybody who says they're an expert whatever you know. Okay, sure, no, not really. You know, this is not Betty Crucker stuff for Julia Challi stuff. You don't make a dinner. That's exactly you're putting stuff into knowledge.

Okay.

One of the things I like about these guys on the Inquire is there they don't do the the nuts and bolts, and they do a lot of personalities and you know, they'll you know, talk about Dion and we'll talk about other coaches and other news around those college football towns that they've traveled to and things like that, and then they you know, they'll mix in their their predictions. But it's pretty much cut and dry when it comes to, you know, picking games. But the other fun stuff is

Before I'm poopoo in my profession, and I'm kind of okay with it because you know, if you listen to me and take my advice, it's all for entertainment purposes.

Yeah.

Well, I think one of the beauties of the jobs we've had is we do get to go to some fun places and sometimes that's like sure, here, now we can talk about, Hey, you know, remember we went to Kansas City, or remember we went to Eugene, Oregon. And I mean things like that around the basketball games.

I know you guys didn't travel all that much when I was around back, But what was your favorite place? Because I think I don't know who we talked about, Oh, Mike Quinn. I think there's somebody some of the favorite places to go because we talked about Duke. I did I never got there. Did you go to Eugene? Did you go to Eugene for football? Oh?

Okay, it's different than basketball. Yeah. I never went to the pit.

Yeah.

I grew up in the pit. Yeah, the pit.

There and then the other pit do they call the.

Then that's my favorite place all time. Okay, I don't care about Duke. I don't care about Staples. Staples Maples, been to Maples, Ben to Paul When did you go to Maples?

Got a long time ago? Well there, I went there. It was believe it or not. It was after I was in TV. But I was at a game. I was in the Bay Area and I went to They weren't that good that there was nothing, There was no.

Reason to go. They actually played a s u of all things that that atmosphere was better than Duke.

I take that any day.

Crazy kids acting crazy, smart dudes coming up with Clever crap Hey.

We went everyone.

I went there and I was there with them the week after the candy gate incident in Kansas.

R one kid messed up.

As a as a another candy bar as.

A dispenser like a machine. I think that dude's going to rule the world.

Yeah, I mean I grew up around there too, And yeah, back in the day, you know this.

The marching band is still crazy, the bouncing floor at the tree, things like that.

So yeah, that was always fun. Cols fun. I've been to Cal football, not basketball.

Basketball was not fun.

Washington basketball not football. Yeah, Washington basketball is not that great either. What was good that one game I went to? But was it with ing DeAndre Ayton his only season because you went I was there working.

Yeah, but that was that was kind of fun. That was a good, good thing.

I remember the story with Channing Fry and House on Adams Spots seniors. Channing for I had a fantastic game and Washington beat him. I thinking overtime and they were chanting his cell phone number. You know, I guess you had a girlfriend who leaked it out to somebody. And after the game, is there chent.

He says, yeah, I know that wasn't my right number. I guess what it was his right number because he had called all night because he had to go through his that. Wow. Yeow. Some of those some of.

Those places are great, That's what I mean. I'm looking forward to seeing what the environment in Kansas is going to be. I know Arizona's played there before. Yeah, it'll be fun.

That's going to be a big moment for them to have the U of an. The scariest place that I've ever been to to watch game was LSU. I don't know if you've been.

It was.

I was scared and I wasn't even playing either things they said or like holy crap, yeah, holy crap, and they they'd be there like twenty twenty five that night was stro Mile Swift and Jabari White and they just beat the crap out of them, and it was like, let's get in and get out. And the story was I think Luke was hurt or Ricky Anderson had been suspended.

Yeah, and for.

Me maybe well again, obviously going outside the U of A situation was just this last year, I went to Yankee Stadium for the first time. Oh yeah, yeah, the second time as an adult and I'm like, oh my goodness, yeah it was. They were like and it was a meaningless Friday night game against the terrible Chicago White Sox, and the fans were just brutal.

Too well to us, to anybody. They just they just wouldn't stuff.

Oh yeah, we were wearing all kinds of weird uniforms with my friends and we had different.

Keep exactly why.

Are you wearing a diamond Max jersey? And you know, I mean, it was a NonStop and then I turn around and God forbid you paid attention to it that it made it even worse.

Two thousand miles away.

Take a good Yeah, that's bad. I gotta be you gotta be careful and all the situations. But you know, you kind of ask for it, and here it is. You know, I couldn't tell you a thing about the game, but I can tell you all about the environmental the grief we took.

Yeah, okay, I got a text from somebody. We'll ask you this question after we have Steve Boysman on the show. We got to go and come back.

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This is I on the Ball with Steve Ravera on Fox Sports fourteen fifty Subscribe now to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app just search.

I on the Ball.

Hey, welcome back to my on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. I'm Steve Rivera, He's Dave Silver. Now in the fun we have Steve Wiseman from Thenewsobserver dot com out of North Carolina. Steve, how you doing.

I'm knowing great. Looking forward to making a long trip west tomorrow.

Yes, bringing your shorts and your Hawaiian Sure, it's going to be a nice time.

I had to hear it.

Have you been here before? Probably not.

I've not been to Tucson. No, I've been to Arizona, obviously. I was. I mean many times of it, including the final four a few months ago.

Okay, I probably r Okay, I had not. I had maybe ran into you a time just passing at the Phoenix at Glendeal Arena. Okay, cool, cool? Yeah, Hey, So have you been covering Duke for a long time?

I have since twenty ten?

Okay, okay, that's that's good enough. And and you were there last year obviously, I'm sure. And I was there. I wanted to take the atmosphere and at Duke. Were you surprised what happened there last year?

I was, yes, because you know, it's it's rare for Duke to lose.

A home game, and uh, Arizona did a great job and came in and.

And took that took that game and Uh, yeah, it told us a lot, you know about at the time, what Duke and what that team needed to do to be able to compete with a team like that, and they did it to a certain extent because they ended up, you know, beating Houston in the Sweet sixteen and then didn't make the Final four. But yeah, but to answer your question, I was surprised that that dude lost that game in their home court.

Always kind of fun to see Caleb Love against Duke again. How many times does he played against the Blue Devils? And he's a pretty good success.

He has, including you know, the famous.

Shot, the three pointer in the Final four in New Orleans that caped off Coach K's career because it gave Caroline at four point league. We got twenty seconds ago on that pretty much.

Was all they wrote for that game. But I was talking with some friends today and saying, is this the last time we're going to write about Caleb Love?

And we realized probably not, because who knows, March Madness may bring us together again, right, So.

It's a fun little storyline for sure.

Yeah, no question.

Were you there in the tunnel after the game when he talked to a bunch of reporters.

I was there and I'm sure you were there.

When he was talking about, oh yeah, North Carolina is still in my heart and you know I have this tattoo or something like yeah, I guess was he that sincere back then with you guys.

He was, yeah, he you know, he loved being a tar Hill and he he loved this robbery. He loved you know, the last coach k his last home game at Duke, and he was part of that Carolina team that came in and knocked off Duke. He then some big shots in and then of course the final four as I mentioned, and that's you know that game last year. Remember he had tar Hill for live right now on his right, So that was kind of something that was he did just just for the camera crazies, and that was interesting.

I'm wondering.

I sat there on deadline or whatever it was in the in the media room a year ago, and I sat next to a guy it may have been you, that we talked, and we talked and in Arizona had beaten him. And I said, do you think that Shires the right guy? And he says, well, the book is still out. That happened to be you.

I don't think it was me, But I mean, I you know, I mean, I agree.

He's got you know, he's still got to get into the final four to prove that he's, you know, really the guy. I think that will get him over the top. I mean, but I know that sentiments out there for sure, and there are some in the Duke fan base that's a little bit stronger than others that he wasn't the right guy that should have gotten somebody with experience. There are others who you know, you know, he's a programmed icon, you know, part of the twenty ten title team and

You just take him on on the face, those are prety good accomplishments. But you know, you're supposed to hang banners and and go to the final four and win championships and un till he does that, and that's the last thing, you know, get into the final flour if to get this year, which they have the squad that's capable of doing it. So this has a been a very important year for him, and and and the way people are going to feel about him and the way he's running this program.

It's not him who then who? Who?

Who?

Did people want?

Well, some people wanted, you know, Jeff Kble to come back from some people wanted you know, Tommy Amaker, who's another program icon, who's up at Harvard. You know those are guys. You know, Cable probably would have been the guy if Kay had retired maybe five years earlier, but Tim AND's everything, and that's not the way it worked out. So just done a good job at pitt. But yeah, those are you know, kind of some of the guys.

Yeah, which would be a pipe dream too. So let me dave up.

Yeah, just describing Shire, didn't he sound like he was talking about Tom He's always.

Going to say the same things. Are the storylines here too?

With coach who's had you know, really good success, hasn't gotten past the sweet sixteen, and they really some people didn't want him, right, tom no one even knew who he was basically, I mean, unless you really knew Mark Fuess coaching staff.

Right, you know who is Tommy Lloyd tell.

Us about I mean your marquee players, is the freshman Cooper Flag? What have you seen from him in this brief time to maybe justify him being a first team All American?

Yeah, I mean, you know, there are only four games in. But if you look at the stats, he's leading and everything, so scoring, rebout, I mean everything, everything he wants to say, as I wrote this week, including turnovers. So that's that's.

Another part of this, right, They've got to you know, he's got to get that cleaned up.

You have to remember he's only seventeen years old and he didn't turn eighteen until next month, and he's supposed to be a high score right now. So but you can see the things that the NBA scouts.

Love about him, his size, his linked his ability.

To you know, defend one through five. Duke can switch all over the court defensively of the man the man sets, Cooper can handle the ball at the top of the key and you know, again lead him and assists. So that sounds you're right there. He's not a guy that posts up, although he can't do that if they wanted him to. Uh So he just does a little bit of everything.

You know, the end of the Kentucky game when he had the turnovers late that you know, when dude's let that lead get away. That's kind of a stain on his on his deal right now. But you know, there's there's plenty of time for him to get rid of that. He's going to have the ball in his hands at the end of games for Duke all season long, and so he's gonna have plenty of chances to overcome you know, what was a kind of a bad first start to a game like that against Kentucky.

Yeah, and you can't be perfect.

It's funny he talks about Boswell, He's talks about flag that people talk about Boswell. He's only seventeen years old. He's only seventeen years old.

Remind you how old they are.

Right, right, But you know, the guy is good. So you know, you expect still a lot of from nineteen nice a year he was with the Olympic team.

I mean, what kind of experience was that for him to be able to, you know, train with those guys.

Oh yeah, that was that was such a big deal for him. And you know, it's funny. I talked to.

John Shire was out there kind of watching him. He wasn't part of the coaching, but he's watching his star guy with the Olympic team. And you know, they trained for two days and the first day when Cooper got there, he had to like get in line and get his credentials and his practice here, all that stuff like all the other players did, right, and and so he said, okay, go over there and you know, get your stuff.

And he goes, well, Lebron's over there. Do I get in line with Lebron? And they're like, yeah, like this is this is where you are?

Man.

That's kind of funny, I thought.

And so the first day I practiced, he was a little bit hesitant and he you know, Washington.

You know, he just wasn't quite himself. You know, he was kind of trying to find his way. But day two is when you saw.

All those things were on the highlight reel. All those things happened, you know, the box shot and blocking up three corner and all you dunk, all that kind of stuff. All the big plays he was doing in that setting. So he he's a quick study. Now he takes him a little bit, he has to kind of get his bearing, but doesn't take him long to adjust. And that's that's really that's that's something about a seventeen year old.

The other guy that I've been actually just as impressed with. Who's the other freshman, the shooter?

Yeah, knk nipple is something that yeah, yeah, we didn't really.

Know what to expect from him. You know, he wasn't as you know, Cooper. Cooper's the big guy, right, Uh, come on, Maley, watch is big the big seven to two center from Africa that played played in the Paris Olympics this summer for grist sakes. So he's just some experience.

But the nipple we didn't know much about.

But what they started getting here in the summer, going through practices to get paring about this this freshman. He's making three pointers left and right, and he's a solidly built guy.

He plays pretty good defense.

He's he's very aggressive.

Uh, got a very quick shot. He didn't just like Flag Flag had in the Kentucky game, had twenty six and twelve, So it's hard to smack about that, but he had kind of.

A four finish.

Con Cannimple was five of twenty for the field that night, and he had so the only time he's had Trumple hitting three pointers this year, So he's somebody again. We had to see can he do it against a high level opponent like we're gonna see Friday night, and then next week could do goes to Vegas to play Kansas and all down the road. But I think Caniple's got a chance to be duced leading a scorer this year. And people kind of jumping me with what do you

They're a nice so they don't need him to score thirty points, twenty five point, twenty points. Caniple's got the ability to hit three pointers in bunches, and if he's doing that along with what Flyg does, that's gonna make Duke very tough to beat. But he has to make the shots, which he didn't do against Kentucky.

Yeah, yeah, no question. So let me ask you real quick, Dave. I'll step in if I can. Uh. So, we had a reporter here that's covered the team a long time. I covered him back from ninety one until I still kind of do uh written a few things, so they joked, and I'm sure that they deal with this at Duke is Arison, who suffered its first the early season, season ending loss last week on Friday. Because they losing, it's like, oh, the world is going to end, right, I'm.

Exactly, oh, no question, no question. And you know the first Shire's first year, uh, they lost the Kansas and the Champions and then the Champions Classic they lost to Purdue and a Thanksgiving tournament and then took the loss at wake Forest and like the early AHT game before Christmas, it was the first time that had three losses before the first of January in the season in like thirty five years, and so you thought the world was coming to an end, you know, I mean just because that's

Right.

Well, look a look, and I didn't realize this until I saw this maybe yesterday.

Duke just played Kentucky.

Uh, they're gonna play Arizona now, and they're gonna play Vegas in Vegas against Kansas. Is that's right? So that's boom boom boom. I mean if you if you win one, good luck with that.

That's right.

And then they come home and they have a game with Seattle.

Over Thanksgiving weekend. But then after that the following Wednesday, Auburn comes in to play them for the in the a SEC SEC Challenge. Who's what number four in the country right now. So yeah, John set this schedule up to test his team early and to know what what they are. What you know, you know, stress tests, right, you test to see what you need to work on, and so you know, uh, yeah, they need it obviously, they want to win them all.

I mean, right, that's what we just talked about. Like the same thing Arizona fans Field. But realistically, you know, if you go, uh, you know, two and two in those in those four games. Uh, you've done a lot against that kind of competition in November.

Yeah, the expectations are high for both programs, for sure.

What what do you know about Tucson? What do you what are you expecting to see? As far as the environment of McHale Center, I know you get to go to some great places.

What what have you heard about the place out here?

Yeah, no, I've heard it's you know, it's it's one of those places you need to experience in college basketball. It's really become, you know, one of those tough home environments, and you know a lot of them in every conference. But you know, I've been fortunate obviously, I worked a lot at Cameron and the Dean Doome and Chapel Hill, and I've been to Grupp Arena, and I've been to Kansas to faug Allen Fieldhouse, and uh, you know, I want to see how McHale you know, matches up to

Get in November when they're playing these other teams. And I'm thinking this will be get that kind of environment there because I know how excited it is for when when Duke comes to town, when these kind of matchups happen.

So I think it's gonna be fun.

Yeah, things here too, you know, is there ASNA moves into the Big Twelve, you know, we don't even know what to expect, you know, as far as the road games go, and you know, I know Arizona goes to Kansas as well at the very end of the year. We've got some really good games here coming up. So it's gonna be a little bit of a different college basketball season, especially for a school like like the U of A.

And you know, the changes that have happened in the Big.

Twelve for sure, Definitely that's we're all getting used to that, aren't we. Like you know, I have a trip to SMU on my schedule this year, which who would have thought I'd ever be doing that, right.

But.

So yeah, it's it's it's all different, and the Big Twelve is is one heck of a conference. Man, it's it's it was already good and then you you know, bring Arizona and there with all events, experience, all events, traditions, experiences and everything. Let me let me that just makes it super conference.

Let me throw this at you because we've talked about that a lot. Like I said, I've covered this team for a long long time. But they move into the Big twelve and we know how good it is. And I'm wondering if the a SEC suffers from this too. Uh. They beat each other up a lot in the league because there's a lot of good teams and you get tested and you see how you need to do and all that stuff. One of the things, though, is you get beat up a lot and by the time the

It does? Yeah, it doesn't happen here for a while. And it's it's still Uh is a is a concern? You know?

One thing that I will say, the teams the ACC has brought it have not been great basketball team. SMU and Kallas Stafford aren't known for, you know, winning a lot of championships, in basketball, they brought it a kit.

You know, Syrahkese obviously has a great tradition. That's another pot I should have mentioned in the carry it over a lot, But yeah, that does happen. But now in recent years, you know, the ACC the teams have got into the tournament have done pretty well, and so they've shown.

That that that battle testedness helps them.

And I think that's always been one of the first the coaches have taken is by the time they get to March, they say, by the time we get to March, we've seen just put everything you will throw at us. And so I think you guys are going to experience that as well.

Yeah, it's not always fun because look, you guys are going to be or not you guys because you're not part of the team. But the Duke team is going to be very tested in the first month, in the first few weeks, and then you hope you get you know, save you don't get any hurt.

You have some lineups, you have some experience.

And then you then you played the tough ACC and then you get into it.

That's that's Daunte.

Yeah, it's uh, you know, it was a calculated risk by Shire he thinks it's the right thing to do. You know. The concern is when you have, you know, a team that's relying on freshman. They have some transfers they brought in with some experience for sure, and Tvers Proctor.

Is back in calin Custer. But talking about Flague and Malu Watch and Pinipple, you don't want them to get you know, beat down too early, right, you know, if they would happen to lose all four of these games, which is a possibility, Let's face it, these are great teams. You know, what does that do for the teams? You know, mood and and and vibe and all that, and the pressure.

They'll feel from the fan base. So it's it's it's a risk. It's calculated risk by Shire and we'll see if it plays out.

Yeah, who did you Who did you cover before you covered Duke? I'm just curious.

Yeah, I was in South Carolina. I did the South Carolina game talks for a while down there, and before that, yeah, I was, Uh, I did some work in some NFL work in a couple of teams.

Did you cover Frank.

South Carolina?

No?

No, no, I was I was out here twenty tens when I came up to this market, I would Dave Adam was the coach. Okay, yeah, twenty years ago, back back then.

Yeah, no, I think you're gonna enjoy the weekend. You're gonna come in on Thursday night or Thursday.

Yes, that's right, great, great, you'll have a.

Good time, Mexican food.

You'll be fine. If you need any recommendations, just text me and enjoy the atmosphere and enjoy the fun. Because hey, let me tell you, tickets, tickets, if you're not named Dave Silver, are going for a lot of money.

They really are.

You can find your kids college education with it, right if you wanted to.

They really are kids college anywhere. I'm going to Vegas.

Yeah, I'm going straight there. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not going home. I'm going straight to Vegas and see dukeys candas. That would be fine.

Well, Steve, I appreciate your time. Will see you to uh Friday night.

Thank you?

Yeah, very good, right, grab me out.

Steve, Steve Wiseman, take care. Uh that was good. That's fun. Uh do you know anymore about uh duke duke is duke? Oh they could have Dave Silver stuer Era. You're a duke you're gonna be pretty good. Bring good. Yeah, they're good. I just you know that. I very much like the U of A.

He was saying, how expectations are always high there, sure, as they are in a lot of different blue blood Yeah, programs like Kansas and like Duke and Arizona, Kentucky in North Carolina. Everybody expects to win every game. And when, you know, when, when that doesn't happen, that's like the end of the world, right, right, But okay, it is the end of the world in March sometimes very much.

So, Okay, let's take a break. Thank you, Henry.

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Hey, welcome back to the ball. Here a Fox Sports fourteen fifty.

I'm Steve Rivera.

You're j Sil jj J Silver. You're not Jay Silver, You're Dave Silver, and he's Henry. So I have a question.

Let me try to find it.

Somebody asked, I didn't read it before I asked you because the might be okay, okay. Asked Dave if there are any jobs he was offered that.

He didn't take.

That he regrets and same to me. Offered there were a couple early in my TV life.

I probably could have got to Phoenix, had a couple of chances there, but just the circumstances weren't exactly what I was looking for and didn't didn't do it, probably could have and who knows how my career would have the trajectory of my TV career would have gone, because it kind of stayed pretty flat for a long time, and it was it was good. That's kind of what I wanted. Sometimes flat is very stable. Yeah, that's a

We're doing our thing, which.

Is kind of be consistently good and screw it up, don't miss it up, and people won't remember. But there were a few I was not really aggressive about looking really early on.

I mean I was.

I had some friends who got into CNN literally like when it started in the early you know, nineteen eight.

That was just like the lou guy, the Lou Dobbs was there, and was.

He from here?

Somebody came back or whoever. I'm not I'm not not Lou Dobs that guy. Yeah, yeah, that guy, he came back here. Michael Cawman, remember Michael.

Yeah, he was chill around somewhere I think, so he was there at Channel He was at Channel thirteen year and then went away and then came back and we were we were on the air at the same time. But yeah, I mean a couple of my buddies went to ESPN early on, and so I was I probably could have tried, but had a family, raising kids, raising kids, and it wasn't like the number one thing that I had to do. And again, you know, not to blame the U of A, but things were going well here. No, no, no,

You're preaching to the choir, because that's exactly my situation. Ninety five five, I just we just got buried, had a son, and in ninety six people called from San Antonio. Am I interested in moving to San Antonio? And I had already come from Dallas, and I love Texas and I had a chance and they offered me some. It's kind of comfortable in terms of money and salary because it's not very expensive to live there. So I've been

And I said, no, I'm gonna stay here.

I had a chance to go to all places Tampa, Florida in the mid eighties, and they flew me out there and I had a chance to interview and meet them. And this is before the baseball was there. They didn't have many sports. It was kind of a kind of a phoenix, like Marcus said, Petersburg and Tampa Bay Bucks. There was no Major League baseball. The hockey team hadn't come in yet. Tampa is not a really great college town because they're kind of far from.

Right, you know, they were like in the middle of the middle of the middle of the state obviously, but you know.

Yeah, so I mean it was like, you know, two hours to Gainesville or two hours to Tallahassee, and oh we still cover Florida State.

In Florida. It just wasn't it just wasn't the right place. Blue Waters Waters, There you go, Blue Waters. He was, wasn't he the mayor of Orel Valley.

Yeah, something like that. The guy who asked the questions listening to the answer. So some one that said it, Yeah, you should be on the show. When I say Dobbs Blue Dobs, that's the other ends the other guy. Yeah, thanks for the Thanks for the question and and your answer, Dave, because it's I I suffered the same thing or not suffered. I experienced the same thing back in those days. Well, why leave when you know what you have is good?

Yeah, I mean the grass would not be greener necessarily, I mean, unless I'm going to some gigantic market where you're making a double salary and those opportunities.

But I'm like we were doing good things here, so was good. I'm gonna say something that you might not like. You might not like, but I mean it in this sincereous form of flattery. You you don't come off as a TV guy. You understand what I'm saying.

You're not.

You're a TV guy, but you're not a hey, hey, look at me guy. You know exactly what I'm saying. I mean it as a compliment because you did your job. You didn't say, you know, hey, you know, you do know exactly what I'm saying. I don't even know how to say it much, just more straightforward. I'm not being disrespectful. I'm saying you were good because you were just there.

To do your job right. That's kind of how I approached it.

There were others and I looked up to other people and I would see, you know.

Especially in TV. I don't know.

Maybe you do the same thing as a as a reporter, as a writer, where you're looking at people's styles. Yes, and television for sure, very much. Oh, I can't do that. I could not pull that off to you that way. Yes, not that personality.

And we all have a we all have a fingerprint, right, your style of how you do things, and I read people and think, God, I wish I would have been able to turn a phrase like that or come up with that line or whatever. Yeah, because no, you're exactly right. You can tell when people write certain things. Just oh yeah, I know who wrote that, because.

I tried to filter in some things that I would see other people do and maybe just subtly put them into my shows somehow. Different different approaches to reporting, different approaches to talking, maybe just different approaches to telling the stories, which you know in television there's a lot of creative ways you can do things with video, with sound and.

Well now even more so. It's funny because I'll mention some guys that I'm doing this jokingly because they're my friends, Cooney and the Guy, and he's been on our show to Cooney and the other guy at thirteen games no no, no, back no. He's with the ww Todd Grisham, Grisham when they would come up with these skets, and I'm thinking, you're pushing sports journalism to the edge or maybe even backwards because of the stuff they used to do.

Well, look where it led to Todd's career going to actually work for the w W stuff, and.

That was a good thing for him.

Yeah, you know, being kind of goofy and kind of you know, like, what did you come back?

I mean, really, you're right, you know, I'm here, I am mister, you know, right down the middle kind of thing. And we watched we watched those guys and.

I would admire it. I was like, how do you guys pull this off?

What do you do? What do you think? And you've trying to totally change the way we do this job, right, And I said, are you asking your bosses or just doing it and hoping it's okay?

Yeah, we're on like it, you know, really late at night, is anybody even watching or listening?

They It was I would thinking, how did you guys pull this off? And and are you not getting complaints from the bosses or people calling in?

You know, yeah, I get a lot of It was who I was mentored to buy and the people I worked with early in my career and kind of watched as I was kind of breaking into the business and who I wanted to kind.

Of quote unquote like be like them a little bit.

I've asked you this before because we talked about some of the greatness moments that we've covered and obviously the championship games and things like that, was there a moment and you could say who it was if you want. The difficult interviews, the difficult interviews, and you probably knew going in and they would give you one word ors or just treat you poorly.

Unfortunately, people that sometimes I really kind of liked. I don't they were spring training was tough, sometimes very much.

And that's where I was going to go with, okay with it there and and the Totos, Yeah, they were okay, Well that depends.

I'll give you names off their Okay.

Well, I mean I think spring training sometimes was tough because you really had to sort of catch them when they weren't really being that busy, but they were always on their way to doing something. I can still remember just getting, you know, pushed aside by a few pretty big names.

Really, did you ever deal with Julio Franco? No? Was he tough? Tough? Yeah, I mean I'm not the first person to say that in the studio.

I'm still waiting for Ryan Sanmdberg to finish that sandwich in the clubhouse.

Yeah.

I'd always go for those big stories to say who's a good guy who's going to talk.

Yeah, you know, Mark Grace did it.

We had Tom ken Yati on the show when his son was pitching here, and I said, you know, Tom, you don't know this. You probably don't remember. It's nineteen eighty nine. You were Then I had to go cover and I they said, who's the good guy? Tim Kunny? I checked him down just to do his He said, well, thanks for remember me, but they said, no, you saved my ass.

Yeah.

That was a tough That was a tough crowd because I think, you know, the fans really liked spring training when it was here, just because you get so close and you get your autographs.

But the media, you know, they just didn't really care.

For me that much because you're not you weren't with it. Didn't know. I didn't know.

I mean, if the Cleveland market came, Cleveland TV guys came in, or the Denver people, you know, they were usually easily easier to get.

But the Tucson media, who are you exactly?

Yeah?

Yeah, and we and they did like to blush you aside. Yeah you had a couple of minutes.

No, yeah, you had to make friends with the PR people from the teams and they were sometimes they were usually very helpful. They would get the players for you. Yeah, but it was not always easy.

Yeah. Yeah, oh, the good old days, the good old days. What was your biggest uh uh?

So you were in the business, hello, thirty thirty thirty four in the business and before you jumped out. Yeah, well, okay, so I was in the now it's my thirty seventh year.

Greatest stretch, the best stretch had to be in the nineties here because they were very good here. Yeah.

I mean there was a stretch probably from Desert Swarm, you know, to what two thousand and four or five?

When did desert swarm?

Yeah, ninety two, ninety three, you know, was it nineteen? Was it two thousand and I'm trying to think the.

Year where there were a number of championship to mean, well one obviously, but I think softball one as well.

Probably yeah, ninety seven. Yeah, well, the mid nineties. And then I said this, and I don't know if you want to agree with me, but this this era when he was here, it's kind of changed a little now, not not because of Desiree, but that the women's basketball team was doing very well. Men's basketball was doing arizonta was football was kind of going there. It had that

I mean, you know, as we just said, for me, that's kind of what kept me here, kept me going, is like, oh wow, softball is going to be really good again. Maybe we'll get to go to Oklahoma City again. Yeah, baseball a couple of times. Oh yeah, we were to Oklahoma City. I probably went five times.

Yeah, over there, I went a couple of times.

It was fun. That was a good trip. That tornadoes tornado good. Remember a game. I don't know if it was a tornado, but it was such a bad storm. It was like a Friday night and the game didn't start till like midnight.

Yeah, it was game.

Oh they played, Oh they were there, right, Okay, we got to get out of here, come back, break the news, and then we'll have Aaron Torres