All right, what's going on? Drivetime?
Tuesday afternoon, about nine minutes past the hour two o'clock.
It's about forty two degrees in sunny.
Here in downtown saw Lake City, Utah, after a chill really cold overnight weather situation. Chilly morning as well, but it's settled in nicely. The skies are blue and you can get a little sunshine on.
This Tuesday afternoon. Enjoy it.
Come January because these days oftentimes do not come around during this month. A lot to do on a Tuesday, and as it is every day, it's good.
To have you.
Long for the ride.
Spence check, it's beyond the mic. That's Porter Larson producing the show behind the Glass today with a lot to do, a lot to get to on the program. Just a couple of days away from the final few games of the college football slate, at least the semi finals, we'll learn who's going to be playing for that national championship.
Don't forget. We are your home for.
The College Football CFP semi final, so we will see who advances on on to the championship game. We'll also have the national championship game for you. We are your home for the biggest and best live football events in the market, including the NFL Wildcard weekend.
That's a head to.
The Black Monday effect is spilling over now into Black Tuesday. More people losing their jobs, and the latest is Antonio Pierce is out as the Raiders head coach after a couple of years at the home, leading a lot of people to wonder whether or not the Raiders will contact the current head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes, whose name is Deon Sanders.
We'll have to see how that goes down.
But a lot of NFL on the show today is we'll get you ready for the wild Card weekend and talk about the job openings as of right now, weird thing happening in Dallas because of course Mike McCarthy potentially he's getting an interview with the Chicago Bears while still being under contract with the Dallas Cowboys, and Jerry Jones is too busy for I mean television series to take anything seriously, so we'll get their latest with the job circle and carousel in pro football, Daniel Jones has been
signed to the fifty three man roster for the Vikings for the playoffs, so we'll get to the injury news and notes as well. Jalen Jalen Hurt still in concussion protogo. If you're an Eagles fan, of course you're kind of holding your bread there. Two games on Saturday and Pro Football, and then a full slate on Sunday culminating with what
should be a really good Monday night game. The vikings in the Rams interesting to consider what's at stake for Sam Darnold should he have another stinker like he had last week, Because of course JJ McCarthy waiting.
In the wings. So NFL Playoffs ride around the corner. Great time of year.
College football semi finals ride around the corner, great time of year.
A fun game last night we had on the station.
As college football continues to be very topical.
No real local news on.
The college football landscape, guys. We talked about yesterday from the University of Utah side of things, just kind of looks like the roster for now is what it is, and other mechanisms potentially at coach wits disposal tad talent prior to the start of fall, of course, and fall is a long way away.
But really no news.
As far as the current state of the local scene in college football. We do have some college basketball tonight. Utah is that Iowa State. You can hear that game when we say good night at six o'clock.
Iowa State is the number three team in the country. They're really good.
They're in eighteen point five point favorite over the Utes. Bringing me on, welcomes in Texas Tech down in Provo, Utah State, a top twenty five team on the road. San Jose State and the Utah Jazz Welcome and an old friend tonight as Quentin Snyder and the Atlanta Hawks are in town.
So a lot to do on the show.
Good guest list, We'll start things off to learn a little bit more about the current state of the Utah men's basketball team prior to the game tonight. Sean Mooney, friend of the show, color analysts on the broadcast alongside the voice himself, Bill Riley. Shan stops by the day to hopefully give us a little bit of a little bit of good news, maybe a little bit.
Of silver lining.
The first two Big Twelve games have been how shall we say, not competitive or Utah basketball. Iowa States, like I said, really good. They never lose at home, and they're the number three team in the country. Iowa State right now is three and excuse me, twelve and one. Number three in the country is how I should say that, and the utopian to maybe take a couple of steps forward. Iowa States only lost this year is against Auburn, who at the time was the top five, top five team
in the country. Iowa stated started off big twelve play with wins at Colorado and a absolute just demolishing a Baylor, a team that really handled Utah well. So Utah big on dog on the road. So we'll get the latest from Sean Mooney on the Utah Utes. Tim McMahon NBA Daily Assist Style Jazz has been playing a little bit better.
The trade deadline is less than five weeks away. What does what does Tim have to say about the current state of the jazz as they continue to build the foundation for hopefully what they believe to be is a excellent finished product once upon a time. So bring in Tim today to talk some jazz, AND's NBA Scott Mitchell back on the show. Scott has been a world traveler. That's what you're allowed to do when you're basically part Time'm retired. I want to do a little NFL with
Scott today. Played in Detroit. What would it mean for Detroit Lions fans if Dan Campbell is able to coach this team through the postseason and maybe win the Super Bowl. I mean, just to kind of get a sense of what that game on Sunday meant to them. And it wasn't even a playoff game. It was to lock in the number one seed, and Lions fans were going crazy. It was like the biggest football game in Detroit in like forty or fifty years. And then, of course we'll
do some utes with Scott today. Belle Frasier, our friend from the Salt Lake Tribune, will stop by to do a little Utah Hockey Club on the program. It's been a rough stretch for the hockey club. They've got a grip of home games coming up. We'll see what Belle has to say about our local hockey team. So little basketball, little NBA, little college basketball, little NFL, little college football too.
Some hockey on a Tuesday in January, Sean Mooney, Tom McMahon, Scott, Mitchell, Bell, Fraser and he spent check at all of you, the great listeners and producing the program today.
Is Porter Larson.
All right, give me if you can think of an example, give me one subconscious habit you seem to have that you know you shouldn't do, but for some reason you continue to do. I bring it up because, for some reason, every two or three weeks, I get ready to come into work, I fill up my water bottle, ready to roll, screw the top clearly not tight enough, throw the water bottle on the backpack, and by the time it to work, everything is soaking wet and the water bottle is empty.
And I continue to do it, even though I know I should not do it, And it's like the dumbest thing.
It should be the easiest thing to fix.
Is there a dumb guy hobby you have that or a habit you have? I should say that you can't get out of your own.
Way about That's a that's a good kind of random radio topic.
First off, you're not alone in that regard.
I have done the don't tighten your bottle tight enough and doubts everything that you own. Huh, you want to stew on it. I kind of put you out of the spot. I mean you did kind of put me on the spot. Like I chew on my nails way too much. I pick my nose all the time.
I don't know.
Okay, gross, a little less vulnerability, a little less honest day.
That's gross. It's not how I roll. Okay, all right, well let's get weird to start the show. Why don't you think about it.
Let's come back to you a little bit later on, and we'll do something that doesn't make people want to throw out their lunch.
I can, I can find some subconscious habits today I need to get rid of.
Okay, all right, get some tissues. There's some in the studio if you need some. Our first guest today, Sean Moody, tak a little college football before get to Sean, courtesy of our good friends. It's Standard Restaurant Supply, your one stop shop for all your Tailkate needs. Check them out online or they're convenient location here in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. On a Tuesday afternoon, It's time now for your opening tip.
Welcome to the Drive with Spence Check. It's on Utah's number one Sports Talk. Now into the studio of ESPN seven hundred to set the scene for the show. The opening tip of the Drive is brought to you by Standard Restaurant Supply, your one stop shop to build the best tailgate in town. Standard Restaurant Supply, thirty five hundred south West Temple.
All Right, a little bit of a random idea for opening tip today. You know, I've made it a point over the past month or so. Whenever the Cleveland Cavaliers are playing a really good team and if the time slot works, I mean, they're obviously an East Coast team, and I'm on air Intel six, which is a clock Eastern time. I try to dig in to see what Kenny Atkinson has done with his team and why they're
off to this thirty one and four start. I mean, everybody believes Boston's the best team in the Eastern Conference. They're five and a half full games behind the Calves and look lover hate Donovan Mitchell. I'll always cheer for Donovan because I'll never forget the five years he's spent here. And I covered Donovan right out of the gates after
the Jazz drafted him. At the time, I was anchoring our Draft Died covers on the old radio station and our broadcast partner was the Jazz, so they put me on the phone with Donovan right after he was drafted to interview him. I was the first media member in Salt Lake City to interview Donovan Mitchell because we had the draft coverage and after the Jazz drafted him. I believe it was maybe Jonathan Bryan Hard at the time,
maybe it was my guy. Dunio puts Donovan on the phone and I spent ten minutes with him interviewing him on our draft night coverage, and.
I was blown away.
I was unbelievably impressed that for a young man his age, he seems so polished, he seems so sharp, he seems so oh not articulate, but he knew exactly what to say to this fan base. And you know, we later learned that Donovan's father was raised in you know, Donovan, I should say, was raised in the world of professional sports because his father is an executive with the Mets, and Donovan once he started to kind of rise up the ranks. And we're not going to do a Donovan
Mitchell history lesson. I'm going to land the plane, but just stick with me for a second. Donovan came up as a baseball prospect and then when he really started to grow, and by grow, I don't necessarily mean vertically, like next time Donovan's in town, if you go to a jazz game. Look at his wingspan, Look at his arms. Look at his hands. They're big, they're padded. He's got incredible length with both his legs and his arms.
He moves really well.
Laterally, and he started to excel in basketball as a teenager, but not until then, and ultimately was analyzed as a defensive stopper coming out of Louisville. Donovan himself didn't think that he was ready to go to the pros, and Tel Chris Paul said, look, you're ready, man, somebody's gonna give you a shot.
Just go put the work in.
And Donna did that here and so watching him burst on the scene as a rookie when he took over for Rodney Hood. Rodney Hood at the time was supposed to be the player who was going to step up and phill devoid left by Gordon Heyward.
That lasted like five games.
Quinn Snyder, who's in town tonight with a Hawk, said okay, Donovan, Okay, rookie, the car is yours, here are the keys, let's go. And he allowed Donovan to grow through some inevitable growing pains that most young players go through, but it didn't
take too long. I think it was January, if I remember correctly, Donovan's rookie year, when the Pelicans rolled into town and I'm watching the game with Britton Johnson, my old partner for the Utah Jazz pre aff and post and of course youth basketball legend, and Donovan starts cooking early and Britain turns me said He's getting forty tonight. I'm like, no way, because I don't think he had
scored thirty up to that point. And sure enough, Donovan dropped forty on the Pelicans, and that was kind of his welcome to the national narrative, the national NBA narrative. Not a lot of people thought the Jazz were going to be any good that year at all, because Heyward had left, no one knew anything about Mitchell, and Gobert still looked like a baby giraffe running up and down
the floor, although he was showing signs. But it was Donovan's ascension his rookie year that really should have won him the award for Rookie of the Year, but that went to Ben Simmons, who was a second year player, even though he was injured and missed his first year. I've never liked that dynamic, different topic, different day. And then as the story goes, COVID changed that iteration of the Utah Jazz forever. COVID changed a lot of the
things forever that are more important than basketball. But for the sake of a sports socc radio show, COVID changed that team Gobert test positive. There was the false narrative that Rudy gave it to Donovan, and now we know in retrospect, nobody has any clue who gave it to Rudy or Donovan.
Donovan could have given it to Rudy.
But of course the CAAA circle comes together, they Bowlly Rudy. In my opinion, Adrian roj Narowski sends out a horrifically misguided tweet in Rudy's direction and clearly getting his CAAA buddy Donovan Mitchell's back, and suddenly Rudy became this punching
bag and that team was fractured. And then of course that was the summer of Black Lives Matter and the murder of George Floyd, and Donovan started looking at things that quite frankly, he had never looked at before, by his own admission, and it changed the way that he was thinking about his role as a black man in the world and in the NBA, which is great. Good for him, there's nothing wrong with it, but it certainly
changed the way that he felt about living here. And I think are some of our local legislators, mainly the ones who told Donovan to go learn about his own history, probably didn't do our market any favors to hold on to this really special generational player. And that's what he is, okay, And so the reason I bring it up in that direction is I'll always kind of cheer for the kid and hope that he figures it out in a way
where he has better success in the spring. And nothing that Donovan does in the fall or the Calves do in the fall will change the narrative that Donovan so far has hit this playoff ceiling.
It's not that he can't play in the playoff.
I mean, we watched him go for a fifty piece in the bubble, and we've seen him have some of the most historic scoring postseason games in the history of this organization, the Jazz, and he's going to continue to do it for the Cavs. But I just wanted to present this because the athletic did this ranking of the best front offices in all of the major sports. And when I say all the major sports, I mean basketball, baseball, football, and they included hockey as well. And these lists have
come out from time to time. It's not a new list, and you can go back and look at some of the lists of the best front offices in all of sports, or in the NBA, when Scott Layden was running the show, when Kevin O'Connor was running the show, when Dennis Lindsay was running the show, and when the Millers owned the team, the Jazz were always in the top three or five in the NBA and always in the top ten or
twenty in all of sports. And with the latest list, the Jazz come in at number fifty one, just ahead of the Minnesota Wild the NHL team, And look, when you look at some of the NBA teams in their stratosphere, they're just behind Philadelphia the seventy six years their general manager, Daryl Morey is thought to be one of the more bright forward thinkers in all of pro basketball.
And then Dallas is at fifty two.
So Dallas is another front office that has a decent reputation.
But this is a.
Far far cry from where the Jazz front office once upon a time, used to be ranked year after year.
Why did I bring up Donovan?
Well, what will we say if Donovan Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers go win the NBA Championship this year? Because through thirty four games played, Donovan has been really healthy this year. The numbers continue to be exactly what they've been. Okay, So it's twenty three points, it's five assists, it's four boards, the splits are pretty good. He's shooting forty one percent
from three on nine attempts per game. He's not getting the free throw line as much, Okay, so he's not attacking the rim as much as he did when he was here. He's down to eighty one percent from the line on four free throw attempts. He shoots forty six percent from two, and so ultimately, this is a year that quantifiably, when you look at the data, it does
not indicate that Donovan has taken this massive leap. But the way he is playing in Kenny Atkins Kenny Atkinson system, he has committed himself on the defensive side of the floor that even by his own admission, he never has in his career, which I'm sure fans around here like, thanks, dude, appreciate the effort while you were here. But he's playing winning basketball in the way he's never played winning basketball. He's a better playmate in the sandbox with his teammates
than he ever was when he was here. And we had Tim Bond Tempts on the show last week, and Tim dropped the line that I just haven't been able to shake since he said it last week, and I asked him about whether or not we need to start talking about the Cavs as championship contenders. I mean, hell, they're thirty one to four. They're on pace to win more than seventy games, like that's not nothing. They've won ten straight, Like I said, they've separated themselves from the Celtics.
And Tim said something that slapped me across the face. He said, well, come spring, we're going to find out if they're for real or if they're simply just Utah Jazz East. And that's because of the way the roster is constructed. They have a center in Jared Allen who's not as good as Rudy is on the glass or protecting the rim, but he's a very good defensive center. And he is a good rebounder, And then we could do the exercise of kind of comparing some of the
other players. Did did Darius Garland a Mike Conley role? You know, we could go down the list as Kris Lavert, Joe Ingles, or whatever it is. The team actually is built somewhat similarly to the Jazz team.
That Donovan played on while he was here.
But what would happen if Donovan goes on and the Cleveland Cavaliers go on and win the championship? What would be fair to say about this front office right now with Utah Jazz in this organization where they did make the decision to trade Donovan Mitchell and Donovan's only twenty eight years old. And I think the thing that really stings is when you look at Donovan's per destination, there's.
No room for him anywhere in New York.
So it does lead me to wonder if the front office decided to tell Donovan, like, look, we know that maybe it's not as comfortable as you'd like it to be here, but give us a chance. You're on a contract for a couple of years. We have a really good team. Quinn's an awesome coach, because I think if that team stayed together. Remember Quinn left because he said there's no way forward. I don't see any way forward. I don't think he wanted to work with this ownership group.
But that's a different story. But if the team came back, there would have been a way forward. Because Gobart has been great since he left here. Royce O'Neil has been much better than he was when he was here wherever he's been, and Donovan has now elevated himself to potentially a first team All League guy for maybe the favorite to win the NBA Championship through the first thirty five games, not according to Vegas, but they're thirty one and four.
They've beaten a lot of really really good teams.
And with the front office rankings and the reputation of this Jazz front office ownership group slash front office really lagging far behind what the front office was prior to and the ownership group was prior to, it'll be interesting to see what the conversation sounds like if Donovan, at the age of twenty eight, has really cracked this code and has taken a city in Cleveland that, according to market size, isn't a whole lot bigger than what Salt
Lake is to the problemised land, and wonder if you could have done it here. And that's not necessarily fair because there's not enough time to unpack every single reason as far as why they traded him. It's a weird weather day because it's not warm, but the sun rolls in through the window and it fools you into thinking that you're warm. So I'm kind of alternating between beanie and sweatshirt and then no beanie and T shirt, although I like the beanie and T shirt look because.
It makes me feel like I'm eminem.
There you go, like eight mile walking down the streets of Salt Lake, blasting lose yourself, delusionally confident in my ability to attack anyone who comes my way.
There you go.
It's not warm. It's I don't know, well freezing though. I walk to work, so I know the walk home is going to be much cooler. You know where it's not warm? Ames, Iowa is our guy? Sean on the line?
Yeah, Utah basketball in action and the line has moved, Okaks, So good news. Utah is no longer an eighteen point five point underdog. They're now a sixteen point five point underdog, so a massive ask for Craig's team on the road, and our guy Sean Mooney joins us on a Tuesday afternoon shot.
Happy Tuesday, Man, how are we doing?
Thanks? Vince? How you do it?
I can see you in that beani in the T shirt. I'm not going to get near you.
Delusionally confident.
I mean, look, I can throw these things if I need to, Sean, And when you have the beanie and the T shirt, look, you just have a level of confidence, and quite frankly, is probably unhealthy.
It definitely is unhealthy.
The last time we spoke, I think I was standing outside sinkle Field House, and our bet was something to the effect that if we won that game that would be against Indiana State, that Bill and I would dance. I want you to know, Spence, since then Bill and I had danced, and I do have it on video, but if the youth can pull off the win tonight, I'll send it to you.
Oh my gosh, Now I don't want to talk about anything else. You're tell me you have Bill Riley dancing on video.
Technically he's not dancing. Technically he's singing and I'm dancing. But it's about as close as we're going to get.
Okay, No, that is as close as you will get.
Because a couple of times in studio I caught Bill like dancing to a bump and I shamed him because you don't want to see Bill dance for our listeners.
You do not want to see him dance.
So I immediately asked him to stop, and I think I probably justsuaded in from dancing.
Ever again, we.
Danced next to each other all the time with you know, little moves, not big moves, because we got headsets on, just.
Like you do.
Right now, for sure, for sure, all right, before we get to tonight, let's see Hilton Coliseum. Iowa Stayed is not lost for in forever. I think it's twenty six straight home wins for Iowa Stay. So but before before we get to tonight, I need you to tell me from your vantage point, simply, are you seeing improvement? I mean, I mean, let's start with baby steps, because the first
couple of Big twelve games they have been housed. And I can't really spin it any other way, but you watch all these games up close, from the start of the season, the start of non con to where we're at today. Are you seeing this team incrementally get better.
That's a really tough question. Yes, but we haven't. We haven't gotten.
Over the hump.
To me, the hump would have been getting one of those wins against a good team Mississippi State. We're really close, We're up eleven. Couldn't get it obviously, couldn't be Iowa, couldn't be Saint Mary's. And then, I mean, my goodness, we open with two of the most efficient teams, Baylor and TTU, and then you see what Iowa State does to Baylor. And now we're playing Iowa State, an ugly beginning to a conference that's as tough as it gets.
I do think we're getting better, but I don't know that we're really sure who we are yet, Spence.
And that's actually you read my mind, because that's where I want to go next. You know, and ultimately, if you've ever tried to play basketball against basketball players that are bigger, stronger, and more talented than you are, you know that the only way to compete is to find some sort of advantage in kind of a sneaky way, whether it's junking it up on defense. You know, the utes great national championship run majeris triangle in two against Arizona.
Stuff like that. You know, box and one whatever it is.
But if you don't match up man to man talent wise with the other team and Sean, let's just call it how it is so far, talent wise, Craig feels like he's marketing marching into a gym with a serious disadvantage simply with the players on his roster.
I'll due respect. Hopefully that can change.
But as far as who they are and the identity of the team and the culture, Craig is trying to build. What are some of your takeaways as far as what you're seeing that's tangible and what are some things you'd like to see implemented to indicate this thing is going in the right direction.
Yeah, I mean a couple of things like so number one and Craig talked about it today and listeners will share this in our pregame. We do need to jump it up. You're exactly right, like we're mostly a man and man team and we definitely know what the other teams are bringing us, but right now we can't really
take away option one or option two. One of Majaris's strengths was that they could take we our teams took away option one and you had to go to option two, and then we could take that away and you had to go to option three. We don't have that footprint right now. It's not like we don't have the ability, because I think defense is really so much about communication
and understanding what you've got to take away. So to answer that question, we've got to be better, just like you said with that, and then as far as getting better, maybe the storn in our side this year is we have eleven players that can play and are playing, which is great, then maybe we don't have the defined roles at this point in the season that we need to have. So everyone that is playing knows exactly what they need to do and how they need to do it.
And there are a lot of.
Voices in these kids' heads nowadays, Spence, because of outside influence agents, you know, some of the traditional stuff, but there's a lot of voices and these kids has, in addition to that eleven player deep roster.
So let's talk about the rotation.
Excuse me, we'll stick with the big twelve stuff because that's kind of where we're at now with conference play. First game against Baylor, you know, obviously it was over quick, unfortunately. And then Craig Mager made a couple of changes to the starting lineup, with Caleb Loner starting.
He did not start Game one.
And then as far as the rotation goes, yeah, against Baylor, I mean Craig played eleven guys really, and then against Texas Tech it was more nine guys and Mirror Little got eleven minutes. But just give me your thoughts on the rotation. You think we're settled on a starting five. Would you like to see the rotation trimmed a little bit from ten or eleven to maybe your best eight or nine?
What are your thoughts?
Yeah, this is good.
I mean I of course was the twelfth guy or the thirteenth guy in a twelve men roster and didn't play much, so I'm always rooting for those guys. At the end of the roster, our guys are pretty even top to bottom. Caleb Belona started that game primarily not because Caleb didn't deserve it, but because as had a family member as or Ascer had a family matter he had to deal with. He's here today. Yeah, I do think that it does help to get to eight or nine and to come to the conclusion that you're going
to have some starters. And then obviously the bench is always a powerful motivator for kids like Miro got really give to the bench in that last game, partly because he struggled so much. I thought Mike did a good job in that position. It's Mike and Miro, But I do think that it would help if you kind of got.
Your minutes in order and you know what you're going to get.
I think that's a difficult job, but that's the coach's job.
You know.
It's interesting if you look at the Big twelve rankings, as far as the numbers go, Utah leads the conference and assists per game twenty point five assists per game. Is that a reflection? You know, it's kind of interesting, like watching the Jazz right now and watching the way that Will Hardy wants to to play, Like they don't have a Shay, they don't have a Luca, they don't have a ball dominant lead guard, or you could one four flat or Iso and say you go make a play.
And so even marketing's not that dude. He just isn't an isolation guy. He's really good and so you want. If you're Will Hardy, you want to see everybody eat because you do not have that one ball dominant guy. It doesn't feel like Utah has that ball in hand playmaker either. Is the assist number per game simply the way that Craig wants to play based off the roster, like, we've got to share the basketball because we are not ISO nominate.
Spencer.
You're good, you've watched a lot of basketball.
Yeah.
The difference between us and the teams that we've lost to you this year is they have two or three players that can get it done off the bounce, So they can either score at the rim off the bounce, or they can get two feet in the paint and draw and make a good pass where they're mid range. So they're like three level scores. We technically don't have any three level scores, and we don't get many easy buckets.
That's one of the.
Reasons why you see us kidding so many sists and we do change it. Well, that's our strength this year. We need kids that can get it off the bounce more than what we have right now.
All right, So moving over to your impressions of just the Big twelve overall, before we land on Iowa State to finish our hit because you know, it's just been interesting to watch the different reactions of the different sports with the new challenge, and you know, Gavin, it's interesting,
you know. Interestingly enough, the women had a tougher challenge in the Pac twelve than they do in the Big twelve, and so talking to coach Rob before Gavin took over, like, their challenge is a little bit different, and I think they have a chance to really compete at a high level in this conference. On the women's side, the football side, it feels the same, a bunch of like good teams
to beat the crap out of each other. But on the men's basketball side, this is a massive jump up, a massive jump up in a way that I'm not sure most of our listeners fully understand, because I don't know how many of our listeners have paid much attention to the landscape of college basketball outside of the prism
of the team they watch. So your early impressions not just the games that you've seen Utah play, but how would you articulate from a thirty thousand foot view shown just how tough this conference is for Craig to traverse.
I mean, it's it's ridiculous. So with the SEC is the best conference right now, They're probably going to get eleven this year. The Big twelves right behind them with nine eleven game eleven teams in the NC Tournament, the Big Twelve probably with nine. I know it's early, but you've got three teams, maybe four teams in the Big twelve that could win it all. Those three definitely being Iowa State, Houston, Kansas, and I'm gonna throw my sleeper in.
I know people are down on them, but Arizona now, they're not up there right now, but they're gonna be. That's a good team.
It's just the.
Thirty thousand foot view is fans are really engaged. The Baylor fans were engaged. Fantastic facility. We're gonna go into probably one of the toughest places to play in the country, third longest active winning streak, and other than a few teams, I think it's going to be like that for the entire twenty game schedule.
Do you think Utah is going to be favored in any of the games in conference play?
Bill and I were just talking about this over pizza. Maybe Oklahoma stayed at home, all.
Right, and that's it.
Probably goodness gracious, did Bill order a peach snapple or a peach iced.
Tea with his pizza? You know him, so just wondering.
Just make sure he gets his refills because he can get grumpy prior to the game. All right, let's move over now to this challenge. As you reference, they just don't lose it at home. They don't lose it. Hilton Coliseum as one of the longest active homes home streaks in the nation as you reference. And you know they've got I've got a roster with a lot of depth, like Craig. They you know, they played nine guys more
than fourteen minutes. So what do you what have you learned about Iowa State throughout your your prep and what do you think Utah has to do to at least make it a fair fight down the stretch?
I guess is how we'll ask it.
Yeah, I saw a couple of things.
I think they have the best guard three guard tandem.
In the country.
And I know there's a really good guard at Marquette and are a lot of other good guards. But tam and Lipsey is a glue guy. He's a disruptor. He will not be denied getting over screens. Keishawn Gilbert Big twelve MVP Tournament last year, he's only gotten better. And Curtis Jones, number five, comes off the bench and he scored sixteen points a game. And that's not even talking about their inside guys, which they didn't really have last year. Now they have three inside guys that can get it done.
Two that they run through, DeShawn Jackson and Joshua Jebson from Saint Mary's. And then the kid have me mentioned Monts Mom Sillovich low stay call him. That kid can shoot it from anywhere and we'll make them.
Yeah, gonna be a tough ask on the Utah side. Just give me some give me some keys. How can they counter this?
Is it? Simply? Is it shot making?
Is it you?
Are you looking for a different rotation? Are you looking for a different approach? As you're sitting there court side, Sean watching the game early, what do you want to see from the team?
Early on?
Indicate Okay, maybe this won't be the long night most of us anticipate.
Yeah.
The number one thing is physicality. Our team has to play with a high level of physicality, and what that means basically is like say, Spence, I'm guarding you on the wing and you cut, I'm not going to just let you go wherever you want to go. If you're a shooter and you're going around a ball screen about the screen is coming to the ball, I've got to go over that screen. You got to see us tell them where to go. And we're going to rake off
or raid off, or we're going to dig down. We're going to help off of two of their most important players and also drivers, which is Keishawn Gilbert and team on Lipsie. They can both hit threes. They'll hit big threes, but watch those positions. So when we rake down or raid down, let's see if we can't get back and stop or level off that drive because it's coming. So I think we also have to junk it up. Just like you said, we can't just show them man and man. We got to show him a little zone.
With the physicality. I would imagine Caleb can have a role to play there. And of course he comes over from the football team and miss the start of the season, so he's still getting his feet wet. Did get a start, He's only played in six games. What have you seen so far since he's been cleared to play, you know, for Craig, and he's getting himself into basketball shape. But yes, yes, it is different than football shape. Okay, just is I'm
and it will take a minute. And when he is fully acclimated, what do you think he can be for the team.
Yeah, I mean he's a defensive stopper.
There's no question.
He's got a body and he's fast enough.
He moves his feet well enough.
Not only can he hedge out heart can get on a guard and defend a guard well. But he's going to defend the post extremely well.
Right.
He can slip it, he can get off of the posting and get in front.
He's a very good rebounder.
He's a kid who knows his role pretty much. He's how to roll his whole life. He's not necessarily a shooter, right, but what he's trying to do is put pressure on the paint. When he gets to catch outside, he'll see him dribble in two for jumps up, make a pass and then he's an offensive rebounder. I mean, he could be our best sumptence rebounder. I think Countadaze is, but I think he's a very established role player at which every team needs.
Let me ask you one more you question that I actually have a BYU question, and I'll set you loose so you can get back to it. But we were talking about the need to have a ball in hand guy who can make plays, just a lead guard, who can dribble, who can pass, who can get for himself and get for others. Are there any candidates on the roster as somebody who you think can grow into that role, because look, Gabe is great, but that it's just not Gabe's game and that's all right, it doesn't have to be.
Gabe is awesome about what Gabe does. But is there a ball in hand guy potentially on the roster?
Yeah?
Absolutely, Both Mike Charvon's shar jumps and and Mero.
They both are.
Mew Ro is very much a confidence kid and this is really his freshman year. He didn't play much at Baylor last year. He's a sophomore. Mike's had more games under his belt. They're both the guys that have to be the ball in hand now. The question is are either of them going to blow by this level of athleticism. Probably not, So they got to play within their ability
and do what they've got to do. But we really need them to be able to penetrate when they need to penetrate in two foot jump, stop being under control and make good passes out of those situations. Right now, Spince, we have no one really.
That gets easy buckets for us, and we need that.
And that's a ball in hand guy, like you say, that's what a ball in hand guy.
Does for sure?
All right, before I set you loose, you know, don't I don't watch a ton of high school basketball. I mean, you know, for the job, you have to watch so many things, and then I would prefer to have a life at time, so I'm not like dialed in on high school hoops. And when I started hear the rumors about aj DEBANTSA potentially looking at BYU. When the rumors started like a year ago, when he transferred here to
play for whatever that school is. There are a lot of questions about it, what exactly it is, But he played some high school ball here for a school that I don't know. But ut starting your rumors that BYU might lock this guy in. And then I was told by somebody down there that they had him about two weeks before he and his father went on first take and shocked the world. Like my favorite part about that was Stephen A. Smith essentially saying like, wait where is BYU?
Like he couldn't wrap his mind around the decision. And so after that went down, I started watching tape on the kid and like he is everything that everybody says. You don't look at you don't see really any weaknesses. Maybe he just improves on every area where he's already awesome.
I mean, he feels generational and this feels historic and BYU, whether it's intentional or not, where they whether or not they saw around corners is irrelevant because they've built the staff Sean that is different than every staff in college basketball, where the head coach was a high level NBA coach who interviewed for several NBA jobs. His bench has two former G League head coaches on it. Their strength and conditioning coach came from the NBA. Their nutritionists was with
the Suns. It is a professional coaching staff, and obviously they're collectives in order because the reports are he got seven mil for five months of basketball And if you're a Utah fan, you're looking down at this and you're going, well, how do we compete with that? Which is tough to do. But just give me your thoughts on that dynamic before I say you lose.
Yeah, a couple of things. Number one, you're right about all those things. And you heard him in that interview say exactly what you just said. They've got an NBA coach, They've got an NBA strength coast, they have an NBA nutritionsness. It's a good sell like no one else. I don't know of anyone else is doing that. My hope is this as a Utah fan. Calipari said it this year when he moved, he said, I can't win with freshman anymore. And that may be true because of COVID and you've
got these super seniors. But my hope is that that continues to be a difficult task because they're going to bring in one and done. That's just all there is to it.
Now.
The question is can you win with them?
Yeah, Now, Kevin's got a show you can coach. There's a little pressure, there's no doubt, all right, man, appreciate the time. A great call tonight, and I'll just say, let's hope it's a fair fight.
How about that.
Yeah, same, We're excited to be here. Thanks for having me on, Spence.
Nice to talk to you minute.
Sean Moody.
What are the nicest guys out played basketball Utah in the nineties. Now you can hear them alongside Bill Riley on the call for Utah Ben hoops Utah men's basketball in Ames, Iowa tonight at a place where Iowa State does not lose, Hilton Coliseum. Iowa State has won currently twenty six straight home games. That's the fourth longest active home win streaking Division one. Utah is a sixteen point five point underdog, so we'll see if they can shock the world.
All right?
When hour down, three hours to go.
Scott Mitchell joins us a little bit later on, but come it up next we'll do some jazz and MBA with Tim McMahon.
So keep it right here, all.
Right, rolling along on the program today, My buddy brand In from my Hearing Centers is live in studio.
Brandon. How are you doing man?
And I'm doing great. Spence, Thanks for having us.
I appreciate your time. So let's start here.
When's the best time to get hearing aids. I think people here like, oh, we're selling hearing aids, but I'm not. Ninety's the best time to actually get your hearing checked.
You know, I'm almost fifty and I tell everybody once you hit about our age, it's it's a good idea to get your hearing testa just to find out where you're at and get a benchmark. The reality is, the cognitive decline that occurs for an individual with hearing loss usually starts when they don't even notice they have it. And so I always say, hey, the best time to get a hearing aid is anytime you recognize you're missing
out on anything. And usually that comes from a family member on your spouse of hey, yeah, you're not paying attention. You're like, I heard you, I just didn't understand you. And that's kind of the key. It's not what we don't hear, it's maybe you didn't quite understand that.
Okay, tell me about the Smart Rick. What's that technology were talking about today?
Yeah, so white X is you know one of the big six manufacturers.
They have a phenomenal hearing aid out it's called the smart Rick.
And you know, in twenty years of fitting hearing aids, I've never come across to hearing aid that's so sleek, doesn't really look like.
A hearing aid.
It's very comfortable, has like the longest battery life of any hearing aid on the market right now.
And so you know the fact that most of us put off.
Getting help because if we don't want to be seen as old and with this clunky hearing aid that looks like a Beijes banana.
You know, this doesn't look like it.
It looks like a bluetooth, and so a lot of people want to wear it. But it streams the bluetooth that has a very long battery life, like thirty six hours. It has a little charger it goes in that'll charge them up five more times, you know, just like your air pods or something like that. But it probably sounds the most natural of any of the products we have access to, and so you know, we've been fitting a lot of people with that recently.
Excellent Brandon, what's the special offer you have for our listeners who call you today?
Yeah, so those who call in right now will be able to get in and get a free full diagnostic herring evaluation to find out if you even need help or not, and then from there, if it looks like you could use help, we're going to fit you with some hearing aids that you're going to try risk free for thirty days. At the end of thirty days, if you're not happy with it, we'll take it back. You know, we have every manufacturer out there. We'll fit you with something that works.
Van McMahon Van McMahon.
That is dud in old Land.
Texas flood as sick as mud.
He's man, Van McMahon, Van McMahon, these man, Man.
Good day to have our guy on the show. Tuesday afternoon. An old friend is in town. Quinn Snyder and the Atlanta Hawks are here to take on the Utah Jazz and Van McMahon himself, Tim McMahon the first hit in twenty twenty five.
Timmy, Happy Tuesday. Are you doing?
Hodie Barterer?
Misteriear great to have you on on a daylight today. First, I just want to know your deepest and darkest secrets. What are the New Year's resolutions? And are we still on track?
They're the same old and I'm already off track, So we'll see what we can do to.
Get back on track.
Makes two of us? Makes two of us? All right, weird, weird question.
You're used to it right out of the gates here, How should How should jazz fans remember Quinn Snyder as he's in town here coaching the Atlanta Hoks tonight.
I mean, I think they should remember him fondly. He took over a total rebuild. You know, he helped build that franchise up to the point where we can debate the semantics of contender. But you know, a team that was at the number one seed, a perennial playoff team, you know, a very good team that just couldn't get.
Over the hump.
And then you know that inning wasn't the smoothest thing ever. But honestly, it was time. It was time for that chapter in jazz history to end, and it was going to end whether Quinn decided that he was leaving or not. So I think there should be nothing, but you know, but cheers for Quinn Snyder. I do have a confession. Have I told you the Quinn Snyder sounded Jesse Roff story? No?
And now it's all I want to hear.
Okay, So you know when I say Sally Jesse Rafael, do you know what I'm talking about?
Okay?
So Quinn did not know that people referred to the Red Frames as a Sally Jesse Rafael until my big mouth flapped it to him in Vegas and he was mortified.
This is at the NBA Cup. I saw Quinn in Vegas at the NBA Cup. You know you know that Quinn, yes, just shoot up and like, oh my.
He could not believe that it was something that was a discussion point. And he was like, he was like, you know, I don't want to do anything extra to bring attention to myself. I'm never going to wear those again. I was like, come on, Quinn, sure enough, he's been in the black frame since. I hope, I hope maybe he'll have he'll let it go. But some folks in the Hawks front office thought it was pretty hilarious of
of their PR staff, their PR staff. Will we helped to decide the next day and said, yeah, we've kind of made a conscious decision not to fill him in.
On that one.
And sure sure enough, I opened my mouth and.
So much for the salary Jesse Rafiel.
And knowing Quinn he will not let that go.
Okay, I think, yeah, when when he didn't wear them, when he didn't wear him the next name, I was like, all right, then, I you know, I check in and I you know, obviously when I turned the Hawks on league pass, It's one of the first things I try to see, Is.
He in him?
Is he in him?
I hope it's been those boring old black frames. And I'd like to apologize to the UH to be super nerdy and be a fan who who notices that sort of thing, because I think I screwed it up for everybody.
That is hilarious because I was honestly wondering why he stopped wearing them and I did not know is because you decided to openly mock him in front of people that he works with.
That's great.
I meant it as a as a you know, as a sar castic compliment, but I truly did enjoy.
Besides Jesse Ropeel.
And I know the look, and mostly I know the look because I saw that look every time Andy Larson asked.
Him a question.
Andy is definitely familiar with the look that although there wasn't scorn for me, everyone's why Andy would.
Draw some scorn.
There wasn't scorn for me, but there was definitely he was shocked and not thrilled.
Yeah, I mean, I mean Will is pithy and sarcastic and dismissive. But Quinn will look through your soul, and yes he will. There were nights where I'd be like, Andy, you might want to leave early, dude, I don't know that you want to be walking on the street of Quinn's leaving. I wonder if you've noticed any because I've shared this anecdote several times and actually talked about it with frank Leyden a couple of weeks ago, who was on the show. When Quinn first took the job. I
didn't know him well. And Hubie Brown, my guy. I was in town to call a game, and I knew Hubie a little bit, you know, for just kind of being the business or whatever, enough to say hello and ask him questions. And he's always very gracious. And I asked him about Quinn. I said, you know, I know it's early, it's his first year. Seems really sharp, really bright,
really organized. You know, what do you think? And hub said to me, oh, he's great, but he'll probably burn himself out in six or seven years.
And it took I think it took eight. I think it was eight full years on the bench.
And look, there are several reasons why he elected to leave and take some time off. But you know, I'll exchange the text with him here or there, but I don't see him and talk to him the way I used to. Have you noticed any growth as he's taken on this new opportunity or do you feel like this is going to be another like Quinn's going to burn the candle on both ends and maybe find something else to do in seven or eight years.
Yeah, honestly, man, I think that that Quinn only knows one way, and that way it does not a glued to a lot of sleep like he's going to work around in the clock. He's you know, Quinn's a maniac. Yeah, he's a maniac genius, and that's just the way that he's going to go about things. You know, Look, he took on a challenging job too. You know, if he had taken my advice, he probably would have waited and waited out that summer and kind of been the had a choice of some gigs, but he took really the
first job that came open. Remember that was a mid season and hiring in Atlanta, and I didn't see a whole lot of promise. I didn't see a whole lot of potential to really the credit of the front office and to Quinn, they have put together a really nice young core, and you know, I think this is where Quinn is kind of like just in his element when he's developing. You know, he's putting something together, he's building
something up. They still have challenges in terms of future picks are being you know, out the door, but I think he's invigorated by being able to work with you know, Dyson Daniels. I mean, he was absolutely out of it. Hey, if we're making this trend, we have to get Dyson Daniels. Jalen Johnson, who you know, people are starting to figure out is really one of the great young players in the league. You know, a couple other young guys on that roster. But you know, is Quinn going to be
a guy who last one place forever and ever? I'm not sure about that, But I do think he's enjoined kind of the opportunity and the challenges that he has right now with the Hawks.
Systematically, is it kind of the same deal that he ran while he was here. I mean, obviously a lot of it is catered towards the personnel you have, and Trey Young is a ball in hand guy, unlike I mean, Donovan is certainly a ball in hand guy, but they're different players. Is this team tonight, You're gonna be running a system that Jazz fans aren't familiar with because it's quinn system, or is a little bit different based off the personnel.
You know.
I think that Quinn's system is like the great coaches don't fit players into their system. They fit a system around the talent that they have. Why were the Jazz such a heavy pick and roll team because that played to the strengths of the best players. You know, that played to the strength of not just Donovan Mitchell, but especially Rudy Gobert. You know, I think it is similar with the Hawks, just because Srey Young is one of
the best pick and roll playmakers in the NBA. You know, the Capel is not the springy guy that he used to be, but you know, he's still a capable finisher of congou those sort of things. So I think there's similarities. But like I said, I don't think that Quinn would run the same system if he was coaching thirty different teams. I think that he would certainly adapt and tweak and maybe even bring in completely new chapters of.
A playbook based on his circumstances.
Yeah, now that's well said. Be interesting to kind of see how this rolls tonight. Now, the Jazz have been a little bit better as of late, and you know the name, and it's kind of really making the rounds because of a couple of games of just elite shot making his Brice Sensiba and you know, they're sitting a lot of guys like we knew they would, and Will tends to maximize whatever talent he has at his disposal.
They go down to.
Florida and they take care of a Heat team that's a little bit dysfunctional right now. And the Magic team, unfortunately, after that great start, just can't get healthy and it doesn't look like they'll be healthy.
For a while. So no one's hanging banners.
But Bryce is shot making over the past few games is something we haven't seen before.
Is there a chance they may have found something?
Because ultimately their walking line was to get back in to the end of the first round. Decide to make that pick was because Bryce was available, and most of that is because he was an elite shot maker and scorer at Ohio State, and it's taken some time to manifest could this be a player that maybe we haven't paid enough attention to.
Well, first of all, you say, nobody's hanging banners, and if they take my encouragement, they will absolutely hang a Florida State championship banner tonight and halftime.
Don't tempt us, don't tempt us to listen.
You earn that, by the way, that magic team that's completely gonna buy injuries went up and won a Madison Square Garden. Yeah they did last night. But as far as since mug goes, look, these young guys, at some time or another, they're all going to have significant opportunity. And obviously the Jazz are looking for guys who take advantage of that, looking.
For guys who pop.
And you know, since a Bah clearly has been popping recently. And you know, as you mentioned like his hope to be a you know, to have a nice, long, productive NBA career, he's got to be a bucket like. He's not a super dynamic athlete. He's not, you know, going to be some kind of lockdown defender, you know, can he be a big time bucket getter And it's flashes, But that's what you want to see from these young guys, you want to see flashes, and then you want to see those flashes.
Kind of forming a consistency.
Uh So you know step one is the flashes. And he's had some big time scoring performances lately.
Yeah, and he's a pure shooter when he can get a shot off if the defense isn't paying attention to him. I mean, he really does have a chance to get buckets and score points, which is he he has over the past couple of games. And we'll see who they play tonight. We'll see who the Jazz elect to play moving forward. But one of the things that we continue to monitor here. Anytime somebody over at your spot at ESPN or the Athletic or whatever decides to talk about
the trade deadline, the Jazz are inevitably brought up. And one name Tim that I keep hearing, and maybe it's just I don't know. I feel like there's this thing where maybe media members and other markets see a player here playing.
Well and they're like, oh, we could get him.
I just keep hearing that Dandy and Justin are taking calls about Walker, and I just can't really wrap my mind around it.
I don't know.
Everybody's tradable Okay, I'm not saying there isn't an offer out there for Walker Kessler, but based off of what we've seen this year and his age and how much they like him, I don't know that I'd even take phone calls on him right now unless somebody's gonna blow my socks off.
I mean, you take phone calls, but those phone calls in pretty quickly unless that unless somebody is making you with the type of offer that you can refuse. And look, the Jazz took a ton of phone calls on Walker Kessler over the summer, and obviously he did not get moved. There was a lot of interest in him. There was a lot of teams calling and trying to kind of
buy low. He didn't get moved in and the stock has gone up, like you know, look, it's not a winning situation, but you have to be able to evaluate individual development and individual performance, you know, in those circumstances. And look, he's having a good year. I mean he came back. And I remember, I think I told you this when I saw the Jazz in pre season here in Dallas. The first thing Will Hardy said to me was wait until you see Kesler. He had a great summer,
you know, and I was like, okay, that's interesting. Then you know, hashtag muscle watch. But the guy was clearly in the weight room all summer, you know, bulked up and it's good weight. I think he was able to kind of a summer away from it. You know, he went to Summer League, but you know, not Team USA and all that kind of stuff. With the World Cup, I was able for him to kind of refresh mentally.
And he's done.
Everything that they were hoping to see from him this season. I'm not saying there's no way that he's traded. I'm saying it's going to be awfully pricey to even tempt the Jazz's front office.
At the risk of a Tim McMahon eye roll on the other end of the phone.
And I know what that looks like.
I'm just gonna ask you this because we are in Salt Lake City, and we'll move over to other things. But the fact of the matter is marketing's numbers across the border all the way down. Now, that's not to me any indicator that he's not the player that he once was.
His minutes are about the same at thirty two.
He's been incrementally held out here or there, but nineteen points six boards, all of this splits are down. I mean, is there anything there there at all?
I'll be honest with you, I have not inquired with anybody in UH in the organization recently about that. I would be surprised. There's a whole lot of concern. You know, honestly, he's a veteran guy. We understand what this season is for the Utah Jazz. I'm sure it's probably difficult for him to be dialed in on a day to day basis the way that you know, he probably would be in a more competitive situation. I personally don't think there's
any massive reason for concern. And like I said, I I can I can speculate that the probably isn't within the organization, but I would be I would be misleading you if I had told you I'd been asked about him a lot lately.
Fair Enough, we had at Haberstrow yesterday.
We had bontemps last week, and they both had different answers about how this. Jimmy Butler Soger will and you just you don't mess with Pat. You just don't don't mess with Pat Riley. It's the wrong guy. To mess with. And the weird thing is that if you're Miami, there's not a ton of incentive to like move him. It actually might behoove them to hold on to him and let him hit free agency for cap flexibility, so like they don't have to do anything. But this feels untenable.
He's been suspended, and there are a lot of rumors concerning some teams who you cover, like Memphis, and then other teams like maybe Golden State, Phoenix, potentially Milwaukee. Just give me your best guess, how do you think this thing ends with Jimmy Butler.
I mean, it's intentionally untenable, Like Jimmy has accomplished his short term goal of making the situation as uncomfortable as it could possibly be.
I don't think that pat.
Ryley the Heats are going to be bullied in to make him what they would consider to be a bad deal at this point. Would they make a neutral deal, you know, would they make a deal where they're getting some sort of draft capital and no long term salary. I think they do that because I think it has reached a point where they're just think, hey, let's just let's just get rid of the headache, which again, that's that's Jimmy doing exactly what he set out to do.
There's a long time till the trade deadline.
I would lean.
Towards then probably figuring something out. And look, if they figure something out, maybe it's a three team, maybe it's a four team. You know, certainly the Jazz I'm sure involved on the periphery of that where maybe there's a way for them to kind of wiggle in there and get some sort of value, you know, for for the future. It's not going to be easy though, for a lot of reasons. One his salary, to his personality. Three his age.
You know, for all the talk of he's definitely going to turn down a player option, I will believe that he turns down fifty two million dollars for next season when it actually happens. It's a it's a complicated thing for many, many different reasons.
Tell me what you think John Moran had.
What questions you think Jaw has answered this year as Memphis is back to where we're accustomed to seeing them when John Moran is healthy. And look, I don't know if it's a real reclamation story, but as of now, nothing's hit the news and they're a good team and when he's in the lineup, he reminds us of who he is when all the noises kind of blocked out.
But you cover this team, you know the situation.
Well, what is there anything you think Ja has set up to this point that is encouraging if you're a Grizzlies.
Fan, Listen, I think the biggest question that he's answered is Kim John Morant avoid, you know, just shooting himself in the foot metaphorically obviously indeed by.
Doing dumb things.
And it has been fortunately very quiet around him for over a year now. And you know that's including a lot of time where he had idle time. I mean, he was traveling with the team last year when he was hurt, and I was very intentional to keep him involved, him in that team environment and focus. But I'm not saying that that Joe is going to be getting his wee blow badges from the Voice Scouts or as a
Cup Scouts, whatever it is, anytime soon. But there's not the rumblings that there were about him, you know, a year and a half ago, fifteen months ago, And so that's the biggest thing. If Josh stays out of his own way, he's going to have a chance to have a Hall of Fame type of career, you know. Unfortunately, the other big question with him is about durability. That's again been a challenge. You know, He's had a couple of pretty significant entries so far this season. He's already
not going to be eligible for all NBA. But man, you know, that is a deep team that is difficult to prepare for. They do have a unique system among NBA teams these days, and if John and desen Bay and j Jackson Junior are all healthy going to the playoffs, I think they will have a chance to make some noise.
What can you tell us?
That's the most recent take on just how dominant okay See has been. They've ran fifteen straight off and it's not just who they are now, it's what that front office has.
Built them to be moving forward.
As Bobby Mark says, we've talked about released the draft capital rankings, the Jazz were four. OKAC has won and they've also won fifteen straight games and they're thirty and five everything in the case. They're a dominant team out this way. What's the latest Tim mcman take on this recent run from Okac.
Well, first of all cannot wait to watch Kaz versus Thunder tomorrow and then I'll be live when they play again at OKC on the sixteenth. So, I mean, both these teams are on seventy win paces. It's the first time we've had teams on that kind of pace. Two teams at this point of the season says seventy one seventy two when it was the Bucks and Lakers, Kareem
versus Willed, that's a pretty heavy company. So this is I know Cleveland, Oklahoma City might not be the maorrow because the NBA would have selected, but they these two teams are awfully good. You're talking about the number one offense of the Cavaliers versus the number one defense with
the Thunder jego to Salazander. To me, it's a two horse race for MVP at this point, between him and Joker, he's Unbelievabley he's you know, does it just scores thirty plus officially and does everything else that you can possibly want out of a superstar. But how dominant has this Thunder team been. Here's a stat for you. I'll even throw in the NBA Cup Final, even though it doesn't officially count. They are twenty seven and three, when they've had a seven foot are.
Available for the entire game.
Three of their losses one came today to night to check out or which you got to hurt in the first half, and then two of those have a losses came during that brief little stretch when Chet was already out and Hart and Steinhatan recovers from his broken hand. They haven't had those guys playing together for a single second. Deal, let me think about that. And by the way, Caruso hasn't played a whole lot. He's been dealing to Hit for a while, so they haven't had Chet or you know,
for whatever, it's been a couple of months. Now Caruso's playing a little bit. Those are two all defensive dudes, and they are the number one defense in the NBA by over three and a half points per one hundred possessions. Oh and then they've got an MVP, if not front runner, you know, big time candidate who scores thirty plus with remarkable efficiency on a not just remarkable efficiency, but day very rare.
He has a done game.
He had one in the NBA Cup Final.
I'll give you that.
And there, Matt, you can pretty much pencil in thirty on decent efficiency from him every single.
Night, and they're so fun.
Man, They're fun to watch, which is good for a league that's looking for teams that people want to latch onto that isn't their own team. Before I set you loose, since you brought up the Cavs, we started the show off with this.
I mean, Donovan has shown some growth.
He's playing winning basketball in a way that he has that he didn't hear. He admitted in a piece with The Athletic that he's trying on defense now and all of us were like, thanks, dude, but whatever, what are you willing to say about this?
Thirty one and four start?
Boston is still the clear favorite everywhere, But what are you willing to say about how real this is?
With Cleveland?
Listen, man, thirty one and four.
I'm not going to sit there and tell you that's a fluke if they just came to Dallas and look, they were playing the mass without Luke and Kyriad. But there were times I was gasping watching that game, just the way that the Balls movie. I mean, Donvan made some passes, and their hockey is his type of passes, but he made some passes that I was like, whoa.
And I had a good talk with Donovan afterward, sat down with him for about ten minutes or so before they left the arena, and like, you look at just his counting stats, they're down. That's not like a coincidence and it's not a bad thing. You know, he's gotten over needing to you know, really kind of establish himself as a superstar honestly, even worrying about Datus or this and that, the guys at a point in his career
where he just wants to win. And he recognized that him doing a little bit less one puts him in a position hopefully to be much fresher come playoff time, to be able to finish strong, to be able to you know, to feel good physically for an entire playoff run. But it's letting Darius Starlin really have have some more
rope and thrive. And you know, the thing that Donovan kept coming back to though, as he said, Evan e fan mobiley Like again, it might not show them necessarily the numbers, but they feel like Evan Mobley has made a leap this year and that has been just a massive development for a team that was a good team last year.
You know it was a second round playoff.
Team, but wasn't a contender. There's no question they're a continuer. Now K beat the Celtics in a playoff series. I don't know, but I think it's possible. I don't know if they will, but they better be taken seriously because again, we all go thirty one and four for a plus twelve net rating and have would be some sort of fluke.
That was an unbelievable hit.
And the only thing I can think about is how badly I wish I was there standing next to you when you asked Quinn about his Sally Jesse Raphael Glasses, because that must have been.
A moment to remember.
Man, But great stuff today, Be well, travel safe, chat soon.
Okay, I do have great regrets now that we will never see the red frames again.
I apologize to be an NBA fandom for that.
There we go.
There is Tim McMahon covers the NBA for ESPN, covers the Jazz for ESPN when the Jazz are worth covering respectfully At ESPN Underscore McMahon is where.
You find him. Were you familiar with so? Oh? Man? I guess now Tim spilled the beans.
This was not public knowledge prior to but Quinn Snyder, former coach of the jazz As in town with the Atlanta Hawks to start the year, broke out these red framed glasses because Quinn a couple of years ago started wearing glass He wore glasses while he was here, but only to like read box scores, didn't need them when he was coaching, And then I think it was last year that started this year started wearing the red framed glasses, and folks on the internet started referring to them as
the Sally Jesse Raphael glasses. But Quinn didn't know that, and so Tim, in all of his tactful glory, runs into Quinn Snyder in Vegas and asks him about the Sally Jesse Raphael rims to his glasses.
Quinn didn't know that people were saying that about him.
Apparently he was so mortified that since that interaction he's only wearing black framed glasses.
Were you aware of this dynamic? Are you just learning in real time?
I had just heard about it, but I also am a little lost on it. That's like the only time I've seen those glasses. Is she the like tabloidy like Jerry Springery.
Lady talk show host.
I never liked, okay, I was never like cramming Sally Jesse Jesse Raphael episodes.
I don't know much about.
Her, but yeah, that's uh. I saw them as Quinn snyderglasses just as much as as that. But yeah, I don't put it past him to to make Quinn feel bad.
That hit got a little loose.
He made a gun metaphor reference when talking about John Moran. Then he brought up the Boy Scouts. Yeah, uh, boy Scouts canceled, right. I believe they've been, aren't.
They, you know, in a large form. I mean, I think that got loose a little bit, so I.
Think, yeah, I thought they did away. I thought that. I don't mean to be insensitive. I just thought the Boy Scouts were very clearly problematic and are no longer a thing.
I think there might be like some sort of thing still going on. I had a good experience. I won the Pinewood Derby, even though I cheated.
Who didn't cheat?
Okay, if you didn't cheat in the pine Wood Pinewood Dirt Derby, you weren't trying exactly. Everyone cheated and I won, so good for you. I would have beat you. I don't know about that. It was that was the car right Pinewood, Derby's the car. What was the like the boat thing with the propeller on the string? Remember that one kind of I would say, I had a fine experience with boy Scouts.
Not like that everyone at no what do you want to know?
Why?
My poor mother, Every time I talk about this, it just breaks your heart. I got every merit badge I needed by the time I was sixteen years old. All I had left was my Eagle project and I never did it. And my mom kept saying, all right, just your eagle because my parents did the thing where they're like, hey, you're not gonna be able to drive until you get your eagle Scout. But I knew, being the oldest of six kids, you need me to pick kids up from school.
You're not keeping me, you know, from driving, So I slow played it. Turned sixteen, Mom's like, hey, what's to do with the eagle project? And my totally on it. Totally was not because I was so over Scouts at that point. I didn't like it. I didn't have any friends in Scouts. I thought it was weird and sorry. The leaders are just like a even the good ones. There's just this feel you know what, I'm gonna pivot out of this segment.
Okay.
Bottom line is this, I got everything I needed and I didn't finish my Eagle Scout project, and so I finished. I believe that's life right underneath the eagle. So I'm a life scout.
Okay, I I you know I think lesser of you a little bit. Now, Yeah, that's fair. You know I thought you were an eagle scout. That's fair. Are you an eagle scout?
You're not an eagle are I'm not an eagle scout, But I mean, come on, I don't need to be.
No, I mean conetiquette exactly, thank you. I don't need to I know how to tie two or three knots.
I'm good. That's all I need. You can start a fire.
I always felt like eagle Scouts they're like golfers. Have I told you my pro golfer theory. There's no such Every golfer is a nerd. Every single golfers golfer is a nerd, and most Eagle Scouts are goobs. Didn't have friends, didn't have social activities, or their parents just made them get it.
So eagle scouts, golfers. They're all nerds. Give me one cool.
Golfer exception, man, I would allow you Ricky Fowler. But he's even a little bit of a goob. If you've ever heard him interview, he tucks his ears into his hat. Dude, well said, and golf apologists to be like, Dude, Tiger's cool.
I'm like, are you are you kidding? Tiger Nerd? Look nerd.
I'm not using it as a bad connotation. No nerds run the world, Okay, they own companies. A lot of them are great golfers. It's not a it's not a knock, but they're like, no cool golfers. John Day maybe, but that's just because he's a lunatic.
Right, That one's like an outlier extreme. I will say this only because I know him. Markomir is like the normalst most normal dude you'll ever run. Cool dad energy just like yeah, like a dad that fly fishes and snowboll bills and happens to have a green jacket.
You would never know that that was his post past career. What a great life. Yeah, I want to come back as you know what.
I actually watched a documentary because I couldn't fall asleep last night, because you know that's just the deal with your guy on the two thousand and eight Ryder Cup and Kenny Perry seems like a cool dad, energy like golfer guy from Kentucky. So I'll offer Kenny Perry, but golfers and nerds, Eagle Scouts nerds. It's like you may have played this bump intentionally based off of how loose last segment?
God, is there anything there? Am I I'm not reading too much into it.
I be guess I could have, but that wasn't It wasn't intention Some Almond Brothers which song I'm no angel. Yeah that's what I figured, but yeah, not enough Almond Brothers and this one is not listed. It's just listed as Greg Almonds, so I didn't know that we actually had it.
All right, Well, Greg did some solo work, love me some Almond Brothers.
As you know.
Yeah, we got a little loose last segment. Do we need to apologize to the boy Scouts of America after last segment?
Or may do you think?
So?
Okay? All right, Yeah we traversed a little bit of a loose space.
But I think I did a decent job of exiting states left gutting out that got out of the situation. Tim McMahon joined us last segment to talk a little jazz that little jazz Hawks. How will you remember the Quinn Snyder era here? I mean, you were at a lot of those media availabilities. And Tim told a really funny anecdote where he was in Vegas and made a crack about Quinn's new glasses. And ever since Quinn heard Tim's crack, he's worn different glasses because apparently he hurt
his feelings. And when Tim described the look that Quinn gave him, all I could think about is how often Quinn looked through Andy Larson's soul. Andy would ask Quinn a question draped in the of course, I'm smarter than everybody else, Andy Larson snark, My guy love him. But and I would be in the room and I would You could feel the tension, And there were nights around like Andy, you got to get out of here, Dady, you got to go home before Quinn has the ability
to find you. But whenever I had a chance to talk to him, and whenever he because it's crazy to think about this, Gordon and myself, we had Quinn Snyder and Dennis Lindsay on our show every single week during the Jazz season, and nobody gets access to players and coaches anymore ever. I mean, the Jazz make them available for everybody a couple of times a year, but as far as one off interviews, nobody gets them ever. So I was fortunate enough to get to know him, and
he really is a good guy. He really is a nice man, but he is maniacal, and I think he brought that team to the precipice of something as special as anything we've seen since the nineties.
But you covered Quinn. How do you remember the Quinn Snyder years here?
Yeah, well, as you kind of alluded to the one thing that you you really can't not look at with Quinn as he's intense. He is one of the more I don't know how else to explain it, but intensity is is how he addresses not just basketball, but like just looking at you in the eyes. Right, It's something that you can't really escape from with Quinn. But I
don't think it's necessarily a negative thing. I think it may be snowballed at the end and added to negativity that was surrounding the Jazz, right, But I don't think Quinn was ever the source of that. I think he's a really, really good basketball coach. I think he is a phenomenal a phenomenal schematic mind, and in game I think he's really good as well, his out of bound stuff, his his his adjustments during games. I think Quinn Snyder
is among the better coaches in the league. But there is that side of him that you talked about while he was here. We talked about before he hung it up here at Utah, and we kept it at the front of Jazz fan's mind because we kind of saw it coming. And that was the fact that he operates in such a direct, in like fervent way that you get tired of it yourself. Quinn does right and it seemed like he burned out in Utah, needed a reset, needed a little bit of a chain of scenery, and
has got that in Atlanta. I think a tough job that he took is Tim alluded to, and is doing a think pretty good job there as well. But if you give Quinn Snyder the right roster, the right staff, the right everything around him, I think he's one of
the best coaches in the league. But that's that's part of this game is that you could be a really good coach, and if you're not surrounded with the right pieces, or you're surrounded with chaos, you know, a couple off seasons ago here in Salt Lake City, it's just not gonna work. And that's kind of how I look at Quinn Snyder's.
Stint here.
Really good on the floor, really good coach, and it ended partly partly thanks to his intensity, but it really was more the stuff around him.
Yeah, and you know, a lot of this stuff is anecdotal, and I'm always the guy that chuckles at the narratives we create around teams and coaches and players after they start winning. Oh, the culture, they're an extension of the head coach on the floor. No, they're really talented and they're working hard and they're finally getting results and they're just winning.
But that's boring media fodder.
You have to come up with superlatives and hyperbolic takes. But one of the things I always loved is the way that Quinn seemed to allow his players to be themselves and express themselves in a very free way. While he appeared to be kind of a rigid dude. The
Clarkson stuff is the biggest example. Like Jordan Clarkson has always had tremendous talent as a pure bucket getter off the bench and other stops the Lakers, the Cavs, but his best years as a pro was the two or three years he spent playing for Quinn where he won Coach of the Year.
And Jordan was playing.
In a he always plays free, but he was playing in a way that I had never seen him play before, and playing within the team framework in a way that I'd never seen him play before. And it felt like Quinn really had a hand in that. And certainly Quinn was always good to sit down and take the time to kind of inform you what they were trying to do and the foundation they were trying to build early on, and how he hoped it looked when it was fully baked.
And you know, I think the debate will always be best jazz team that was not John and Carl certainly in the mid to late nineties, but of course they laid the foundation all the way back to the eighties. I mean, John and Carl and that group worked to build something special for a number of years, something I think we forget when we talk about well, Donnov was here for five years.
That's long enough. No, it's not like you have to build a foundation.
You have to build something sustainable and something that lasts, and it takes a lot of time, and we have not seen it take very much time in this market, which has led us to being spoiled quite a bit with intelligent basketball decision makers and ownership that you know, the previous ownership who would hire good people, put them
in place, and let's let them do their jobs. The basketball people do the basketball things, let the coaches coach the basketball team, and let the front office decide who the players are and the synergies. Mart than not worked at a really high level, never got to a championship. But you could watch, and I covered Quinn for the entire eight year stint. You could watch and see what they were building in a way that seemed a little bit more intentional and I would say further along than
what this iteration and this Jazz group is trying to build. Remember, this is the third year of a rebuild. Okay, let's not get it twisted. This is year three of a rebuild, and I'm not sure the Jazz fans see anything extra exciting about what the future could hold. And year three of the rebuild with Quinn and Dennis and that group,
you know, that's when Mitchell took off. That's when Gobert was legitimately Defensive Player of the Year Canada, and that's when you could see, Okay, they've been building and building and building, and yes, is there some luck involved, of course, And it would be nice if was better in year two the way Donovan was better in year two, and it would be nice if some of the younger players had taken better steps moving forward. But that hasn't happened yet.
It doesn't mean it won't happen, because again, this is a foundational build right down what the Jazz are doing simply building, you know, the studs, they're building the foundation. They're building the first portion of what hopefully turns into a great project once upon a time down the road.
I don't know how many years is going to take.
Again, they're already kind of behind the eight ball if you compare them with other rebuilds after two three years, you do want to see more progress. You do want to see things that are a little bit more tangible as opposed to a couple of games where Bryce Sensiba I hit some shots and it's like, okay, is Bryce now awesome? I mean it's hard to tell because of all of the players that have been held out the ups and downs of a long eighty two NBA season, But should be fun tonight. By the way, I have
a new favorite college football player. Did you watch the FCS Championship game last night? Of course about that guy, Tommy Mollot. Now they lost, right, but he is fun. Look, I'm not going to do the thing. I'm not going to be the guy that's like bro. I was crushing Montana State film all year.
I wasn't.
I mean, North Dakota State wins it all the time, so everybody knows that that's the hell of a program. But Montana State, North Dakota State. Last night the game was on our station, went home, not a whole lot on, flipped through some NBA and then I flipped it over in time for Montana State to have who By the way, I had not lost the game to make that comeback.
That little quarterback's fun to watch.
Man.
He's built like a linebacker. He's built like a tailback.
I don't know if he's an NFL guy but he won the Walter Payton Award, so I was kind of reading up on him. He's a Butte, Montana kid, so he had all of these people from his hometown like showing up at bars and Butte to watch this sing a calm touchdown Tommy and I listened to some interviews,
and you know, it reminded me of Porter. It reminded me of one of my favorite things about watching March Madness is seeing this potunk school come out of nowhere and learning about like their starting guardio averages like twenty eight. You'd never heard his name before and suddenly you're watching and was it Jack Golkie, the dude who looked like an insurance salesman who hit.
Like a million threes last year.
Yeah, Like stories like that are cool, and I felt like that learning about this Tommy Malt kid, I mean, he exudes Montana, Montana State tough kid, has some fun personality, was celebrating a little bit. So I was introduced to my new favorite player in college football. It's Tommy Malt.
I love it.
I love it.
Will you get him on the show? I can reach out to the Montana State folks. I'm serious. By the way, and I'm with you on that.
It goes for both sides, right know, North Dakota State, although they've received a lot more attention because they win the national championship every year, those and especially the top I want to say three or four teams in FCS have almost found themselves in such an advantageous spot at the top of that specific classification that they are recruiting players that are Division one.
Caliber, that are.
In a lot of situations potential pros going on, right, And that's something you didn't used to see at the FCS level. So yeah, man, it's fun to learn about these guys and to get those kind of Cinderella ish stories. But at the same time, when you see North Dakota State, when you see Montana State, these teams that just run the table in the FCS, they got some real players, real football players who haven't shot at making money doing that thing.
Yeah, that kid was fun to watch.
Now.
Of course, every time now we think of you know, Montana, it's got to be Yellowstone. And I know you're still bitter that you got cut after you auditioned to be an extra in Yellowstone, but I don't think have you did you finish the series nod you know you were you boycotting it because they cut you.
I never really like watched it, to be quite honest with you, to be in it. I mean I I I did some stand in filming that wasn't used. This is correct, that's messed up. But yeah, I I never really got into the to the Yellowstone thing.
I don't know.
I think I watched a little bit of the first season. You know it was I would say it's worth watching it. It got really dramatic as it went on. It did improve after they killed off Costner. Because Kevin Costner has been in some legendary movies, but he the overacting with him has always just rubbed me the wrong way. So after they killed him off spoiler alert if you don't know about now, sorry, the final season's coming gone.
I actually thought it improved.
I think a lot of people wanted Coshner back because he does play that cheesy cowboy role pretty well.
That's probably what you know gets me, not that I'm mister cowboy, but I grew up with those guys who.
Were actually doing that, not cosplaying exactly.
So when Kevin Costner is cosplaying cowboy, it just doesn't resonate with me.
I'm sorry, John, it's been too long. I haven't seen him for it. Not long enough.
I'll have a bitch. His accent like too much was wild. He went to meet like a lady friend at a bar for a drink. She poured him a glass.
Of wine and he just downed it. You're supposed to sip it. I don't drink it for the taste and like it's red wine.
He like put a coin down on the bar and walk down like this is so cheesy.
Good.
But if you haven't seen it, and if you're looking for some mindless entertainment, you could do worse than Yellowstone.
I would say I'll probably And that's how I do most series anyway, is I'll probably binge it at some point, just to give its it's credence. Here's the thing it has, and especially the first like half of it. It was literally filmed where I grew up, correct, so I have watched some of it, but it was mostly just like for the cinematic stuff. I'll catch up on the storyline at some point.
His accents like did you ever see the movie Robinhood? He did when he tried the British accent the English accent thinks. Oh dude, it's like, how do you get green lip for these roles? Do people listen? You try these accents? Was in some great baseball movies.
Though, hey, he's in some hits. He's in some real good ones.
We make little moneym not hating on Kevin Costner. All right, two hours down, two hours to go. Scott and Mitchell coming up next. I want to do some NFL with Scott. Well, of course, we'll do some Utah football, but I want to ask him about the Lions he played in Detroit. What would it mean for that city if Detroit actually
won the Super Bowl? Bel Fraser rolls by. Later on we'll do a little Utah Hockey Club and then we'll launch it in the five o'clock hour on a surprisingly sunny and beautiful Tuesday afternoon.
Keep it right here on ESPN seven hundred.
Quick update on the topic that everybody's talking about today on the show. The Boy Scouts have changed their name to Scouting America. Okay, so they're no longer the Boy Scouts, but they are around and it's Scouting America.
Oh all right, I think everything's good.
Then I guess right, I guess but you know, inquiring minds want to know Scott Mitchell on a Tuesday afternoon, Scott, did you grow up in Boy Scouts?
At are you and Eagle Scout?
All right? Scout? I actually have done public service announcements in the past for the Boy Scouts. If you actually type in Google search Scott Mitchell Boy Scouts, you'll see an amazing commercial back when I was playing for the Detroit Lines.
Porter.
Please, it's a travesty actually to hear what you just said. Scouting was an amazing part of my life and I absolutely loved it, and it's not what it used to be.
I didn't know any of that, Porter.
All I want you to do is get this sound from Scott Mitchell's Boy Scout commercial before the end of the interview.
Let's se if you can fire that out, so you better be careful, Spence, because you'll be in tears. It's an emotional, powerful message.
I can't wait to hear it. Look, I need to be motivated in the new year, Scott. I'm just looking for somebody to motivate me. If that's you talking about Boy Scouts, I have no judgment.
That's fine with me.
Oh I could motivate you spence, give me, give me ten minutes. I'll have you run in through a brick wall.
I need it, I want it. Have you been traveling during the holidays. Where you've been it's been a while.
Yeah, I've been. I've been everywhere. Man. I actually was went to the German Christmas markets. I was in Florida. Where else I don't know, Just pick a place I've probably been there.
Boy, well, Happy New Year, even though Larry David said, I'm not allowed to say that after you know, January the fourth, I haven't talked to you and quite some time, so I want to welcome you in and say Happy New Year. Do you have any exciting New Year's resolutions? You want to motivate with us? You motivate us away with uh?
You know.
I I'll tell you the best advice that I could give a person, and that is, see the end of twenty twenty five and who you want to be and where you want to be, and just see the vision of that, and that should push you through the whole year. You got to start with a vision, you know, That's that's the biggest thing. And the vision will actually push you, know, the tasks you know, so like you, you know, if you want to be healthy, it's like, well, I got to lose weight, and so you've got to see yourself
as that like person now. And without that vision, there's you have no hope. You gotta it's got to you gotta have a clear vision of goal and you have to see yourself there already.
Well said, no, I love it, I'm I'm ready, I'm ready to roll. I've been needing this in the new year. What what does your vision say Utah football will look like come fall?
You know, it's it's kind of sad because I don't I don't think this team was really that far off. And uh it just you know, really not having a veteran quarterback hurt the team a lot. The defense played quite quite well, and there really wasn't a team on Utah schedule or in the conference that you go. I mean, that's a world beater, you know that. I Mean, who would have thought Arizona State would have would have represented the conference in the playoffs. I don't think anybody did,
including Arizona State. I don't think they believe. I mean, it probably just went through the year and it just kind of unfolded. But so so you don't have to panic. You know, you're not that far out of it. And I think the one thing that Utah has done different from years past, and it's something that the pri have to do moving forward is get into the portal and and get get in the nil game. And you can
see other teams have had huge turnarounds from this. You know, they they did a pretty good job of not losing too many guys because there are a lot of their guys. There are people people are going after, you know, Spencer Fono and some of those other offensive linemen. Uh, you know, Kanu Tuoni, Vosta was a loss. Cam Calhoun was a loss. But for the most part, you know, you get get
a pretty good job. And so if if Utah can be a little bit more explosive on offense, uh uh, you know, okay, a lot more explosive on offense, they're going to be right in it again next year. And and what's going to be different is what the formula for Utah was, find these guys that fit our program, fit our profile, and we'll develop them. And they've done a tremendous job, probably the best in all of college football.
But they don't get that luxury anymore. Those guys that they've kind of been mentoring and developing, those are all the guys that left. All the backups left, and so you've got to be able to have systems plug and play pretty simple. You're not going to be able to kind of create that building culture that you have in the past. But teams have proved. I mean, Arizona State's a great example. You know, you get the right combination of players in the transfer portal, you're going to do well.
Even Colorado, who was a doormat in its entire existence in the Pac twelve, turned it around in a lot. You know, Okay, Dion's one thing, but but they went heavy into the transfer portal and it just gives you a chance to really find talent. Talent. You got to create the right chemistry with the talent you find, but you can turn around quickly.
Some good stuff in there.
And actually a couple of things about the question I was going to follow up with, and that is and there are a lot of programs like this. I was doing some I was doing the impossible task this morning of trying to figure out what the Big twelve will look like next year. And I was digging into some
case state stuff. And you know, Utah football and Kansas State football in a way, scott are very similar because they are recruit and develop and the success in the past where both of these programs have come with second, third, fourth year players, these are not programs that turn things around one year at a time with transfer portal additions because both their coaches believing the same thing.
So, if I'm.
Understanding correctly, do you think it's time to look at a different approach because maybe the old school recruit develop, win with year two, three four guys is no longer a reality.
Well you have to and you know that if you're a Utah fan, you probably should be excited about what's happened. The roster next year, I think is going to be like fifty three percent new players, more than they've ever
ever had. And so, you know, Utah is just not sitting on it, you know, hands and digging, you know, digging a you know, a line in the sand and saying no, we're gonna you know, they're going, Okay, we understand the game, and we're going to play the game, and we're at least going to give ourselves a shot as far as the conference next year. I don't know that it's gonna change. I don't know that it's ever changed. I mean, the Big Twelve is always a craft shoot.
And you know, I think your smart move is whoever they pick not to win, that's who you want to write, right, that's the team that's gonna gonna do well. But what you have is you have a lot of programs that are trying. And I like that and I appreciate that. You know, Texas Tech went out and got aggressive, and you see Arizona State really you know, trying to turn a corner. And and so there's a lot of competition
in the conference. And I think the Big Twelve was massively underrated a year ago, and I think they'll continue to, uh, you know, get a little bit more more love with what's going on. But I think Utah's put itself in a position to do well. You know, I was saying about this today and it's kind of the question, but it's it's a little off topic.
You know.
They everyone's worried about the playoffs. You know, they get the formula, right, do they do? You know? Should they? Is there too much rust? Is there? You know? They pick these teams and they have these blowouts, and and I don't think I don't think you should change it at all. And where where you're going to have to change it is these conferences are so big. Now Utah's gonna there's gonna be four teams in the conference next year, Utah is not going to play and and they may
be good teams, so they be bad teams. So you just get the luck of the draw every year, are you do you get the good teams you're gonna have to play or the bad teams Because you take a team like Indiana, and it's the same in the Big Ten, it's the same. And they ask all the conferences because they're so big. So Indiana probably played a bunch of
garbage teams all year. Maybe they weren't really that good and and you know, they kind of just got the right draw for the better schedule and that helped them out.
If you really want to fix it, you know, have all these teams they all have to play each other in their conferences, or you don't start ranking teams until maybe when the actual college football playoff ranking comes out, because it's a huge advantage if you get ranked high early and you have a crappy schedule like an Old Miss. You know, I don't know how good Old Miss was, but man, they were sure ranked high, and they rode that ranking through most of the season, even though they
really didn't play anyone all year, and some of the teams that were supposed to be good, like the Alabamas, weren't. So it's a little misleading to have these subjective preseason or early season polls, especially in these conferences where everyone doesn't play everyone all the time, and if you wait, you're going to have a better idea of who the really good teams the country are.
Yeah, I mean for sure.
I've been using this line on the show the past couple of weeks because I'm just realizing really how new all of this is for anybody in the ecosystem of college sports. Whether you cover it and talk about it like you and I, or you're coaching and it let coach wit, or you're playing in it, or you're an administrator like Mark Carlin, we're all experiencing this for the first time, and because of that, it makes it really hard to predict what it's going to look like even tomorrow,
let alone in a few months. So I keep saying, like I prefer to diagnose instead of prognosticate about what could be because it's impossible to tell.
But when it comes to how Utah is.
To your point, completely changing over the roster in one year, this is another new thing where we'll have to diagnose instead of prognosticate. But forty one new faces for a program, as we've already talked about, that's found its way through the world of college football with the ability to recruit and develop, recruit players that aren't as highly thought of elsewhere and make them the best possible players that they
can be. So what's a realistic expectation to be able to change over fifty three percent of your roster, bring in forty one new players, and then have an expedited time frame to do the development because they've got to be ready to go game one in the fall.
You know, it really falls so much on coaching and coaching and that you've got to bring in new players. You've got to have your systems that really are kind
of a plug and play. You It's hard to because you go, you know, well, I hope this guy fits what we do, and you know, so recruiting to what your system is, I think that's part of what was appealing with Jason Beck and bringing the quarterback from you know, the Devin Dampier because he knows the system, you know, So that transition I think really helps with a new coach and with the with the new style of how how everything goes, because the quarterback really is the guy
that drives all of it. And if you get a quarterback that can make plays for you and do well, you're going to have a shot. And that that's the biggest key. Like it's it's not even close to the impact the quarterback has on a game versus any other position on the field. It's not like, you know, the same as it's it's significantly higher the kind of impact the quarterback has. So it's all about coaching and getting that right quarterback. And I think Utah's headed in that
right direction. And then that system really has to be and I hate to use the word dumbed down, but it has to be one where you know, you can pick it up relatively quick. Is the players don't have that many practices, they don't have that much time to actually work on you know, the NFL have OTAs they spend a whole season in the off season learning and perfecting, and you hear these teams that do well and they'll tell you that the OTAs are what makes their season
of what makes them successful. Maybe that's one of the changes that has to happen from this is like, all right, if you Canna gives all these new players every year, we got to have more time with them. And that's hard too, because all these coaches are out recruiting, so it's it's a real burden on a team. But the statty teams will be the ones that find that right quarterback in the system to really give you at least a chance.
You know, all right, let's see here.
I want to move over and do some NFL Scott before we because actually, know what, I had one more Utah question for you, because I realized when I saw you on the rundown today I have not interviewed you since the news broke that Kyle is coming back the coach, but is coming back for year twenty one. And it was one of those things that we had all debated all year long, and one of the things we would debate is whether or not the outcome of the season would have any bearing on what Kyle decided to do.
And part of me believe the answer to that was no, because the man does not need to prove anything to anybody. His resume speaks for itself, and what he's done for you top Ball speaks for itself. Now, there does appear to be a faction, whether you want to call it the vocal minority as opposed to the sylumn majority. I don't have a percentage on it, but I have heard from people and have talked to people that believe it's time now to implement the succession plan and it's Morgan's time to go.
I can't speak to it.
Like I said, I'll diagnose, I'm not prognosticate, but I haven't talked to you since Kyle decided to come back. Were you surprised, What was your reaction when you heard the news.
I don't know that I was surprised completely. You know, you try to gauge people's answers, or their mode, or their their temperament, you know, because we interviewed him every week and talk to him, and you know you're trying to read are you just worn down because this has been such a crappy season or you just kind of worn down because Zilver and I didn't really sense from him like he didn't have that fire, that competitiveness, or that he was like, you know, I'm kind of done.
And I think that was I don't you know, I don't even think maybe this would be the last year for him. I just I just don't. I still think they're scass in the tank. I still think they're spire in the tank. I think he's reading right what is going on with college football and where the program needs to go and what they have to do and and it and it feels like they're making that attempt to do it because you never know how things will turn out.
But but at least they're they're reading the room right and they're they're making they're making those right moves and and I just get a sense that it's it's not about well, I want to end on a good note. It's man, I slow coaching, and I want to win and and I'm just still there. And that's where I think, that's where I think he.
Is, all right.
I was excited when I saw that you were going to be on today because I had to kick the tires with you, you know, watching that Sunday night Lions Vikings game and this wasn't even a playoff game. Okay, like it was a regular season game, but to watch and listen to some of the scenes around Ford Field, it felt like it was a super Bowl for that fan base, and it potentially was the biggest football game held in that city in a number of decades. And we know the deal. You know, they have never won
the big thing. They've they've never won the big They've never been to the super Bowl. Of course, they've never won the super Bowl. And I just needed to know because your best years as a pro they were in Detroit and you had a love hate relationship with the fan base.
I think that's fair to say.
But you have a unique perspective on the city of Detroit, the football fans of Detroit.
What would it mean to them if Dan.
Campbell can traverse his way through the playoffs and actually win this thing?
What would that city do?
The city would petition in the NFL to be to change the Lombardi Trophy to the Dan Campbell Trophy. He has literally done a masterful job of mirroring and matching and engaging the fan and it's this blue collar mindset and it's you know, look, we don't you know we're just we're really three yards and a cloud of dust kind of thing. We're top, we're gritty, we're all these things. And I think what really helped Dan Campbell understand that
is he played there. He played for the Lions, and he didn't play on some teams that were any good. But he's just done a masterful job of getting the city in the community to buy into him and his players.
And he's got some great coaches around him, and they picked the right players who've done really well, and they've really done a great job of kind of fitting what they do into the player's strengths, especially Jared Goff, and he's just been like, I'll tell you, if there's anything that gives you any indication of how great Dan Campbell has done, is they are actually channing for and cheering Jared Goff. And that never, I don't care who the
quarterback is, that never happens in Detroit. And so that city like literally it would be the most insane change or or celebration, or you know, it could it could literally you might have to bring in the military to calm that place down. Some of the most passionate, rabid, amazing fans and they've been there. I've been back to games since I retired, and they have alumni times or you know, you go back and visit and the team's
terrible and the place is packed. There's a there's a badge of honor, and there's this a massive love for the Detroit Lions from Detroit Lionsman, I meet them everywhere, I mean everywhere in the country. It's like, oh, yeah, I'm a Lions fan. You know I live, you know whatever, and uh uh and and you know what, Honestly, I wouldn't.
I would be so happy for those people. If there's ever there's ever a fan and a fan base that deserves to win a Super Bowl, it's the people into They literally need to have the support and everyone in the country pulling for the Detroit Lions to win a Super Bowl.
Vegas the up to date Vegas odds out of the FanDuel Sports book, as Detroit is the favorite currently heading into the wildcard weekend. Kansas City is two, Baltimore's three, Buffalo's four, and Philly is five. Then there's a massive drop off. Vegas essentially saying there are five teams they think can win it. So Vegas things they're the favorite, does Scott Mitchell.
Agree, Well, you mentioned the craziness of the atmosphere and to have that home field advantage all the way through the Super Bowl. They really play into it and they feed on that hometown. It's a real thing. And I'm telling you there's nothing more electric than a really fired up Detroit Lione fan base at a home game. It's as good as it gets anywhere in any sports, at
college or pros. And to have that and for this team to, you know, it's had a lot of injuries on their defense and to still be playing well and the quarterback has just been magnificent and he's got weapons. You know, this is a team that's capable. But they're capable in their brains too.
You know.
They they've been to a championship game and they bounced back from that this year. Teams that kind of have the fatigue and they have a letdown from not getting to the Super Bowl or losing the Super Bowl. You can't of see that with San Francisco right now. But this team isn't. It's on the rise. Its belief level is as good as it gets. You know, Kansas City probably isn't as good as they've been in the past, but they understand how to win and the Lions have
figured that out as well. And the beauty of it would be to have to call a fourth down play in the Super Bowl and they pull out the win on going for it on fourth down. That would just be the absolute irony of all ironies, just because of the Riverboat game type of mindset that Dan Campbell has.
What about Baltimore Scott, I mean, it seems like Lamar takes a lot of criticism for not being able to get it done, and he's just he's so fun to watch and he's one of the most electric, dynamic players in pro football. What's fair to say about what he's failed to do in the postseason and do you think it could be different this time around?
Yeah, he's a really special player because you know, he's he's learned to do both things very well and it's almost indefensible. You know, he can throw the football very accurately and on time and he and he's got a real comfort level with it. His his mechanics have gotten cleaner, so so under pressure, you know, he can still make the throws and he's just just unbelievable running the football.
Their team if I was in all the football and I was in in the AFT or the NFC, that would be the team I'd be really afraid of the other. One's buffalo. I mean, Josh Allen's playing great this year too, But Lamar Jackson is a very very special player. And when you have that man, it's so hard to defend and it's so hard to figure out. And he's proven that,
you know, consistently throughout the years. But he kind of has to get to that next level of winning that really big game in the playoffs, and it just takes time. You know, Pete Manning lost five years straight in his first five playoffs season. It's hard, Like it's hard to win in the NFL period. It's really hard to win in the playoffs, and it takes a lot and sometimes it takes a lot of time. Now, I played with Dan Marino, who's he's just the best ever, Like nobody
throws a ball like Dan Marino, unbelievable. And he went to one Super Bowl and it was early on in his career and he never went back again. So you know, great players can can have challenges winning in the postseason.
For sure.
Before I say you lose, can anyone get in Ohio State's way? Does it feel like they're going to march on and win the national championship?
It kind of feels that way a little bit, But you know, you're I mean, I know people are kind of disappointed with the college football playoffs, but man, the bowl games were meaningful, you know, and now you have Oil State and Texas and you have Penn State and Notre Dame. I mean, that's that's some pretty good, you know, semifinal games. I don't know how good either Penn State or Notre Dame. I don't know how good Texas is. You know, they seem to find ways to win really
good defensively. But Ohio State, they it seems to be kind of their year.
All right, Scott, we have a very special treat before you hang up the phone, and for our listeners out there, we've had a kind of a loose show where Tim mcbahn referenced the Boy Scouts earlier, so we've been asking our listeners their level of Scouts. Scott is a proud of Eagle Scout and once upon a time he voiced this emotional spot for the Boy Scouts.
What's it take to be a pro quarterback in the NFL. It takes effort, it takes determination, it's practice em after practice is over. And for Scott Mitchell, it takes one really brave mascot. Scott Mitchell proving just how determined and Eagles scout can be.
Oh was that it?
We didn't hear from Scott. I thought Scott was going to tell like an emotional story.
No, Scott is for the non YouTube listeners pelting the Detroit Lions mascot with fastballs.
Oh okay, it's a video, right, and it's it's actually, uh, it's me. It's me throwing after practice. I'm sweating and I'm working hard and I keep throwing all these past is the only one who catch them with the mascot because everyone went home.
So I see, I see, well, Scott, congrats are on the Eagle Scouts man Eagle Scout Award.
I appreciate the time. Let's do it to you in soon.
Okay, you got it?
Thank you?
All right?
Scott Mitchell, former ute quarterback played in the NFL for a number of years. Yeah, I wanted to get his take on what that's going to be like. Can Detroit get this done? So ultimately, Detroit has been installed as the favorite to win the Super Bowl. This is this is new. The odds are out now. Pride to wild Card weekend. Detroit right now is your favorite, followed by Kansas City, Baltimore, Buffalo, and in Philly and then there's a massive drop off between Philly and Minnesota that the
vikings are at plus fourteen hundred. Essentially, Vegas is telling you five teams can win it. Detroit, Kansas City, Baltimore, Buffalo, and Philly. So interesting stuff there. Appreciate Scott's time. Yeah, it's a great bomb, but you can't. I can't bulldoze it. I can't come on air until it's fully unpacked. A breath, yeah, I mean it's a great bump, but you athletic breathe
right the whole song? Yeah, Oh we should We should have at this point with this little radio show, we're getting it back to some football college football, Pro football five o'clock hour. Don't forget UTAP basketball tonight at Iowa State. They are sixteen point five point underdog. You'll hear that game when we Saga night at six. But let's talk a little hockey. It's been a minute. Our friend Belle Frasier from the Saltilid Tribune. Back on the drive, Bell, Happy Tuesday.
How are you good?
How are you?
I'm great, I'm great.
So did you guys have a New Year's gathering of the Salt Lake Tribune building?
And who had too many furtives and embarrassed himself? Who it was?
It?
Andy? Or was an Aeron? It was either Andy Larson or Eron? Which one?
You know?
I don't know. I we didn't have a New Year's gathering, so I don't have an answer.
Okay, okay, Well look at you protecting my good friends over the Tribune.
Okay, I like it. I like it. We'll just kind of let it go.
So Bell, it's been a rough stretch as of late, but ironically enough, they haven't necessarily lost a ton of ground in the standings. But we're looking at what seven of the eight games on the wrong side of things over the past that.
Little there for the hockey club.
What what would you attribute most the struggles of the past stretch with the team so far?
I think it's just the general theme of inconsistency that you really saw in the beginning of the year when they got off to that hot start, and then they are up and down, and that's kind of expected with a young team and the fourth year of a rebuild.
And you know, we've talked about it, but Bill Armstrong olways echoes.
You know, we're gonna look like a playoff team some nights and other nights we're going to look really young and really bad. And I think that's been true. But it's really unfortunate because to start December they were on a four game winning streak. They won six of seven games to start the month, I believe, and leading.
Into late November. And then they go on and they lose five straight, two.
Of which were against a visional opponents, which is basically a four point game when you're thinking about playoff implications. So that definitely put.
Them behind the eight ball.
And just you know, momentum wise, to it felt like things were really clicking. They scored four or more goals in six straight games, which you know when you're scoring that many goals to night in that NHL, and you have good goaltending like they have had in Carl Vimelka, and your defense is as stable as it has been recently for them, despite the injuries.
That's usually going to come out with a win.
But recently, they've really been held to you know, two three goals a night, even one at times. So I think obviously defensive production being down is a sign that kind of contributes to the losing streak as well.
But I think they're coming in to this.
They have a seven game home stand at the Delta Center right now, nine a season high nine games at.
Delta Center this month.
And although their record in Salt Lake hasn't been great this season, I think this is going to force them to learn how to make you know, home. It's a tough place to play in a.
Place where they gain points.
Some people call January February the dog days of the season, but it can't be that for Utah Hockey Club. You know, I think if they go five hundred this month, the playoff picture is going to be far far away from what it is right now. So this arguably is one of their most important months of hockey until the end stretch of the regular season. So I think they all know that, and they know they have to handle business in the next few weeks, if you know, they want to stay.
In the conversation.
As you reference Bell, they won six of seven prior to this. The streak on the other side where they've fallen six of the last seven. And this is kind of the theme as you referenced all year long. You know, a team that starts out hot, a team that goes ice cold, and god ebbs and flows when some loses some.
So, but we should have enough sample size now that we're.
In the new year and most teams have played over forty games around forty games or.
So to really get a feel for who they are.
So the question I'll post you is when they're winning and when they're playing well, what seems to be clicking And when the when they're on the wrong side of results, what are they not doing as well?
Yeah, I mean I think when they're winning, they're playing simple, they're not overthinking or putting too much pressure on themselves. And you know, coach at they talked about that about the way his team plays at home. He feels like sometimes they get a little too emotional and they start, you know, they let the opponent get under their skin a bit, and then they overcomplicate what could be an
easy play. You know, zone entries, angling on defense, just stuff that is bread and butter for hockey players that they know how to do and Nick Schmeltz said that sometimes on the road, because you're in a different building, you want to take the crowd out of it, so you just go play a simplified game and you're not gripping the stick too tight and things like that. But I think util when they're at their best, they're utilizing
their speed. You know, I would argue they're one of the faster teams in the league right now just because of their youth and special teams are firing too. During that winning streak, they had nine power play goals in seven games, all from the first unit, and that's gone, you know, a little bit not fully quiet, but definitely
not that consistency either. And then I think for them too, is just having three consecutive periods of the same I don't know if effort's the same word, the right word, but of just consistent play.
You know, they'll come out and they.
They are usually a pretty good first period team, and then for some reason the second period this season, they usually take a couple penalties, they give up a few goals, and then they put themselves behind heading into the third period.
So I think in.
The games that they have success, you see them kind of carrying their play and not letting up in any of those periods, and they've been a better third period team, I think in the last twenty games or so in terms of being able to come back. I think you saw that January second against Calgary.
They had a good third period and kind of.
Being able to close games out. So, you know what's in their arsenals, in their skill set, they've proven they've been able to kind of put those together. But it's just, you know, doing that on a nightly basis is what they need to do more often. We saw it for four or five games in a row, and now they really need it for the next you know fifteen.
You reference the situation with the goaltending stuff, and I would imagine it feels like Romelka is locked in the starting spot for now.
Is that your understanding.
I mean, based off of what we're seeing, that appears to be the case, and it's I think that could change at some point where Connor gets the job back.
So the Milka is one hundred percent the starter right now. I mean, his numbers speak for themselves, but I think just the calm confidence he gives his team, especially with you know, Utah's defense has done everything. It's canon and it's been good, but he does not have a healthy decre in front of him, you know, so he's probably making a few extra saves the night that maybe he wouldn't have to make if they had, you know, full power on the back end. So I think that's part
of it. And he Jackson Stauber they called up from the AHL to be the backup. You know, he's he's stepped in when he needs too for load management, but he's nowhere close to the Milka's level. And then Connor Ingram, you know, he went out day to day in November and it's been months. The latest update with him is they sent him down to the HL on a conditioning loan, which means he has a maximum The loan is a maximum fourteen days where he goes down there and basically
just gets back into NHL NHL shape. In terms of practice gains, you know, the HL practice is much more than the NHL because their schedule is a little bit looser. They practiced for.
A longer time.
Ingram hasn't played a game down there yet, but you know he's allowed to on the loans, so I think that's a good sign in terms of where he is in his recovery. It means that you know, he's probably on the ice on a daily basis. We don't have eyes on him because their AHL team is in Tucson.
But yeah, I think it's that's the question.
When he comes back. I don't think he's handed the net whatsoever. You know, he's been out of commission for two months and he didn't have a good start to the season and maybe he was dealing with something injury wise coming into it, but he really really struggled. And I don't think it's a coincidence that once the Melica came in and gave them consistent play and net come December late November, that's when they started playing their best hockey.
So I think, especially now when every night is so important to them in terms of points, you're not going to mess with your starter that is confident and giving you wins. So we asked coach about it, of course, and he's focused on one game at a time. You know, Zamelka's starting tomorrow against the Florida Panthers and that's really
all he's worried about. But I do think, you know, maybe Ingram's the backup they send Stauber back down, and it's good to have two veterans, but I just don't see them taking their net away from Vimeilica anytime soon if he's the one actively earning it.
All right, Bell, let's get to some topics you've covered in your space for the trip, and anytime Spicy Tuna is in the news, we have to talk about it because he became the most popular player here instantly during their introductory press conference, and most people that didn't know hockey probably thought he was also the biggest star because he was the biggest name.
He has not been able to get.
A ton of ice time to start the year, but that's changing, isn't it tell us a little bit about this opportunity that our guy, Spicy Tuna has now in front of him.
It is so.
I mean, before their most recent road trips, Spicy Tuna lim O'Brien had only played three games, and that's coming off a season in Arizona where he played seventy five, so he was pretty used to being in the lineup on a nightly base. But Utah, luckily, their forward group has been extremely healthy this season, which is extremely rare.
They haven't had one.
Injury so far not to drinxit. I mean, Nick Duke sad was late coming into the season because he was recovering from injury, but nothing in season has happened to that group, So O'Brien was kind of just stuck as the thirteenth forward in a healthy scratch on.
A nightly basis.
And I think a lot of us, you know, media fans were talking about maybe wanting to see him in the lineup because the third line previously of Michelli's deep stating Krause, had not been producing as well, just offensively, so maybe switching it up to get.
A spark there.
And so be it. There was a stomach bug and illness going through the hockey club last week and Clayton Keller could not go for a game, so O'Brien got put in the lineup and he slotted in on that third line with Duke stading Krause and then has stayed in since then. He's played three games on that line with them, and Michelli was moved to the fourth line
with Kevin Sellin and Alex Kirkfoot. But surprisingly or not surprisingly, I guess, if he brings a spark, Krause scored two goals in his second game with O'Brien.
You know, he hadn't scored in fourteen.
Games, and he gets that monkey off his back.
And O'Brien didn't.
Get the assist on the goal, but it was his physicality and four check that kind of set it up. And then Mitchelli the next night scored two goals and he hadn't scored since November seventh, So, you know, Krause and both Duke said said it the other day that O'Brien brought an energy and element and edge to the lineup that they think they were really missing and it's worked out so far. So coach said those combinations are going to stay the same this week because why you know, take him out if.
It seems to be working.
But his mindset all year, you know, Lim O'Brien, who's just said, I'm happy to be in the NHL, I'm going to stay ready, I'm going to be what this team needs for me to be. And he has definitely lived up to that.
So who knows that this is a prolonged stint.
I think they're just rolling with it because it got some of you know, the guys that they needed to keep going scoring.
But yeah. I you know, we don't.
Have a fish the lineups for tomorrow, but it seems like in this homestand Utah fans will get to see Liam O'Brien on Delta Center ice and he's fired up to be able to play in front of you know, fans that have shown him nothing but support since they.
Got here in April.
How healthy are we getting with the blue line? It just seems like there's two steps forward, one step back. And of course some of the like Jersey and Marino were thought to be two key contributors, are we getting are we close to getting them back?
How healthy are we back there?
And how close are we to getting some of the key contributors back to being on the ice.
This week has actually been really productive with that.
Jersey, Marino, and Maverick.
Lamarou have all been on the ice, which you know, we haven't seen most of those guys for the past couple months.
Marino previously was in.
A non contact jersey, but is now in a full contact jersey, full participant, full participant in practice for the last week and a half. I want to say, so he's not getting ready. Pote said, it's not going to be this week but they're talking about it and it's coming. So I don't know if that means end of January, early February, but he's full contact, you know, he's practicing and getting back into NHL pace. So I think that's
a really bright sign for Utah. You know, they never seen him play in Utah, Jersey yet, he wasn't even at training camp because he was injured. And then both Sean Jersey and Maverick Lameru, they're not full contact yet. They're kind of on for short skill sessions, getting a feel for the put getting some conditioning in and just being around the players on the ice before practice, and then they'll do go do some side work. But same
thing with that. We hadn't seen them skate in a while, so they are weeks probably a month at least for Jersey away. But it's a really good sign. So it's not going to be this week, it might not be in this homestand but I think the fact that those players are integrating back into the team, integrating back into the routine of playing, is a really bright spot. But then Robert Bertuso was put on injured reserve with he's week to week with a lower body injury, so you know,
that's another defenseman you lose. So in terms of who they have coming up, it's kind of the same bulk of guys that have been carrying the load all season, But it seems like in the next few weeks you'll get at least one healthy, two healthy bodies back, which you know is coming at the perfect time for this team as they try to make a push and could make a really big.
Difference for them.
All Right, Belle, before I said you loose, you know, kind of a continuing theme on the show is to kind of gauge the interest of our local community with this new project and this new sport and this new team.
And I haven't been to every game.
I've been to three, and I think opening night was probably not a level of passion that we could expect.
To see night at a night out. That's not a surprise.
But as you continue to make your way down to the Delta Center to watch the Utah Hockey Club, how do you feel like your community is supporting the team, and how many of the jerseys or sweaters from the other teams are you seeing And you know it's still early. If you know, one of two things will happen for them to get support. They're gonna be awesome, right which is tough to do like Vegas was, or it's just
going to take some time and that's okay. But where are we at right now January sixth seventh, excuse me with this project? And how do you think the community is supporting the Utah Hockey Club.
I mean, there are definitely away jerseys at basically every game for warm ups and things like that. I think for one reason is people want to see what's going on in Utah, they want to go to the Delta Center. They kind of want to be a part of the inaugural season. So I think people have you know, close teams that have been traveling in in terms of fan base. And also there's a lot of you know, Utah residents that were just stands of other NHL teams because they
didn't have one. But that being said, I don't think they ever truly outnumber the amount of Hockey Club fans at Delta Center.
And way I.
Describe it, I think there's a core group of Utah fans that are you know, die hard, They care a lot, a lot a lot, and we see it, we interact with them and so maybe it's not quantity yet, but it's definitely quality.
And the people that.
Are there, they're loud, they're proud, and I think Brian Smith, you know, he did a really cool thing for the past few games. He's been opening up the the obstructive view seats that they usually don't sell, either for free or for ten dollars, and it's you know, basically sold out Delta Center. So that's been really cool, and it's usually a pretty past crowd, you know, no matter what. It's definitely not the level of atmosphere as you know,
Opening Night or anything like that. But I think I know, you look back at last month the overtime win against the Vancouver Canucks that felt close to Opening Night, and I think fans are starting to understand the game more and the cadence of the cheers and that type of thing. So it definitely feels more like an NFL atmosphere. And like I said, the people are that are there doing you know, their very best to give these guys, you know, the love and support that maybe they didn't have previously.
When do you think we're going to hear the name? The final decision on what the name of the team will be.
What we have been told is they won't announce anything until the season's over. So I think the earliest, even if they have it decided right now, the earliest that we will know anything is.
I don't know if it's once Utah season is over, once.
The entire NHL season is over.
Yeah, So that's that's what we know about that.
It's kind of the same as they've said all year, but it doesn't seem like there will be any breaking news on that in the coming months.
It's going to be the yettie, isn't it.
I think that's what they're trying. I mean, I assume they said they want to go with what the fans want and that one the pull, So I mean, I think they're doing anything they can to please the fan base, and YETI is what people want. So that'd be my best guest, but that's, you know, based on limited information.
Okay, well, Bell, I always appreciate the time, Keep up the great work and we'll chat soon.
Happy New Year, Okay, awesome, Thanks for having me.
All right, Belle Fraser salid Daria Man, she is good. If you're looking for Utah Hockey Club knowledge, you should definitely consume her work.
She is a pro.
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All right, what's going on? Drive at five time?
Your commute home on a Tuesday afternoon slash evening star tred Now, it's been a pretty lovely day.
The sun has been shining.
It got up to about forty two degrees and or a Tuesday in January, we will take it. Guys have been blue, so it's been a nice day. I hope you're off to a good start to your work week. And keep us here during the five o'clock hour. We'll take you home. We're gonna make space for Utah basketball coming up Bill Riley as well as Sean Mooney Utah Iowa State. Iowa State is not lost in ames Iowa
for twenty six straight basketball games. It's the fourth longest home winning streak in college basketball, and Utah is badly in need of a good showing. I don't know what's reasonable to expect tonight. Utah's first two Big Twelve men's basketball games have been let's see, not awesome.
Is I guess how we'll land there, So I.
Don't think a win is very reasonable for the Utes tonight. Of course, anything could happen in the world of college basketball. But with a spread at sixteen point five, you know, can they make it interesting? Can they hang in down the stretch? So you're gonna hear the game coming up in just a little bit. As Craig is continuing to try to build this thing up to a place of respectability after a decent non con schedule, first two Big Twelve games have been rough, and of course this is
an unbelievable conference. They went to Baylor, got smoked. They came home, played Texas Tech in Salt Lake, got smoke. Speaking of Texas Tech, they're gonna be down in Provo tonight, take on BYU, BYU locking their wounds after they got dump trucked by Houston in their building.
This is a bear of a conference, man.
So we'll have a little men's college basketball action for you tonight. The Utah Jazz are at action tonight as well. They welcome in a old friend. Quinn Snyder, former coach of the Jazz for eight seasons, is now here coaching the Atlanta Hawks. So of course, nothing but fond feelings and memories for Quinn Snyder. I covered his eight years here down at the old station, had him on my show every week and was able to get to know him and lucky enough to call him a friend and
always will cheer for him. So we'll see if the Jazz can get a win tonight. They've won two straight games after going to Florida and sweeping both the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic. We've got a little Duke Duke Pittsburgh tonight. Pitt is coached by Jeff Capele, who played his college ball for Mike Krzyzewski at Duke. By the way, the ESPN seven hundred Cash Kickoff is here. It's time for your shot to win one thousand dollars cash to pay your bills. Text thrill to five oh
eight seven seven seven one thousand. That's thrill to five oh eight seven seven seven seven seven one thousand for a chance to win one thousand dollars in cash in this nationwide contest. Good luck from those of us over here at ESPN. So a fun show today, Lively show today. You know, obviously one eye ahead to the college football semi finals. Don't forget we are your home of the best live football events in the market. You're gonna hear the Hot and Bowl Texas Ohio State here on the station.
Then of course the Orange Bowl will be Penn State Notre Dame. Notre Dame is one point five point favorite. Ohio State is a five and a half point favorite, and I gotta be honest, that line feels really low. I think a lot of that is because they're going to be playing down in Texas. Of course, University of Texas will have a ton of fans there. Ohio State,
to me, is the superior team. I think we've seen that Texas is gonna have to withhold the start from Ohio State in a way that Oregon or Tennessee just couldn't. Hoping for two good games then obviously the National Championship on January the twentieth, So college football kind of top of mind awareness done some Utah Jazz on the show tonight to get you this afternoon and tonight to get you ready for the game this evening as the Atlantaks
are in town. And of course the NBA world right now curious to see what the situation will be with Jimmy Butler and when he will be traded? You know, will he be traded? Where will that situation unfold? Only time will tell. Some good NBA action Tonight, Turner as the Lakers and the Mavericks on TNT, and then the late night game is from Ball Arena. The Nuggets have been better as of late, but the Celtics are in town to take on Denver. Then obviously wild Card weekend
ahead in the NFL playoffs. Black Monday kind of turned into Black Tuesday the radio. The Raiders have fired Antonio Pierce, leading a lot of people to believe that Dion Sanders may be contacted by the Raiders to take over that job.
And will they draft his son? Of course, only time will tell.
But a lot of a lot of coaches losing their jobs, a lot of coordinators losing their jobs. There's no update on Jalen Hurts and his health. He is in concussion protocol. The Eagles, according to essentially Vegas and the odds, are one of four or five teams that actually have a legitimate shot of winning a Super Bowl this year.
But of course they need their quarterback under center.
Looks like Jordan Love is fine, He's gonna play, but Christian Watson has torn as afcl He's out for the rest of the playoffs and probably the bulk of next year as well. Two games on Saturday, Chargers, Texans, Steelers, Ravens, and then the Sunday slate is Broncos, Bills, Packers, Eagles, Commanders, and Bucks Monday. That game culminates with the Vikings and
the Rams. Kind of a sneaky big one for Sam Darnold, who at this point has appears to have played his way into either a franchise tag or a long term contract with someone else. The Rams are actually an underdog at home Minnesota one point five point favorite.
So the NFL playoffs rolling along, so busy show.
We had Sean mooneyon earlier to preview the Utah basketball game tonight. All right, Porter, I'm gonna pose the question to you. As I referenced Utah on the road tonight. Iowa State is a sixteen point five point favorite. The arena where Iowa State plays. I believe it's the Hilton Arena that is a fortress. They have not lost there in twenty six games. I don't think anybody's expecting a Utah basketball win tonight. But what should what's best case
scenario is it close down the stretch. I mean, at this point, as we talked to Sean about earlier, I think all you fans are hoping for is to just see some sort of tangible proof that this thing is moving in the right direction. And the cruel honesty, I don't know how we else to put it is there really isn't a whole lot right now. They've had some injuries, they've had some sickness, they've had some players leave for personal reasons. I believe they're fully stocked tonight with the
entire group. So best case scenario, outside of a win, which feels like really hard, you're essentially a seventeen point dog. What would you fans see tonight that could lead them feeling into the night and then tomorrow that Okay, maybe some good things are happening with this team.
Ah cover that spread maybe, I mean, don't lose by eighteen.
They've lost their two big twelve games Spence by a combined margin of I think sixty or so. Whatever it is, it's between twenty five and thirty. And this is an Iowa State team. There's not only twelve and one. They're twelve and one. With their one law coming to one of the better teams in the country in my opinion, in Auburn.
It's a really really good basketball team.
And for you taw to go into specifically that arena on the road, I mean, it's just really really tall task to ask them to be in that game or or you know, to win that game. But if you cover the spread and if it's competitive into the second half, I think you feel better than you did last week right against Baylor and the other matchups you've had, it's just it just hasn't been anywhere close to good enough.
So based on what we've seen so far, cover the spread, make it somewhat competitive, and I think you leave with a better feeling. Saying that out loud seems like a pretty unfortunate place for U Tough fans to be though.
Yeah, And I know there's you know, there's a lot of noise around Craig when it comes to you fans wondering why this basketball program, and you know what, if you really call it how it is, it's been twenty years, you know, maybe even a little bit more than that, since Utah basketball had like a consistent run, not a one or two year spike period when Yakub was here,
Delon was here, Kuzma had a minute. You know, coach coach, coach Kroskoviak did have a couple of really good teams Luka Dertca, you know that team with Neville they went to the I think that was a boiling team where they went to the NAA NCAA Tournament.
It's a five seed. I want to say they lost to Arizona round one.
Nobody gives a rip, but we have had these moments where it feels like maybe the basketball program is backheaded in the right direction.
And look, it's I've talked about this for years.
It's unequivocently unfair to talk about the Majeris years as something that we could potentially see again. That feels like, you know, one of those golden times of Utah basketball that was certainly enjoyable. I was in the school at the University of Utah when Rick was the coach, and you know, was friendly with a lot of those players, played with them, played against a lot of them, coluding Britton Johnson. They were a fun team to watching. It
was a fun time for Utah basketball. And you know, it's unfair to hold the program to a standard like that, but it's got to be better than it's been. And there is an element of this conversation to the chicken or the egg, because look, if you're a highly sought after high school basketball player or a transfer that is looking for a new place to play, which of course is the reality of building a modern day program, whether it's basketball or football, breaking news, you want to play
in front of fans. I know that sounds old fashion, but I don't care whatever level you played at play. You know, whatever level you played, it was always way more exciting. If you're playing in front of people, it's a different energy. And that building is not how juice in it for years consistently. Like I said, there's always been moments here or there. And I'm not one to tell anybody what to do with your money, what to do with your budget, and I guess you can't go
to every right, You've got to pick and choose. So would what a healthy investment from the community change the trajectory of the basketball program If everybody listening right now and everybody who loves youth athletics just said screw it, I'm going to every basketball game and these young high school recruits are potential transfers. They visit campus and they go see, you know, UTA's got some really fun home games this year.
Of course, BYU they'll have Baylor.
You know, They've got Kansas, They've got k State, They've got ASU, West Virginia. Some really good teams are going to be the Huntsman Center this year. And if there's a high school recruit that comes to the BYU game and it's BYU Utah and there are a ton of fans there and sixty percent of the building is not blue, and Utah pulls off an upset, is that a shot of adrenaline for a program that badly needs it.
I don't know.
I just know that if you're Craig, it's got to be really difficult to inspire kids to come play at Utah When they come to visit and they go see a home game and there are there's a handful of people there. I mean, I've been a plenty of them, nobody goes. I wonder if that changes for the big games, And maybe this Big twelve inclusion can get Craig a little bit more exposure as a result of the opponents, and maybe you can parlay that into something. I have no idea, but I think it would help a lot.
And I chuckle as I say this, because if you show up and pack the building and you're loud and proud, and you're supportive and there's juice, that would help the program. But at the same time, the team has to provide something for you to cheer for consistently and tangibly. And it's just been a while since the product has been good enough, consistently enough for the community to be overly invested, you know. And I know there are conversations about whether
or not the team gets the support they need. I don't know, man, I think that building probably needs a fing lift. The concessions are not awesome, and certainly there are ancillary things you could do to improve the game day experience. But when the product you're watching on the floor is subpar and has been for quite some time, and then it's not used to you know, it's not
what we're accustomed to seeing. If you've been watching Utah basketball for longer than a few years, you remember when the Huntsman Center was packed, and you remember when the quality of basketball was high on the Utah side of things, And yeah, it's different. In the Big Twelve and the competition gaming in game out is something that Utah basketball has never seen before in the history of the program. But hopefully that's a rising tide effect. And I don't
know what comes first, the chicken or the egg. Do you give them the great product consistently to come cheer and then do the whole field of dreams?
If you build it, they will come. Thing in the community.
Do the basketball program a favor by packing that building to give Craig something else to sell. There's probably a bit of truth in all of it, right, And I'm look, I don't blame you for not necessarily packing the building, But if we ever want to see this basketball program get back to even respectability, I mean, most people believe they're gonna finish close to the last in the Big twelve, certainly something needs to change. B Hyu welcomes in Texas
Tech to Provo tonight. Texas Tech got Utah good by you got undressed against Houston and Utah State top twenty five team. Now Utah State Jered Calhoun fourteen and one, four to zero. Conference play there at San Jose State tonight. So there you go. Some college some college football supporter before we send it over to Bill and Sean. We have a simmering beef in the market. Oh a beef
Bill's involved. Oh no, I don't know if you heard, but Craig Bolerjack was named Utah Broadcaster of the Year today.
I did hear about that. You know how many awards that is for Bowler? Sixteen three? That's one more than Bill. No, they both have three. Oh they have three. Oh, Bill's three times. Okay, but yeah, you didn't hear any the ads of the liners. Are you kidding? You're right? So we have Bill and we have Bowler three times.
Sarah's two time. Now Sarah is Sarah TI. Congrats to Sarah Todd our Queen DEAs Red News. She won Utah Sports Rider. You're today for the second time. But I you know, I don't know when this award was. You know where you had to like Venmo west Russ wef you know what's his name, Wes Ruff twenty bucks to like win it or whatever. I don't know when this whole thing started. What you have to like join to get it or whatever. But Bill and Bowler are now the only three time winners.
Wow.
So there are several this is a topic tree, right, This is a topic tree because there are several branches.
Here, namely, how do you feel if you're Greg Rubel.
Completely and completely forgotten about that?
That's ridiculous.
I bet Rubel. I don't know, but I bet Rubell has pissed today. If Bowler's wanted twice, or excuse me, if Bowler's now wanted three times and the voice of the Utes, Bill Ridley, has wanted three times, Gobel passed to feel slided?
Yeah, I mean it's just a matter of time though, right, I don't have a list in front of me.
As far as who are the multi time winners, I would imagine Greg has won it once because what has revealed itself is they simply just circulate through the same like five people. So maybe Rubel is due. But I want to know how Bill feels about Bowler winning his third Utah Sports Broadcaster of the Year award, and they're therefore putting Bowler on the same level as Bill.
Maybe I'll get them in studio together.
Ooh, YouTube, let's create a beef because I just have to wonder if if there's jealousy, if there's outright hatred, is there mutual respects.
Why don't we just tell Bill there's some beef. Tell Bowler there's some beef.
There.
You tell Bill, I'll tell Bowler and we'll get them at odds when they're in studio. I like it all right before we Saga night to get you over to some Mutah men's basketball shout out to Bowler.
Congrats to Bowler.
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Your game all season long, All right, Porter, before we throw it over to Bill and Sean for some Utah basketball, What comes our way?
To Wednesday edition of the show.
The aforementioned sports writer of the Year, Sarah Todt comes your way on a Wednesday, Talk Very Nice Jazz, Chris com Ronnie Hour. On a Wednesday, Neil Smith drops by talking to Utah Hockey Club and the former former Utah Sports Broadcaster of the Year Bill Riley.
Oh no, so Ryles is on the show tomorrow, Yes, and then Bowler on Thursday. So we're okay, we got to going.
I just want to make sure that he's not hurt, so we'll check in on the Once upon a Time Utah Sports Broadcaster of the Year tomorrow and then the actual.
Utah sports broadcaster the You're on Thursday. That is ah, that's the plan.
All right.
Well that was saying night.
Especially thank you Sean Moody, Tim McMahon, Scott Mitchell, Bell Fraser. If you of the sounding miss go to the website ESPN seven hundred sports dot com. Check out our podcast pages called The Drive with Spence. Check its available wherever you get your show. Subscribe, rate rate reviews, say nice things, give us all the stars.