Speaker 1: You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox
Speaker 1: Sports Radio.
Speaker 2: John Caliperi Hall of Famer, Beat Kansas Beat Saint. John's
Speaker 2: got Texas Tech coming up this Thursday. Back on the show,
Speaker 2: back in the sweet sixteen, Look who is Look who
Speaker 2: proved he could still coach? Congratulations there John, Thank you
Speaker 2: Dan Patrick.
Speaker 3: That's the ugliest top I've seen in the Wow. It
Speaker 3: befits you though, So it's it's it's good.
Speaker 2: Well what's uglier? Your sport coat from this weekend?
Speaker 3: Or like.
Speaker 4: That sport coat?
Speaker 2: Hey, you won with it. It looks a whole lot
Speaker 2: better when you win. And this is this is a
Speaker 2: gift from Adam Sandler.
Speaker 4: This is Yeah, you're out hitting golf bolls.
Speaker 3: But do you would you would you think it's in
Speaker 3: the bag to go this weekend?
Speaker 4: That's sport coat.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's in the bag.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'll travel with it.
Speaker 2: Okay. And when you're done with it, maybe you could
Speaker 2: send it to the man cav I.
Speaker 3: Will, I'll deliver it to the cabin in Maine. Okay,
Speaker 3: I'll hand deliver it.
Speaker 2: Are you an underdog?
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, I'm fine with that. Like look, most of
Speaker 3: my career was should and Wooden can't won't. I mean
Speaker 3: we've been the underdog. You remember you match, You came
Speaker 3: up and did some games, you went on the court,
Speaker 3: shot airballs and you know some of the stuff there,
Speaker 3: and the Memphis the same thing. And you know, we
Speaker 3: had a pretty good run at Kentucky and there was
Speaker 3: that eight nine year period where yeah we were the one.
Speaker 3: But you know, most of my career I've been that
Speaker 3: and so I'm fine in that role. I'm comfortable in
Speaker 3: the role. I'm just trying to make sure my team
Speaker 3: is comfortable in that role.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you, are you telling them
Speaker 2: it's nobody believed in US, US against the world. No,
Speaker 2: none of them.
Speaker 3: No, I'm just saying we're the underdog, and every time
Speaker 3: they play in those kind of games, they play well.
Speaker 3: I think, look, we're at that point in the year.
Speaker 3: The whole thing is how do I get them to
Speaker 3: have that mindset that we had against Saint John's Because look,
Speaker 3: there's two things happened. We went two for nineteen from
Speaker 3: the three and gave up twenty eight offensive rebounds.
Speaker 4: But still one we played to win.
Speaker 3: Don't matter what happens, don't matter they got a rebound
Speaker 3: just keep playing, and we keep them in that attitude
Speaker 3: and that mindset. It doesn't mean you're going to win,
Speaker 3: but it gives you a good chance to win.
Speaker 2: How do you keep the relationship or whatever with Patino
Speaker 2: out of going into a game, coaching a game and
Speaker 2: making it about the game, that it's not about you
Speaker 2: against Rick?
Speaker 3: If you went through the year we went through when
Speaker 3: we were zero to five, when we were one and six,
Speaker 3: and they said they got no chance of making the
Speaker 3: NCAA tournament. When you're playing games, you're not worried about
Speaker 3: the other coach, you're about survival. I wasn't worried about
Speaker 3: match and went no chess game. I wasn't he out coaching.
Speaker 2: I didn't care.
Speaker 3: It was about let's just win because what these kids
Speaker 3: went through, they deserved good to happen. Because they came together.
Speaker 3: They became one heartbeat, and well, what did you do?
Speaker 3: What did I do? They knew if they didn't come together,
Speaker 3: they were gonna lose every game, and they figured this,
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm so worried about myself. If I
Speaker 3: worry about the team more than myself, maybe it's easier.
Speaker 3: And they found out it was easier.
Speaker 2: How do you balance coaching right now and the transfer
Speaker 2: portal all in the same week of preparing and transfer
Speaker 2: portal starts today.
Speaker 3: Well, we yesterday was a kind of long day, got
Speaker 3: a lot of film work done, got practice plans prepared,
Speaker 3: the staff meetings where we were doing everything, and then
Speaker 3: in the end I said, all right, let's let's talk now.
Speaker 3: Before you can figure out portal, don't you have to
Speaker 3: know who's coming back and who's leaving. So I don't
Speaker 3: know of anybody in these sixteen teams that is sitting
Speaker 3: down with players and say are you coming back? Or
Speaker 3: you can put your name into portal with you know.
Speaker 3: So it's just difficult right now. But we've got names
Speaker 3: and you know. And what I would say with anybody listening,
Speaker 3: if you want to get better, if you want to
Speaker 3: be challenged, if you want to really play with good players,
Speaker 3: be coached as though you've already gotten there to be
Speaker 3: hugged and challenged and make you uncomfortable, and then you
Speaker 3: come with me, you come to Arkansas. But right now
Speaker 3: we're not on the phone with anybody yet my staff.
Speaker 3: Maybe I shouldn't say that. My staff may be, but
Speaker 3: I'm not.
Speaker 2: When will you be open or paying more attention to
Speaker 2: the portal yourself.
Speaker 3: If there's a young man that we know is really
Speaker 3: really good and he wants to do this and wants
Speaker 3: to talk to me, he won't believe this.
Speaker 5: I probably get on the phone with.
Speaker 3: Them and say, hey, let's do this. But short of that,
Speaker 3: it's probably mostly staff.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: My hope is that we have a group We have
Speaker 3: some guys that won't be back because they're graduated out
Speaker 3: or they're going to you know, put their name in
Speaker 3: the draft and all that, but there is another grouping
Speaker 3: of players who are really good that probably need more
Speaker 3: time that we do that. We already have three guys
Speaker 3: freshmen signed. And I'm going to say this again and
Speaker 3: I said it after I'm still recruiting freshmen. I'll recruit
Speaker 3: the best freshmen. And as you saw last game, three
Speaker 3: of them played a lot of minutes. But I can't
Speaker 3: recruit seven or eight freshmen. So we got one more
Speaker 3: freshman we're trying to get. We've got three one that
Speaker 3: you know, they're they're all really good, okay, but we're
Speaker 3: trying to get one more and then who comes back,
Speaker 3: and then probably a couple of transfers, and that'll be
Speaker 3: our team.
Speaker 2: Is the SEC of football conference or a basketball conference.
Speaker 4: You're trying to get me in trouble.
Speaker 3: Last time I said something like that stuff, people went nuts.
Speaker 3: And then you find out that you know they're investing
Speaker 3: in what they want.
Speaker 4: So I look it.
Speaker 3: I told our baseball coach, who's there were number one
Speaker 3: in the country, and you know right there, they're gonna
Speaker 3: win a.
Speaker 4: College World Series.
Speaker 3: Every game they played every weekend, and they knew they
Speaker 3: could win or lose. What about the football you want
Speaker 3: to say, Vandy, Well we got Vandy. Yeah, go play Vandy,
Speaker 3: Go play them. Now, well we could play Mississippi. Yeah,
Speaker 3: go play Mississippi, play Arkansas, Tennessee, and you get beat.
Speaker 3: I mean that's what happens. Well it's now basketball the
Speaker 3: same way, and its top to bottom. Our bottom two
Speaker 3: teams would have figured finished in the top half of
Speaker 3: most leagues.
Speaker 4: They were that good.
Speaker 3: But they got into this league and they started It
Speaker 3: was like Oklahoma when thirteen and oh beat people did it.
Speaker 3: Got in the league and couldn't win early. We were
Speaker 3: owing five to start, and I knew we weren't bad.
Speaker 3: I wasn't sure, but we were owing five and we
Speaker 3: survived it. And now it looks as though how many
Speaker 3: SEC teams are in the sweet sixteen?
Speaker 2: You don't know people seven? Okay, yeah, you underestimate me.
Speaker 2: And that's when you make a mission.
Speaker 4: Always under it.
Speaker 2: Yes you have, and I've always overestimated you. Uh finish this.
Speaker 2: We will make the final four.
Speaker 3: If the other team doesn't make twenty threees.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 5: That's it.
Speaker 2: Well, don't screw it up. Now you got this far.
Speaker 2: You got to go further than Kentucky, don't you.
Speaker 3: No, not worried about them. This is what's happened for us.
Speaker 3: This season has been the most rewarding season. I've had
Speaker 3: seasons where we won more games and won national titles
Speaker 3: and final fours and Elite eights. I've had all those,
Speaker 3: But what this team has been through to survive it,
Speaker 3: it's been as rewarding as any season. It talks a
Speaker 3: lot about the character of these kids, how they were
Speaker 3: raised that they could withstand the onslaught Dan. These kids,
Speaker 3: all of them have pianos on their backs because of Nil. Well,
Speaker 3: they're paid, they should do this, and they're trying to
Speaker 3: live up to expectations. It's a piano. Families are involved
Speaker 3: more than ever before why nil? And then social media
Speaker 3: and you know what the worst is for the kids
Speaker 3: talk radio. I mean, all that stuff is out there
Speaker 3: that they got to deal with, and then the expectations
Speaker 3: are winning pianos on their backs.
Speaker 2: Good to talk to you, Thanks Danny.
Speaker 3: I need to know the cabin. Do you have a
Speaker 3: studio in the cabin in case you want to do
Speaker 3: it up there?
Speaker 2: Yes? I knew it.
Speaker 5: I knew it.
Speaker 3: Do you let your guys come up and stay? They
Speaker 3: got to go to a hotel.
Speaker 2: No, they don't get invited. It's like, thank you. Right,
Speaker 2: you're very selfish.
Speaker 3: But you know what's great, You've been consistent.
Speaker 2: Your whole life. Thank you, Thank you, coach.
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Speaker 2: That's Covino and Rich sixteen times to the Sweet sixteen
Speaker 2: his yearly visit with The Dan Patrick Show. He is
Speaker 2: Hall of Famer Tom Izzo joining us on the program.
Speaker 2: What's your schedule today?
Speaker 5: My schedule. I got in here about seven seven thirty
Speaker 5: and had a little film work, answered some Texas and
Speaker 5: then talk to my staff about what we're going to
Speaker 5: do in practice and get a press conference in a
Speaker 5: little bit, some our staff meeting and then practice. That's
Speaker 5: my day.
Speaker 2: How's the voice?
Speaker 5: It's great?
Speaker 4: Great.
Speaker 5: Get a little sleep. I got a little sleep last
Speaker 5: night for the first time night before. Not much. But
Speaker 5: it's the same as every other coach, and just I'm
Speaker 5: a little older than some of them.
Speaker 2: The balance of coaching this week and the transfer portal,
Speaker 2: how do you focus on one when you need to
Speaker 2: and the other one when you need to?
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I'm putting everything towards my team. I
Speaker 5: owe them to that. I think you know, recruiting is
Speaker 5: very important. The transfer portal to me isn't as important yet,
Speaker 5: but recruiting is very important. And yet my old boss
Speaker 5: used to have a theory says, problem with young assistants.
Speaker 5: They spend so much time getting the next player they
Speaker 5: forget to take care of the one they got. And
Speaker 5: I think there's some validity to that. You know, there's
Speaker 5: a happy medium. My happy medium when you get to
Speaker 5: the sweet sixteen and on is you know, you don't
Speaker 5: always get here. So everything's going to be from my team,
Speaker 5: the players on my team. We'll let everybody else worry
Speaker 5: about the transfer portal. Hopefully winning helps somebody, even though
Speaker 5: you and I know it doesn't. It's all out the
Speaker 5: money now. But that's okay too.
Speaker 2: But help me with the philosophy of recruiting, because you
Speaker 2: don't have many want of don's like Jason Richardson was
Speaker 2: a one and done. I don't do you go at
Speaker 2: you know, do you try to go after the one
Speaker 2: and donners or do you have that philosophy of I'll
Speaker 2: take the guy who might stay here three or four years.
Speaker 5: No, I'd love to have Jaron Jackson, Miles Bridges, you know,
Speaker 5: where guys Gary Harris that were one in two years
Speaker 5: and done. And you know, you got to have some
Speaker 5: those kind of talented players, you know, to do that.
Speaker 5: But no, I don't shy away from that at all.
Speaker 5: It's just they're not as easy to get. You know,
Speaker 5: for the most part, A lot of those programs, you know,
Speaker 5: Duke and Kentucky has had more of those kind of players.
Speaker 5: Maybe Kansas some, but I don't think there's as many
Speaker 5: programs as you think there are that are getting those
Speaker 5: kind of players.
Speaker 2: How do you coach differently in March than November?
Speaker 5: You know, I don't think I coached that much differently.
Speaker 5: I just think that there's kind of a culture and
Speaker 5: a feel here that when it comes to February, everybody
Speaker 5: knows the NCAA tournament. We've had some success in it,
Speaker 5: and I think I think the players that come here
Speaker 5: expect everything to be ratcheted up a little bit as
Speaker 5: you get to the end of the year, and it's exciting.
Speaker 5: It's not a you know, like my players after we
Speaker 5: won on Sunday, the first thing they said in the
Speaker 5: locker room, because usually we give them Monday off is
Speaker 5: let's practice Monday. That came from the players, you know,
Speaker 5: so they know what time of year it is and
Speaker 5: they know what they got to do.
Speaker 2: Is Michigan State a football school or a basketball school.
Speaker 5: It's a football school, which I think ninety percent of
Speaker 5: these schools are. You know, we all I have such
Speaker 5: a great relationship with all the football guys here. I've
Speaker 5: always had a great relationship with them because I realized
Speaker 5: that they're still making seventy percent the money. What I
Speaker 5: think is unique about Michigan State, and there's a couple
Speaker 5: of schools that have this, is we've been pretty successful
Speaker 5: in both you know, nine years ago we both went
Speaker 5: to a Final four. Those are what's really exciting about
Speaker 5: schools like this.
Speaker 2: Ever coached against a coach that you don't like, Like.
Speaker 5: Sure, sure you do, even though I get along with
Speaker 5: most of the coaches, But there's coaches I wouldn't say,
Speaker 5: don't like. Maybe I didn't respect as much because of
Speaker 5: things that were going on. Now that's changed now because
Speaker 5: we don't have any rules anymore. So you know, it's
Speaker 5: easier now I can like everybody.
Speaker 2: Okay, but if you know such, so are we talking
Speaker 2: about if somebody was cheating, Like you're going to face
Speaker 2: somebody and you know they were cheating, that's when you
Speaker 2: have that I don't respect you.
Speaker 5: That's what I have privately. I don't share that publicly
Speaker 5: very often. But I mean, but.
Speaker 2: What's it like in the handshake line? You don't walk
Speaker 2: by and go cheater and then just good game, good game,
Speaker 2: good game, cheater, good game, good game.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I don't do that at all. I think I
Speaker 5: respect every coach I go against because even the guys
Speaker 5: that I thought were doing stuff back in the day,
Speaker 5: I know how hard these jobs are. And Judge used
Speaker 5: to say the game makes fools of us all.
Speaker 4: Well, that there's.
Speaker 5: Some truth to that.
Speaker 2: When's the last time you ask Magic Johnson to help
Speaker 2: you with the recruit.
Speaker 5: I'll ask them all the time, but I really don't
Speaker 5: have to ask him. You know, he's always tweeting out
Speaker 5: something or he's saying something. And you know, now they're
Speaker 5: actually allowed to help you legally. Yeah, if you come
Speaker 5: to campus and they get there. It used to be where,
Speaker 5: you know, if you had a football game and just
Speaker 5: happened that magic, seats.
Speaker 2: Were behind the recruits.
Speaker 5: But now you can sit them right with them as
Speaker 5: long as they're on campus. But you know, Magic's been great.
Speaker 5: I mean a lot of the former players that I
Speaker 5: coached have been great with it, and it helps when
Speaker 5: you have But Jason Richardson, Jace Richardson, the son of
Speaker 5: a player that's getting good, I'm going for grandsons.
Speaker 2: Thought, now, yeah, how much longer you got these coaches
Speaker 2: who are saying I can't, I don't want to do
Speaker 2: it anymore. You know, it's the transfer portal, nil, And
Speaker 2: it's just not the way it once was. So what's
Speaker 2: motivating you to continue to do this stubbornness?
Speaker 5: To be honestly, it's total stubbornness. I still love what
Speaker 5: I do. I don't like what has gone on. I
Speaker 5: don't think anybody does, to be very honest with you,
Speaker 5: and you know, some say it, some don't say it.
Speaker 5: But right now I've taken a better, better stance with myself.
Speaker 5: For a couple of years, I was on all those
Speaker 5: committees and I just kind of gotten off where I
Speaker 5: don't worry about my team and not worry about all
Speaker 5: the things that I can't control. And unfortunately, nobody can
Speaker 5: control what's going on right now. There is no control.
Speaker 5: That saddens me for our profession, but it is what
Speaker 5: it is. So I went in Rome do like the Romans.
Speaker 2: You know, it sounded like a grumpy old man, get
Speaker 2: off my lawn. Where you were talking about playing games
Speaker 2: after ten o'clock on the West coast in the tournament.
Speaker 5: It was rumpy. I just think it's very difficult to
Speaker 5: do that. You know, we do, Dan, I don't know
Speaker 5: what you did at Dayton, but we do go to
Speaker 5: school here too. You know, we are a student athlete.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we never did that at Dayton.
Speaker 5: I know, I know, I understand that. But when you
Speaker 5: get back at three in the morning, now you got
Speaker 5: to prep. It's just more difficult. I understand that TV
Speaker 5: pays the bills. I love all the TV people, so
Speaker 5: I got no problem. But it does get to wear
Speaker 5: on you sitting there all day and that it's one
Speaker 5: part I'd like to see changed a little bit, but
Speaker 5: it is what it is. So I don't think I
Speaker 5: sounded grumpy about it. I expressed my opinion, but you
Speaker 5: express your opinion all the time.
Speaker 2: I'm grumpy. Yeah, I'm gonna get off my laune guy.
Speaker 2: I think this had to do with your bedtime, and
Speaker 2: that's what you were bothered by.
Speaker 8: Now, I don't go to sleep now, listen with the
Speaker 8: Transford Portal, you don't go to sleep ever you got
Speaker 8: you gotta go over and sit with your players, make
Speaker 8: sure nobody's flying it.
Speaker 2: Do you have your phone on vibrate?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: By your bed?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay after midnight?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, all the time. I mean, you never know
Speaker 5: what's gonna happen. You know, there's a lot of things
Speaker 5: that happened.
Speaker 2: But but if you had to bail somebody out of
Speaker 2: jail or anything like that, Have I had to in
Speaker 2: the past.
Speaker 5: There's things like that that happen. Yeah, you know, sometimes
Speaker 5: it's not always for bad things. You know, parking tickets
Speaker 5: and he gets picked up or something. But yeah, any
Speaker 5: coach that tells you they don't have their phone on
Speaker 5: at night or they sleep probably lying to you.
Speaker 2: Single best player you ever coached against was.
Speaker 5: Ah Boy. You know. When I was an assistant, Shack
Speaker 5: we played against. I played against grand Hill. I thought
Speaker 5: was one of the greatest players. But boy, that's a
Speaker 5: loaded question. And I'm not saying that against anybody. They're
Speaker 5: just man when you're at this level. He played against
Speaker 5: a lot of great players.
Speaker 2: What was the scouting report on Shack?
Speaker 5: Really big? I was just a ga back then. That
Speaker 5: was in my early days. And uh, I remember telling
Speaker 5: jud boy, that guy's a big guy, you know, but
Speaker 5: he was good.
Speaker 4: He was good.
Speaker 2: I like Shack, but you knew who was so good?
Speaker 2: Was Chris Jackson?
Speaker 5: He was. He was good more more my size too.
Speaker 5: That's why I should like, I love more.
Speaker 2: But he was I mean, imagine him in today's game.
Speaker 2: He would he would break you off the I mean
Speaker 2: off the dribble crossover. And he was so quick with
Speaker 2: that jumper.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he could shoot it from long range, so he
Speaker 5: probably would fit in since the three is more prevalent now.
Speaker 5: I don't even think the three had just come in then.
Speaker 5: It was right around that time, because I know we
Speaker 5: had Scott Skyles and we didn't have a three point
Speaker 5: shot then that was in eighty six.
Speaker 2: Now, help me, is the story true about Scott Skiles
Speaker 2: and John Thompson?
Speaker 5: The it was actually it was in Dayton.
Speaker 2: Yet at the tournament, right, Yeah, there.
Speaker 5: Was nothing bad with John Thompson, but they really got
Speaker 5: after him the first half, and I think Scott was
Speaker 5: zero for nine and I just remember that halftime. He
Speaker 5: was sitting in there and we're playing Georgetown, and I
Speaker 5: mean he was seeding, you know, and he played really
Speaker 5: good the second half we won. So you know, Scott
Speaker 5: had a tendency to talk stuff. But tell you what,
Speaker 5: he was a help player.
Speaker 2: Did he did he say to Thompson while dribbling the
Speaker 2: ball to John on the sidelines, why didn't you get
Speaker 2: somebody bleeping out here who can guard me?
Speaker 5: Guard me? Yes, you know, I didn't hear it. I
Speaker 5: heard it, but I do believe it. I do believe it.
Speaker 5: It was. It was one of the things that Scott
Speaker 5: was he was good at. But he backed up what
Speaker 5: he said, So you got to give him credit there.
Speaker 2: Great to talk to you again. I'll talk to you
Speaker 2: next year at this time, right, you and I'm still.
Speaker 5: Going to be here.
Speaker 2: I will be were you to be in a transfer portal?
Speaker 5: Are you going somewhere else?
Speaker 2: I got three more years? Do you have three more years?
Speaker 5: I got seven?
Speaker 2: You're gonna be there seven more years? No?
Speaker 5: I got seven on my contract?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you guys don't live up to those contracts.
Speaker 5: You live up the years.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm my boss.
Speaker 5: You know what, my money because I do enjoy you're
Speaker 5: You're crazy in your own way, but so am I.
Speaker 5: Someday when we're done, we'll play golf and get along.
Speaker 2: I would like to play one on one with you
Speaker 2: in basketbare you go. I'm going to slap the floor
Speaker 2: just to let you know I'm gonna lock you down. Coach,
Speaker 2: you can bring in Steve Mariyuci if you want to.
Speaker 2: I don't care.
Speaker 5: I'm breaking Mooch.
Speaker 2: He didn't scare me. Mooch doesn't scare me either.
Speaker 5: Well. I appreciate you having me on Dan and you
Speaker 5: have a good rest of the tournament. I'll try to
Speaker 5: do the same.
Speaker 2: All right, Coach. That's Tom is a Hall of Famer.
Speaker 1: Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan
Speaker 1: Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific
Speaker 1: on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: He's the SEC Commissioner. He's Greg sank Back on the show. Commissioner,
Speaker 2: thanks for joining us. When did the SEC first start
Speaker 2: to focus its resources maybe on making the Conference of
Speaker 2: basketball powerhouse? Was there you know a moment where you said,
Speaker 2: why don't we just take the headlines in other months?
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I.
Speaker 9: Can speak to when it became really raw for me,
Speaker 9: and it was March of twenty sixteen. That was the
Speaker 9: end of my first basketballs and as the SEC's commissioner,
Speaker 9: and we had three teams selected to the NCAA Tournament
Speaker 9: on the men's side that Dan, that was the fourth
Speaker 9: time that had happened in the prior ten years. So
Speaker 9: it's not like we had a great trend going, but
Speaker 9: when you're in the commissioner's share, that moment was pretty
Speaker 9: raw and we had to do some things differently from
Speaker 9: our end in the conference office.
Speaker 2: Okay, but what was the plan that you put in place?
Speaker 4: Yeah, a couple of things.
Speaker 9: One, we had had some consulting relationships where we really
Speaker 9: weren't talking about the right things. You remember the old RPI,
Speaker 9: which is now the net. We would spend an ordinate
Speaker 9: amount of time trying to figure out how to game
Speaker 9: the RPI and scheduling. We weren't talking about hiring the
Speaker 9: right people. We weren't talking about facilities, we weren't talking
Speaker 9: about recruiting. The day after that selection, Sunday, I transitioned
Speaker 9: away from one advisor and I brought Mike Trangiesi in
Speaker 9: the next day. And what Mike did is help us
Speaker 9: talk about the right things. The other bonus with Trangeesi
Speaker 9: and I grew up outside Syracuse, New York, so watch
Speaker 9: the Big East form was like when Mike said you're
Speaker 9: good at basketball to the media, you were automatically.
Speaker 4: Good at basketball. But one of the things he did
Speaker 4: was he.
Speaker 9: Talked to our ads as they were going through the
Speaker 9: hiring of coaches, and not tell them too to hire
Speaker 9: who to hire, but talk to them about perhaps who
Speaker 9: not the hire, who may not be ready for the
Speaker 9: stage that we have. Those kind of conversations became much
Speaker 9: more relevant. We had some other tweaks we needed to make,
Speaker 9: but that was a big part of the conversation.
Speaker 2: Did you take the same approach to football at any
Speaker 2: point where you guys have been successful winning titles, but
Speaker 2: now with more teams in the playoffs, and is there
Speaker 2: any a different shift in philosophy.
Speaker 9: You know the reality of this job. And a long
Speaker 9: time ago I was Southland Conference commissioner. I was like
Speaker 9: way off Broadway. You never called me for an interview,
Speaker 9: so I never had the opportunity. I made a decision
Speaker 9: that every day in that role, you had to think
Speaker 9: about football one way or another. And I think the
Speaker 9: reality of the Southeastern Conference is football is dominant on
Speaker 9: a daily basis.
Speaker 4: We have twenty one other sports.
Speaker 9: But we also have to recognize the conversation allocation, the
Speaker 9: time allocation, so football is a bit more natural. Do
Speaker 9: we talk about issues, Absolutely, We're talking about scheduling in
Speaker 9: the conference, we talk about non conference scheduling, we talk
Speaker 9: about CFP impacts.
Speaker 2: That's daily.
Speaker 9: We had to be a little bit more intentional on
Speaker 9: the basketball front ten years ago.
Speaker 2: Are you in favor of more teams qualifying for more
Speaker 2: to Maendness, Yeah, I'm.
Speaker 9: In favor of fully exploring that. I think there's advantages
Speaker 9: to doing so. Given there's more Division one members right now,
Speaker 9: there's one less conference. But what we're doing is excluding
Speaker 9: from participation some of the top fifty teams. And I
Speaker 9: think when you look last year at North Carolina State
Speaker 9: on eleven seed makes it to the final four, You've
Speaker 9: had two or three teams playing Dayton that have made
Speaker 9: it to the Final four or made it into the
Speaker 9: Elite eight and Sweet sixteen. What that tells me is
Speaker 9: there's a competitive balance at the high end, and we
Speaker 9: have to think about providing access.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 9: I wouldn't just run to expand for the sake of expansion.
Speaker 9: I've never put a number on it. I think and
Speaker 9: I've been clear that it needs to be fully explored,
Speaker 9: and I'm pleased at the NCAA leadership and the committees
Speaker 9: involved are doing so.
Speaker 2: I'm talking to Greg Sanki, SEC Commissioner. I'm more concerned
Speaker 2: about transfer portal and nil with college football or college basketball.
Speaker 9: I think both are are relevant. You know, I watched
Speaker 9: the rhetoric right now, Dan, and I mean, we forget
Speaker 9: that we've just seen coaches transfer, right We've seen head
Speaker 9: coaches leave a program last week to go to another program.
Speaker 9: I've had in my league. I've had it in my
Speaker 9: league a year ago where a coach leaves Program A
Speaker 9: and the SEC to go to Program B. That's reality.
Speaker 9: The commentary about young people doing the same thing needs
Speaker 9: to be in the context that the adults have that advantage.
Speaker 9: Now there needs to be an orderly process. So when
Speaker 9: you watch coaches move, it's a pretty tight timeframe. There
Speaker 9: are anomalies to that, and I think we need to
Speaker 9: tighten up the time frame. Don't forget, like three or
Speaker 9: four years ago, the transfer portal was opened three hundred
Speaker 9: and sixty five days a year. It's been narrowed, it's
Speaker 9: been moved back a week. Plenty of opining that we
Speaker 9: shouldn't have the transfer portal open during the NCA tournament.
Speaker 9: I'll give you that, but I also know there's a
Speaker 9: lot of backroom conversations that take place, and at least
Speaker 9: right now with the portal open, everything's on the table.
Speaker 9: If somebody is looking to leave, they go in the
Speaker 9: portal and it's known and people can deal with that.
Speaker 9: It makes it busy for sixteen teams, and I'm empathetic there,
Speaker 9: but we ought to just think contextually about what happened
Speaker 9: big picture in the game. Quick the nil front we've got,
Speaker 9: we're going to see in a week and a half,
Speaker 9: the outcome of a lawsuit settlement and whether that provides
Speaker 9: meaningful oversight of third party name, image, and likeness activity,
Speaker 9: it can be a much healthier environment.
Speaker 2: What if we cap the number of transfer portal players
Speaker 2: that you can bring in, or like I'm just trying
Speaker 2: to everybody you know says we have a problem. I
Speaker 2: just haven't heard solutions here. How can we make this
Speaker 2: better for all involved?
Speaker 9: Yeah, we've talked about solutions. So I think some of
Speaker 9: you have to go back. There used to be an
Speaker 9: NCAA limit on the number of entering team members in
Speaker 9: a year or over two years. The basketball community really
Speaker 9: ended up railing against that. Miles Brand was the president,
Speaker 9: but that came in. We go right back to that
Speaker 9: and create some continuity. I do think you have to
Speaker 9: remember that we have had attorneys general in states file
Speaker 9: lawsuits over transfer policies, even common sense transfer policies. We
Speaker 9: also have to remember the NCAA has a habit of
Speaker 9: being asked for waivers and granting waivers, which I think
Speaker 9: magnifies the problem. So if we came to a point
Speaker 9: where he said, hey, the rules are the rules, here's
Speaker 9: the timeframe you can engage in certain behavior and there
Speaker 9: are no waivers and there are.
Speaker 4: No lawsuits out of those waves. That'd be idyllic for
Speaker 4: us compared to where we.
Speaker 2: Are now twelve teams in the college football Playoffs. When
Speaker 2: do we go to fourteen?
Speaker 4: We'll see not this season. It's a topic of conversation.
Speaker 9: My view is it took us a heck of a
Speaker 9: long time to just get to twelve. I think twelve
Speaker 9: was a success by all accounts. You saw continuing interest
Speaker 9: through the playoff. We actually took a deeper dive as
Speaker 9: a CFT management committee. So that's like gobblelygook for the
Speaker 9: commissioners and the Notre Dame ad. Looking at an analysis
Speaker 9: of viewership throughout the playoff, a lot of positive stories.
Speaker 9: You would hear this like year over year comparison of
Speaker 9: a particular game being down. That didn't tell the full story.
Speaker 9: So I think it was the right time to expand.
Speaker 9: I think it worked well. I think we learned a lot.
Speaker 9: We've got some work to do before the twenty five
Speaker 9: season to make some adjustments. I think the bracketing where
Speaker 9: we had these seeds that got moved into the top
Speaker 9: four and people lost home games, I'd like to see
Speaker 9: that change.
Speaker 4: I think that's immediate.
Speaker 9: I do think there's some relevance to thinking about expanding
Speaker 9: the number, whether it stays at twelve or fourteen. I
Speaker 9: think even sixteen's a relevant conversation in advance of the
Speaker 9: twenty sixth season. That doesn't mean we just go there,
Speaker 9: but like that NCAA tournament expansion, we should be looking
Speaker 9: at what are the impacts and what are the opportunities.
Speaker 2: Give me an alternative to the selection committees.
Speaker 9: Well, we had the old BCS computer anchorings, remember those days,
Speaker 9: and everybody said, you know, how can we have computers
Speaker 9: making these decisions?
Speaker 4: We need people?
Speaker 9: And what we have now is how can we let
Speaker 9: people make these decisions?
Speaker 4: We need computers.
Speaker 9: So it's the full on pendulum swing. Maybe there's something
Speaker 9: in the middle where the combination of a committee and
Speaker 9: better informed data help support decisions. What I do think
Speaker 9: is really important from a Southeastern Conference perspective is the
Speaker 9: number on the left hand side of wins and losses
Speaker 9: the most important or the right hand side. And what
Speaker 9: happened last year and maybe the last couple of years causes,
Speaker 9: at least among my athletics directors, the question of we
Speaker 9: need to lose fewer games. That creates thinking about non
Speaker 9: conference scheduling that kind of dumbs it down.
Speaker 4: I don't think that's good for the game.
Speaker 9: I don't think Nebraska canceling the Tennessee series is good
Speaker 9: for college football. And the citation was that members of
Speaker 9: the CFP Selection Committee said, well, it won't hurt.
Speaker 4: You that much for dropping the game. I think that's problematic.
Speaker 9: I tend to think we should play nine conference games,
Speaker 9: but to get there we have to have more clarity
Speaker 9: on the CFP selection process. So in answer to your
Speaker 9: direct question, there's likely a balance that can be struck
Speaker 9: between the human thought process and the analytics. We know
Speaker 9: that people didn't like just analytics, and now they're trending
Speaker 9: towards we just don't like humanity as much as we
Speaker 9: thought we did.
Speaker 4: So where's the middle ground? Is another one of those work.
Speaker 2: Would you be in favor of a College Football Scheduling czar?
Speaker 9: Some of these outside ideas have said that I'd welcome
Speaker 9: a conference commissioner having more authority over just deciding conference
Speaker 9: and non conference schedules. I don't think the culture of
Speaker 9: college football lends itself to csurs. I probably said to
Speaker 9: you like the Russian czar thing didn't work out very
Speaker 9: well over time, and remember like the eighties, drug are
Speaker 9: and we still have problems. So I don't think just
Speaker 9: identifying that one mechanism solves the problems. I'd welcome if
Speaker 9: people said, hey, you go set my conference schedule, picked
Speaker 9: the number of games in this league and our non
Speaker 9: conference opponents.
Speaker 4: I'd pursue that in a different way.
Speaker 9: But that's not something that resonates within a room of
Speaker 9: athletics directors and that football coach is quite the same
Speaker 9: way it does on a.
Speaker 4: Zoom with you.
Speaker 2: One other item, and this is off topic with football
Speaker 2: and basketball, but it does relate to it. Can we
Speaker 2: can you see where we separate college football college basketball,
Speaker 2: and then you have these other sports that we don't
Speaker 2: want to lose. They're not revenue producing but softball and
Speaker 2: lacrosse and soccer, and we make them regional so they're
Speaker 2: not flying. You know, Cal and Stanford aren't flying cross
Speaker 2: country for wrestling or volleyball. That we make this regional,
Speaker 2: so you know, your budget is not at stake here
Speaker 2: and you can still keep these smaller uh you know sports,
Speaker 2: Olympic sports.
Speaker 9: Maybe I don't know what kind of awards you give
Speaker 9: for genius decision making. But I think you just gave
Speaker 9: me a gold star because we are a regional conference
Speaker 9: and for example last week, well you.
Speaker 2: Guys are, yeah, but college college sports is not.
Speaker 9: Well, that's because others made different decisions and they have
Speaker 9: to to live with those decisions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're running college sports to me, So it's why
Speaker 2: I'm asking you know that that that's I'm making you
Speaker 2: the college football not z are. You're you're running college sports.
Speaker 2: Why don't we let these other sports, smaller sports, non
Speaker 2: revenue producing, stay regional while football and basketball if you
Speaker 2: want them going cross country, great.
Speaker 9: Again, I'm gonna I'm gonna hold the Southeastern Conference up.
Speaker 9: Was the bright shining example of decision making. And here's
Speaker 9: a why I actually think I'm not gonna speak to
Speaker 9: everybody else. They made their decisions for different reasons. What
Speaker 9: I've made those decisions. I think you can look at
Speaker 9: what we've done and say, now, they wouldn't have done
Speaker 9: the same thing. We had a pack stadium for LSU
Speaker 9: at Texas last week in baseball packed, we had a
Speaker 9: pack stadium for Auburn or Texas and softball I think
Speaker 9: those build on each other. I think those build on
Speaker 9: each other. So your question kind of the foundation was
Speaker 9: take football and basketball. I think if you're going to
Speaker 9: do something in basketball, you're doing it for men's and
Speaker 9: women's basketball. We have to acknowledge that. And I'm going
Speaker 9: to have baseball programs first round draft picks in baseball
Speaker 9: who say, wait a second, I play in front of
Speaker 9: more people for conference baseball games, and my basketball team
Speaker 9: plays in front of it.
Speaker 4: And I'm going to.
Speaker 9: Sign an eight figure contract with a signing bonus. That's enormous, right,
Speaker 9: Why don't I deserve the same treatment as my basketball
Speaker 9: colleagues men or women. I think there are distinctions that
Speaker 9: can be made, but I think some of that has
Speaker 9: to play on decision making. So for the Southeastern Conference,
Speaker 9: I think what we do in football has great meaning
Speaker 9: and what we do in basketball, and you saw it
Speaker 9: with our environments in basketball this past year. I think
Speaker 9: what we do in football and basketball plays out in
Speaker 9: baseball and softball and meaningful ways. I think people want
Speaker 9: to be in those environments. If you want to spend
Speaker 9: your time preparing, learning and competing, not on airplanes, you're
Speaker 9: going to come and challenge yourself here at the highest level.
Speaker 4: That's my recruiting pitch.
Speaker 9: Others may have to make different decisions because I think
Speaker 9: you've seen with these coast to coast conferences people opining about, Hey,
Speaker 9: maybe we need a central hub for competition so we're
Speaker 9: not flying all over the place. I think they're probably
Speaker 9: all learning from this first year as they go. But
Speaker 9: I really like the way we've configured ourselves because it
Speaker 9: meets the exact question that you've asked me on a
Speaker 9: sport by sport basis.
Speaker 2: He's the former Great Commissioner from the Southland Conference. He's
Speaker 2: Greg SANKI great to talk to you again, enjoy the
Speaker 2: rest of the good to visit with you again.
Speaker 4: I certainly hope I do.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Greg.
Speaker 1: Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan
Speaker 1: Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific
Speaker 1: on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio WAPP.
Speaker 2: He's one of the faces of CBS's March to Madness
Speaker 2: San Antonio The Road to San Antonio Hall of Famer
Speaker 2: Charles Barkley back on the show, What do you see?
Speaker 2: Who do you see? When you look at Cooper Flag?
Speaker 10: I see Cooper Flag. I see he's a terrific young player.
Speaker 10: He looks amazing on television. Can't wait to see him
Speaker 10: in the NBA. I hate doing that. I hate when
Speaker 10: guys on television try to compare to first But to
Speaker 10: say he's already somebody in the NBA is being unfair
Speaker 10: of that person in the NBA. What's scared of Dan
Speaker 10: that kids should be a senior in high school? Now,
Speaker 10: that would be unfair. That would be if he played
Speaker 10: hot school. That would be unfair. Some of the passes
Speaker 10: he was making last night where it's incredible, But I
Speaker 10: think we do a disservice to a lot of these guys,
Speaker 10: Like I think Michael Jordan has killed more people than
Speaker 10: the plague. You know, well, they're this guy's the next
Speaker 10: for Michael Jordan. I'm like, you don't turn out to
Speaker 10: be Michael Jordan. This kid is really talented, he's really smart.
Speaker 10: I can't wait to meet him. Seems like a really
Speaker 10: nice kid because he because he could have had in
Speaker 10: what in my day we called a big head. He
Speaker 10: was the best high school player in the country. He
Speaker 10: came in with all the pressure on him, and he's
Speaker 10: lived up to the hype. He hasn't had any missteps.
Speaker 10: You know, people out to get you when you're famous,
Speaker 10: that's when you are eight seventeen, eighteen year old kid.
Speaker 10: But I'm not going to compare. I'm not, first of all,
Speaker 10: be a disservice to me to compare him to a
Speaker 10: great NBA player. But man, he's a pleasure to watch.
Speaker 2: What about skills, like not necessarily saying that he is
Speaker 2: that player, but like I see a little bit of
Speaker 2: Kevin Durant with mid range jumper, Like he can shoot
Speaker 2: the three. So he's not Kevin Durant, but I do
Speaker 2: see You know, everybody's gonna jump right to Larry Bird.
Speaker 2: Well that's not fair to Bird and it's not fair
Speaker 2: to Cooper Flat. But with tendencies or their.
Speaker 4: Game, tell you this.
Speaker 10: I thought he dominated the game last night with his passing.
Speaker 10: You know, he scored a good amount of points, but
Speaker 10: his passing was the difference in the game, and every
Speaker 10: time they needed something he made to play. His ability
Speaker 10: to off the dribble is incredible. It was incredible to
Speaker 10: watch because you know, I've been studying a lot of tape,
Speaker 10: but now when you see these guys in big moments
Speaker 10: like that was probably that was probably their first big moment.
Speaker 10: That was the first team they played like, oh, they
Speaker 10: got a chance of losing this game, and he stepped up.
Speaker 4: Man was it was beautiful to watch.
Speaker 2: Who else is stood out in this tournament if you
Speaker 2: look at them at the next level playing in the NBA.
Speaker 10: Well, the kid from Florida, Clayton, I don't. I just
Speaker 10: need to know what his size is, you know, because
Speaker 10: you know all these guys, because if he's big enough,
Speaker 10: he gonna be a hell of a pro player, because
Speaker 10: he's a terrific college player. Uh, the kid Brent at
Speaker 10: Nelson at Alabama, I think he's now. I'm really looking
Speaker 10: forward to that matchup with him and Cooper because let
Speaker 10: me tell you something, that Nelson kid at Alabama is
Speaker 10: terrific and Cooper that's gonna be a great matchup. I
Speaker 10: cannot wait to watch that matchup. Jani Broom at Auburn
Speaker 10: has been fantastic all year. I can't wait to watch
Speaker 10: that game. Michigan State is the most interesting team. They
Speaker 10: probably got about three or four guys who are gonna
Speaker 10: play in the NBA who don't look like great college players.
Speaker 4: They're really really good players.
Speaker 10: They don't they just they don't jump off the screen
Speaker 10: like Cooper and those guys do. But Michigan State their
Speaker 10: team is like, man, they gonna have three or four
Speaker 10: guys who I think are gonna play in the pros.
Speaker 2: You start to look at the model now in college basketball.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's just this year, but you're
Speaker 2: seeing less freshmen aside from Duke have an impact in
Speaker 2: March Madness. It's a lot of guys who are older.
Speaker 2: Transfer portal. Do you think that that is the next wave,
Speaker 2: that that's where a lot of teams are going to
Speaker 2: say that's the blueprint.
Speaker 4: Well, it's already out of hand with the transfer portal. Dan.
Speaker 10: First of all, let me just say this, the NCAA,
Speaker 10: they are the most stupid, idiotic people jackass is in
Speaker 10: the world. Like they've already ruined college sports with this
Speaker 10: nil thing. And I'm not against players making money. It's
Speaker 10: just honor as a wild wild West right now. But
Speaker 10: to have to transfer a portal in the middle of
Speaker 10: March Madness got to be one of the stupidest things
Speaker 10: that I've ever seen in my life. Just when you
Speaker 10: think they can't get any more stupid, they trump themselves
Speaker 10: and had a transport portal in the middle of March madness.
Speaker 10: And I think what you're seeing now is it's just
Speaker 10: free agency. Every year, the smaller schools are gonna get
Speaker 10: less and less important because if you're a smaller player,
Speaker 10: they just gonna cherry pick you every year, like if
Speaker 10: you went to a lower amid major. If you have
Speaker 10: a good year, they're coming to get you because they
Speaker 10: gonna be able to pay more. So I don't know
Speaker 10: how this thing't gonna turn out. I just think the
Speaker 10: NCAA has screwed this thing up so much. I don't
Speaker 10: know how you put the toothpaste back into two. I've
Speaker 10: said this before. I think in two to three or
Speaker 10: four years, we're gonna have twenty five programs and that's it.
Speaker 10: And in listening and I hear guys talking about a
Speaker 10: salary cap. The big schools ain't gonna go for those
Speaker 10: salary cap. They have the most money. Why would the
Speaker 10: Dodgers want a salary cap. The Dodgers don't want a
Speaker 10: salary cap. You see all those other teams winding in baseball,
Speaker 10: and I'm like, is it unfair what the Dodgers doing.
Speaker 10: I think it's one hundred percent unfair what they're doing.
Speaker 10: But they don't if I'm a football school like Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia,
Speaker 10: Ohio State, Michigan, I don't want a cap. I can
Speaker 10: pay the most money and get the best players.
Speaker 2: The difference between the college game and the NBA game
Speaker 2: watching it which one is better to watch?
Speaker 10: In your opinion, I think the college game is better
Speaker 10: to watch because you know, they're not just out there.
Speaker 10: They don't even look for twos anymore. In the NBA,
Speaker 10: they don't even look for twos. They'll say, Hey, we're
Speaker 10: gonna come to the gym. We're gonna jack up the
Speaker 10: most threes. If we hit them, we're gonna win. We
Speaker 10: missed them, We're gonna say we didn't make enough shots tonight,
Speaker 10: we didn't make enough threes. But when they make them,
Speaker 10: it looks great. I'm like, yeah, it does look great
Speaker 10: if you make them, but that's the problem. If you're
Speaker 10: not making them. Everybody says, man, y'all just shoot a
Speaker 10: lot of threes and it don't go in.
Speaker 4: But we got a lot of great players in the NBA.
Speaker 10: You know, I've been very critical of some other people,
Speaker 10: not like what Shay Gilgers Alexander is doing this year.
Speaker 4: Is incredible.
Speaker 10: I mean, you know, last year people thought it was
Speaker 10: a fluke when the Thunder had the best record in
Speaker 10: the NBA. Now they doubled down, like, nah, we are
Speaker 10: the best team in the NBA. They went out and
Speaker 10: plugged a couple of holes they had with Caruso and Hartenstein.
Speaker 10: What the Cleveland Cavaliers are doing this year's fled out incredible.
Speaker 10: I mean the Cleveland Cavaliers, like, I think they can
Speaker 10: beat the Boston Center. There's three teams they win in
Speaker 10: the championship, the Thunder, the Celtics, and the Cows. That's it.
Speaker 10: Everybody's just playing. They get just getting a pasting trophy.
Speaker 2: The Lakers chances, you're.
Speaker 10: They got zero chance. I told you that a month ago.
Speaker 10: People went crazy. People went crazy when they had like
Speaker 10: two good weeks. You know, Dan, anytime you make a grade,
Speaker 10: you get a bump. They got a Luca bump. Now
Speaker 10: they've got there where they are. Uh you know, but
Speaker 10: I was like, no, the Lakers are not contenders. It
Speaker 10: drives me crazy. They won some games, and uh, they
Speaker 10: were gonna get a bump. You get Lucas gonna get
Speaker 10: a bump. Same thing when Jimmy Butler got a bump
Speaker 10: when he went to the Warriors. But it's okay, s
Speaker 10: World and probably Denver's probably the second best team in
Speaker 10: the West. Uh But listen, they're all playing for second place.
Speaker 10: Nobody can beat the Thunder. I don't see anybody beating
Speaker 10: the Thunder.
Speaker 2: He's Charles Barkley, the Hall of Famer. Who had a
Speaker 2: better week Lebron James or Steven A. Smith?
Speaker 4: They both had an awful week. They both had an
Speaker 4: awful week.
Speaker 10: Lebron he's too big to be that type of bully
Speaker 10: to bully stephen A and to bully Brian Windhorse. Brian
Speaker 10: Woodhurst is a sweet person man. He's just trying to
Speaker 10: do his thing. And I've always liked Lebron, but him
Speaker 10: being a bully it turned me off.
Speaker 5: Dan.
Speaker 10: But I will say that stephen A, the way he
Speaker 10: reacted was so lame and weak, and Steve stephen A
Speaker 10: is a good dude man.
Speaker 4: For him to.
Speaker 10: React Lebron, like I say, I blame him for starting
Speaker 10: a bullying going on Pat show, just bullying people because
Speaker 10: you know, Lebron, he's a control free he knows everything
Speaker 10: he's doing. He knows everything he's doing. He knew when
Speaker 10: he walked up to stephen A what he was doing.
Speaker 10: But the way stephen A reacted going on Gibbeth's podcast
Speaker 10: talking to and I said, come on, man, you're better
Speaker 10: than that. So there's only there's only losers there in
Speaker 10: this scenario us as the sports media, you got the
Speaker 10: biggest star in the game. You probably got the biggest
Speaker 10: star on television. And they both look bad in my opinion,
Speaker 10: and what bothers me the most, they both good dudes. Wait,
Speaker 10: I don't mind people who are an asshole looking bad.
Speaker 10: I don't mind that at all. They deserve it. But
Speaker 10: stephen A is a good dude and Lebron is good dude.
Speaker 10: But they both look really bad this week. They both
Speaker 10: had a bad week. To answer your question, Lebron started
Speaker 10: it and stephen A, I'm not sure what he was
Speaker 10: trying to do. He just made it worse and worse
Speaker 10: and worse. And then I saw the thing last night
Speaker 10: we had to come out and apologize with. Then Lebron
Speaker 10: didn't go to Kobe's memorial. I'm like, dude, what the
Speaker 10: hell are you doing?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 2: They did as you know what they're doing. They both
Speaker 2: get attention, they like attention.
Speaker 10: Then the one thing you can always say about me.
Speaker 10: I ain't never had personal attacks on people. I've criticized people.
Speaker 10: That's part of our job telling the truth. It can
Speaker 10: never be personal.
Speaker 2: But are you searching for attention?
Speaker 10: No, they are, Yeah, but it's not good attention. Then
Speaker 10: see the problem. Okay, that's a great thing you made.
Speaker 10: In my day, any publicity was good publicity, remember that
Speaker 10: old saying. But the problem now is when you put
Speaker 10: BS out there now every time Dick and Harry and
Speaker 10: Louise got an opinion, and they're gonna make it worse.
Speaker 10: That's the problem with today. Like I say, and I
Speaker 10: hate to talk about my day and my old day. Yeah,
Speaker 10: you got publicity good to bad. It was actually probably.
Speaker 4: A good thing.
Speaker 10: But the problem is every food idiot and jackads got
Speaker 10: an opinion now because they got a computer. And that's
Speaker 10: what made this whole thing so bad. Because a lot
Speaker 10: lebron haters are on fire right now. The stephen A
Speaker 10: haters are on fire right now. You can never give
Speaker 10: BS to the world because those people they got no
Speaker 10: life then they I told you these people who live
Speaker 10: with their parents, they live in the basement, They don't
Speaker 10: have a job. All they do is sit around and
Speaker 10: click and talk about people on their computer.
Speaker 4: That's all they do.
Speaker 10: And the problem is stephen A is a good dude
Speaker 10: and Lebron's a good dude, and you're gonna have foods
Speaker 10: and idiots talking bad about them, and that's the thing
Speaker 10: that sucks. But Lebron pissed me off if they went
Speaker 10: and Brian went horse because Brin went horse as a
Speaker 10: good person.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 10: I don't know him really really well, but I think
Speaker 10: he got a pair. He's just trying to do his job.
Speaker 10: He probably he's out here catching strays, you know. You
Speaker 10: know what Lebron reminded me of remembering The Godfather. After
Speaker 10: Appatino left the funeral, he says, we killed everybody today.
Speaker 10: We settled all the family business. That's what Lebron did
Speaker 10: when he went on Pat McAfee's show. He's like, when
Speaker 10: he's sitting my man down, he says, I settled all
Speaker 10: the family business to day, I killed everybody. That's what
Speaker 10: when I was watching it, when I saw the replay,
Speaker 10: I was laughing at it. I said, Oh, this is
Speaker 10: right out of the Godfather. He says, I settled all
Speaker 10: the family business today, And I'm like, come on, man,
Speaker 10: stop taking shots at steven A and Brian win.
Speaker 2: Hars Well, how would you do you think everybody on
Speaker 2: the Lakers is fine? What Lebron did for his son.
Speaker 10: That's a great question. I don't think that matters. He
Speaker 10: did it that kid. I wish him nothing but the best.
Speaker 10: He should be in the G league getting better as
Speaker 10: a player. He should have been in a G league
Speaker 10: all year. I think it was a great story for
Speaker 10: them to go into court together, but he should be
Speaker 10: in a G league there. You don't get better sitting
Speaker 10: on the bitch.
Speaker 2: I agree. I wanted him to stay another year in
Speaker 2: college if he was going, he needed to play after
Speaker 2: the health scares freshman year. But you know, this is
Speaker 2: where the problem started with Lebron and stephen A. Or
Speaker 2: the most recent one is that you had Tyrese Maxi
Speaker 2: torching Bronni during a game and steven A came on
Speaker 2: the next day and it was like it was Lebron's fault.
Speaker 2: He was telling Lebron how to be a dad a father.
Speaker 10: Well, I think you can interpret it like that. I
Speaker 10: think what Steve like I say, I don't know. I'm
Speaker 10: not gonna speak for steven A. I'm almost only going
Speaker 10: to speak for myself. I think what he was really
Speaker 10: trying to say, Hey, don't put that kid out there
Speaker 10: with them NBA grown man. Send him to the G League.
Speaker 10: We can get better as a player. You can interpret
Speaker 10: it in.
Speaker 4: A way you want to.
Speaker 2: JJ Reddick put him in the game. Do you think
Speaker 2: Lebron goes Hey put him in on ty Tyree, Smaxy, Torches,
Speaker 2: just about everybody who guards him.
Speaker 10: Yeah, But like I say, they shouldn't have put him
Speaker 10: in that situation. He should have been in the G
Speaker 10: League all seasons.
Speaker 2: I agree. I agree, But that's where that's the trigger.
Speaker 2: If you start talking about Lebron is a father, that's different.
Speaker 2: You know that's not I can be critical of Bronny
Speaker 2: in his game, yeah, but I.
Speaker 10: Can't listen man, Lebron's a Oh I should And I said,
Speaker 10: I don't know what kind of fauther Lebron Lebron seem.
Speaker 10: But first of all, I've always said that the difference
Speaker 10: between Michael Jordan Kobe the three best basketball players I've
Speaker 10: ever seen are Michael Jordans, Kobe Bryant, and Lebron James.
Speaker 10: Those are the three best basketball players I've ever seen.
Speaker 10: I said A difference between those first two guys. Nobody
Speaker 10: ever said they were nice guys. They gonna kill your
Speaker 10: ass and nothing you can do about it. They gonna
Speaker 10: kill you and stomp on your grave. Lebron might stomp
Speaker 10: on you, but he gonna apologize for it. He's a
Speaker 10: nice man. That's the difference. Lebron is a nice guy.
Speaker 10: That's why I don't like. I didn't like the fact
Speaker 10: because he really came off as a bully in this
Speaker 10: entire thing, and that's not who he is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but stephen A, he should have said, JJ reddick,
Speaker 2: don't put Ronnie James.
Speaker 10: What's what stephen A should have did? They say, Hey,
Speaker 10: Lebron came to me and said this, this, this, I'm
Speaker 10: gonna respect that he came to me as a father.
Speaker 10: That should have been the end of it. When stephen
Speaker 10: A went on the other podcast as a tough guy,
Speaker 10: that's I think what triggered Lebron.
Speaker 2: Again, do you think he would have gotten into a
Speaker 2: fight if Lebron put his hands on stephen A. Stephen
Speaker 2: A he said he was going to be throwing punches, and.
Speaker 10: I think sometimes, okay, let me get an example. I
Speaker 10: don't think I can beat Shaq in a fight, but
Speaker 10: when he touched me in front of twenty thousand people,
Speaker 10: I'm gonna swing. If a grown man touched you in
Speaker 10: front of a crowd, you one hundred percent, even if
Speaker 10: you're gonna get your ass kicked. Like when Shaq did that,
Speaker 10: I had to make a spit second decision. Man, there's
Speaker 10: twenty thousand people saw him put hands on me. I
Speaker 10: got to swing. There's times. First of all, I'm not
Speaker 10: gonna doone and fighting. Anybody fighting past twenty five is
Speaker 10: a loser anyway. Okay, that's not the way. Any grown
Speaker 10: person who fights you just a loser. But in certain scenarios,
Speaker 10: like if somebody touch if Lebron touches that dude in
Speaker 10: front of a crowd, even if, like if he gonna
Speaker 10: kick his ass, you gotta defend yourself to let those
Speaker 10: twenty thousand people know you ain't no punk.
Speaker 2: No, you can't throw punches at a game.
Speaker 4: So you're gonna let another man hit you.
Speaker 2: I've said he you're.
Speaker 4: Gonna let another man hit you in front of twenty.
Speaker 2: Tron Lebron's not hitting stephen A.
Speaker 4: Smith. Yeah, it was so steven. They shouldn't have said it.
Speaker 2: I know, but he says, if he puts his hands
Speaker 2: on me.
Speaker 10: That's what see, that's why, this is why screwing up.
Speaker 10: All stephen A had to say was Lebron came to
Speaker 10: me and said, don't talk about my son. Don't talk
Speaker 10: about my son. That would have been the end of it.
Speaker 10: But like I said, he goes on Gibber's podcast talking
Speaker 10: uh tough and everything. Then he goes on his podcast
Speaker 10: talking tough, and I think that triggered Lebron.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well all hell.
Speaker 4: All he had to do is say, hey, you know what, Lebron.
Speaker 5: Came to me.
Speaker 4: He didn't swing on me. He enemy man the man
Speaker 4: and said stop. Stop stop.
Speaker 10: If if steven A had a left right there, we
Speaker 10: wouldn't even be having.
Speaker 4: Now we're going on week three.
Speaker 2: How long would the fight last between steven and Lebron.
Speaker 10: I hope somebody gets to steven A and say, yo, man,
Speaker 10: stop it.
Speaker 5: Dan.
Speaker 10: You do know the number one rule of sports businesses,
Speaker 10: don't become the story.
Speaker 4: That's rude. Number one.
Speaker 2: We're well past that. That that that's the old days.
Speaker 2: That Yeah, that's not the way it is anymore.
Speaker 4: I understand that, But you never as a reporter.
Speaker 2: I know you never Yeah, you know, I know, I know.
Speaker 2: I'm old school. Don't put your hands on me. I'll
Speaker 2: swing at you. You got to, especially in a crowd.
Speaker 2: In a crowd, then can you ought to emmatically.
Speaker 5: Have to fight out?
Speaker 2: Okay? All right, have fun tonight, all right, all
Speaker 4: Right, brother wardale Eagle, y'all all right,