1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Evric stays on and breaks down his time at UNLV: February 25th, 10:25am

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

Who was the maestro of the offense on the coaching staff?What did your team do better than anyone else on the defensive end?UNLV was recruiting at a HIGH levelAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You're listening to One-on-One with D.P. Presented by Beatrice Bakery on 937 The Ticket and The Ticket FM.com. Welcome back. I want to thank Everett Gray, you former running a rebel, for hanging out for an extra segment. Lots to talk about. Lots to break down. So I was just introducing Rico to all the plates and metals and screws that are in my body since I left Salt Lake City. I was like, he's more metal than he is man. Yeah. But Everick, I was, I was still slightly athletic when I was hanging out with Everick.

So at least, you know, I got some validation there. We were talking about the transfer portal and then we were talking about talented teams sharing the ball. So Tark was really good at delegating authority, right? So he, he had solid people in place. place, very task-oriented with who was responsible for this group, this particular feature, and otherwise. Who was the offensive mastermind for that UNLV team? It was Tim Gergerich, everybody in the basketball world, and any basketball person,

if anyone from Nebraska is listening to your radio show, everybody know who Tim Gergerich is. it was Tim and coach Torque with our system the two guard always ran the right side the three men always ran the left side

and then obviously the big to four and fives ran the middle of the floor whoever got the rebound the opposite big went to the middle of the floor that's what we played it wasn't rocket science

it was just the two guard and if you notice all of Anderson's points if you go back back in the archives, he's running the right side of the lane. He's dunking the ball on the right side. Vice versus Stacey Og and myself, J.R. Ryder,

we're running the left side of it before. And that was it. You run wide, you always ran wide, and those two big guys running the floor. And then Greg was, you know, the orchestra of that offense. And then you just have your hands ready and play basketball. law. It's not rocket science. But everybody knew what to do.

We knew everybody's going to be at at all times. And that was a kind of a special thing with that team. So on the other side of that, as you said, the greatness of the program was defense. What was the thing that that team did better than anybody else? So let me let people know. So we always denied one pass away. and we always had a weak side because we really wanted to get in the passing lanes.

So we got backdoored. We always had somebody on the weak side waiting, and we'll rotate out of that. And it's hard to explain, but we just denied the wings extremely hard on every possession, inbound plays, one pass away, and if you can go back, you can hear Tark Yelly and just, hey, one pass away.

And it's the same thing I do with my club because, you know, people worry about getting back door, but it's going to be somebody on the weak side, because if you four passes away, D.P., and Rico, you're not hugging your guy on the week's side. You're helping all the way in the paint just in case that dude goes baseline, gets a back door. So that's basically what it was.

But we deny inbound plays, side-out-of-bounds plays, and obviously when we're on the floor, we try to deny one pass away, and we always try to get deflections. That was our thing. They charted deflections, DP, if you get a deflection, it slows the ball up where you can get a still in that passenger lane. If you're a little late. So that was our system. And you've got people out of system.

Like that deflection mattered. Like, Jay Ford and I were talking earlier, and I said, look, there's so many little details that people miss. But the fact that the little things become a priority. Like, you guys made the little stuff deflections. no offensive rebounds against you. Yeah, you can see the back cut every now and then because it would give you two or three steals and easy buckets on that side.

For Coach Tark during games, Fred Horberg is a very stoic kind of guy. Tart would sit and just chew on his towel. And the assistants did the work. The players did the work. Like you guys, you on the bench, you were still coaching, right? So the thing is that would targe, I've seen him coached like three times where he had to actually say something in the huddle. Obviously, the due game, the Arkansas game, we were one and two.

And then when we played, actually we played Princeton because they drove us nuts. Back cut, back cut, back cut. Back cut, yeah. And, you know, we've been about 30, but it was only like 89 to 59. or something like that. They totally took the air out of the ball. And that's the only time he was really frustrated. And it was another time you can have Seth Greenberg.

He can comment on this. Seth actually stalled in the Big West Championship. And he was, Tark was so mad he wanted to kill Seth. He stalled and he shot every time under five seconds. And Larry was yelling at Seth Greenberg. It was hilarious. But we only beat him 69 to 29. You said only by 40.

You only beat them by 40. But you've got to realize the previous two games we beat him by 50 both times. So he was like, let's try this. But the thing is that, you know, the only time coach really talked was that final four games, a couple of CBS games. But he did all of this talking and practiced, D.P. We did a lot. Remember, we practiced three hours, three and a half hours.

then our shoot-around was like an hour and a half, full practice going at each other. So, but we did all of our work in practice. And then when the game come, it was easy because we did so much work. You got to realize, too, playing against that second team with three NBA players on that second team, the practices were very competitive. And it was fun. We went at each other. But it was good, a good spirited competition in practice.

You mentioned the transition, both guards on the wing, a lot of quick pass back and forth from a corner to the wing, allowed you to back cut if you needed to, if you got out in front, open jumper, if it was necessary. Wings on the other side, three and four, or three to the left side, and then getting your fours and fives to the front of the rim. One's in a delay, one's in a full sprint, right? That shouldn't ever change, right? Never changed. It never changed. we ran the same thing.

Every game, we never change. We're targeting, like, if you want to beat us, stop that. We don't care if you think you know, you think you can stop it. If you see it on film and it's a little bit different when you have athletes like Larry, George Hackles and Stacey Ogman running at you full speed along with Anderson. And then you have Travis Bites with a he has a strap, won't miss, don't leave him. You can't double Larry because Anderson or Travis is coming in and shooting the ball. But the thing is that we just ran our system and we just basically stop it.

I dare you try to stop it, but you better be in shape. That's the other thing, too. Our conditioning was on point, D.P. Well, it was functional conditioning. Like, you guys went after each other. Your practice is much as you said, you know, you want it a way out. But you guys put in word and it showed. Like, it just long games weren't an issue for you.

You usually outlawed. You either more talented than outcoached them or outlasted them. To have all three things is how you have the kind of the run that you guys had. For me, I get curious about Tart being able to get that level of talent and quantity of talent to Vegas. Because you don't naturally think of Vegas as a place for recruiting, but you guys managed to get nine or ten guys who all could have been stars anywhere in the country and you got them to make the concession to be part of one of ten or one of twelve under Tarka.

Well, the thing, let me get back to the conditioning. Let me just show you what we did so people know. People always ask me questions about UNLV about TARC conditioning. And I'll just, just real quick, we ran at three in the afternoon. and Rico, when the last time you've been in Vegas in the summer at 3 in the afternoon? I'll wait. How hot was it? Yeah, that's for the real folks.

Yeah, so we ran at 3 o'clock in the afternoon in Las Vegas. We had to run a mile and then we did all this competition stuff at 3. It was super hot. And that's what we got. Like when we practiced our D.P., we were already ready to go. He didn't have to get us into shape, but he came. into that. Now, when it comes to recruiting, he recruited California. He only took maybe Mr. Basketball and Nevada at that time, because they didn't have that many high schools at that time. He tried

to get some Bishop Gorman kids because people don't realize Bishop Gorman's been around for a minute. And they always been good. They've been good since the 70s. People just don't realize. The only one that he missed out on was Matt Offick and Brian Williams, aka Bison Delah. People don't realize He went to Bishop Borman first before he transferred to St. Monica's High School. But the thing is that he just jailed all these guys together. I was going to go to UNOV, almost with Arizona, to be honest, D.P., because Hart jumped on me later because he couldn't get another McDonald's All-American. So it fell out.

He didn't get Sean Kemp. I believe that's who it was. Or Chris Mills wanted it soon. Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait, hold up. So as great as that roster was and a greater run as it was, are you telling me that it almost included Chris Mills and Sean Kemp and or Sean Kemp? Yeah, see, that's the thing is that that class, if he would have got what he wanted,

it would have been me, Kemp, Mills, and I think Loran Ellis, I don't know if you remember Lerun Ellis. Of course you remember Loron Ellis, man. Right. So you've got to realize all these guys are on campus on visits. I can tell you so many stories deep here about who would have came there. Like, I would have, and Tark would have kept his job, and they didn't force him out. I think who would have got Ed O'Bani and Charles O'Bani.

I think I would have played a couple years with them. They were on them to another kid named Sean Tarver that I grew up with. Tarver was a beast, man. He was a beast. But, yeah. But the thing is that, you know, guys wanted to play for Tark. And he recruited to his system. And he told me, flat out, you're going to black up Stacy.

Is that what you want? I was like, yeah, but the thing is that I wanted to go to UNLV. As DP, you know, my brother played football there with Randall Tunningham and Icky Woods and Shugnight. You know, Marion was my brother's roommate in college. You called him Marion. He's shut up. Right. If my name of Marion, I'm going to call him Mary.

I just want, like Rico just walked back in the studio. I just want to point out. Again, roll through that UNLV football team that your brother played out. So when I was a kid, so we used to go visit DP a lot, I stayed with my brother in the summer. So, you know, it was Randall Cuttingham, Icky Woods, Marion, Shutt Night. And it was a really good team. They went to a California Bowl a couple of times. We went to a couple of bowl games.

But my brother was Marion's roommate, Shud's roommate in college. So he taught me how to steal pizza You know, like he's like This is what you do, young fella You order you order 10 peaches at the neighbor's house And you order one at your house But he's going to deliver the 10 The one pizza to your house first

Why he's delivering your pizza at your house You run around a car And you grab the 10 pizzas out of the back seat This is Domino's remember that's back in the day But that's what he's That was a little racket with pizzas What? What?

You know, the thing is that I really I really wanted to go to UNLV, and once they offer me, I committed right on the spot after we played in the Las Vegas invitation. And he just, I knew what I was getting into. You know, my dad just said you can be a big fish and a little pond, or you can be a little pond or whatever that's saying. Little fish, small, small pond, big fish, big, big pond, small fish. Right, because you got a road.

I was like the 29th best player coming out of high school that year. that year. And I knew I was coming in with Larry Johnson and, you know, and Moses Curry and Antonio Davis. It was really high. It was one of the top ten recruiting classes in the country. So I wanted to be a part of that. I just grew up watching UNOV as a kid, like I said,

you know, being a ball boy at the football team as a young kid. So that's how he gets it. He gets everybody to play together. And everybody to this day pretty much still staying, stay in contact with each other and help each other. Everyone wants to ask you to hold on one more time. We'll go one final break and we'll finish out the hour here on one-on-one. We'll be right back.

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