1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Weekend Headlines: March 3rd, 11:00am

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

Breaking down the biggest headlines around the sports world!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the heart of Lincoln America, a 93-7-a-ticket and the ticketfm.com. Here is your host, Derek Pearson, brought you by Canopy Street Market. Boom! In your face! Monday on the ticket. Adam Kerracher is filling under the weather. So what do we do?

next dude up that happens to be me it's me it's me it's me it's d to the double e this for two hours four six four five six eight five buckle in because i have no idea where we're going to go for two hours we're going to be all over the place it's going to be crazy of just letting you know if you want to follow on the streams facebook youtube x alo channel nine sixty one get it in get your what's up ready for the text line I don't want to, look, we got lots to talk about. But, hey, Bach, let's set the table. I got a question for you.

Yeah. What does that mean say? What does he say? Let me talk to you. Let me talk to you. And everybody said. You know, Bach, if I asked you, what was your sports headline of the week?

What is the main event? What is the headline of all headlines for this week. It's for you, Jack Bach. Well, if you give me, if sports, if we include sports entertainment into sports, which I feel is where you're going. John's seen a turning heel after all these years. Yeah. Partnering with the Rock to go against Cody Rhodes is definitely an all time moment in wrestling. If you haven't been watching wrestling, now's a good time to get back in. Can we use, can we use some Cody to set the table as well? Give me to get it here. Let's see if you could get that loaded for us. Um, there's lots going on and it's a busy sports weekend. Of course, uh, it is a big 10 championship weekend, uh, for women's basketball, wrestling. Um, it's a busy weekend as well.

There's lots of things in play. And I want to go through as many of them as possible. As many things as there. So give me the signal when you get it loaded because we'll get that done. There are a couple of things. Something happened this weekend as well. That Nebraska tennis hosted

Creighton. Hosted Creighton. And I think it is a celebratory moment anytime, anytime Nebraska kicks the pants off of Creighton. And shout out to people.

Peter Cobalt and the Husker tennis team because they, they put a smackdown on Creighton at Dillon Center. If you haven't been to Dillon Tennis Center and again, sits right next to the soccer facility. So, you know, it's kind of easy to see. They're kind of connected. And that leads. They're having an incredible season and they can use your crowd support. I also want to say this for women's tennis, they've got, they're currently sitting. at 10 and 1. And if you get a chance to, you look for something to do Friday, head on over

to Dillon because the number three Michigan Wolverines come to town. There's also a other thing to talk about and consider that both baseball and softball, both baseball and softball come home this weekend, both this week, that tomorrow night. Tomorrow night. Well, weather, weather permitting, weather permitting, weather permitting, that in Omaha, Nebraska baseball is supposed to play in Omaha. I was like, oh, okay. So there's that. And at the same time, well, actually, two hours later, Huskers basketball hosts Ohio State at Pinnacle Bank Arena.

And we definitely will jump down that portal. But Bach, let's set the table. Let's hear from the man who is, who is reconsidering life today. So what do you guys want to talk about? I love that so, so much that he gives. He and L.A. and eight have done an exceptional night of giving. In the 12 o'clock hour, we're going to take calls from you. right about what you think your what your headline is but hit us up on the text line with what

what is the headline what is the sports slash sports entertainment headline of the weekend for you what was the story of all stories it could be right it could be like for me alexander ovechkin is 11 goals away from doing a thing that nobody can either even fathom. And that's taking over the goals for career, uh, scoring award from, from, from, from Gretzky. Like that, that's, um, Bach, that, that record is such a, such an outlier. I thought you could just circle that and say, that's never going to be done. I don't think the points for a career will ever be matched. I think Greg, Gretzky, I think if you took away his goals, he would still lead if it was just his assist.

Like it's a crazy number. But it's an exceptional weekend. I thought for the Huskers to finish women's basketball to finish ninth in the regular season, big deal. They finish 10th and that's a win. But Bach, if I asked you to grade women's basketball season so far, give a grade for Nebraska's women's basketball season so far. Well, it's always, you know, battling back to injury bug.

At least Brent Prince was able to come back and help Nebraska at a time where they need it. I would probably say, you know, a B. I think you feel pretty good about where they're at. You wanted to get into, you know, get here's where here's from the money time, right? It's tournament time. But they've positioned themselves in the 10 seat in the, in, in the, the tournament, but have they been one more game or whatever it might be? I think they've been tied for fifth. So there's not much of a difference between 10 and five there for Nebraska.

Might be a little bit more different. Yeah. Until you look at the bracket. A little higher. A little higher one, two. Then you start to see a difference. You look at the bracket and you go, oh, no, no, there's a much easier path. There's a much easier path than than what's being chosen often. It is the thing. Like, I, I kept. I'm like, okay, I'm whispering to myself the whole weekend. Please, Husker, baby Jesus, don't let Nebraska fall to Northwestern, and we end up having to deal with the play,

play the 3 o'clock game on Wednesday. Like, you don't want to be the first game on Wednesday. You just don't. Like, no, because even in Indianapolis, the crowd is different in the afternoon game than it is the later games, no matter who it is. Earthquake glue says, is Lincoln East Boys winning state swimming was your event of the weekend.

Congratulations. Congratulations. And again, you can text in what your, what's the headline for your weekend? What's it? Cena turned heel. I'm not, I'm not wrong. Like, bigger than the combine, right? anything that came out of the combine.

Bigger than the NHL playoff run, Stanley Cup playoff run, because you're at crunching time now, all right, your wind's crunching time in the NHL. And this station certainly doesn't talk about NHL enough, but

I can tell you, I mean, I'm a hockey fan. I'm a Caps fan, so I am riding high, certainly, in this space. Loving what a vetskins is doing for the game and this is a generational, historically generational run that Alexander Ovechkin is on and what he's doing. Valentinos is in the house. There we go. Valentinos is in the house. They're a new feature, a new sponsor, a new partner. They're going to feed us on Mondays, right? We appreciate that and love that.

So thank you to the folks from Valentinos for hooking us up. Um, Bach, Aside from Sina, right? Give me another, give me another headline for the weekend. Well, I think that my next one would be the unfortunate buzzer-beater, if you could call it pretty close to it, the loss to Minnesota, another game for Nebraska where they didn't play a complete game, had to fight back. You can tell Fred Weber, he's getting frustrated with.

He said the body language that was there. And it's just, it's beginning to look bleak for Nebraska basketball, just the way things have been going. However, you know, what do we always say? A win can cure all and a win against Ohio State who's on the same bubble Nebraska is. I think it was CBS, me double-checked. I think it's NBC that had their bracketcology, Nebraska and Ohio State in the first four in. So our first four, you know, from being out.

So they're literally got a bubble matchup with Ohio State at home. And for all the ups and downs of the season, that's kind of like a tournament game here. We were talking about it last week. And I said as a coach, and I'm speaking from the high school level, that when you head into district tournament, regional tournament, state tournament, that there's a point, depending on the program, depending on the program and the season that you've had, coaches will identify a line of demarcation for when postseason begins for you.

Now, great elite programs who are having great seasons don't have to adjust or adapt. you just continually play through. You may decide, you know what, I'm going to arrest a guy in game number 30 rather than that. But this, I said that Saturday, that's Sunday was going to be a playoff game.

Saturday was going to be a playoff game for the men. Sunday was going to be a playoff game for the women. The women handled it. They handled it. We gave all the parameters for how this thing was going to break down. The men, in a full discussion. And I kind of thought, Bach, that I wanted to reach outside of the Nebraska bubble to get perspective on,

because we're inside of it and the vacuum kind of consumes us whatever way it consumes us, right? It, you can repeat the same thing that's being said. There are certain people who lead the conversation, whether right or wrong, right? But reaching outside the bubble and asking people to look into Nebraska and the fact that they're still in after Saturday's loss tells you a thing that was confirmed in these conversations. So I talked to two MBA executives, one other college hoops, expert, air quotes. And to a person, they said, man,

this may be Fred Hoyberg's best coaching job. Now, let that marinade for a second. Right? We're in it. There were people in the postgame text. You're screaming. Is this time? Is this time for Fred to go?

Is this? Y'all know me well enough though. I'm not a member of the fire the coach. I'm not rooting for coach to get fired. Like, that's just not my makeup. There's a way to fix things. But if you can't fix it, cool. But they said he has less talent than he had last year.

Facts. Right? The best player on the team is in street clothes. That rink mask changes the season. There's no argument to it that this team with rink mass is a different, it's a different conversation, different season. and that you had to replace a player who was so unique in his skill set that the Big Ten had to adjust to Ksa Tamanaga in full and that you can't get a replacement player for KCi Tamanaga.

Not possible. Not possible. So the fact that you did those two things, and then you went and filled positions of need with available talent. And the available talent had to, you had to get that done within whatever financial constraints Nebraska basketball and Nebraska athletics has.

Bach, is it fair to say that Nebraska does not spend the same amount of money for basketball in player recruitment as does Oregon, UCLA, USC, Michigan, Ohio State, Indiana? It would appear so. Yeah, right? Yeah. So before we talk about the job that Hoyberg is done, Bach, how many, where in the 18 Big Ten programs?

Would you put, where did you assess the talent on the Husker team? Where would you place that? Let's just say the starting five. Where would you place them? Top third, lower third, middle third, top half, bottom half. where would you put this starting five if you were ranking them based on talent and all the star checkables right the things that that land in in star content right yeah um i'd probably say i mean and bryce does a lot of the heavy lifting to probably get them more into that middle tier um

but you know without bryce they'd definitely be in the back end so to say that this is not the most talented team. There's enough talent for this team to be in the top third. Let's be clear. I'm not going to say that. There is enough talent on this team. And that speaks to how high of a level

Bryce Williams and Joanne Gary are playing, even in their struggles that they're making this Nebraska team and program competitive with the top teams in the Big Ten conference. Then you have to ask the next question. The second five, Bach,

is this, is this a talented second five? Well, I mean, if you, converseasian is kind of playing that role on the bench. I mean, so there's, if you take that out of it, but if you kind of do your five best players, your second five, I think, I think

the depth is what kind of is starting to hurt Nebraska. If I asked you the same question about the starting five for women's basketball, The starting five, the current starting five, no less. Right? Top third, bottom third, middle third of the Big Ten conference. I think you're probably still in a similar situation of kind of middle third.

But that Markowski is in the all Big Ten, 15. Yeah. If things are perfect, like she finishes with three straight 30, 30 point 10, rebound games, they'll put her in the top 10. I cannot imagine that they put her in the top five. Yeah. Like first team all big 10? Because the talent is so good in the Big 10 conference for women.

Oh yeah. It's so good. So then the same question. The second five for Nebraska women's basketball. Where does it from a talent standpoint? We haven't even gotten into production. We're just talking about talent, right? That we saw USC and UCLA's second five run out there against the number two and four teams respectively in the country.

Does Nebraska have that sort of talent in its second five? Bach? No, not up there with the USCLA's and USC's. So here's where I, where I landed after these. conversations. I'm on the team, and feel free to disagree with me if you want, folks.

I'm not, I'm not, my opinion, my feeling, my, what I landed on was this. For Fred Hoyberg to get 17 wins to date from this group

and to have it be in contention for an NCAA tournament bid. Now, if you're on the bubble for the NCAA tournament with two games left, at worst case, you're going to the NIT with a chance to expand the program, to be seen, to get exposure, otherwise, which we have to admit that five years, for the last five years, we would have been thrilled,

thrilled with the idea and concept that this basketball team was going to play postseason basketball because it wasn't promised. It wasn't promised. And the fact that you do not have a Bryce McGowan, Delano Banton, a Trey McGowan, you don't have a Sam Greasel. You have Bryce and Juan. And then the rest of the guys are role players

who have to play at maximum efficiency for their role for this team to be competitive in the Big Ten. And this team is competitive in the Big Ten. They're just not dominant in the Big Ten. Yes, frustrating, disappointing, all those things. But as we head into this championship of this tournament week for the women and we close out the regular season for the men, I just wanted to start the hour by saying,

Amy Williams has gotten this team to the upper half of the Big Ten conference. get wiggle, wiggle, right, from a record standpoint, one win from being in the top third. Literally one win. And that if the men had won Saturday, we'd be having an entirely different group of conversations because they'd be rock solid in their bid to the NCAA tournament, and it frees them up to play more freely in the Big Ten tournament coming up next week.

That's not the case. the men have to battle. And it's an Ohio State team who has something to fight for as well. The women get Rutgers Wednesday, Wednesday late afternoon, early evening. They beat that Rutgers team by seven, should have beat them by 17, but hey, a win's a win.

We'll talk about that, Bach. We'll talk about that game because, look, to set the table and we'll set the bracket for the women's Big Ten tournament when we come back to one-on-one.