Games with Names - Eric Musselman Relives Arkansas' 2022 Sweet 16 Upset over Gonzaga

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

Eric Musselman is in studio! The USC Men's Basketball Head Coach came through to talk about one of the grittiest wins in recent tournament history: Arkansas vs. Gonzaga from the 2022 Sweet 16. We also get into creating a winning culture, what's next for USC Men's program, Coach Musselman's journey in basketball, and a whole lot more.  (00:00) We kick things off. (01:38) Coach joins us on the couch. (41:08) We go back to March 2022. (1:06:09) We dive into these rosters. (41:08) We get into the game. (1:28:09) We score it. Support the show: http://www.gameswithnames.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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And listen now. March 24th, 22, Chase Center, San Francisco, California. The Arkansas Razorbacks look to get back to the Elite 8. But they'd have to get through the number one seated zags. This is the 2020 Street 16. Welcome to. games with names. I'm Julian. He's Jack and we're on a mission to finding the greatest game of all time and we have a special episode coming out today with USC men's basketball coach,

Eric Musselman. And if you haven't already, drop a like and a subscribe to Games with Names. Let's go. Games with Names, a production of IHeart Radio. How did you end up at Kent State from... I was a quarter of... back in college. And I went to college of San Mateo, where Tom's from, San Mateo, which was like 10 minutes from where I grew up. By the way, we almost had his son as a walk on. Did you? Yeah, he was going to walk on. I heard about this actually. Yeah, it was so wild. So, Jack. Yeah, what, what's, I'm drawing a blank, Michael, Rubin. He calls and he says, hey, my buddy Tom's son wants to walk on. He's already in school.

Like, you know, are you free in like 10 minutes? I'm like, yeah, no problem. That's all he said. So we're in a full staff meeting. And I'm like, fuck, what's this? Like, I just put it on speakerphone. And Ruda goes, like 10 seconds in. He's like, because I had no idea. He just said this guy, Tom. And so, you know, like I'm writing stuff. I'm not paying it. All of a sudden, I'm like, holy shit. But that's a true story. Yeah. Oh, TB. Because I think he's going to a prep school.

Yeah, he's been taking, he's, he's been really enjoying basketball. You know, I remember when he's six, five, six, six. He was a little nervous because my, I told my son, because he took over the recruiting. And I was like, like, shoot him straight. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want, you know, Tom to be. Well, I think he'd appreciate that as well.

And so Michael was like telling him, you know, like, even if we're up 25, you know, with the way the N, NCIA selection committee. Like we probably got to win by 30, you know, so I think Michael overdid, you know, and then he just went to prep school because he was in USC. And I think there's some like weird random rule

that if you get accepted early and then you don't come, they make it difficult to get back in a year later. Yeah. So he had kind of a tough decision. Yeah, that's, I mean, you've coached a bunch of athletes that have sons now. Yeah.

Who you recently have arenas, right? And the Raleft twins. I coached Theo as an assistant with the Hawks. Yeah. And then Gilbert with the warriors. I mean, that's when you know you've been coaching. Yeah. That's when you know you've been coaching some time.

I love it. You know, you're getting the sons. Hey, no grandsons yet. No. But I'm like looking at like, At AAU events, I'm like, Collins, I coached Marty. And then I'm like, oh, shit, that's his kid. It's like, it's happening a lot.

So it's, yeah, I know it sucks for me. No. That's a, that's in a testament to your hard work because everyone knows getting there is hard. But staying there is even harder. And to have the career of watching, I mean, Golden State Warriors, Sack Kings, Nevada, Arkansas, now at SC going back and forth from the league to the baby league that I call it now with NIL. I mean, it's in a testament to you being able to communicate the game of basketball to younger generation and people love it. So, I mean, that's awesome.

You know, I have such an appreciation for a coach, coach's life because people don't realize how hard it is to be a coach. You're taking your family, you're moving a bunch of places. he felt that as a child with his dad being a coach. You pack up, you move, you're in a new town, you've got a new team. And it's just like that over and over because you guys are going out and trying to live out your dream. And I think that's cool.

Yep. No, it is cool. So let's jump into this game, coach. All right. The 2022 Sweet 16 in Zaga versus Arkansas game. In one sentence, coach. Why'd you pick this game? Well, one, they were ranked number one.

One seed. One seed. And two, just because there were some super tough decisions that had to be made on how we wanted to play from a stylistic or from a scheme standpoint. And then two, we were going to rely on a couple guys, a couple players that maybe their role was going to expand in this. this particular game. And so that, and, you know, we were able to identify a few things that if we did them the right way, that we could win the game. And we believe that, felt that got a bunch of staff members at USC that were part of this game. And they all kind of, we ranked like five big time games. And this was kind of the one that made the most sense to dive into. Well, you know, the year prior,

you guys got to the sweet 16, right? And you lose. Yep. Also makes us a little sweeter, getting to the sweet 16 going on and winning. And then also, I have to bring up something. You brought up your game plan. We got to say one thing.

You're in a club with a few guys that come on to games with names that sends a prep sheet before they come on the show. Gives us a little peek behind the turn. A little peep behind the scenes. Is an elite group? Peyton Manning did this. Matt Patricia did this. Scott Hanson, you know, the guy does the red area.

NFL Red Zone. I always call it red area. My coach always called it red area. You know what I mean? You go to what your coach says. You got him? I mean, what's up with coaches always having to bring in their prep sheet? You know, the game plan.

We saw the game plan. It was pretty insane. Unbelievable. Practice notes, scouting report. It was unbelievable. Coach, I was a college basketball manager. This gave me Vietnam level flash backs reading through these. I mean, holy smokes. It was awesome. Unbelievable. It was a real treat to go through

those. I'm glad we could find them. Yeah. You know, because the key is like you go through these big games and these big moments and it's like you always want to try to reflect back if you play another team that might have a similar style or a couple years ago. We actually played Gonzagin in an exhibition game in Palm Springs. And we went back to this game. We watched this game tape going against Coach Few. we kind of came up with some of the same themes. We won that game too in an exhibition game. The physicality, you know, like you got to always figure out, Julian, like what can make us different when we're playing this team? And we felt like, and a lot of it's because I played in the WCC at the University of San Diego when Gonzaga was in it and they had John Stockton.

But that's not a physical league. It's an execution league. and so we felt like one we got to take them out of the execution and two we got to be super physical you know if we had to just put like sesame street rules on hey how do we simplify this to our team in five minutes of the first five minutes of prep that was kind of it yeah i mean that's what that's what a coach's job is to do is try to make a complex game plan into simple things so the athlete can not have to think and go perform and it was pretty it was pretty awesome to see see your practice schedule.

You guys practice about an hour and a half? You have 22 periods or something like that? Yep. It's an hour and a half once we hit, you know, really January. It goes from about an hour and 45. When you're in October, November, you're about two hours. And then all of a sudden it goes to about an hour and a half. That's including film. And we don't deviate like, if we have a three-minute segment,

it's a three-minute segment because of trying to keep bodies fresh, keep minds fresh. So if we don't like that segment, we don't stay in that segment. We continue to move on and then the next day or later on that evening and film, we go back and address it. It's very similar to how we do it.

You know, we'd have like 16, 16 periods over two and a half hours, which they wanted us on the field for two and a half hours so we could feel that because the game's usually about three hours. So even though you have a walk, you know, you were walking through prior to the practice or before practice, you know, and you go in, you go to period to period. It just seemed like your schedule was so efficient. I never saw a basketball schedule, but it reminded me of ours where you had three minutes of this.

It's like three minutes of blitz pick up to the individual, you know, break up into skill. And then you break up in the team. Then you get into seven on seven. It's really interesting. Interesting. Who helps you? Now is that you're the head coach? that comes up with the schedule? Do you have people that you lean on for that? Who helps you

make that schedule? Well, I think the one thing, Julian, you hit on something like super interest is because my dad coached football originally and played college football. And then when I got fired from the Golden State Warriors, Michael Lombardi, I get a phone call. This is Michael Lombardi. I'm with the Raiders. I've been fired before. If you ever want an office to watch film, we'd love to have you. I'm like, cool, I'll be there tomorrow. You know, and so I have no job, and I'm hanging out with the Oakland Raiders. So I'm watching practice. There's obviously, as you know better than anyone, plenty of food. So I'm eating, and then I'm going back up to an office next to Lombardi's office, and I'm watching basketball

tape. And then I go back home, and then the next day I do it over over again. But the practice structure changed after my couple months hanging around the Raiders to kind of go off of what football does from a preparation standpoint, how you break down positionally, what you want to do. You break down your offense into positional needs and positional skill. But now that I've had a staff that's been together for a long time, Anthony Roota, Caleb Klein, those two guys put the schedule together and then I get in and readjust or on the fly during practice, but those guys know from past year, year after year after year, what we want our implementation timeline in training camp.

And then once we get into like NCAA tournament play or conference tournament play, how we want to roll. Man, can you tell the listener how important it is for a head coach to have other coaches that think similar to you to make your job easier? The fact that you have people that you can rely on that know how you want the schedule, like, or we all hear about this brain drain when a coach leaves and he doesn't bring his whole staff around him, the continuity of a coaching staff. How important is that?

Well, it's super important. I think, well, it's super important with drills. It's super important with, you know, like late game situations. If someone's been with you and they've been through, you know, two minute, last two minutes of, you know, intense games. They kind of know what's expected. But I think, like, in the college game, what's super important is, like, if you're at an AAU event,

you know, and you say to your assistant coach, hey, I want you to pick the 10 players that I would like. Not who you like, not who you think is good, but can you identify out of these 200 kids, can you identify 10 guys that I would want on our team? And when you have coaches that can go ABCD and go down the line based on, you know, like I love guys that have great length and athleticism. And a true point guard is not that important to me if a guy's got size, length, and IQ. And so that from a recruiting standpoint is super important.

Like, all right, this guy's soft. He's not going to work out with us. having a staff that knows that without even having to have a discussion, you know, makes your job so much easier. So much easier. And I mean, that's when you start to see great things happen is when everyone's working and doing their job.

Because everyone has a job. That's what we always heard patriots, you know, do your job. Well, what's my job this play? My play is to get lined up. I got to go and get the force. His job is do that. You know what I mean? If everyone collectively does their job,

it gives the team the best chance to go out and win. Now, coach, you're at USC now. This game is Arkansas. We'll get into that. You're at USC right now. Offseason. What's a day in the life of a head coach in the offseason this time of year? So a lot of recruiting.

Recruiting. You know, on the phone. Going to watch guys live. That's a big part. Watching the recruits games and then trying to break down the recruits AAU games. because they play so many games. Like oftentimes we wonder, are they being taught enough just because it's game after game after game? And so recruiting a text, recruit, having conversations about areas that maybe they could improve on.

And then your own team. So we're allowed eight hours right now. Basically, it's four hours on floor, four hours in the wait room. So we try to a week. A week. Yep. And then, you know, you're, you're. you're trying to get to know your team with the transfer portal right now.

Like it's crazy. How do you build chemistry over an eight-week summer when you're really on the floor with them for only eight weeks, eight hours per week? So all of a sudden now that changes how you do things as well. So like team chemistry, team bonding, we do a little get-to-no segment every morning where one player gets up. Got to tell us like eight or nine things about himself. teammates have to repeat it three days later about the three teammates we've already learned about.

So all those things are going into, and then you're trying to figure out like, what's our identity, what's our style this year? Like, we don't believe that we pigeonhole. This is how we're going to play. We want to try to structure our style of play offensively, defensively, defensively schemes based on our personnel. Yeah. And so we have to adjust and figure that out over the eight-week summer. of eight weeks when we come back in September and October,

and then we go right into exhibition games, three of those, and then into the regular season in November. So right now we're just installation city right now. Install, install, even though, you know, we don't know what our team's best at because we're not playing games. So you just install as much as you can to see what they can retain. And then by the time we get to playing exhibition games, that's when you start tapering your team to what their needs are.

all right, well, we see that this is working better. So we'll cut these ones. Is that how it goes? Yeah. So we're a little different. Like we're doing exactly what you said. We're trying to, we want to end our eight-week summer session so that we have everything in that if we played a game.

So like how we jump ball, what we do on a free throw alignment, all those things we're getting in. Our top seven plays late game. What are the wrinkles out of the? We're doing all of that so that when we come back, one school, starts in late August, and we get into September and October, we can clean everything up. So right now, the precision of where we are from an execution standpoint is not nearly the level that we need to be, but they will know everything or most everything.

And then obviously we add once the season starts, but we could go play a game right now because we're seven weeks in, but we could go play a game and we know zone offensive attacks. we have our presses in. All those things are in. We just got to do a lot of cleanup once we get back from summer break. That sounds very similar to like right now for the NFL. That's what you guys are in right now. That's like OTA's mini camp.

So you go in, you're installing, you're learning the team. You got the new team. You got new coaches. You got new everything. Let's go throw everything at the wall of the system. By the time we get back for training camp, you have your month off. That's your next eight weeks, right? Yep.

when you get back for school. Training camp is pretty much the same stuff that we just installed, but a thousand times faster with a couple new things that you're going to have to learn. Is that the same? Same thing. And then we don't have that same time constraint. The time constraints are, that's the hardest thing for the coach now.

In NBA, NFL, everything, no question. It's, you know, it's, I mean, it used to be, you know, in the NBA, when I first got into it, Julian, we were literally going two a day, Yeah. And when I was a ballboy for the San Diego Clippers and Gene Shue was coaching, they had practice. Then they brought in sandwiches and the guys kept their practice gear on. And then they went right back to the second practice. There was like an hour sandwich break.

You know, obviously now in today's NBA, there's not even a lot of practices at all. We got loads. We got load management. We got this. So Belichick actually won offseason for our mini camps. He, he, he rewineded the time clock and he wanted us to feel how it was being like a 1930s NFL guy. And so all, when we came into the facility, there was only coffee and like donuts and bagels and cigarettes. And then we go out and we watched some film and like, we didn't have all the, the equipment and stuff.

And we had all the old shit. He wanted us to feel what it actually felt going to your point of trying to bring the team together. You know, it was a fun way to always kind of see how the coaches implicate their way of getting the teams to come together. But it has definitely changed. It changed from my rookie year, second year, third year. We were doing double days where we do run in the morning. You have two hour break.

Then you do pass in the evening practice. And it was, I mean, it was hell. It was hard. And I couldn't even imagine 20 years before us in like the 90s and the 80s, God forbid you even talk about the same. 60s where guys had jobs, you know, in the offseason, it's just, it's crazy how it's all changed, which is good for the player, but harder for the coach. I mean, I think about like being a ballboy and walking into a post-game locker room.

Because when I was a ballboy, I wanted to be a ballboy for the opposing team. I didn't want to be the home ballboy because I wanted to see all the other coaches pre-games, their halftimes, post-game talk. I don't want to be my dad's home ballboy. I wanted to learn from every. everybody else that came into town. But like the ice packs and the, like, and then the guys would go play the next night. Yeah.

Like 82 games, like superstars playing every night, playing 42, 43 minutes a night. The durability of guys like in the 80s and is absolutely incredible compared, you know, to today and the Lodge Management and everything. We'll be right back after this quick break. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Hello. My gosh. Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish,

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That's not just basketball. I think that's just with, it's the double-edged sword of the information now that we all have at the dispose, especially with the coaching staff. They know your acceleration. They know how many miles steps you ran. They know this. They know that.

You know, and it's good because you can get the best out of your athlete, but it's also bad because we're still very early into this stage of studying the player. so back in the day you would you have six weeks of training camp you'd calcify the guy if the guy made it through training camp he was going to make it through the season because it was so goddamn hard to make it through training camp you know what I mean there's still think that you guys have to learn there's going to be like a 10 year gap of how to learn this to get the best out of the the player do you do you agree with that yeah yeah and I think too like right now

and I can only speak more so on pro basketball but like the word availability is huge right now. And we're trying to tell our guys all the time, like being available right now is the best asset for guys, especially trying to make a roster at the pro level. And, you know, you got to kind of teach that because, you know, a college player is watching what happens at the next level. And, you know, is that a badge of honor or cool if I get to do load management?

You know, and I'm thinking about, And think about John Stockton and Carl Malone. Like those guys, their badge of honor was playing 82 games. Yeah. You know, and never being out. So, but you're right. I think maybe in 10 years there'll be a slight shift of where it is right now as well. Yeah.

Now, being here in L.A., coach, how is that? I mean, that's got to be a great quality of life. That's easy to sell to some recruits. Hey, guys, we're over at Manhattan Beach. Meet me at Simsies. I'll show you a beer and a bird. We hit a wave, maybe go to Santa Monica, Venice. I mean, how cool is it living in L.A. and getting to coach?

It's the best. You know, because Arkansas is like a great basketball job. I mean, 20,000 people. You're winning games at home because of the atmosphere and the energy in the building. So we knew like, hey, we're leaving a premier basketball job to go to USC. but the brand of USC, you know, living in Manhattan Beach, like we feel quality of life on campus, and when we're home, there's nothing better.

And, you know, I think that USC is a sleeping giant in basketball. You got to just, what is the moment where you turn the corner? And that's right now we feel like with our recruiting class, three McDonald's, All-Americans, had a great portal. class, can we stay healthy, and then have a great year because recruits want to play where your win, recruits want to play in NCAA tournaments, and recruits want to see players get drafted. And when you put all those things together and then you add in quality of life, because most 17-year-olds aren't thinking about in the middle of January, I got to go with my backpack

and truck through snow to go to class. Or, you know, I can have, you know, bare feet and a short-sleeve shirt. Flip-flops. Flip-flops. And I'm just strolling through the middle of USC. That's a pretty doggone good quality of life for a student athlete. Yeah. And, you know, I like the word you said, sleeping giant.

Because as a native Californian, I always had to jump on the back of the USC's, the UCLA's, the big. blue blood brands in California, which USC is. And, you know, it's good for, it's good for everyone in California. If some, you know, we get one of these teams to start going, Coach. We need to get them going. I hear you. Because you guys have, you know, we got to get it going. And because we got these, we got it here.

I'm sick of going back to the locker room and hearing about all the other guys' teams. Well, UCLA women. Yeah. We just had coach. Shout out. I mean, both those women's programs off the charts with star power winning excitement around their programs. I think right now what Coach Riley's got going on from a recruiting standpoint, how they've

kind of locked down L.A., what they've done recruiting-wise, in the state of California. You look at what Pete Carroll did. There's a lot of great things that can happen. And what people don't realize, the recruits that don't realize, if you go to U.S. and you win. Ooh, you'll be a freaking movie premieres. You might see Brad.

I might have saw you at the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey wedding because that's how much pool a USC winning team has out here. I mean, ask Matt Liner and Reggie Bush. Ask those boys. Now, coach, let's do some word association. Okay, I'm going to throw out a team or a word. You give me the first thing that pops into your head. The Florida Sharks.

Their head coach. Okay, I like that. He's a friend of ours. And we've actually exchanged ideas back and forth. And obviously their star player that was drafted, what, two years ago, whose father has NBA ties. There you go. Florida Sharks.

What would that be? Who would we describe it? And a cool logo. Yeah. I thought it was the team from any given Sunday. When I was doing the research, remember any given Sunday, the Florida Sharks? Oh, you're talking Florida Sharks. I'm sorry. Yeah, Florida Sharks, USBL.

What were you thinking I was saying, coach? I thought it was the San Jose Sharks. I'm like, what? We're going hockey right now. Florida, Florida. Florida, we're going, we're going to coach. I haven't heard the Florida Sharks in a long time. That's why we brought it up.

We're going deep. And I didn't think anybody would even know about him. That was one of the greatest learning experiences ever, the USBL. Why? Because it was in the summer. And you could, I took a bunch of CBA All-Stars, which was basically like today's G-League. And I think in the two years there, we went maybe 52 and 3.

But it was a, like, I took all these All-Stars and it was like, all right, let's throw these guys together and try to, like, do things that I've never done before. Different presses, tried to play at a super fast pace. But it was a great learning experience. And I loved it, man. And the reason I did the USBL, my dad was like, all right, you're coaching 50 games in the old CBA, which is the G League. And then you get another 30 games in the USBL. You're getting reps like player. So it's like you're coaching a full NBA season

if you do the USBL 30 and you do the CBA. And that a coach needs the reps. For sure. I mean, as much as a player. As much. 53 and 3 insane. 0.94 winning percentage. Ooh.

Geez, coach. Fun years. Let's go. Two good years. All right. Let's keep this going. The Golden State Warriors. So the Warriors was a complete two-year

greatest learning experience ever. So our first year, we had all young guys. None of them married. So it was Gilbert Arenas. It was Troy Murphy. It was Jason Richardson, Eric Dampier, Donald Foyle, Antoine Jameson, all those guys super fun to be around. We made a 17-game improvement.

Our staff was runner-up to go. Greg Popovich and his staff for Coach of the Year. And I could kind of sense something's going on with management. And Chris Mullen was about to take over. Gary St. Jean was about to take a step backwards in the hierarchy of management. And then they kind of blew the team up, got rid of all the young guys. And then we brought in Avery Johnson, Nick Van Exel, Popeye Jones, Cliff Robinson, all guys at the end of their career.

And at that point, I kind of knew like, all right, they're clearing cap space for the next guy. This isn't for me. And that sure enough, that's what happened. And then Mike Montgomery came in and he kind of got caught up in the adjustment. And then when Coach Nelson came back, that's when they had all the cap space. And they won a lot of games. But it was really such a good learning experience for somebody in their late 30s as an NBA head coach to kind of learn.

All right, I had all these young guys highly motivated. and then I got a group of guys that were on their last contracts, how difficult and challenging that was really going to be. I got a phone call when we made one of those trades. I won't say which player, but it was Jerry West. And I had never talked to Jerry West. And the secretary said Jerry West was on the phone. I said, send him to the gym.

I don't want to get in trouble. I'm just the coach here. No, Jerry wants to talk to you. So I get on the phone, he said, Eric Musselman, I just want you to know after this trade, you're completely screwed. You will not last another year after this year. Click. And sure enough, he was right.

Geez. Just the logo. Just the logo called. And it was funny because a couple years later, I got hired when he was a GM in Memphis. But he was right. The end of the year contract, end of career contracts were pretty challenging. for a young coach. Yeah.

Now, how do you deal with that if you do? Because as a player, I've played the numbers games for like the first four years of my career where you're sitting there and cut day and you're running. All right, how many receivers are they going to keep? They're keeping six. Am I going to be that one? I don't know. And you come up with the conclusion that you're probably gone the next year.

How do you deal with that as a man? And as a coach, like, what do you do? You just coach, you coach it out? Coach the next game. Go back to practice. Coach the next practice. So when I was an assistant with my dad with the Timberwolves, we had like 10 games left, maybe 11 games, and the Timberwolves camp, youth camp, brochure came out. And my dad wasn't on it. So I go to Tom Tibido, who was an assistant. And I said, hey, Tibbs, we're done. And he's like, why? And I pulled out of my pocket. I'm looking, look at his camp

brochure. Like the reason, because my dad had coached at the University of Minnesota, so he had a big name in the state. So I'm like, there's no way his name would not be on this brochure because our camp sold out the summer before because of his name in the state. And so I, Tibbs is like, well, go tell your dad. You know, so I go to my dad. My dad's like, F that. Like, we're going to win the last eight out of ten games. It's like, they're not going to fire. Like, his thought process was nobody's firing us. Like, we're just going to go to work. we're going to win. Let's go win eight out of our last 10 as an expansion type team in year two. So that always stuck with me because, like, I knew the results of what was going to happen,

but he was not going to even let his own son see. Like, he probably knew it too. Like, as soon as he saw the brochure, maybe he knew from meetings or whatever, but he didn't let anybody know. He didn't flinch. It was just about competing, trying to make the team as good as you can. You got to do that. You got to go out with the bang. Coach, what was Young Tibbs like? Young Tibbs, great pickup ball player. Really? Great.

Wow. Because at 6'3, completely physical. Tom Tibido, and I don't mind, no jump shot. But a great screen setter. Love that. Unbelievable post moves. And would just absolutely dislodge people from a physicality standpoint. I was going to say, if his defensive intensity is not what, what,

what Tibbs is preaching. I mean, he's got to practice what he preached. He was a hard file guy. Oh, I like that. I like that. It sounds like Tibido. He sounds like how Timito coaches. Everything he practices. He was more, he was much more offensive or he was like in the paint. Oh, wow.

Given the ball in the paint two points or a foul. Wow. Yeah. How often are these, are these coaches, how often do coaches play pickup? With my father every day. Wow. Because the Timberwolves practice site. The owners of the T-Wolves at the time were health, they owned health clubs all over the state of Minnesota.

So our practice site was actually in a health club. So we would go from practice, and it was mandatory. Like you didn't opt out of the pickup game when my dad said we're going and we have our own little team, Jeff Munichy, who's still with the wolves. We had our own team. You know, we'd go down there and just be a bunch of random dudes in the health club. And it was like, all right, how long can we hold? court here and win or stay and losers sit. And if we lost, you know, then we were done for the day.

Who's the best pickup coach that you played with? Best pickup coach. Wow. Best coat. Yeah. Yeah. Um, best pickup player. Scott Roth, but he was a former NBA player. So I don't know if that really counts. That's hard. That's hard. Um, see, this is fascinating to me because as old football players, we could never go out and play pickup anything. We go tear our Achilles immediately. Bro, remember we had Joe Mazzula on here, and like the way he described the coach's pickup games, it sounded like absolute war.

Injuries, like, it sounds. No, it's super. Oh, they got to practice what they fucking preach. They got to see coaches' intentions. It's where Joe missed a game from a pickup game injury recently. He couldn't coach. Especially if your players are trickling in. Oh, yeah.

You know, like if you have pickup ball before, the real practice or right after. I mean, the intensity level, it's got to be at a high, like you got three guys diving for the ball. Like, you can't ask your guys to set hard screens and then you're soft out there. You can't.

Oh, no. You can't. That's why I said, you got to bury white it out there. Coach, you guys doing that at USC or what's that? Are you guys doing that at USC? I mean, the staff is I'm not. Okay. I tore an Achilles.

And that was it. Yeah. I don't blame you, man. Yeah. Achilles, that's, I'm terrified. of that. That's why I don't do any of basketball or any of it. Because I know it's waiting to go. And it hurts. I mean, for COVID to tear his Achilles and go out there and like shoot a foul shot, that's insanity. I mean, when I tore mine, it was like, I was done. Like, give me the shot as quick

as possible. Take the pain away. That's a bad injury. Those are terrible injuries. And it's been really crazy to see guys come back now. And it's awesome to see where technology is, where it's not a career ending injury anymore. All right. Sack Kings, coach. Word association. Ooh. Toughest, 10 months of my life.

Cowbells are loud. Yeah, it wasn't the cowbells, though. I wish it was just the cowbells. That was the thing about him. The cowbells. No, it was, so I get divorced while I'm in Memphis as an

assistant coach. And so it was super hard being away from my two sons. They're in the Bay Area. And then, wow, I get the King's job. So now I'm an hour and 10 minute drive from Sacramento, from Arco Arena to Danville, California, to my son's mother's house. Shout out to East Bay. Shout out to the East Bay.

So literally it's an hour and 10. So I'm in a perfect situation. But I made a mistake. We had a veteran team. At that point, I remember getting the job. And I loved the Maloof's. They were the owners, Gavin and Joe Maloof. And Gavin said, hey, we're going to probably move to Anaheim.

So he was like, don't buy a house, like rent. Okay. Well, about 10 games in, I'm like, I think they told me to rent because they weren't sure if I was going to be here long time. Because the team never moved and they're still in sack. They're still in sack, coach. So I'm glad he told me not to buy because then I would have been maybe stuck with a house trying to sell it. It was super easy when they fired me just to pack my stuff out of my rental and go back and be a dad in Danville, California. But that was a tough year for me for sure.

It was, you know, you learn it's really hard to replace a great coach. It's super hard, especially with returning roster. And I replaced Rick Adelman, who had had great success. and what I didn't realize from an outsider is those players loved playing in Coach Adelman's system. They loved it because it was kind of like a Princeton elbow. A lot of the stuff that teams are doing now, he was ahead of his time. And so I'm going and implementing the stuff that I know. And Jeff Petrie's the gym.

And he's like, oh, let's do what Rick's do. And I'm like, well, why is Rick not here then? I should have just kept him. But it was a tough, tough year for sure. But you know what? I got to get paid three years after getting fired, and I was doing it, I got paid to be a dad again, which was the greatest thing ever is to not have a job

and then be a dad at, you know, I got to coach my sons, which is a cool, you know, I look back now and I'm like, that was so cool to start my own AAU team and, you know, I don't know if my now wife liked that. it because we had just kind of met. After about a year of doing the AAU stuff, she said, you know, we got kids from Oakland and San Francisco. They're spending the night.

Like, I thought this was just going to be your son's buddies. And now you're so competitive and you're recruiting kids to play sixth grade AAU. And it's not really what I married. I thought I married somebody that was going to continue to be an NBA head coach. That's love of the game right there. And is that when you went to Alamede, you would go to the Raiders during that stint? That was before. So I went to the Raiders after the Golden State firing.

And then you got. Yep. Okay. Man, everything happens for a reason. That's wild. And it's really awesome to hear you talk about how they're all learning experiences. Because some of the biggest failures in my life, I wouldn't call those failures,

coach. No, the Kings was a failure. That's why I'm going to use the cowbells from now. Cowbells. More cowbell, please? But those biggest failures in it to hear you say you learn from these, I've learned in my life, you know, the injuries, the this, the that, the off the field stuff, it makes everything so much sweeter afterwards when you get to where you're at now.

And only the strong-minded can have that mentality where something that may not have of win out the way you wanted it to can still be used as a tool on your tool belt for on how to learn not to do it or to learn the things that you used from it. That's what Scottie O'Brien used to say all the time. He's a special teams guru. One of the

innovators of a lot of the special teams tactics in the National Football League, you'd say whether a play is good or bad. The great players, they put them both on their tool belt and they use the good and they learn from that bad. So, We'll be right back after this quick break.

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You know, let's jump into... You know what though? You hit something really important. What? Because while you're talking about failure, I'm thinking about winning a huge game and taking my shirt off. And I mean this kind of seriously is like, because when the buzzer goes off,

I don't... I'm not thinking about what just happened. I'm thinking about all the things that I've overcome. And so that's my emotion. Like, that's what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about, man, I've been fired by the kings, fired by the warriors. How do I reinvent myself?

Do I go to college? If I go to college, I got to be an assistant coach because I don't know anything about the college game. But, man, how many NBA former NBA head coaches are college assistants? I can't find any. I'm doing research. and it's like, all right, now we win this tournament game. I'm taking my freaking shirt off.

Yeah, because it takes a lot. It takes it for any, any level of play, it takes a lot to win. And it takes a lot of, a lot of the stuff that you put in. Because there's people that work just as hard as you that'll never make it. That's why. Little luck involved in everything. There's a little luck involved in everything and everything and everything. Coach, I'm so glad you explained me the origin story of the shirt off for us.

in what it meant. We're going to ask you because we're big fans, man. I generally don't get excited when men take their shirts off. But when you do it, man, when you do it, oh, my guy. I love it. I love it, Coach. Jack, that's not always true. Hey, I've been on the muscle.

Oh, come on. All right. I'll digress. I digress. Well, my wife always, like, when we get to, like, February, if I, like, start ramping up my workouts, she's like, oh, yeah. We got a good team, don't we? She's like, you feel something coming.

Like, there's something good about to happen with this group. I got a little shirt coming off. What is that? You know, like last year I'm like eating hamburgers and pizza. She's like, oh, we suck. That shirt staying on. That's coaches, though, man. That's so funny.

Sometimes the coaches will sit back and lock himself in the room and watch film and they're just eating. They're eating. I bet. We'd have the crazy, like football coach. I don't know if it's different because you guys sound like you guys are playing pickup and stuff. I couldn't tell you the same from the coaching staffs that I had. But, you know, these guys.

They spend hours on trying to come up with schemes. And they sit there and they do it with jolly ranchers all day long. So it's tough. It's good to see that Coach Musliman has, you know, what is it? What is it? Nutriot? New Gen X. He's a New Gen X.

He's a new GenX guy. Drop the workout routine. Whatever it is, man. You know, get the everything going. Amen. All right, coach. Let's go back in a time when this game took place. This game took place March 24th, 2020.

and let's go over some of the pop culture before we get in the game. Number one movie was the Batman. That's the Gen Z Batman. The Robert Pattinson one. Robert Pattinson. I mean, it was a new twist. Heatwaves by Glass Animals was number one song. Will Smith got slapped at the Oscars by Chris Rock.

We all remember that. Did it happen? Why did it happen? Harry Stiles plays in front of 100,000 fans at Coachella's return. Rams win the bowl. Aaron Rogers MVP. Joker was MVP, the NBA, and the Warriors were in there. They're freaking- Getting another one.

They were hitting another one. Man. Coach, do you watch movies or anything? How do you get away from the game? Yeah, we watch movies and, you know, we try to, from 9 to 10, my wife and I shut it down. No phone, nothing. Just 9 to 10, my wife and I have one hour every single day, seven days a week. No Love Island.

But Love Island's going on. My daughter's into the Love Island. So, but my wife and I, yeah, for sure. Yeah. You know, because it's nowadays, you got to, for an athlete, I always preach that with moderation, the video game is good for the athlete. Yeah.

Because it keeps him out of trouble. Keeps his mind stimulated. I always felt when my video games were sharp, my eyes were on. You know, when I was sharp with my thumbs, that means I was catching the ball. I'm good. So you got to find something. It's good that you find movies, Coach. What were you like in 2022 at this time? How are you different? I don't know if I was different. I was on edge.

Edge. Yeah. The Arkansas, like, fan base, like... Real basketball school, you said. Real basketball school. And so, like, you could feel, in March, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can feel the intensity. You know, it's like, um, you know, I can go to any restaurant in L.A. and nobody said, you know, no one says a word to you, but, you know, you walk into a restaurant in Arkansas after a loss and you can, you, you can feel people whispering and you walk in after a win and it's hard to get out of the restaurant because people wanting pictures and stuff. So, um, I would say at that time, our staff, players, all of us

like super dialed into whatever it would take to try to have that group of young men advance. Keep going. You got to keep going. You pregame music guy? You got a mix? I don't really have pregame music, but I do have pregame laughter.

Oh. So pregame even the biggest game that I've ever caught, it's completely relaxed. I always want former teammates, friends, boosters, alumni, people from admin. It's like there'll be games where there's like 25 people back in our, in a coach's locker room. And we're telling stories and chopping it up. And we always have other college games or NBA games on and we're telling stories. But then as soon as I go into the locker room at the 20 minute mark, total focus and like a light switch hits. And then we go back in the coaches.

We're laughing and joking around. And then as soon as the anthem ends, it's back to like game mode. Yeah. I mean, game day is the celebration for all the work you put in to get there. So it is a fun time. I wish I handled it like that, coach. I wish I did. You know, laughter.

I wanted to kill someone with my eyes. Football is a different sport, though. You know, it's like you, you, football locker room pregame is way over here. You know, baseball is way over there. I mean, you go to a baseball game. Yeah, and it's like, because I like to meet with baseball managers during batting. And it's like, oh, yeah, come on back in the locker room and you want to sit in here, the pitchers meeting or the hitting meeting.

It's like, and then basketball is kind of in the middle. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, I can, for your guys' sports, when you have 86 or you have a lot of games, you have 162, you have to be a little more loose. No question. There's only 17. It's life or death every week, you know.

So there's a different form of competitive stamina that you have to have. Yep. You know, that's why it's always great and refreshing to go in, like, I like to go see, you know, how the baseball guys are going to the basketball locker rooms. When I was away from the team in 2020 or 2019, I had a four-game vacation. I actually went to the Celtics. I was rehabbing my knee. And just to be in there and to see how they got ready for work, how they prehabed for work

and what they had to do to get their guys ready. It was, it's a good way, like you say, just to learn. You're always learning from other professions, works, players, coaches. You know, if you have that opportunity to learn and take one thing from that experience that can help you, I mean, it makes a big difference. Sure does. You know what I mean? I watched, I went to Tampa when Gruden was coaching.

And I just walked away with his, like, his play diagrams. And he did him. like how detailed they were. Oh, yeah. And like, it wasn't any scribble. It was like perfect. Oh, yeah. You know, and I'm like thinking, wow, in a huddle, late game, like, I got to have,

like, I'm too sloppy with my drawing, like, because I'm thinking and looking at, that's just for practice, what I saw. So yeah, you always, you always got to learn. There's good penmanship coaches. I love that. There are some good penmanship coaches. There's some guys, you're like, what the fuck is that? Jesus Christ.

Oh my God. The Telestrators are always fun to watch coaches get on. Are you a Telestrator guy? No. No. You guys have that in basketball? Yeah. You could get a smart board and, you know, go up at halftime. And we had it at Arkansas where we would just grab a pen and it would be in the color that you, and you just, you know, blue here and green here. And it's a good teaching tool. Some of the coaches try to flex.

Like, they'll go in, they'll use a smart thing and they'll have the arrow. They know the thing. And they'll have like, they'll draw a butt. You hit that punt, you go, all right, what the fuck is this? And then you're like, let me go look at this guy's record. Yeah. And I'm like, damn, he sounded good on that, but look at his lifetime record. Exactly.

I and this guy don't lie. I in this guy don't lie. All right, Jackie, let's get into the game. Do we get into these Gonzaga Bulldogs real quick? Let's get into them. Let's get into the Bulldogs here real quick. 28 and 4, 23rd year deep in the Mark Few era, of course. Preseason number one, one WCC regular Cs.

season and the tournament. First year without Tommy Lloyd, that's big for that staff. Number one scoring offense, 87.2 points per game, up-tempo, six future NBA guys on this team. This team was stacked. You got your Drew Timmy's. You got young Chet,

Chet all the hype this year, top graded refreshmen, straight out of Minnesota, Andrew Nemhard, Julian Strother, Rossier-Bull, and Anton Watson off the bench. I mean, this was a heck of a squad. Heck of a Mark Fee's squad. Execution conference, though, right?

Execution conference. Tons of NBA players. That year, we played the top three picks. So we had already played Jabari Smith and beat Auburn, who was also ranked number one. It's first time in the history of college basketball where a team had beat two number one teams. And then we ended up playing after this game, we played Paulo Boncero, who was the hardest individual player that we've ever tried to defend. thank goodness Coach Kaye kept taking polo out or he kept going to a different guy because we'd cut the game,

that Duke game, we would cut it from 12 to 8. And every time we made a run, the ball would go right back to Boncherro and thank God they didn't go to him the whole game or we'd have lost by 60. But this particular Gonzaga team, we felt like with Holmgren, freshman, we drilled over and over

leading up to this game. Dribble drive, lead with your shoulder, and go through the chest. And because he's such a great shot blocker in so long, but he was skinny. So trying to blow up his verticality was like a huge, and it's simple to drill that. And then on the other end of the floor, it was, how do we get him in foul trouble? You know, so those two things were a big part of our game plan. And then we had to make a decision because Drew Timmy was like one of the top. players in the country is that 20 points a night that he like what do we do and our thing was we're

not doubling him we're playing him straight up letting jalen williams handle him because jalen had had you know he's now with the oklahoma city he was a good individual defender and then the x factor for us was a guy named tray wade we were like there's no way gonzagga thinks this guy's going to have any impact in the game tray had only played seven minutes the prior NCAA game and we're like, this guy's going to be an X factor. We're going to get him wide open three points shots. They're not going to come out and guard him. He can make a three if his feet are set and we build his confidence up.

And then we felt like just let him bang, home grint. And actually, Trey Wade ended up getting an NFL tryout. Yeah. So that was kind of how we looked at that roster. Trey Wade, corner threes. I mean, he looked like PJ Tucker out there. It was unbelievable. For that one game.

That one game. Unsone hero. Unsung Hero. That was in the notes. It was in the notes. And it would, physicality, you also, you had, you had, the fast break points circled. I think they only had 17, or you had 17.

Track meat, track meet. Turnovers. You guys don't, you had eight, they had more than 10 or something. Yeah, they had like 14. 15. I mean, this, this Gonzaga team averaged 87 points. And it was the number one offense in the country. And so our big thing was, run if we have a layup, if we don't milk the clock a little bit, frustrate him a little bit.

And then on the flip side, it was just get back in transition, build a wall, make them try to beat us from over the top, even though, you know, we knew guys like Julian Strother, like great shooters. But that was a big thing was just don't take any, you know, ill-advised, quick shots against Gonzaga. Don't let him go on big scoring runs, hold the scoring runs to four to eight. Don't let a 10-0 scoring run happen. Yeah. The Chet hype was huge at this point. Now, how do you brace young players to go against a guy that, I mean, I remember this.

Everyone was talking about this kid, left and right. Do these guys, how do you coach him to say, hey, this guy is just like anyone else? You guys are, you know what I mean? How do you do that? How do you get your guys prepared to play against a guy that's been talked about all over Sports Center, ESPN, Fox, everything? This guy's the hype train. How do you get them ready for that?

We show them failure by that particular player. And don't like show no makes with Holmgren when he's on offense. Now if it's a player that's not that good and we, want to like guard him a little bit like show only his make so it's like this opposite pull effect because everyone knows home grin is a great player so it's like how do you accentuate any weakness that he has and hide from your team his great strengths so it's like all right we're going to show people dislodging him off the dribble drive where his verticality doesn't affect anything, rather than show all his black shots.

Yeah. You know, and then show on the flip side, you know, maybe, you know, some areas where if we crowd him, you know, and leverage with a smaller, more physical guy, how that could help us. So that was kind of the thought process. Yeah. Well, it clearly worked. Let's jump into the Arkansas. That's some brilliant coaching right there. And seeing it on paper in the scouting report is it jumps off the page at you.

Because you're right. You just see all the highlights. And then when you see, like, actually broken down in coach speak and actual, like, analytically, it does the thing. And then it's like, how do you like, like for us, we had a guy named J.D. Notte. I mean, he took like 30 shots in the game. And it's like, I, we were trying to build J.D. up. We're like, J.D., you're the best player in this game. Like, forget all these six NBA players.

Like, you're the man. Like, don't pass. Like, just go ball. You know, and it was like, and he. took some horrific. Yo, coach, he had some moon balls that almost hit this. I mean, they were some horrific shots. How green was his green light that

night? It was beyond green, but it was kind of like, it changed the complexion of our bravado. Right, I like that. You know what I mean? Like, we told the, like, guys, J.D.'s going to, he's just playing streetball the night. Like,

give him space, let him go to work. And let's see if they can stop him. Yeah. The matchups. The matchups. Hey, D.

and Coast, I mean, he was doing it. It was, it was impressive. You know, coach's, like, the Steph Curry ruined that for coaches now when you say that, hey, go take some crazy shots. Go, go shoot the ball because I look at the game sometime. I'm like, that can't be a good shot. I don't know basketball, but that can't be a good shot. There's no. There's no question.

Steph Curry has ruined basketball. He's like the last guy that anybody should watch. because there's only one of them. Yeah. To think about his size, his athleticism, his height, weight, like it's illogical what's happening. But what everybody should see and hear about and read about is his work ethic. Because that is on a whole other level.

Yeah. And that, I wish there was no Steph Curry games and there was only Steph Curry workouts. I put that on a T-shirt. That was awesome. That was prophetic. I like that, Coach. It's true. I mean, that's why in this game, I love seeing you guys.

Take it to the rack, man. Go right out of. Not this. Too many threes these days. I know I sound like a, it's not a hot take by any means, but, godly. No, we're like, we've been,

I think we've been in the top 13 for like 12 out of 13 years of free throws attempted. Oh, yeah. That was a huge part. Yeah, that's like it's, free throws made in this game. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because, like,

you're always. product of what you've been exposed to. So when I was a player with my father, his whole thing was draw fouls, draw fouls, draw fouls. And as a high school senior, I shot more FTAs alone myself than all of our opponents combined. So then I get into coaching and it's just human nature for me to just, hey, drawn fouls. There's an arc to it. And you got to put pressure on the rim. You got to put pressure on the defense.

and so that's been a big part of our DNA. But you also got to make the free throws. Yes. Got to make the free throws. Coach, how do you coach free throws and incorporate them into practice? When they're tired? When they're tired and then pressure. Those are two areas that, like, so we have a drill called a perfect free throw.

The players do not like it. It's, you use as many baskets as you possibly can. So I think at Arkansas, we had eight buckets. So basically a guy at each basket. You got to go around. everybody's got to make eight in a row. Then you got to make seven in a row, six in a row, five in a row. And if you miss, you start back over.

And so it's a wild drill. Any running involved? Are we running? No running. Okay. No, it's all, it's all focus, relaxation, concentration. But I remember, I forget who is a huge game. And this same player, J.D. Notet.

I'm like, hey, man, just relaxing. like, coach, perfect free throw is harder than what I'm about to go do. But the mentality of a player to go, I got this. I only got to go make two instead of worrying about perfect free throw where I'm relying on my teammate and then it comes back to me. And if I miss this free throw in practice, I'm letting the whole team down and we've got to start back over. Yeah.

I mean, you make practice harder than the game. That's what the coach is supposed to do. Because then when you get to the game, it should be easy. It's like deja vu. You've seen this shit already. You've seen it. Amen, baby. We'll be right back after this quick break.

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Search video podcasts and tap watch. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives,

and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop. having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. So I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments,

nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is the Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to pro society on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. All right, let's jump into these Arkansas. All right, let's run through these Razorbacks real quick.

28 and 9. Coming off in an elite eight run. Third year, the coach, Muslimanera down there. Started 9-0. Had a nice nine-game win streak there in the middle of the season. That's when they took down Auburn, number one ranked Auburn. Led the nation. We just talked about this.

Free throw attempts and makes shout-out perfect free throws. I won the Hall of Fame classic there early in the year. Some of the names on this team, Jay Will, D. Notte talked about him earlier. Chris Likesman. This was a heck of a squad. Really good squad. And this was a team that like the pieces fit. So like we wanted long defensive-minded wings and guards. So Devante Davis was one of the nation's best defenders. Adis Tony, who's played in the G League, was an unbelievable. And he was so great in this game against Gonzaga blocking shots, getting deflections.

And then Stan Amouda's played for three different NBA teams. He's played for Milwaukee. He's played for San Antonio. Stan Adise and Devante Davis, those three guys lengthwise were unbelievable. And then the guy that we like really played off of was Jay Will because he's such a great, great passer. And it's super, super interesting because Williams, the year before had not started a game.

We beat Colgate as Williams coming off the bench. Well, the next game in the NCAA tournament was Williams' first start. We felt like you're ready now. And the interesting, funny story was Connor Vano was 7'3. We had told Van over, do not lose the jump ball against Colgate. Because Colgate had a 6'5 center that had a ponytail. And I was like, Connor at 7-3, do not lose a jump. We lost the jump, true story.

When the ball went into the Colgate players' hands off the jump, I yelled at Jay Will to go get Connor out of the game. And as Jay Will walked by, I'm like, you're not coming out the rest of the NCAA tournament. Because he had earned, it was his time to take over that starting role. and he didn't have it all year, didn't even have it going into that NCAA tournament game. But, you know, looking back,

I probably should have started the young fellow earlier because, you know, he's going to be in the NBA for 12 to 15 years. Yeah. A 6-5 center with a ponytail is the most Patriot League thing ever. My God. Holy smokes. Jay Will is a man.

Absolute beast. That was a Texas Tech the next game. That was a dog fight, wasn't it? Yeah, it was Texas Tech. And that was like, a literally like a rock fight. Because Coach Beard, you play against his team. I mean, literally what they should have done is giving

they should have given all five players on both teams, just boxing gloves and just put a ring out there and just total MMA right there. I love it. I feel like tech in the last 10 years has just been, they've been that fighty team like that for a while. For like the last decade, they came out of nowhere because Texas Tech never used to be a basketball school.

Yeah, no, they're, Name image and likeness helps too. Amen. Is Arkansas a football school or basketball school? Just, you know, side note. I'm going to speak the truth, right? You went to truth, right? Yeah, what's the truth?

Arkansas is basketball school. Okay, just making sure. Yeah, I mean, I know that it's... We were arguing backstage before this. I know it's SEC football and everything, but, and, you know, Coach Pittman was there when I was there, but it, Arkansas is a hoop school for sure. Doesn't matter, doesn't matter who's coaching there.

It's a hoop school. I had to ask. And baseball. They have really good baseball. How about baseball? Coach Van Horn is the man. That's a Hall of Fame baseball coach. And then who's got the longer money?

Walmart or like Purdue chicken down there at Arkansas? Yeah, so Tyson Chicken. Tyson, Tyson, Tyson. So there's Tyson chicken. Tyson. I said that. Tyson. I know.

Same thing. Tyson chicken, J.B. Hunt and Walmart. Okay. Heavy, heavy hitters, all three. So when I was coach in Arkansas, let's big, big shout out to J.B. Hunt. Let's go, baby. But when Coach Cal is there, he's a buddies with the guy.

He's buddies with John Tyson. So now it's all about Tyson chicken. Okay. I wouldn't sure where the switch came in. That makes sense, though. Oh my gosh. We just had to pocket watch real quick. We had to pocket watch.

It's getting a game lead-up. Oh, man. Let's get in the tournament here. We're in the second weekend. Sweet 16. Gonzaga, of course, beat St. Mary's to win their tournament. In the SEC tournament, Arkansas lost Texas A&M in the semis. Then gets a number four seed.

beats Vermont 75-71 and then beats a hot New Mexico State team in another rock fight. That was a real rock fight. Shot like 30-something percent still won the game. Finding ways to win to love it. And then Gonzag, on the other hand, beat GSI and Memphis. That Memphis game was nuts. I mean, Memphis probably should have won that game.

Still think about that game, but that was a path. The Vermont game was... Close. The hardest game in the end. NCAA tournament, in my opinion, is the first game. Get your feet wet. It's like nerves. It's like, and then if you're a high seed, if you're a four seed coming from an SEC and you're playing Vermont, we know every bracket's basically filled out and it's saying Arkansas.

And Vermont was so well coached. And their players knew their role so well. They were not going to beat themselves. Another, I mean, I'll never forget this story. The ball was deflected out of bounds, and they were going to the monitor in a crucial situation. And normally when you get the team together, you're like, hey, who was that out on?

99 out of 100 times your own player says it was out on them. Oh, yeah. Well, this JD Note, he goes, hey, coach, it's out on me. But because he said that, it allowed me to come up with the strategy on baseline out of bounds when we needed it. Instead of him saying, oh, it's out on them. And then I'm drawn. I look back at that as such a defining moment in this particular game

that JD had the wherewithal to say it was out on me. That's what the refs are going to see. So let's get to what we got to get to. 1,000% young players, you can't lie. Not in your own huddle No Because there's a camera That the coaches will go watch it back on

And Bill used to have this Talk with us every year And he'd be like Don't be coming back to the fucking sideline On punt team Saying I was double teamed He was double team There's double team

There's only 11 guys on the field Not everyone would be double team Because it just takes time Out of the coach Who's scheming up for the next play You know what I mean? So that was That's funny you said that.

JD's like the guy in the sportsmanship commercial. You know that one he's like, he was out on me, coach. He's like, go tell the rest. Only in that one instance. Oh my gosh. I love it. Coach, we get into the tournament. When did we know the team was bought in to what you were preaching?

I would say back in that nine game win streak. Because it's like in the SEC or non-conference when you, Like, it's hard to win nine in a row. You know, it really is. It's like, we kind of knew, like, early on. Jalen Williams was like, he was so great, like, talking on the floor and being a traffic cop out there that, like, even in training camp, we were like, we got something special here. Like, you didn't have to tell him twice, hey, you know, hand in the eyeballs or jump to the ball. We didn't have to belabor that point over and over.

with that particular team. And then we had guys that had great pride in their defense. You know, we had some guys that would have liked to have a bigger offensive role. But when the game hit, they were still all about buying into what the team needed them to do. Yeah. You need that. Everyone's got another role. Because we always say in football, what is it?

After Thanksgiving, you know what kind of team you got? That's when we have rule of football season starts. That's right. After Thanksgiving. Shout out. Shout out. That's when, you know, guys are either planning golf trips, you're getting your body ready for that second run.

I prefer the latter. Did a lot of that. Amen. Jackie getting the game. Let's get in this game here a little bit. We touched on some of these earlier. Jim Nance. Jim Nance on the call, Bill Raftrey.

We had the A crew here, Grand Hill. Bill Raftree comes out with a minivan on the Gonzaga defense. 99% man to man, of course, as we know, if you read this scouting report. I mean it starts out this is a game of runs a game of droughts Timmy comes out hot he'd been coming off a 32 25 point game respectively Arkansas gets in the first eight minutes six of 11 0 of 4 from 3 this was not a big three point shooting game

we're playing that show the game plan we saw the game plan shell come on now at the under 12 the zags get on a little two minute scoring drought Arkansas takes advantage big three score seven straight gets their first lead of the game and then a big thing of note here at the 9-minute mark, Zag still don't have a fast break point. How big was that, coach? Huge, because, I mean, we knew that it was going to be hard for them to score against us in a half court because of our length and our athleticism.

So if we could just take away their transition game, we felt like, you know, there's no way that we would lose the game. And then with the halftime score, 29. We were so confident. I mean, there was, at that point, you know, we felt like, hey, we're not losing this game. Like, we don't even need to score that much more. It was really just about defense, extra possessions,

don't let him get on a scoring run, continue to try to put, you know, Holmgren in situations where he would get fouls. And Holmgren was great in the second half. Yeah. I mean, he was unbelievable. Yeah, he was unbelievable. But ultimately his foul trouble,

we felt took away some of his aggressiveness as well. Now, how did you set the tone? How do you think the team set the tone early in the game? I mean, you guys gave us 29 points. These guys were scoring 84 game. What set the tone for the start of that game to let them know it was going to be a long night? Physicality, right away.

Was there a play? Do you remember? Not really a play, but like we even talked about before the ball gets inbounded on baseline out, side out. Like, get your forearm in the rib cage. You know, like let them know, we call it engagement. Like don't, don't just stand next to the guy you're guarding. Before the ref hands, like. Let them feel you.

Right there. Let them feel you. Let them know. Hey, there's, you could talk. You know, like I told like, hey, we're, we're from the SEC. They're from the conference I played in. You put it together in your mind. Like, it's like, hey, let's let them know what we're all about right away.

No brother-in-law. No, no brother-in-law. there. No brother long. Not there. Oh, it was, but yeah, we mentioned Chet. Fowell Trouble was a big story of this game at the under nine. He's got his second mark to you has to sit him. There was a three plus minute drought for the Razorbacks

which is a 9-0 run for the Zag, stretch that lead out to eight. But J.D. Notte ends that run. That was a big thing. Whenever it got up to six, eight, never really got into double digits. Arkansas was always there to cut that thing and keep it at a manageable like five to six. How do you, how do you get

a run to stop? How do you stop run from going. Yeah. So most coaches call a timeout. Time out. We historically don't, but we let our teams know early on. You guys, I'm probably not going to call a time out. So what do you have to do?

For us, it's drawn fouls. Get to the foul line. Now there's stoppage of play. Not many teams are going to score off of a free throw with your defense set or they shouldn't. So to us, it's always about their scoring. run, us trying to draw FTA. That's huge.

I like that. We had we have Joe in here. Maybe we're talking about playing through it or calling the timeout. He's a play through a guy as well. But I like playing, but I like the stoppage being drawn a foul. You got to know your team. You've know your team, he said, I think. For sure. And weathering those storms. And a big one here that stops the run. We get

it back. Jay Will 3 and then a nice layup by Davis. But a big turning point here. Jay Will draws a charge late. I mean, this pro-charge taker, it was huge. It got him to 50 plus charges on the year. He was the single season leader in taking charges. So, like, we went back and looked it up.

Like, some guys that are in the 20s or 25, those guys are like top three in the country. Jay Will took almost 60. Wow. Unbelievable. I mean, and he loved it. And so what ended up happening is our defensive scheme was, how do we keep Jay Will just right outside the charge circle?

Because he had such like it takes toughness, number one, to take a charge. It takes willingness. It takes unselfishness. But maybe more than anything, it takes basketball IQ. Like you have to beat someone to the spot. And he was the best I've ever been around at any level of understanding how to get his two defensive feet set prior to the offensive player leaving the ground. You're that, Matt?

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I hear you're over there playing pickup. Sacrifice your body, bro. Matt, you got to be a take a charge guy. We need to take a charge guy. We don't need your verticality. Hey, if you got to sell it, sell it, sell it, baby.

Oh, my gosh. Then we, oh, man, we got a 7-0 run there. Pace gets a little frenetic under 10. Gonzaga's getting some looks, but they're not hitting these threes. We're swarming to. the catch double team and Timmy hot coming quick really nice did the under three another big stat of note still no free throws still no makes for the razorbacks unbelievable that was crazy yeah i mean it was we knew like it's not going to be a great offensive game for us you know we

it was like the the prep was really all about just not letting them get comfortable like that was all we were worried about we weren't worried about what offensive plays we were running and it was more schemes. It was more, like, let Timmy get his. Don't let these other guys. Like, we can't allow overhelp to a Strother 3. Like, that's the stuff that we couldn't overcome. We could overcome a two-point old-fashioned bucket,

but we couldn't overcome Nevinhardt from 3. We couldn't overcome the three-point shooting if they got hot. It's like those West Coast teams. You start affecting their execution. Yes. You knock them off their route, mess up their timing. You know, we all know that they practice and the coaches don't let them get hit in practice so they can have their timing. We know that all day.

We fuck it up. They're going to be all fucked up. Everybody's got a plan until you get punched in the face. Everyone's got a plan until you get punched in the face. Always. But we in the half with some big mo, 13 to two run. Jay Will another charge. Zaggs nine turnovers already.

We're going into locker room hot, holding them to 29 points, 32, 29. the doors blow off. Take us inside halftime, coach. Yeah, I mean, half time, we, you know, we felt good. And then I remember my younger son, who wasn't on staff, but was at the game, said something about Barclay. Charles Barkley likes the game plan is what Matthew Musselman told me. at some point before the second half started, and I kind of told our guys like,

hey, we're doing all the right things. And I was like, if this thing gets inside of five minutes, we don't have the pressure, guys. The pressure is all on the zags, not on us. And I said, guarantee you'll start feeling it. Out on the, between the lines, you'll feel the pressure that they have. not that we have.

We're playing with house money, man. We're not even supposed to be here right now. Yeah. This game's supposed to be double-digit win for Gonzaga. We play free. We play pickup ball. Let them feel the pressure. I'm just thinking about what Charles said.

What Chuck said? Hey, man, that coached me. Hey, I like those movies. That's just terrible by the other team. Terrible. I love Chuck. Oh, my gosh. I got out. Charles gave me a hug once.

I made me feel like such a small man. What a player, though. Oh, unbelievable. You talk about, like, I think about all the years as an assistant in the NBA and watching my dad go against all these guys. And, like, that was just hard a guy to defend one-on-one as the league's ever seen. Ever. I mean, it just sucks. He never got one.

That really is crazy. That's crazy. Luck. A little bit of luck. And everything. sure that you've played or seen some guys that you're like, ah, that guy's really not a winner, but he got a ring. Yeah.

You know, and then you've been around seeing other guys and you're like, that guy's a winner, but he just never got a ring. Yeah. We love you, Chuck. I love you, Chuck. Come on the pod one day, brother. Now, coach, when did you feel that the pressure? Because you said at halftime, there's going to be a point in the game where they're going

to feel the pressure. When was that point in this game where you guys, you guys knew that the pressure was on them? 329 game over, even if they went up, game over. Holmgren files out, pressure becomes too much. And then the talent level, which we felt, you know, we felt like we had an unbelievably talented team, but we didn't have six future NBA players like Gonzaga did. And so we felt like you take one of those guys off the floor or unavailable or

or fouling out. Now it's a game-changing for us. So we felt Holmgren playing so great in the second half, fouls out 329. Now there are other players like Timmy, and Timmy missed a couple chippies that he normally doesn't down the stretch, like point-blank shots.

I think the pressure once Holmgren filed out, and you could see our guys. Yeah. Now we got confidence. Way more confidence. No, JD driving right into his chest there. That 329 mark was huge. I was sick.

And then that big J. Will 3 right before that, there were just so many big momentum changes and got stretched it out to 8 in the second half. That was awesome. 329, they're out. You guys, that was it. My dad used to say pressure does two things. Either make a diamond or bust your pipes.

Them zags, pipes busted, brother. And the pipes were busted. We'll be right back after this quick, break. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Hello. My gosh. Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish, right inside the free IHare Radio app. Get the blood going up. Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like the Tom Green Farmcast and park the bus. Now with full video. We're building a ramp for Tony Hawk. It's the same hosts and the same chemistry with all the hilarious moments you've been missing

right on your screen. Cheers. Open the free IHR radio app. Search video podcasts and tap. Watch. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments,

nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is the Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to pro society on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. You guys get to go to the elite eight.

Huge. How satisfying was that feeling once the clock hit zero? You take out another number one. Yep. So that game, if I'm not mistaken, that game was in San Francisco. Oh, yeah. Steph was there. Steph was there, and I got a story on that as well.

But because it was in San Francisco where my two sons grew up, up. Yeah. And with the, you know, the host was the Warriors, basically. And I coached the Warriors. Wow. So super cool. So before the next game, which was the Duke game,

Steph Curry came back. One of our assistant coaches was Key Smart. And Steph wanted to say hi to Keith because Keith was with the Warriors when Steph was drafted. And so I said, hey, Steph, can I get a. a picture. It helped me tremendously with recruits. And we're in a locker room. And because it was early in that building, the walls in the locker room that we were in were just wiped. And Steph said, coach, no problem. I'd love to get a picture. He goes, but I don't want to take it in here. And I'm like,

no, no, this is fine. Like, it's like 13 minutes before tip off. And Steph was not with the warriors. He was hurt at the time. And so they were on a road trip. He had stayed back to rehab. He walked me halfway around the arena and the balls of the arena. Behind, there's like a, there's an Oakland, like circular type monument look that, that people know in Oakland. He wanted the picture behind that. And as I walked back, all I was thinking about was how much pride he has in anything that he's associated with.

because how many people would have just taken a picture right there with the blank white wall, but he wanted the background to be something that was elite just for a picture. And it's right before the game. And I'm like, this guy is so special that he wouldn't just take the picture right there. And he knew where he wanted to get the picture. It's amazing. That's unbelievable. Attention to detail.

Attention to detail. Tens to detail, fellas. That's what that guy definitely has. You see him play golf? It hits fucking hole and ones. It's insane. He's a bad man. He's a bad man.

I just want his wrist for one day. I just want to feel what it feels like to just pure, baby. And just banging half court shots on a golf course too, like with the hoops up and he's hitting shots in his golf attire. It's incredible. It's really he's been touched by God.

to a whole other level. But he also works for it, Coach. He also works for it. Yep. Exactly. Let's put a button on this. Arkansas got their first win over a number one seed in the tournament in program history.

Moved on to the elite eight, as we mentioned, fell to Duke, 78, 69. J.D. Notet, Jalen Williams, two guys that were huge in this game. First team, all SEC. Arkansas would make another sweet 16 run the next year. And then in 2024, coach Muslim would take over his head.

coach of U.S. Men's Basketball, baby. Let's go. The number one seed in program history, when you think about all of Arkansas's past with Nolan Richardson and Eddie Sutton, and like that was like we were super proud to be the first team to beat a number one seed in that program's history as well as, like Arkansas has had all these pros. Yeah.

They had never had a one and done before. Wow. And so Moses Moody was the first one and done. And then Anthony Black, Nick Smith, and Jordan Walsh were also one and done. So, like, those two things, like, we take unbelievable pride as a staff. Because we have unbelievable respect for what's happened at Arkansas. Yeah. I mean, you guys had an unbelievable run at Arkansas.

Amen, it had immediate success transformed that whole, man. That's unbelievable, man. I remember this, too, because I remember the year before, because I'm a basketball casual coach, but, you know, when it is tournament time, I do fill out a bracket. And I have won a few brackets. Yes, you have won a few brackets. I don't know why. I'm winning these brackets.

I'm staying up to three in the morning watching the West games coming last. Since coach was there, I started putting that Arkansas on that bracket. I'm going to start doing my USC teams too now. All right, coach, we named this game. These are some names that we came up with. If you have a name that you call this game specifically, we can go. at that, but let us, let us tell you what we came up with. Back to the Elite 8 game, defense wins games game, the Trey Wade game, the JD, Noda, Nota, no, Tate, no Tate,

game, all aboard the must bus. Or something else. We got other names. Or anything else. I, I would say that because he was such a great teammate all year, it was the Trey Wade game. And I'll tell you guys, like, this is a really cool story. About mid-year, he wasn't really playing. And I, my office was up above the practice floor and I looked down and he was doing one, I'd like to call it five on O, but he was going through the baseline out of bounds his assignments with no other teammates out there. He was Drew Breeding it.

I've never seen that in basketball. Yeah. It was incredible. He was like jumpstopping on a screen and then opening to an imaginary ball. And I was like, at that point, I was like, man, I got to figure out a way to play this guy. Because he's such a great teammate. And he's doing everything. Ask, how do we figure out a way to get in minutes?

And finally this game, like he took it to a whole other level. Those are the fun stories right there. And you see the progression of a player throughout the year come to fruition. And now he's got a game named after him. There you go. the Trey Wade game. Sean, one of the greatest podcasts of all times.

Hey, Coach, you, clip that, you said that. You said that. All right, let's score the game.

Is this the greatest game of all time? Let's score it. Coach, decimals are encouraged. The stakes of this sweet 16 game versus the number one seed Gonzaga. Winner go home.

Winner go home. Stakes zero to 10. Sorry, coach. I didn't finish it. Okay. It being like life or death. I would say, um,

living in Arkansas. It's definitely a nine. Maybe 9.5. I can see that. I like that. I'm going to go, Arkansas loves their basketball. I'm going to go 92.

9.2, 9.2. I mean, sweet 16. There's a lot. We're on the same ballpark. Star power here. The star power. How many NBA guys? I think eight total on the court.

And then Steph was in the building. Steph was in the building. Coach, I mean, Coach Musselman, Mark Few. And several G. guys. I'm gonna say though from a like a star

I'm gonna I'm gonna go eight eight eight I like that it's respectable that's a integrity that's an integrity type score I'm gonna go 7.6 and then I mean we could do this game in six years and the star power could be even higher there you know what I mean it is so true I had an 8 8

we're all in the same ballpark I love it look at us The game play of the game, how the game went, how you think, coach, one to ten. I would say from our standpoint, it was a nine. I would say from a cosmetically pleasing to the fan, if you're an Arkansas guy, it would be over a 10. And if you're a Gonzaga fan, it would be probably a four cosmetically watching it. So it's all encompassing, right? Yep. So we got to give it an eight.

I thought it was a thumper. It was a grind of a game. And I like those types of games. I'm going to go 8.6. Went with a 8.3. Man, we are all in the same ballpark. Let's go. Now we got to grade the name of the game, coach.

The Trey Wade game, 0 to 10. I'm going to go 10 because I have such affection for Trey Wade. Shout out, Trey. Hope you listening, brother. That's a good coach right there. I'm going to go 8.8. shout out Michael Lervin who just so happened to be the same name

as one of the referees of this game Michael Irving. Shout out. And a very good ref, I might say. Is he? Yes. Who's a ref that you don't like? But you won't say,

don't worry, no one will hear it. Just tell me real quick. Oh, man. That's an easy one. And he knows who it is. We won't even put it out there. We won't put it out there, coach.

We won't put it on. I'm looking at you, TV, Teddy. T. I ain't refing. more. Coach, how many, if I showed you like 100 refs, you think you'd know how many by first night, like just off face. You'd know their name. I'd know 99. Wow. Yeah. I love that. You know, like, you get all these lessons. Yeah. So like Chuck Daly, like he knew every ref, and he knew the ref's tendencies as much as he knew the opposing players. I mean, we would be,

it was amazing. Like, we would have a road game. And, um, there's a ref by the name of Jack Neese, and Coach Daly would go, we got a chance. And Coach Daly was like a man, a few words, you know, and then there'd be, you know, we'd have a home game, and he'd like, I don't like the feel of this one with so-and-self. But, and he was like, he knew which ref's like, all right, a superstar on the other team is getting every call from this ref,

he's intimidated. Yeah. You know, so it was, but the point of the story, I guess you guys is just like, know their names, know their tendencies and try to, you know, I wish I was less emotional with the referees because my dad had a rule. Don't ever go against them, say anything negative unless you're absolutely sure. And when you're sure, you can jump them. But it's only got to be once a half at most or once a game. And I'm more of a, like a chirper, which. You know, my dad always said, don't chirp.

So I need to re-raig back a little. We used to have scouting reports on the night before the game of the referees. Wow. Just because, you know, it goes into play. And Bill, what do we say? We got to do businesses, businesses being done. We feel out how it's going to be in the first half or the first couple quarters. And then we play ball.

But you just hope that it's consistent. Yeah. That's all we hope, guys. Okay. If you're going to call something, just call it the same way in the fourth. that you did in the first or in his game the first half you did in the second half, okay? That's all we ask.

That's all we're asking. And get your eyes checked every freaking week. I love refs, if you know. We put pictures up of the refs in our locker room and then before the game we'll say, hey, don't talk to this guy. Make sure you over-communicate with this guy. Yeah.

You know, just so the guys know, like, hey, one guy's communicative, this other guy just don't even mess with him. No. And I give the refs a hard time. They got a hard job. They got a hard job. job. And it's pretty, like, at least for our refs, it's pretty insane to watch how many of the calls they get right.

No, especially after a game when you go back. Yeah. And you're like, man, he really, that's, that's, that's a great spot. You know what I mean? It's, it's unreal. But what did this land up on us, Jackie? This is our new 37th ranked game on our list, our master list here. Just in front of WrestleMania 35 and the 2003 NFC divisional round. Carolina versus St. Louis. That was game Steve Smith went off. So yeah, we're right in good company up there. Wow, that is good company. Pretty good company. It's a lot of good company, coach. Wow.

Love to see that. Coach, you've been watching this FIFA World Cup at all? Yes. Yeah, you got a little cup fever? Yeah, I took my two sons and my daughter. Amazing. We went and watched USA. And I don't know much about soccer.

Yeah. Before this World Cup. But now, like my wife says, you act like you could coach. So you don't know. Like, but now I'm starting to see strategy. Well, a lot of it's triangles just like basketball. No question.

In the passing. And, but again, I wouldn't watch soccer if you paid me before this World Cup. But I, I've gotten into it. It's been, it's been really fun to dive into my little girl. She plays soccer. So, like, I've gotten into soccer. And, you know, in America, it was either you're a football guy or a soccer guy, you know. And it's been really cool to see.

it's growth over the last 20 years. And, you know, I feel bad for the fellas that went out there and did put out their best performance in the last game, the U.S. team. It was tough. But they did have a good tournament. The overall tournament, we saw some excitement from them that I don't think I've ever felt, you know, as a soccer casual, soccer casual here, of course. I would agree.

I think the, and the biggest decision I thought was that game when they had all. already the game I went to when they had already locked up advancing and you have a decision on how you play that game because if you win that game, then you come out of the tournament three and one and I think there's even a little bit more positive buzz, you know, than two and two. Yeah. You know, even though it wouldn't have had any difference in the outcome, but just the feel of being three and one is a little bit different. That's a hard coaching decision. That is. But that's a game, though. where they're battling the fatigue factor.

And the yellow card, red card. I don't know it quite like I should, but it's been real fun to getting to learn that sport a little bit. Be a lot better if we were a lot better at it, though. We're getting there. We're getting there. We're getting there. Big Mo.

Coach, we miss anything from this game? No, I think we hit it all. It was fun to relive it. It was fun coming in with the prep because I got to, to go back and watch it the last couple days, found the practice plans, relived all that. I actually talked to, we have a player on our team that's a huge fan of yours. Adonis Ratliff, he's a big Patriot fan. Let's go Ratliff.

And so I told the team I was coming on and we kind of relived with our current team this game as well. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Oh, man, that's so cool. Look at coach. Using it as learning experience. Let's go. teach the boys one more time about how we defend and defeat in Zaga, because they might be around.

For sure. They might be around over there. You guys might have to play them a couple times, right? That's fine. And you got the book ready. We know what we got to do. We got to kill transition points. We got to get physical.

And we got to stop a little of their execution. And don't forget the FTAs. FTAs. We got to get there. Stop their fast break. Exactly. Get to the freaking line, guys. Come on now.

Amen. Everyone go check out a USC basketball game this year. We got to go, bro. We're going. You got to get us. Court side. Oh, don't let my feet touch that court. Don't let me on the wood.

I might jack up a three. Oh, boy. Oh, baby. Oh, yeah. Let's go. USC Trojans. Let's go. Fight on, baby.

Coach, thank you so much. Yeah, thanks, Julian. That was awesome. Yeah, it's fun. Man, what a game. What a game. College basketball coaches. Close.

They're a different breed, man. Coach Musselman. I don't think I said his name in the intro. I just called him coach. I just felt so coach with him. Me too. I felt like he was coach. I would run defensive slides right now.

I don't care. He got a great voice too. Great voice. I can't wait to hear his voice on our episode. Smooth, baby. Radio voice. Radio voice. I know what he,

hey, when he hangs up the coaching whistle, get in the booth, baby. He can get in booth. Get in the booth. I love Musselman. I like Musselman. He is a beast. He's cool.

And he had one of the coaches from Mansfield, shout out. Shout out, baby. Shout out, man's feeling fresh catch. Guys know what's up, baby. Fresh catch used to go there. It was a good little seafood spot. Bro, the second you said that, he was like, oh, my, I do fresh catch. Yeah, I love fresh catch. Right on, man. It was like one of the first

places I used to go to. Siff. Oh, G's a spot. Because it was by our residence in. What was the go-to when you'd order there? Just a grilled fish of some sort. You know, you can get a blackened, I think. I like a little blackened fish action. They also had like a deli. I don't know. It's been

a while. It's been 20 years. That's insane to think, dude. Jesus. How many years? 2009? No, what is that? 17.

18? 17, 18 years? Geez. The resident's in. It's got to still be there, right? I would think. Yeah. Yeah.

That's where they're still at. All right. Bro. Man, that was fun. That was awesome. We got to take it. We got to go check out a USC game. Dude, I'm so down.

I want to go run the, we got to hit a UCLA women's basketball game. We got to hit a UCLA women's basketball game. We got to hit a, USC's men's basketball game. Maybe even UCLA men's basketball game. Maybe USC. I don't know.

Coach might get mad at that. I know. We're fine on, fine on. Right now we have, you know, men side, we're USC,

because that's a big thing here. It is. Oh, I know. That's a big thing in LA. It is. I know. I don't know how they're a little

lively works. Like, we're East Coast cats. Yeah. Slash North Cal cats, but like, yeah, it's a thing.

It's a thing. But we're like, we're in two gangs right now. We're half and half. Yeah. You can't be a blood and a crib. And right now we're both. We're kind of quasi.

We're straddling both sides. We're good in any hood. Hey, man. Snoopy, cool, with all. That's us, man. We got to pull a A, but I will make one requirement. We got to be on the wooded both. Wow.

Would it both? Come on, dog. Come on, coach. We're good. That goes to the toes. They got us. I got my triple referee. Come on, dog.

We'll be right back after this quick break. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Hello. My gosh. Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to Finish, right inside the free IHIR radio app. Gets the blood going up.

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This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. So I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.

Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. We got to look at the schedule and look at the dopest game. We got to find the best game.

to find the best. I want ranked on ranked. I want two top 10 teams. Yeah, we got to go. You got better be in the top 10 for us. Come on. Come on. Go on. Drop the schedule. We might have to go hit that fucking pick up game. I'm so down, bro. Yeah, right. I can't. Let me run the clock like olden days, bro.

Yeah, right. Well, that was a fun episode. And that's been another episode of games with names. Subscribe on Apple, podcast, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. Comment a game you want us to do and remember. Rate and review. Leave us a five-star review on Spotify while you're there. And also remember to follow Games with Names on YouTube, Instagram, X, TikTok, Snapchat.

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We are at D23, so we'll see who stops by. The cast of Frozen stopped by. Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, and Adina Mansell. I audition for Frozen. What? For Christoph. They said, okay, what are you going to be singing today? I said, I don't know.

That must have been why you didn't get it. Oh, you probably won't. Plus, John Stamos, Hayden Christensen from Star Wars and more. And I guess I can share that... No way. Listen to the latest episode of Hey Jonas on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport and Sean Clements.

We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Each week, we talk to someone in show business and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stillard, and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Nick Tatoro. You probably know me from NYPD Blue, the longest yard, or Spike Lee's Black Klansman. And on my new podcast,

delivering happiness with Nick Titoro, I deliver pizza to a new guest. I've shared a slice with everyone, from Seth Rollins. What are you doing my belt? To Bill Burr. I don't think I've ever met somebody so exactly out of their mind as I am.

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