KSR - 2024-12-31- KSR - Hour 1
Episode Date: December 31, 2024Matt, Ryan and Drew get your ready for the UK-Brown game on a New Years Eve edition of the show.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
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Comedy Off Broadway and Lexington welcomes Derek Struke, December 19th through the 21st,
then catch Lexington Native Lee Gembril for two hilarious shows on New Year's Eve,
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Welcome, everyone.
It is Kentucky Sports Radio here live in Lexington, Kentucky at the KS Bar and Grill, where we're not even open yet.
And look at this crowd here today.
Look at that.
That's awesome.
There you go.
Kentucky versus Brown, the SEC and the Ivy League.
Ain't no spelling bee, but we still play today the Brown Bears.
Is that right?
Brown Bears.
Brown Bear.
Here at 2 o'clock on New Year's Eve on a what's becoming a cold day here in Lexington.
Kentucky. You can give us down the Clark's Pump and Shop phone line.
859-280-2287. A-Vision auto glass text machine is 772-7-7-4-7-4.
This edition is sponsored by the T.J. Smith Law Office. If you call T.J. He'll make them pay.
We went back and looked not very often. I think only three times in Kentucky history
have they played on New Year's Eve during the day, not on a weekend.
Oregon's Louisville. So it's a very, I think it's a couple of different times over the years.
is one of them. There is a 40 mile an hour winds coming and it's going to be cold, but I still
think Ryan going to be a fun day in Rupp as the cats get back on the court. We've always said
it's kind of indicative of how the crowd's going to be like at Rupp. He wanted to say
indicative, did it? Indicative, did. I could saw it in my head. You could saw it. You did.
Yeah. What the crowd is here for pregame, and they were here at 915 lined up waiting to get in.
So that kind of tells me what it's going to be like at Rupp Arena this afternoon.
Yeah, I expected a good crowd. I didn't expect to.
my parking spot to be gone. I didn't expect it to be full all the way of the back of the restaurant.
We're still not officially open for 55 minutes. And we're not even open yet. I expect a good environment
down at Rupp Arena when all a big Blue Nation files in for the game. So let me explain a little bit of
how today's going to go because it'll be kind of a weird day on the air in here. First of all,
here at the restaurant, we will open at 11 so everybody in here can kind of hang out until them,
but then we won't actually start opening until 11. Now, for those of you listening on the radio,
it's kind of a confusing day. We're going to actually go until 12.
30 because our KSR pregame show is going to bleed into this.
However, if you are on one of our affiliates, which is most of them that don't take the pregame show,
but only take the morning show, at 1130, you will go away.
They'll play 30 minutes of a best of, so you'll have to find us online at WLAP.com.
Also, you know how when we used to interview Cal, it'd be like 40 minutes of talking,
and then we take like three breaks in a row.
We'll have to do that from like 1122 to 11.30.
So I just want to give everybody a little update on how things will go.
Ryan, a little different because it's very rare that a game comes so close to the actual show.
Yeah, this doesn't happen very often where our pregame show bleeds into the morning show.
But it is kind of, you know, producing wise.
There's hard breaks you've got to consider at 1130 and kind of get for our show to end and the pregame show to start.
So there's a lot going on behind the scene.
A lot going on.
And Rick, there's a lot going on.
This is a lot for you.
Are you ready for all the things that have to happen?
Oh, I'm ready.
I've had about four cups of coffee.
He's had four cups of coffee.
There were emails flying last night, and Rick got on his manual typewriter and typed out what he was going to do, and now we're ready to go, Durr.
That's right.
I've already had four.
I didn't know anybody's going to say glasses of wine or cups of coffee, but I'm glad it's a coffee day.
The wine comes later on tonight, guys.
Well, good.
Well, it is.
It is New Year's Eve.
It is.
I'm actually this evening doing what you traditionally would do on New Year's Eve,
which is drive to Columbus, Ohio, to watch the Carolina Hurricanes play hockey on New Year's Eve.
But otherwise, what are you doing for New Year's Eve?
Got a date tonight, going on a hot date tonight.
Jeff Ruby's reservation is Jeff Ruby.
I'm going with Jeff Ruby.
That'll be nice.
Where is he taking you?
To his own restaurant.
Oh, that's okay.
He owns a restaurant.
So you're wanting to tell everybody.
where you're going to be. Well, she knows now.
So it was part of her Christmas present that,
you know, yeah, we're going to go to Jeff Ruby.
Well, that's nice. You know, that's going to be expensive
because it's New Year's Eve. They have all those special.
Are you going to buy champagne?
Probably. But, you know, Drew and I are on this little secret.
They sell these $100 gift cards for $80 leading up to Christmas.
So you buy a couple of those. I'm saving $40.
Why does I walk in the door?
I mean, you buy like Christmas gift cards for yourself.
Basically, but I give them to her. Like, it's part of her Christmas.
Yeah, it's good movie.
And then she gives them back to you.
you to pay for New Year's Eve.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I emailed mine directly to myself to my wallet.
So you're doing that.
You usually go there on New Year's Eve.
Are you doing that tonight, too?
Well, this year I took it up a notch.
I, for maybe the first time in my life, got a hotel in Lexington, like 10 minutes from my house.
But the last two years, getting an Uber has been impossible.
We don't drink and drive.
We buckle up, put our phone down.
So I said, you know what this year?
I ain't messing with it.
I'm already going to be downtown.
I'm just going to stay downtown.
So I have a suitcase outside.
I'm going to rub from here and I'm just that's very romantic so you so you're going to a
Abby's going to go too so yes it is romantic it's not just me she's going yeah I'm pretty much just out for the night right now
all right well so we all have our things you all are doing Jeff Rubies and I'm doing hockey so it's exactly what you would want to do you're kind of stepping up your game
usually it's a gold star chili or it is something like that on me well they only play in Columbus like once a year
and this year I mean I try to go in there in Nashville in Columbus Nashville that was day before
Christmas, I couldn't do that.
Yeah.
So this is my only chance to go see them is there is on New Year's Eve.
Is there like a theme?
Are you all going to do a champagne toast when they drop?
I don't know.
I don't know what Columbus does for these games.
But Columbus is terrible, so the tickets probably won't be that bad.
They should probably do something for the fans.
I'm sure they got something playing.
I hope so.
I went to a college basketball game when they put on the shot clock.
They counted down till midnight.
And we all celebrated New Year's Eve at a college basketball game.
Who played till midnight?
It was Murray State and Evansville.
Yeah.
Oh, look at that applause.
You went to Murray State Evansville as the ball dropped.
New Year's Eve, yeah.
I think it's back when they had Popeye Jones,
and they were really good back in the early in the 80s.
Well, you know, don't say you don't do fun things for New Year's Eve.
Well, today, Kentucky will play Brown.
I listened to some of Mark Pope's press conference, or excuse me, radio show last night.
I perked up when he said Brown's best player is called the Ivy League Iverson.
which Drew, I think, is a really funny nickname.
Ivy League Iverson averaging 20 points a game.
What can you tell us about him besides the great nickname?
I can tell you a lot about him.
I've written two posts about him already.
You should go read them.
His name's Keeno Lilly.
He is Brown's all-time leading three-point shooter.
He hits four a game this season.
So how he's going to hit tonight?
That's what I'm worried about.
I mean, he can score.
He's only six foot tall.
When you look up the leading scores in college basketball,
he's top 20, but he's the shortest by far.
he's a guy that just goes out and gets buckets.
He gets a lot of his threes coming off an off ball screen,
just a quick shot going in.
He's already hit a buzzer beater that way to win a game this year when they were down two.
But he is just an absolute bucket for them.
If Brown's going to cause Kentucky any problems,
it'll be because Ivy League Iverson goes off.
Yeah, so Brown has beaten Rhode Island,
which you may be like, well, who cares about that?
But Rhode Island, I think only has one loss so far this year,
and it is to Brown.
They are in the same state.
That's like kind of a, it's almost the equivalent of like Murray State beating Kentucky or something like that.
Went to overtime, too.
Went to overtime.
They beat, they played Kansas, played them pretty well for a half, and then Kansas kind of blew them out.
What's interesting about their team, they don't have any player on their team taller than 6'8,
but they're 12th in the country and block shots.
So even though they're a team that's not very long, they will block your shot, which is kind of something.
And they are a very, most Ivy League teams, you know, run methodical offense,
but defensively you can crush them.
They're kind of the opposite.
Their defense is their calling card.
And, you know, we've struggled these last few games against teams that play good defense.
Yeah, and we expect that, you know, the blueprint has been set.
You know, how to guard Kentucky, push them out, get them outside as far out as possible,
be physical with the big guys and kind of mess up with their minds a little bit.
I wonder, I'm interested to why, I have not watched them.
how a team can be top 12 in the country and block shots and have no one 6-8.
It's taller than 6-8.
That's really strange just to even think how that would happen.
Yeah, at the 4 and the 5, they're both 6-6, and they're 1 and 2 in the Ivy League in blocks
and then maybe even top 25 nationally.
It's very odd.
And I mentioned this yesterday, but defensively, they don't give up many threes.
They really extend that on you.
They're 13th in the country and holding teams a percentage with three-pointers versus their twos.
They make you shoot a lot of twos, even when you take threes.
they hold you to a pretty good percentage.
So while they are an Ivy League team, and they're not great,
they do have exactly the makeup of the teams that are giving us problems.
Extend their defense out, stop you from shooting threes, block shots, shoot threes themselves.
You know, I'm not worried about losing this game.
But Ryan, I think it'll be interesting.
Like, Pope says they've spent, I mean, they took a few days off for Christmas,
but it's been a week trying, as he said, to correct the errors of the Ohio State game.
This is actually a game where we'll see to what extent they've been able to do it,
because this is a much less athletic version, probably of that Ohio State team we play.
Yeah, you know, it is a little concerning.
They haven't played for 10 days.
Maybe you've knocked the rust off a little bit.
But nobody else has either.
I don't think Brown had, like college basketball kind of took this off.
Lamont Bullery did say yesterday that, you know, the practices have been really, really intense.
That's kind of good to hear that the guys maybe are focused and zero.
in a little bit and not overlooking Brown with the big Florida game coming up this weekend.
What do you know about Brown University?
Can you give me, when I say Brown, what do you know?
The only thing I know is that my friend, the mayor of Louisville, Craig Greenberg, his two sons go to Brown.
But beyond that, no clue of anything else.
That's what he'll be at the game today?
Actually, they're in there, no.
He's not in the country.
So I don't think they're even coming.
But yes, what have?
We've already said the things I know.
They're the bears.
during the Ivy League and they're in Providence, Rhode Island.
That pretty much covers my Brown knowledge.
Last year were the best team.
Like, they, I mean, this is a team that when you get to the NCAA tournament
and you're looking and it's like, wait a minute, the 14 seed is playing Iowa State.
It could be a team like Brown.
I mean, Brown last year was the best team in the Ivy League.
They got upset if you remember in the tournament by Yale.
And then didn't Yale go beat Auburn last year?
I think they did.
And so, I mean, this is, you know, this will be a team whether, whatever they do here,
this is a team you might see in March.
Yeah, they're, they're really good.
Yesterday I mentioned, hoping this is another 40-point game, like the first few of the
year and get one of those out of the way before SEC, not happening.
I watched the Kansas game yesterday, had it on just kind of his background noise.
And it was like 32 to 33 in the first half.
The Kansas pulled away in the end, but they were giving them all they wanted for a lot of that game.
Now, Kentucky's a 22-point favorite to,
much. That's a lot of points coming off a 10 day break and a 20 point loss.
But you go to the Kansas game, they were in it, but then they go on to get absolutely
killed in the second half. So maybe they just don't have 40 minutes in them. I'm not
betting it. If you made me pick, I would probably lean brown, but I'm staying away on it.
Yeah. Now, what do we need? I mean, we've tried to forget the Ohio State game because it was a
it was a pretty brutal performance all the way around.
Do you think this team bounces back,
and do you think that tonight we see a good performance?
Because, again, we keep talking about Saturday.
I think Saturday is one of the two most important games on the schedule for Kentucky.
If they really want to do something in the SEC this year,
do you think they get a good performance leading into that?
I'm going to say, yeah, because, you know,
I was a little worried about maybe Ohio State beating you twice,
because that was an ass kicking. Ohio State kicked their ass.
They didn't shoot very well, didn't play very good defense.
I mean, I was worried about that might be a carryover during this long break.
But then after I heard the guys talk yesterday, I mean, it kind of got me a little rejuvenated.
It sounded like, you know, they're really laser-focused and ready to get back on the court and beat somebody.
I think that was just a really big dud.
Now we're far away from Hamilton and all these proposals.
You're blaming Hamilton?
Yes, I'm blaming Hamilton.
You love Hamilton.
I do.
Stay away.
Robert Morris and Hamilton, they were, they started our financial system and their
taking down our basketball program.
Wow.
You bringing in some history.
Wow.
Like little things, remember when Jackson Robes and cut, they made the perfect pass and he missed
the most elementary layup there at a big point in the game.
Yeah.
Something was just off.
They shot threes worse than ever.
They weren't making layups.
I'm just, that's a throwaway game for me.
John F. Kennedy Jr. went to Brown.
Okay.
So now we're getting a lot of knowledge.
We just keep, uh, keep bad and stuff.
I'm not worried about losing it, but I fully suspect this is a game at half time.
I mean, I fully suspect.
I suspect this is a game that's like a four to six point game at half time.
And this is another one of those teams.
Let's say we roll out early, get up 10.
This is one of those teams you got to keep your foot on the gas pedal or they'll immediately come back because they can score in bunches with the way they shoot threes.
859-280-2287.
Where, where?
Let's see where people are from?
Where are you from?
Garrett County?
All right.
Richmond.
St. Louis.
St. Louis.
Lex.
Lexington.
Where?
St. Louis.
Another one from St. Louis.
So, so far the most people here from St. Louis.
Where?
Jeffersonville, Austin, Texas.
See, all over the place here.
All ready for Rupertina tonight against Brown.
We'll take a break and be right back.
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Welcome back. It is Kentucky Sports Radio here live in Lexington at the KS. Bar and Grill. Kentucky and Brown playing at 2 o'clock, 859-280-2287. The other sort of story, you know, they say snow is coming. And there's one thing I like when snow heads this way is the weatherman fighting. And we have, without question, in this area, the,
the most insane group of weather people.
Would you say in the United States?
They're spicy.
I mean, you got Chris Bailey, you got Bill Meck,
and then you have the wild card there in Louisville, Mark Weinberg,
who I don't know, I don't know Mark,
but he's ready to fight people at any time.
And his tweet last night made me so happy.
This is what he wrote.
Just a note,
please do not post raw computer model snow outputs on my timeline or I will block those of you that do
if you already have kindly delete or I will block you now wow he's he's complained about these
computer modules before that must be something he really does not like at all he's blocking you
even if you put a computer module on the thing what why you know if he had said
crypto spam or bots, I would have got it, but it's the snow models that have got him so fired
up. Makes him really angry. He says they're inaccurate and he doesn't want them on his timeline.
But I feel like Mark Weinberg might want to like take a deep breath, go outside, maybe kiss
his wife on New Year's or something like, why ask me so angry about that?
Yeah, if you're getting mad about inaccurate things on social media.
Get ready. But yeah, just seeing a model, I don't understand why that makes them mad.
I don't either. But they're saying,
It could be next, this weekend, could just be rain starting Sunday,
or could be 14 to 16 inches of snow.
Now, that feels like, that feels like a huge gap of difference.
Could be rain, could be 14 to 16 inches of snow.
Should I tweet a model and ask it?
Mark, what is this?
What am I looking at, Mark?
What is this?
Mark, would you have a model that would showcase the various options that we could have?
They do get so feisty, though.
I follow locally.
I don't know, Mark.
I don't get the Louisville.
weather beat but here and I love both parties but we know we have a huge feud locally but
mark seems to be the the angriest online they all three is he go they just go at each other
and lex and he goes at whoever's online yeah for those of me that live in austin and st louis and
these other places you don't know our weather men hate each other like like they really do they
hate each other like chris bailey and bill mack i think they wake up and throw darts at each other's
faces in the dartboard and you're right max winberger is that was
name is Max Weinberg. Wait a minute. That's the Conan O'Brien. Mark Weinberg.
Max Weinberg, you did the band. Yeah, I don't think Max Weinberg has a strong thought on this. But
Mark Weinberg, he'll be in Louisville and then just throw darts at both of them. I just love how
much they hate each other. I think that's a great addition to the community. And you're right. It gets
its peak when there's severe weather coming on. And that's when they like, when they take their coat
off and roll up their sleeves, they're like doing that to go after each other. Can I say something
that might be heresy, you know, when they say, like, AI is going to take jobs?
Doesn't it feel like weathermen?
No, you don't think that could be, I mean, I feel like, don't you think AI might be the thing
that would, like, shouldn't that be able to predict weather pretty accurately?
Every morning, every morning, every morning.
I wake up and you just have the little Alexa and I say, what's the same?
the weather today. But does Mark Weinberg come on? Move on with the rest of my life. I think
Alex's already, Lexing the robots. I mean, I like those guys, but like I do think that's a little
bit like film. Like, isn't it like the old theater? Yeah, I mean, isn't it a little bit like
that'll be something we won't need them to argue about. They'll just be an answer in the future.
Well, I think, you know, when they're a live person, they can add a little personality to their
weather forecast. You want, you want personality with your way. Yeah, I don't want, yeah,
Lex ain't tell me any jokes.
AI can tell you jokes.
Great jokes.
Yeah, AI can never do those when it gets messy and they just turn off whatever's on
and they go to Chris Bailey with his sleeves up and he's given updates.
And then the photos of people from random counties with rulers on their back porch, the robots will never have that.
Chris Bailey's good at putting the photos of how much it snowed in like Elliott County or whatever.
You're right.
Who's up first?
Jack is up first.
Jack, go ahead, Jack.
Hey, Matt, first time, long time.
I got a quick question for you.
So I know it's pretty early to look ahead to next year,
but I think it's pretty apparent that Mark Pope is able to coach the veteran talent,
the veteran talent we have on this team.
I'm curious next year when we have maybe those guys who might be like you talked about,
the guy we can give the basketball and go get a bucket in times when we need it.
I'm curious how you think he's going to be able to coach that freshman talent we have coming in.
And if you think maybe we lose some of the games, we've won and maybe, you know, vice versa.
You know, I appreciate the call.
Next year, Drew will be coaching, I don't know if they're all one and duns, but freshmen
in substantial roles.
Do you think the way he coaches, I think he coaches sort of in an intellectual way.
He assumes that his players are adults.
He treats them, gives them responsibility.
You think that will work with freshmen when we have more of those in the coming years?
I think so because the ones that have committed so far, I mean, they're seeing it in their
conversations talking to him.
They all talk about how he's just such a unique dude.
I'd say by committing, they're already kind of expecting more of that.
With the current team, I don't want to disrespect him because I love him,
but we still got to remember this was Mark Popes thrown together in a month,
didn't have much time to go shopping.
Popes already got guys in mind, at least just on paper for next season,
and we're going to have an even better roster with the system he has now.
As good as these guys are and fit a lot of the pieces for what he likes,
he's going to have much more time to find the pieces for next season.
I think what you'll see with next season's roster is what you will see with Mark
Pope rosters from now on, which is three or four freshmen, three or four guys returning for
a second or third year, two to three to four transfers.
I think that's what you, I think that's going to, and to me, if you look at the teams that
have won national championships in the last few years, that's been their makeup.
I mean, Yukon, that is, Yukon has a machine going of top five to seven freshman class, three or
guys returning, two or three guys from the portal, rinse and repeat every single year.
That's what Yukon's doing, and it's working, and I think that's what Pope's trying to do here.
I think that's exactly what he's trying to do.
And if you get, you know, Brandon Garrison, Otega, and Kerr, got three guys that could come back next year.
Well, and don't forget the freshman.
The freshman.
Chandler, Perry, and Noah.
I mean, I think he probably hopes, you know, he probably hopes that next year, Drew, he's playing
two of those three guys, would you think?
Yeah, and it's so different than what we just.
had. I'm not going to say the name because that guy from Murray will call in and say we're talking
about him again. He already dropped him first segment. Every year it was always we have this next
great class of stars. We have the best of the best coming in. Pope is probably his two biggest targets
are probably Otega Oway and Brandon Garrison. He's going to try to retain a lot. Not so I mean he's
going to add the high schoolers as well, but it's not going to be nearly as many. He's going to put
just as much as emphasis on keeping the guys already on his team. Pope did say by the way
Garrison is not 100% tonight. Do we know what's wrong with him?
I don't.
He didn't really say.
Do we know what's...
A long break there, maybe something.
No, I don't know.
Yeah, so he said he probably would play, but not 100%.
So good thing we had all these players.
It kind of whittles down a little bit with injuries as we keep going.
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We will open in 30 minutes.
This is Kentucky Sports Radio live here in Lexington.
Welcome back.
It is Kentucky Sports Radio here live.
And yeah, there we go.
We're live in Lexington.
KS Bar and Grill. There is a bowl game at noon that we'll be playing until the game.
For those of you going to the game at Rupp, little word on traffic.
I hear a lot of the downtown businesses actually told their workers to work from home today.
So it shouldn't be quite as bad as maybe we thought it was going to be and that it often
is down there.
So it might be easier than we thought when the game is over, you can come back here at the
bar for the post game we're going to have the the what's tonight the fiesta bowl is pin state
and boise state tonight uh so feel free to do that as well and i think there'll probably be a good
crowd of people drew that will listen to mark pope this feels like the kind of post game show
since it's in the afternoon that a lot of people will stay and want to hear him talk completely agree
with the game ending around four o'clock you know anywhere to be you don't even have to go to dinner yet
so i think it could be one of his best we've seen yet which is saying something because they have
been they have been amazing
I mean, these have been the biggest crowds for the post game, probably since the first Cal year, I would say, in terms of having the most people stay.
Would you agree with that?
Yeah, you know, and they're engaging with the fans, you know, and Pope buying them ice cream, and he'll stay and sign an autograph for everybody that's there.
And so that's why these crowds are going to continue to grow.
I'm amazed at how long he signs the autographs.
I mean, I'm just absolutely amazed.
Something I would like all of you to do if you haven't done.
and not right now because we're doing the show, but like during a break, go on Instagram or go on TikTok.
You may find, and I'm sure there's been other places that may have even been on KSR.
The Down syndrome of Louisville, did we have that on KSR?
We did at one point, yeah.
Yeah, it's a couple days ago, but it's the down syndrome of Louisville group went to a UK basketball practice.
And watching the players interact with them.
It was also Trevor Noah's birthday, Trent Noah, excuse me, Trent Noah's birthday, and they gave him a cake and all that.
Ryan, I just love every time, there's something like that that UK basketball does all the time that makes me,
it's just how it should be, and I love watching it every single one of them gets me.
I'm a sucker for all of them.
I'm with you.
I'm the same way, and it's like every week it's something else that's more than just basketball.
You know, it's becoming, you know, these great young men, teaching these guys how to be great young men, be caring young men,
treat your fans with respect, going to Hamilton, whatever it is, team bonding wise and group wise and player wise,
there's just something special about this program right now.
They're very wholesome.
That is a good way to put it.
They are very wholesome.
It's been a lot of fun.
I mean, the last time we saw them wasn't great.
But other than that, I'm still loving this team.
And I think even the LSC Gauntlet's going to be a grind like, unlike anything we've seen in a long.
time. I think this is still going to be a special group.
Is this the best group of like would let them date your daughters we've had in a long
time? This is a collective team.
Seems like it. Is there any of them that you would, any of them you'd be concerned to let date
your daughter? Probably Kerr. That'd be the one. Oh, no, no. Oh, you'd be good with Kerr with
if it's me. I'm doing an arranged marriage with Kerr. We're setting that up. Love Kerr.
You know, you don't think Kerr might be. Oh, he's a gentleman. This
team they're all gentlemen they're all grateful
matt i mean some of them are already married
they're preaching gratitude that's it that's exactly right
true said they're wholesome that's because their coach is
wholesome you know that's why maybe they're feeding off their coach
that way i'm telling you watch andrew car just with
interviews manorisms each day he gets closer to turning into mark pope
and i think by the tournament he's going to have the little buzz
cut he's going to look exactly like he's going to become pope
anybody here drew just do a ron lineman what i do mannurisms oh man
You want to have a manorisms.
Manorisms.
You got to be very careful about manorisms.
You got to be very careful about manorisms.
A little name from the past, Bill Belichick.
I don't know if Bill Belichick was like a fan of Mark Stoop's early work, but he tried to hire
Vince Merrill, and then he just hired DJ Elliott as his defensive coordinator.
You may remember one of the early UK football defense of coordinators.
How about the fact that Stu B.
early staff, the offensive coordinator is now the offensive coordinator at Miami,
and the defensive coordinator is now the defensive coordinator for Bill Belichick.
Yeah, the Miami was just in their bowl game.
They were just praising Shannon Dawson.
And I'm thinking back to those days, what didn't work here, DJ Allen.
Didn't he go to the NFL?
Has he been in the NFL?
Where's he been?
He was at Florida State for a year or two.
He's bounced around a lot.
He's been all over the place.
Colorado.
The connection.
between this Belichick and UK staff.
I mean, I said this the other day.
I don't know if it was on the show or if it was to friends of mine.
But, you know, what's crazy to me is the very first writer that I ever asked to be a part of KSR that I didn't know was T.J.
Bisoner, and he is now in charge of NIL for Bill Belichick.
I want you to just think about that for a minute.
Think about the fact that this is a dude who used to write a blog that was working at what?
Kodak?
He was selling printers in Florida.
And I was like, hey, dude, you want to stop selling printers and write on my website?
And he said, sure, why not?
And now he's sitting with Bill Belichick trying to raise money for NIL.
Is that not amazing?
Yeah, even just him going from the blog to the basketball staff here and being next to Cal was very weird because he went from writing about Cal to being in his office.
We used to write blogs making fun of Ryan Kelly's poop tooth.
And he has since worked for him.
There's a name that not everybody remember from the back.
There's one from the vault.
There's one from the vault.
And then he went from that to John Caliperi and Bill Belichick.
That is insane, isn't it?
What's next?
It is.
Who knows?
It is kind of insane.
And that's one of the glaring, I think, things that we should have seen the downfall of Cal when T.J.
had his dream job working for Coach Cow, working with Coach.
That's what his dream job.
And he walked away from that.
And now he gets Bill Belichick.
And he gets Bill Belichick.
Unbelievable.
Back to DJ Elliott and Bill Belichick and all the old Kentucky connections over there.
Yeah.
It's amazing.
Who's up next?
Brent is up next.
Brent.
Go ahead, Brent.
First time, long time, Matt.
Who are?
I haven't been listening to the last week or so.
I haven't been at work, but I don't know if you guys talked about this,
but no, Lamont Butler is really important,
but I kind of feel like Kirk Reza kind of stirs the total drink
for like the pace and everything that we play at,
and it keeps the offense going.
I'll hang up like you guys.
Do you think we've missed Kirk Creasa?
Do you think that has been a problem?
I appreciate the call.
I think so.
I mean, I know he didn't play really great before he got hurt,
but there's been times where they've had to, you know,
just give Lamont Butler a little break.
That's when we need a Kerr, man.
He brings that instant energy when he comes off the bench.
I mean, I kind of thought that it would be nice to have Kerr,
but it wouldn't really matter.
But I do think it's mattered some.
Definitely.
He wasn't really playing that well.
He had kind of a bad stretch there right as he got hurt.
So kind of our last memory of him,
He had a couple of bad games, but I think they're missing a lot.
But to his credit, all the stuff he's doing on the sideline has been incredible.
I mentioned the game where he came back out, hobbled out at Gonzaga.
They carry him to the bench just to cheer.
I don't know if y'all saw the picture of Butler practicing free throws.
It's just him and Kerr in the gym and Kerr sitting on his scooter just taunting him.
I wish we had audio of whatever he was saying there.
But he hasn't just disappeared to the corner and done his rehab.
He's doing everything he can to help the guys.
I think one of the things that's been surprising to me is what
drop off it has been between our starters and our next five. I mean, I think I thought in the
preseason, not necessarily that they would be interchangeable, but that you wouldn't see a huge drop
off. But in the last few games, the drop off, I mean, we're getting into a sense, like in the NBA
after like six or eight minutes, they put the second team in. Pope's doing that, and I think he's
going to have to stop. Because if you go back to the Ohio State and the Louisville games,
and even the Western game, we've like gone on, they've gone on a 10-0 run.
As soon as we put that second unit in, I think he's going to have to stagger him.
I don't think he's going to be able to, Ryan, continue to go with the whole second unit.
Because it's been, I mean, that's when we were up six on Ohio State and we were down eight really quick after it.
Like, we just can't do it.
And I think even the Gonzaga game, that's when Gonzaggart went out, went up by eight or nine points when he put that second string in.
Oh, you got to do is look at the plus minus, man.
I mean, that's going to back up your argument.
the plus minuses weighs heavily in the starters and not necessarily in the reserves.
It's really surprising, like, how bad Brandon Garrison has been in the plus minus.
Like, really, really bad in the plus minus.
Almanor, another one who, like, it's taken a huge drop when he's come in.
I think this is going to end up being a group that they only see six or seven guys get most of the minutes, you know?
Yeah, Almanor's minutes have really diminished.
when they were playing, I guess, the easier teams earlier in the year,
and he's making a couple threes a game.
I think with the quickness and athleticism,
he's able to play a little bit more.
He's slipping now, and I think all three freshmen,
I'm glad they're getting opportunities,
and I want them to play well,
but all three of them defensively are getting beat as soon as they come in.
Yeah, I mean, they're just not good enough,
and I hate it for Mario, because Almanor is his favorite player.
He kept talking about how he was going to be the best player on the team,
and I'm sorry, Mario, but I just, I don't,
I don't think it's happened, unfortunately.
Unfortunately for him.
But we do need him.
Even that corner three that he'd been so good at, it's just not, I don't know,
it's almost like missing threes has gone and has become a plague for him.
But this may be the last game where Aminorne, the three freshmen really get a lot of minutes
because, man, the SEC's just so physical and athletic, those four guys may not get a chance to get on the floor.
Yeah.
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Welcome back. It is Kentucky Sports Radio here live.
Scared her.
KS. Bar and Real, there's
our guy Brian from OVW fame
just walking in.
By the way, someone should
have correct me. DJ Elliott, you know,
I said he went to North Carolina. He went to North Carolina
state. That's kind of like North Carolina.
It's the same state.
Well, you said he went to North Carolina.
You didn't say university. I didn't say
which school. I just said he went.
And then I did mention Bill Belichick, but I'm sure
Bill Belichick's like visited Raleigh
before. So did the park cut out, or
you said Beister can drive over to NC State and see DJO?
Yeah, I mean, it wasn't like 100% accurate, but I will just say,
don't put the storm weather models in my timeline.
That's the problem.
They confuse me, right?
Well, you know, this, we talked about this during the commercial break.
This beef between the weather guys goes way back.
I mean, it's like 20 years ago, and it really started kicked up in this town.
The Gonzaga, did you see the story about the Gonzaga plane?
I did.
Saw the clip.
Did you all see that clip?
So the Gonzaga plane was at the runway in LAX, like about to sort of move to where it was going to take off.
And another plane was it, was it landing or taking off?
It looked like it.
Gonzaga looked like it was kind of taxiing to the runway.
Yeah.
And the plane could have cut it in half nearly.
I mean, literally the Gonzaga plane nearly got cut in half.
Now, there's an angle where it looks like it really nearly.
And then there's an angle where it shows maybe that was a little bit.
misleading but either way way too close for comfort for the planes you know i'm sure the people on the
gonzaga plane didn't even know that happened when they were sitting there can you imagine after
they get off and then somebody shows them the video this almost happened to you when you were
taking off from the plane might have heard a little rumble there at the last second there's even
the audio from either the the cockpit or whatever where they're saying stop stop stop like someone's
yelling yeah they were yelling stop i thought that was really strange like is that how it works
They just yell stop at planes as they're trying to take off.
Shows you it wasn't just an obstacle illusion that you got someone in the tower screaming stop,
that it was a close call.
The first angle I saw was that one you looked like they would just barely miss each other.
And like, oh, my goodness, that could have been awful.
And then they said, well, they were still like, what, 700 feet apart.
I'm like, that's still too close for two planes to be that close.
They said they were 700 feet?
Something like that.
It was something like that.
It was not 700 feet.
That would be 200 yards.
It didn't look like.
Either way, when the, as,
Drew said when they're screaming stop, stop, stop.
Yeah.
That is a, that is not a good sign for all.
I mean, those guns, the Gonzaga players have to be a little freaked out, I would think, don't you?
Yeah, and like you said, it's unlikely they saw it coming.
They're probably just sitting there waiting for takeoff.
Got their headphones on, sleeping, going by right in front of you.
Or maybe they, I think it's very likely they didn't even know.
Yeah.
You know, that's what I mean.
They're probably finding out.
They probably find out after they land or whatever that that, that, that, that, that, uh, that,
happened it was pretty wild stuff who's up next evan is up next
Evan go ahead Evan you know Matt far be it for me to turn this into Kentucky
meteorological radio but I figured at least I should take up for my my
meteorological brethren I used to be a meteorologist out in eastern
Kentucky and I should at least mention the reason that he's so mad about raw
snow total maps okay and the reason is that you know this
storm is five days out and the storm itself is thousands of miles away and it's like the old
butterfly problem right basically these models are just gigantic computers that are taking in
all of this raw data the wind speed and everything from all these points around the planet
and then it has to use fancy math that we have to learn in weather school in order to
spit out a solution and if even one of those temperature problems is wrong
it's going to throw off the output of the model going out.
I mean, I understand.
I totally understand all that, and that's why you take it with a grain of salt.
But don't you think you guys in the weather community are a little touchy?
Like, I mean, there's a little bit of just somebody just putting a map underneath your Twitter account.
Does it really make that big a difference?
I mean, you can just say that's not accurate.
Why be like, I'm going to block you if you put this?
It feels like whether people are a little touchy.
Well, see, I've been out of it for about a year, year and a half now, so it's not as much to me.
But I can tell you that when you're getting all these Twitter messages of, oh, my God, did you see this?
Oh, my God, did you see that?
And sometimes when you try to explain what I just explained, it just falls on deaf ears.
Yeah, but I would say to you, sir, that's social media in general.
I mean, go look at mine and Drew's Twitter accounts when we say something about sports.
I mean, you know, like that's just like, I just feel like the trigger for these weather people is way too much.
It's snow, you know?
I mean, it's not that serious.
Well, and I would agree with that for the most part, but you got to also think, you know, you know, just to use a name, not Drew Franklin, but Drew's hometown weather page is saying, oh, it's going to be 12 to 15 inches of snow, get your bread milk now.
And then when it doesn't happen, that reflects poorly upon, you know, the meteorology.
just we trust every day. I appreciate the call, but that also happens with UK Source 23 online,
telling you that somebody else is going to commit to Kentucky. You know, you just, I will say,
in today's world, it's very hard to fit, like, I'm amazed how many people on social media now,
Drew, say, my sources are telling me I can report, and it's like an anonymous account,
and you're like, well, can you really report Wildcat face? Like, come on.
Are you getting fired from your job as Wildcat face if you're wrong?
I love when they say I can report.
Like I can report, Ryan, that this is not going to have.
Man, there's so many fake accounts out there trying to just, you know, be a troll and, you know, report putting stuff out there.
But I want to roll about this fancy math he was talking about.
So we have to do fancy math at the meteorology school.
It's new math.
Kentucky today against Brown.
You know, Lamont Butler said yesterday that he believes.
that he believes this team it's just a complete one-off the Ohio State game.
Won't matter after.
It's just one of those things that happens.
Do you think we'll have another performance like that this year,
or will it be a one-off?
They'll lose some games they were favored in,
but I think as far as 18% from three, four made three-pointers,
missing wide-open layups, I think that was a one-off.
There will be another dud of a game where we're disappointed.
but I think that was an extreme example of it.
We're going to lose by 20 again to somebody.
Yeah.
I mean, when you don't have a superstar, you can get blown.
I mean, again, remember, Alabama made the final four last year.
We beat them by 30 in Rupp.
Like, we did absolutely pound them in Rupp.
I always say you can get blown out on the road and still be good.
You can't get blown out at home, which is why I think this Florida game is so important coming up.
And I kind of feel the same way you do, that there'll be another beatdown coming up at some point during the season.
But I think there's a lot of good basketball still coming for this team.
Yeah, we're going to beat.
We're going to take one or two more losses like that to me.
I don't know that they'll be against a team like Ohio State, but we'll get knocked down in one of these.
859-28027.
We're going to take a break.
Remember, when we come back, we'll have a long first segment, and then we will lose some of you all as we go into the pregame show.
We'll be right back here at KS Bar and Grill.
This is Kentucky Sports Radio.
