KSR - 2025-03-25- KSR - Hour 1

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

KSR is Live at KSBar & Grille talking Kentucky in the Sweet 16 and taking your calls.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Comedy Up Broadway and Lexington welcomes Mike Armstrong, March 27 through the 29th. Then it's the Lexington debut of Lori Kilmartin, April 3rd through the 5th, and catch rising comedy star Sam Talent, April 11th and 12th. Comedy Off Broadway opened in downtown Lexington in 1987, and they're still bringing the best and stand-up comedy to the area 38 years later.

or visit comedy off-Broadway.com. This is Kentucky Sports Radio presented by Stockton Mortgage. Now here's Matt Jones. Welcome, everyone. It is Kentucky Sports Radio Tuesday, March the 25th. I'm Matt Jones here at the KS Bar and Grill, where we haven't been a lot over the last couple weeks, but we are here today and Thursday getting you ready for the Sweet 16. You can give Shadlin Clark's Pumpin Shop phone line 859-280-2287.

A Vision Auto Glass text machine is 772-745254 in this edition sponsored by the T.J. Smith Lovas. If you call T.J., he'll make them pay. Ryan, we're here at KS. Bar. We opened at 11. Got some folks already here this morning watching the show. You brought in, this is Stans, Donuts, and Coffee, which is from Chicago. Yesterday, when we were in Merrillville, Indiana, not as Ryan said, Drew. Marville.

Merrill. Merrill, which was not how you pronounce it. as we were leaving, a guy pulled in. He had driven from Chicago to say hello and to bring donuts, and he almost missed us. We were just about to pull out. He pulled in. He was actually a guy who, when I did my show at Chicago Bears game this year, he came. So really nice guy.

I believe his name is Jeff. And he brought us these donuts, and you brought the leftovers today. But how nice was that yesterday? He said he went to four different hotels trying to find us there in Marival, and he found us as we were backing out of the parking lot, perfect timing. Really appreciate him doing that. That was very, very nice. I would have hated he had all these donuts if he had just, like, couldn't use him, but that was still.

Yeah, we were moving. I saw him on the other side of the parking lot. Like, that guy has a U.K. had on. Maybe we should stop. Yeah. Good to see Jeff, and I had about four of those for breakfast. So, yeah, that was nice. And we got back last night around, you know, 6, 6.30 of after, well, it was really a great trip.

I mean, I think, you know, I didn't know what to expect there in Milwaukee. about this last night. I kind of thought they were going to lose Sunday. I don't know. I just kind of thought that was going to happen. And then to get the win, it was weird because it was a Kentucky trip with, you know, some Kentucky fans, but not the amount that we're kind of used to. And yet, then you get back to Lexington, and I do feel like there's like definitely a sense of kind of joy and excitement. We haven't had this since 2019 of being able to go into a week for the second weekend of the tournament. And I suspect you guys will probably agree that they'll flood Indianapolis this weekend. You know, they would think so. They flooded Nashville. There weren't as many

there as we usually see in Milwaukee, but they'll flood Indianapolis this weekend. I mean, I know a lot of people going, including people who don't go often. I mean, I told you, like my mom wants to go. And, you know, we're going to start the process today of trying to figure out how we're going to get my mom tickets. You know, because it's, The ticket market's weird right now because there's a ton of tickets. But the prices, people are charging insane prices. Sure. Now, I'm sure that's going to come down, Drew.

Don't you think there's a little bit of people going, all these idiot Kentucky and Purdue and Tennessee fans, you've got to think it's going to come down a little bit. Might as some people that bought it thinking their team could be there. Now they're trying to make a buck because their team's not there. Yeah, I mean, they're steep, and then a lot of it, you throw the fees on top of it. And it's a hard to get in.

in price right now. But I do expect Indian, I mean, I know at least one group of people that are going to Indianapolis, not even to go to the game. They're like, I just want to be there for the environment pre and post game. I will say Indianapolis on Friday night, if we were to beat Tennessee, might be one of the great Kentucky celebrations of all time. Because it was like that when we beat Louisville that night, if you remember, that Friday night in Louisville in Indianapolis

was, it was basically a Kentucky block party for blocks in Indianapolis, maybe that would happen again. I wondered if some fans would go up like they do in Nashville just to be a part of it, just soak up the environment, watch the game at Tin Roof or something indie, and then just be a part of the celebration party after the win. And you can still get hotels. I mean, the good thing about Indianapolis is because they host so many big events there, there's a lot of hotels.

So while I think the tickets are going to be hard to get, I actually don't know that the hotels will be. Now, I do feel like the city is a buzz, you know, and I sort of measure that in two ways. One is the, when you go out on the Monday night after the game, how many just people in Kentucky shirts do you see? Yes. And the answer was a lot. I mean, just looking here, almost everybody has something Kentucky on right now. Okay, I was about to say, you were the one that didn't, and you have one on under it, too.

It's like, you know, there's an excitement just to wear Kentucky gear. And then the second is, it feels old school to me how much we're into this stupid sense. cereal. This weed a mix thing. No, I mean, I really do. Like, okay, so when I think of the early cow years, everything, like, there were always fun things happening, right? You had the John Wall dance, okay?

You had the free Enis T-shirts, right? Then the next year you had unibrow stuff. Then the next year it was the Nerlands, Noel, the box cut. People would wear them on their head, right? And then it was the twins are. coming. And so then people would do things as twins. And then there was the platoon and everybody would wear the blue shirt and a white shirt. And there were all these things that happened that sort of were uniquely Kentucky fans and how we reacted to something and made it a thing. You know what I

mean? Oh, yes. And now we're, and now we haven't had that in a long time. We're doing this with this stupid dry cereal from England. So you can't get it in Lexington. Apparently, there were more places that sold it than I realized, like Publix, the Irish place, which I was told you butchered the pronunciation. Yeah, on the whim, I didn't know what it was. What is it? I think we still don't know what it is.

But they're out of it. They're getting it Thursday. But then most amazingly to me, last night, Weedabix was the number one selling cereal in the United States on Amazon. What does that tell you? In the United States, not in Lexington, in the United States, which means hundreds, if not thousands of people, have gone online and bought this.

I would love to know what the company thinks. Like the company has to be going, what is going on? Yeah, they had a staff meeting this morning. They're like, for some reason, our numbers are up in the United States, and they're really up in Kentucky. And how have they not called him? Like, how's he already not doing a commercial for? for them this week. I don't know. Their last tweet was like six days ago. I would have been all over this. I would have been playing up to Kentucky. I would have tried to create Weidabix addictions around here

so it doesn't last longer than a week. Just keep selling those boxes. So I thought we might have some here today. I did too, actually. And there's not. I know there are some people who have it to the bar, so I assume we'll have it later in the week. I thought someone would have it. I was probably a little spoiled. I thought we were going to get here and someone was going to have it. And I was going to try it because I'm all in on this but the reason I'm all in on it Ryan is it feels like a throwback to those fun days where we in KSR was part of this but it was the fan base as a whole just took some little thing and obsessed on it to showcase our craziness it feels like this is like that too is it just because we feel like we we got our team back the last four or five years we

kind of feel disconnected but it's but I just think it's there's a fun part I mean there's like a this when we lose there are times you can sit there and go why do we do this to ourselves like this is not this is and it's for fun and this is fun I was with the exception of some moments with

Reed Rob and Antonio and then a little bit of how Oscar kind of had moments where he sort of captured the fan base I just don't feel like we've had a lot of fun since COVID and I was reminded of that with all this how much fun could be. Yeah, I think we're getting a little more of their personalities, too. They're a little enclosed there late in the Cal area. I think part of that, he didn't love the media, but I'm thinking

even back to the 2015 team, do you remember they would stay up and play Nintendo 64 in the hotel room and Super Smash Bros. became a big thing. Super Smash Brothers. I think we made like 50 KSR posts out of Super Smash Brothers, people playing at home. It's like Kentucky fans latch on to whatever the players are doing or eating or wearing, and it makes them even more a part of it. And now you get Tennessee this week, right? I mean, this is not just a sweet 16. game, this is against arguably your second biggest rival, right? I mean, this is, I think, if you're ranking rivalries, I think Tennessee is probably second to Louisville. We have never played them in the tournament. You heard Tom Lee say that this morning. Never played them. Never played

them in the tournament. Beating them twice in the year. I remember in 2014 saying about that game against Louisville, this will be an all-timer of a game, meaning the loser of this, it will stick with their fan base for a long time because we had won in 2012, they had won in 2013. It was kind of a tiebreaker. I think if I'm a Tennessee fan, if I were to lose with this team, with potentially Rick Barnes retired, and it'd be the third time I lost to him in a row this year, that would be an all-timer, Drew, for them. I'm not sure if it's an all-timer for us, I kind of don't think it is, but I do think it is for them. Definitely. I think Kentucky He's even won five of the last six, four in a row, several in a row at their place.

This is the first time they're meeting in the tournament, and they want so bad to shut us up about you all never make a Final Four. When I went to Knoxville, I took a picture of their banners because it says like NIT appearances. You know, they want to be able to shut us up on that and get to a Final Four. They call Rick, regular season, Rick. And if that could fall apart with Kentucky beating them yet again for a fifth time in a row, I mean, that would be hard to come back from in the rivalry. I think if you're a Tennessee fan, this week is almost like it was for Kentucky when we played Louisville

in New Orleans, where I thought Louisville had nothing to lose in that final four game, and we had everything to lose in that game, where we were supposed to win the title. They didn't even think they'd be there. I think there's a little bit of that for Tennessee this week. I do, too. Right? If Rick Barnes leaves without a Final Four, that error is over. Now, maybe you get a coach that does it again, but maybe you don't, right?

Still don't have a Final Four lose to Kentucky. Now, if you were to win, though, and beat Kentucky, and then go to your first. Final 4, you're talking about a legendary year for Tennessee. So I actually think there's a lot on the line for the balls this weekend. I agree with you. I think all the pressure is on them. And the Rick Barnes story, it definitely is a factor in it. I think the fact you know that their two best players,

Lanier and Ziegler, have played so poorly against us in their first two games. I think they're going to feel that pressure that they've got to step up and do something. This is also a beloved team with a lot of guys have been there a long time, and this is their last ride. I mean, Ziegler, is this year nine? I believe so. I actually spoke to my dad last night about the game, and he mentioned, like Rick Barnes feels like he raised half this team because somehow they didn't go portaling.

I mean, most of them started as freshmen and are now seniors, and this is their last ride, and Kentucky could put the end to it. All the more reason we should beat them. I think it would be so glorious to look at their little sad faces when they walk out in their orange and to be able to basically say, okay, it was nice of you to try to be a basketball school. But you're not, and that's okay.

They're good at a lot of other sports. I think they won the baseball last, and then they went to the playoffs. So they're good, but you know what you're not? You're not, Ryan, us in basketball. It would be nice to be able to say that. Especially this is the year they were pounding their chest in basketball there for a while, number one team in the country. Everybody thought they were a final four-bound, and then they just kind of stumbled a little bit.

So, yeah, they had football, baseball, and they thought basketball was going to join them this year. I was on a Vegas gambling show last night, and they were talking as if, like, the Vegas world is shocked that Kentucky's the underdog. They're like, how can you beat this team twice and you be the underdog? I do feel like, Drew, we are still the underdog. I mean, there's a part of me that wonders, especially that game in Knoxville, how in the world did we win that game? I don't know.

I mean, like, even going back and looking at the box score, how did we win that game in Knoxville? It's hard for me to picture. Yeah, I mean, remember, that's the game. They shot a million threes and just kept bricking them. That's how we actually won. but Kentucky won before that as an underdog in Nashville, or Knoxville, and before that is an underdog in Knoxville.

Yeah, for a straight years. The underdog spot has been good to Kentucky in this series. Well, I'm looking forward to it, but it's also nice to have this sort of fan-based happiness back. Oh, yeah. It's a lot of fun, and these guys, I mean, they are, in my opinion, they're already going to be a beloved team, but they're like one win away from getting into, like, really beloved status.

If you could knock Tennessee out of the Sweet 16 with this, you know, group of vagabonds, as I've said, that would be, you know, that would be one I think people remember and put in the books. What would you have thought if when we were sitting there in Rupp last April, if someone said you're going to beat Tennessee to go to the lead eight, we wouldn't have even thought. What if you told me? What if you told me you're going to have one player that everybody thinks is going to be really good and then he's going to get hurt? And then you're going to go to the Sweet 16. you just, you wouldn't believe. With Trent Noah making plays in a tournament. Who wasn't even had an offer at that point last year.

Yeah. If somebody had said that we would call somebody Sweet Mountain Angel Baby on the team, I don't think, well, I haven't called them that, but other people have. 859-280-2287. Text machine is 772-745-254. We will take a break.

Come back here at KSBars, Kentucky Sports Radio. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where SportsSlice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise.

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Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Welcome back. It is Kentucky Sports Radio. Metallica. Is that right? That's right. I don't know the song, but I can just tell by the voice. You called him Vagabonds. He says it's the only song I can think that had Vagabon in it. No, there's one more.

There's a very famous one that has Vagabond. What is it? Well, I don't want to tell you. I want to see if you can figure it out. You're good at this stuff. There's a famous one like it's, it was, that's actually how I learned the word is from a song. Let me think about it. You see if you can get it. I'd like to see if you get it.

Somebody will probably tell him and cheat, but there's a famous song that has Vagabond in it. Chris says, Matt, you thought UK was going to lose and you didn't stay in the arena for the game. Very weird behavior. Well, I think you have very weird behavior, Chris. I think it's perfectly normal to think you might lose a game. I always hate when people say, oh, you predicted to lose. What a stupid prediction if you just predicted them to win every game? Like, why even listen?

You'd just be like, well, I guess we're winning because we're playing. I mean, do you think we're going to go 14 and 0 in football? We're going to go 40 and O in basketball, which hasn't happened since 1975. Yeah, Matt, how could you ever pick them to lose? By the way, I picked them to win on the show. I'm just in the back of my head thought we were going to lose. Yeah, I don't love picking against them, but I'd say five or six times this season. An SEC play had to put the graphic up with another team on there.

You're going to lose sometimes. Like it's part of it, and people are like, how could you pick Kentucky to lose? I guess if you're like a wellness guru, you would only think positivity, but we try to, like, give our actual thoughts. Yeah, we're supposed to act like we kind of know what we're talking about once in a while. We don't, but I mean, we get lucky sometimes. You still get, you get feelings in your gut sometimes, and I was pleasantly surprised about my gut this time. I don't, uh, we're swirmed.

You forgot what you were to say, didn't you? I'll get ready to say, but smirch. That sentence right there, Shannon, did you hear that? Yeah. That little mumble of words, that was like the referee. It was the referee. Smirch? That's it.

I don't besmirch you for... I don't besmirch you for picking against Kentucky, but it is a little weird that you don't go to the games. I'll admit that. You've done this with me now for... Yeah. For a decade. I still think it's a little weird. It ain't a little weird.

It is fully weird. It is not weird. There are everyone listening... Well, not everyone. But most people listening to this have at some point in their... room, like they walk to the other room, right? You do that. You flip the channel for a minute out of frustration. See, I can't do any of that when I'm at the game. Whereas if when I'm in the lobby, if I want to walk, I can come back. It's the game you're stuck. Yeah, it's one thing, though,

if you leave, like, in the last five minutes because it's close. You didn't even, you weren't even there for the tip off. You were gone from the very beginning. It's interesting, though. I find the beginning of it worse than the end. Really? Because at the end, like, it's going to go one way or the other. But in the beginning, there's this, like, it's just this waiting. Okay, well, we're down eight. Are we going to come back? Oh, they got it back to six. Well, now it's back to eight. You know, like, whereas at the end, there's going to be a resolution one way or the other. I get more tense in the end by far. I mean, even the game the other day against Illinois, and they made their run. You know, I felt myself tighten up a little bit. Part of it was, Drew,

I really wanted it for really everybody, all the fans, but also for Mark Pope. I think when cow won while to me those are completely different things and i said that saturday night and predictably got the oh well now you say it cow beating Arkansas or beating kansas doesn't have anything to do with mark pope you know jeff goodman i actually thought said it really well cow had a miserable season for two-thirds of the year but then he turned it around and he deserves praise for that but pope's had a good year all year and if we had lost and they won the fact that I think Pope has done an amazing job for a handful of people would have gotten washed away. I actually don't think that happens this time. If we lose in Arkansas beats Texas Tech, as long as they

don't make a final four, I think most people will just skip over that. But I think if we had lost in the second round, it probably would have mattered to people, and that was why I really wanted them to win. I agree with you. I still didn't have the urge to go sit in a bank lobby. Okay, that thing, you were supposed to know. I will give you, I will have your back on the most sympathetic to me on. one thing. You've done this since I've known you, so it's not like a one-off situation with Pope, Cal, this team. I mean, you were doing this in 2012, so this is just your thing. You want to know how much I'd given up on the last few years? I didn't walk out the last few years. Like literally, I had gotten so resigned to losing against Oakland. You sat next to me a whole game.

I didn't know what to do. I watched Oakland beat. I, the last game, I, the last game, I got nervous before the last game I walked out before Troy was St. Peters three years ago and I think St. Peters broke me and I was like we're just going to lose.

I really do. I think that that did it for me and it felt it was interesting. Troy was the first time that that feeling came back, that nervousness which is a good thing in my opinion. I think you said you wanted it so bad for the fan base for this bar for mark pope everything you wanted it so bad it's not even

honestly this time it wasn't for the bar we have the sweet 16 coming this weekend which is which is usually it was really for these fans and for mark pope i didn't want a summer of phone calls of john calipary made the second weekend and mark pope didn't and so but it was nice to have the nervouses back i'm really only thinking about this right now i had not walked out of watching the game since St. Peter's. Wow. Because I think I just thought we're going to lose. So you're feeling alive again.

I do feel alive again. You're back. It matters to me again. I actually think to a lot of fans this is like this. Oh, yes, it does. A lot of fans that I'm hearing from that are my age, like Drew's age to a little bit older than me. So let's say 35 to 50.

I think for a lot of us, Ryan, we feel alive again about this team. I mean, we're alive about other things. in our life. But for this team, it matters again in a way that I think had kind of been taken from us. Yeah, we had that three or four years of gloom. We were so afraid, I think is the right word. Or indifferent, which is worse, right? Being nervous is like being alive. But being indifferent and not caring is worse. And I think a portion of our fan base, especially the older ones, Drew, had become indifferent. Well, I know plenty of people who thought,

I'm not going to get excited and spend money on this team just to have my heart broken again. Before Pope, just looking at the last couple of years. Some even going all the way back to Wisconsin, just thought, I can't keep doing this and having it in the way it has. And then Pope was the big great reset on everything, whatever you felt, and it's brought a lot of excitement back.

That nervous feeling that I got Sunday, right, where you wake up in the morning, you're a little nervous, and you start reading every piece of information you can find. You kind of feel like you're playing, like you got stretched. Yeah, and you stretch, you know, and you make sure you eat a good breakfast and all that. Eat your wheat of bics. Eat your witty bics. Yeah, that's being like alive as a fan.

And it had become dead. I remember when we were in Greensboro. When we were in Greensboro on the Saturday between games, I'm not going to say what happened, but it wouldn't have been like that before. We were just like. We almost joined the Army. Yeah. We sat on those recliners and DoorDash like four of them.

But I was like. We're going to lose to Kansas State. We're certainly going to lose. It's just nice to feel that fan alive again. Yeah, going to the arena feeling optimistic. Like, we're going to win this game, not going to the arena, dreading what could possibly happen. What do you think? Who do you think?

You think we got? You think we think? You know, like, that's exciting. And now we've got that again, and we've got a whole week of it, which should be fun. All right, we're going to take your call. Say, 59-280, 2287. We're here at the KS. Bar and Grill. I'm not weird for getting nervous about the game.

True fans understand. and you sellouts do not. We'll be right back. T.J. Smith, personal injury attorney. Call T.J. He'll make them pay. Now, more of Kentucky Sports Radio presented by Stockton Mortgage. Here's Matt Jones.

Great pick. Shannon. Still not the song I was thinking of. Oh, okay. This is in here, too. This is New York, New York. But that's a great pick. People have been sending me an Elton John song,

but I thought of this one. It's not an Elton John song. Wow. I was thinking of an Elton John song. There's one more. more. Wow. You're in the set, you're in the ballpark with Elton John.

Okay. But there's one more. Okay. But this is a good one, too. I forgot that he had this. Me too. But there's another one. They've got me stumped.

You stumped the booy. I'll give you, I'll give you 15 more minutes. Somebody will get it for me. Somebody will help you. You'll get it. There's one more, and it's, it's famous. But this is a good one, too. What are Vagabond shoes anyway?

So, you know, Vagabond is a person who just, like, like, he travels. Yeah, he travels. Yeah, he travels. He's like, he travels. you know, you can't be stuck in one place. You're a vagabond. And also over the years, it's kind of meant to be, kind of been seen as like a lower class person.

So a vagabond shoes would be, these vagabond shoes are leaving today. Like he's going to go wander around. Wonder around. But then, but he's still New York, New York at his heart. I thought that was it. When Shannon Platt said, that's someone you're talking about. Not quite.

One person writes, text machine is full of people agreeing with me. Okay. I'm 36 and I 100% agree. with you about feeling alive. One person writes, I got up in the morning and packed and unpacked clothes, which is my game day routine. It's an

interesting thing. I hate packing. This person uses packing as their nervousness. Well, they just packed and unpacked? Like they're not going anywhere? They're not going anywhere. They just filled a suitcase. All right. Hey, whatever works. I'm not judging anyone. That's weird. That's a little weird.

One person writes, Matt, I remember you and Max talking about how you got in your car and drove around during the St. Peter's game. I challenged the fact that you were nervous. No, that's the point. The fact that I was driving around showed I was nervous. Providence, Kansas State, Oakland, I sat in the arena and watched the whole game

because I was dead inside. Weren't we all? So you could just watch it because whatever. Who cares? When there a game, I guess it went to the tournament game, but you just drove around New Circle? I think you've told that St. Peter's. Oh, because you didn't go.

That's right. I was up in Indy. I just drove around New Circle. And I kept thinking when we get a lead, I was going to pull into KS Bar and celebrate with everybody, and then I'd pull in, and then they would hit a shot and be tied again, and I'd pull right back out. Should I be worried that I have the exact same hotel as I did for the St. Peter's trip

when I didn't open my suitcase? That's bad mojo. I think I'm going to burn a Taitai, Washington, and Doug Eddard jersey in the trash can. All right, so 859-28027. I want to talk the portal open. I want to talk about that, but let's go who's up first. All right, let's go to Devin. Devin.

Go ahead, Devin. Hey, boys, go cats. Go cats. Oh, yeah. Just calling up here from the snowy upper peninsula, and I just wanted to say that, like, I don't know, I think the divorce has gone pretty well. What do you guys think?

I mean, I think that's fairly, yes, I appreciate the call. The divorce, look, three schools have all gotten better because of the divorce. And now I question whether Arkansas, you know, You know, the tournament, I appreciate the call. The tournament can give you false hope, and it can also false make you sad, right? Arkansas did not have a good year, but they got better as the year went on. Whether or not that will work long-term, we'll see, but it's worked in this tournament. BYU is certainly for the better, because they got this dude that's given all the money,

and I think we're for the better, too. So it might be the rare three-way divorce. And they kind of did it three different ways, you know? Cal lost his best player, then lost his second best player, and it do. Still found a way to do it. We lost half our team for injuries this year and had zero points returning coming back to the season, and then he was able to do it. And, yeah, I mean, their turnaround's been pretty amazing to watch. But also, Arkansas and the tournament wasn't that bad.

They went Elite 8, like Elite 8 Sweet 16 with Musselman. So they didn't have the tournament drought that we had. They're years down a little bit. And, I mean, people are – he's going to have to completely rebuild that roster. Yeah. I mean, he'll probably bring back Billy Richmond, maybe, and Carter Knox, but everybody else is going to be gone. It'll be interesting what DJ Wagner does, because that's his boy, but it's clearly not working out the way DJ thought it would work out with his NBA prospects. He would give him a third try.

He's got a really good recruiting class, but I kind of, I wonder, like, next year's going to be like his Kentucky teams in the sense they're all going to be freshmen. He got the kid with the shovel and the construction vest from the UK visit. Oh, that guy ended up coming. Lee Thomas. Yeah, it turns out the shovel and the little birthday crown worked out after all. That's interesting. No, it'll be, all right, so, well, let's do one more, and then we'll talk about the court. Who's next?

All right, let's go to Jay and Lyndon. Jay and Lyndon, go ahead. Hey, I got two quick things. I want to talk about the FCC. Man, you and have talked about this for. The FCC's success in the tournament in the past was based on us having a different style. I used to say it was more like having a football team on the basketball court. Yes.

But this weekend, Matt, we're the best players. We do. I mean, this is, without question, the reason the SEC has been so good in the tournament is we've always had the best athleticism, Ryan. Always. Even the bad teams had crazy athletes, and I used to think it helped Kentucky in the tournament that we'd be very athletic and be playing these teams that didn't have athletes. But now they also have the most talent. And you saw it. The Arkansas-St. John's game was the perfect example.

St. Johns had not seen athletes like Arkansas. They just had. The Big East is not as athletic. And they would attack the rim the same way they did in the Big East, and the Arkansas players would just block it. I mean, they were not used to that athleticism, and I think that's helped this in time. Same thing with Ole Miss Iowa State.

You could see it. Iowa State was like, whoa, these Ole Miss guys are physical and athletic, and they just had not seen it. And I never really thought of our team being athletic and physical like that, but it definitely bothered Illinois. Well, Amari is. But I think it's actually oddly the difference. for us is we're not scared of athletes because we played against them all year.

I still believe, Drew, that we have the least athletic team in the SEC. I do. I think Amari's a great athlete, always a good athlete. But Bray is not a good athlete. Butler's a pretty good athlete, but he's hurt. Carr's not a good athlete. Olmanor's not a good athlete. Noah and Perry are not good athletes.

Chandler's a pretty good athlete. But we've learned to play against guys like this. Yeah, I mean, maybe a slight athletic edge against Illinois, but that team defense was something we had never seen before. There's that clip going around. I don't know if y'all watched that possession where they're defending the pick and roll. And Kentucky is just shutting down every single option. They're switching.

I mean, it is beautiful to watch. And it's not the overpowering athleticism. That was just Mark Pope having them prepared and the guys hustling. And they've gotten better. You know, I questioned at times this year whether or not the defense could get better. It has gotten better. It's certainly gotten better. And it's gotten to be, if not locked down, at least effective.

It may be the first time all year we can say defense kind of won that game against Illinois. Now, I still don't know if we have enough defense for like a Florida or Alabama. But for these teams we've played. Sure. We have enough offense for Tennessee. We've seen it before, right? That's like we said, you know, even though we're not the most athletic team in the world, it bothered Illinois because they're not used to playing against those athletic teams.

I saw a TikTok that was talking about how Mark Pope has become one of, and then he mentioned a couple other coaches, really good at the Pesia, like the Pesia cut. Do you know what that is? I have no idea what that is. I had seen it. You know what it is. I'd seen it, but I didn't really know what it was called. But basically, let's say you want to get Kobe Brea a shot, right?

You have Lamont Butler or somebody have the ball. Brea comes off to the side and comes and sets the pick. Okay? And then Butler tries to go around it, and if Brea's man does not help for a second, butler goes to the basket. But if Bray's man even for one second moves over, Brayette cuts out to three point line and gets a shot. And they call it a Paysia cut basically because Pagossoyakovich would be the screener. It's pick and pop with a big, but with Paysia, it was like more just to get the shot. And the goal is have a penetrator that just makes Paysia's man stop for a millisecond.

and we did that like three times Sunday if you go look with Butler and Kobe Brae. I think Kobe Bray is just a different player right now. He's doing things he was not and maybe could not do earlier this season. Getting his shot, getting him to create enough space like you just said to get his shot off. Well, the one play where he took the ball at three point line, head faked, stepped in, head faked again, then shot a free throw. That was a great, that was like an NBA possession right there. That guy guarding him is still dizzy from trying to find him on that one. And I've noticed one of Colin Chandler's three's, he used Kobe's pump fake side step move

and even credited Kobe after the game for teaching him that. So it's rubbing off on all the other guys, too. Did you see Kyle Wilcher's tweet this morning? I thought it was kind of awesome. So I saw, we were at lunch yesterday, and we saw a picture of Kyle Wilcher. Think in your mind what Kyle Wilcher looks like? He don't look like that anymore. No, he does not.

He's got a sleeve full of tats. He's got blonde hair spiked up. Uh-huh. I mean, so I tweet out he was going through his Birdman face because he looked like it. He retweeted it and said, nah, and then it was a picture of Colin Chandler because he kind of looks like Colin Chandler. But he was basically like I'm going through my Colin Chandler. That's cool. I think that's cool.

Seeing former guys embracing the program like that, new coach. I thought that was cool. Well, after Arkansas, we saw a few of them show how their colors are, and it's most of the guys who didn't do anything in the tournament. So now that Kentucky, since Kentucky's made the Sweet 16, we've seen Michael Kid Gilchrist, Willie. A bunch of the players that had a lot of success with Cal are showing that they're still Big Blue. Lots of tweeting about it. Rob's not from that era, but I don't know if you saw Dillingham wearing the full Kentucky warm-up on the plane. So I know there's some people worried which way their allegiance would go, but most of the beloved ones are still with the cats.

It's kind of weird. The only one that has it all led to any questioning was Reed, unfortunately, which if all the ones, you would have thought that. That would have been the one that, but he'll be fine. Yeah, Mints and Top and some of those guys fired off a few tweets about it, but, you know, they're also part of the reason it ended the way it did. Yeah, I mean, Mints was here. It was a tough couple of years, Mints was saying. It was.

Like, that was that had, that was hard. What was your auto loan, what is your auto loan ever done for you? Well, it doesn't do a whole lot for me. Well, UK Federal Credit Union, you can get the best rates and it'll do something good for you, which is up to $1,000 off if you refinance your existing high-rate loan with UK federal credit union. Seven branches, or you can go online at UKFCU.org. Make your auto loan work for you, Ryan. There we go. UK federal credit union, it's banking only better. Refundance. Refinite. Refinite approval, loan requirements, U.K.FCU, dot org, terms and condition, membership eligibility

required, fairly insured by NCUA. We'll take a break. Be right back. This is KSR. Last night, a blown call changed the game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where sports slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask

the questions everybody wants answered. Sports slice brings you closer to the action, with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to SportsSlic. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slico Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen kingdom on earth. He felt destined for greatness.

So when a swaggering Armenian businessman catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey. I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across. When Jacob met Levant this plant to a billion dollar fraud. But with two kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax investigation in American history. You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me?

Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking, Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough.

Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on Earth. Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person.

Join me, Kear Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. Life throws hurdles big and small. The question is, how do you conquer them?

On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenge that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WMBA standout Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards.

If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't feel like. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs, Gabby Thomas, and Katie Ladeki. The ability to show a gold medal to someone

and have their face light up and smile, that means the world to me. and that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard.

Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Is that it? There it is. Very do it. That was the one I was thinking of. Yes, that was it. Forever Young, Rod Stewart.

Yes, whether you're a prince or a vagabond, which is why I said it sort of has the inference of kind of lower class because he compares a prince and a vagabond. I really like this song. It's a great song, man. And I don't know why I like it so much. It is a good song. It kind of gets you, I really like this one a lot. I like it too. Clean sweep across the panel here.

Yes. So that was three vagabond songs. Speaking of vagabonds. What do we think of Danny Hurley and the latest? So we didn't really get to talk about this. He walks off the court after Florida if you can't lose to Florida. Yukon played a good game. Had a chance.

He apparently looks at the Baylor players who are about to run on the court to play Duke and says something to the effect of, I hope they don't blank you like they blanked us, meaning the officials. a TV station in Durham captures it on video video comes out we're all like what a jerk

because Danny early is a jerk I mean like he clearly is a jerk and then apparently the station says that the director of media at Yukon called them up and threatened to ruin their careers if they didn't take the video down

which is just taking a bad situation and making it much worse. What do you make of that? That's Yukon thinking they can bully everybody around. They can bully a TV station in Durham, North Carolina, who was just doing their job. If we were there and we had something rolling, you don't think we would have to post it?

Of course we would have. I mean, but what are they going to do to them? I mean, what's the Yukon media person going to do to a TV station in Durham? I mean, there's nothing they're going to be able to do them. I would have loved it in that TV station doing it. Remember, the NCAA told me. me to delete my Lynn Marshall video. Oh, yeah.

No. No, let's go back to this story. The NCAA, this goes farther. Drew took a picture of a video of Greg Marshall's wife losing her mind, a video that later got him on Inside Edition. I didn't really add context. The video told the story. And the NCAA not only threatened to not give Drew a credential again, they told me on the phone,

Drew couldn't leave the building. without deleting it. And I was like, what are you talking about? Can't hold somebody hostage? I'm like, is he under arrest? What do you mean he can't leave the building? And I was like, you realize that like that's a tort. You know, you holding somebody false imprisonment is a lawsuit.

And then they realized they were talking to a lawyer. And they were like, I mean, we'll let him leave the building. I was on my computer in Indianapolis working on a KSR post. And a guy still over my shoulder said, pull up your Twitter. And at the point, at the time I didn't know he was talking about it. So I'll pull up my Twitter. He said, delete that. And I'm like, no, I'm not deleting that.

Delete that. I'm not deleting that. And then that's where it kept spouting. I'm taking your credential. Still not deleting it. Game's over. Tournament's over. What do you want from me?

I don't understand why people don't think that's just going to make it worse. The video in the Hurley situation got 20 times the views because of how the SID handled it. If he had just let it disappear, sure, people would have seen it and talked about it, but he made it infinitely worse. Here's what I don't understand about Danny Hurley. He clearly wants to be this dude. Right? He clearly wants to be the jerk.

To use wrestling terms, he wants to be the heel. He wants to be the bad guy. Okay, then I'm going to dislike you. That's clearly what you want. And then they complain about not getting a fair shake. You're an ass. You are doing that intentionally. It's not like you're accidentally doing this.

So people are going to hate you, Ryan. And I don't hate him, but I think he's good for the sport, but he's clearly an ass, right? Yeah, and I think it reflects that arrogant, egotistical attitude that some, like the NCAA or Yukon have, that they can bully smaller people. No offense. It's also not like a written story. I didn't mean it that way. I meant the lesser, no, it's not right.

Bagabon's. So he's not just small, he's also now less. It's also not like a written report that could be false. It's a video where it's their actions being seen. That's true. It happened. He said it. Like he said it.

Can't deny it. What do you want to do? Do you, what do you think? If Hurley had come here, is it just like, I mean, our fans would take up for all this. I mean, the reality is, I mean, let's be real. This is a fan culture. If he did all this, we would take up for it. But he's still a jerk.

He would just be our jerk. Yeah, we would justify the behavior. Probably not the right thing to do, but it would be a one of us situation. Yeah, I mean, it's the same thing as politics. You know, like, if the Democrats had a Trump, the Republicans would hate it. And vice versa. If the Democrats had a Trump, we would take up for a lot of his nonsense because it's a team thing. Like, that's what this is.

And I feel like that probably would have been true with Danny Hurley, too. We all did it when they hired Billy. We kind of said, oh, he's married to basketball, you know, We did say he was married to basketball. And kind of overlook some of the things that maybe we shouldn't have early on, but then it wears them. With the one difference between sports and politics, I say this all the time is. What makes it dangerous that politics has become a team sport is unlike in sports, at the end of the day, you have a win and a loss. So there is something objective to grade you on.

In politics, you can make anything a win or a loss if you want to. So that makes it harder. But in sports, if Danny Hurley had come here and won, he could have done all this stuff. And if he lost, we would have hated it. That would have been the sequence. So who's next? Let's go to Joe Bob. Joe Bob.

How are you? I'm good. How are you today? Good. Just a quick note, I wasn't going to, I wasn't planning on saying this, but on Danny Hurley, he's terrible. I mean, I'm Ryan's age, and I never thought I'd reach a point that, you know, somebody was more dislikable than Bobby Knight was, but I think he's there.

Anyway, why I want to talk about what's up. He's getting there, yeah. Being a fan, I've got a problem, and I don't know how to fix it. I don't know if I need to fix it, but every time in my life I've ever filled out of bracket, it's always Kentucky. It doesn't know what seed they are or who they're playing.

I think we're going to win every game, and I don't know when that started. I mean, I was 12 years old when they won in 78, when they beat Duke, and I was just hooked from that moment on. Well, I think most fans are like him, though. Yeah. I appreciate the call. I think most fans, it's hard for us to fill out a bracket without picking Kentucky to win.

I mean, I don't, but I think most fans do that. You know, I saw at one point before the tournament started, Kentucky was on the fifth most brackets to win. A lot of those are just Kentucky fans who cannot pick someone that's not. Because we get to this weekend, we've got Kentucky. You're one of those? Kentucky versus Tennessee. in our bracket. We can't put Tennessee down on our bracket. We have to pick Kentucky. I usually pick against Kentucky early just for percentage in my gambling pool.

I'm always in a Kentucky group, so I try to be different just to try to win it. But it's never my feelings involved in a bracket. It's just very hard. Even if you objectively think Tennessee is going to win, to write Tennessee's name out from after Kentucky, you just can't do it. It physically hurts. My hand won't even make that motion. The brain disconnects from the hand right there. How you just like to lose motor skills on that?

I understand. I'll be the same way. We'll talk about the portal and more when we return. KSR. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman

help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an acapella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group, perform. We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

wherever you get your podcasts. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. In every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline.

and we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Hey, what's good, y'all?

You're listening to Learn the Hardway with your favorite therapist and host's Kier Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having him with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit are armored. It signals to the world that you not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to.

Listen to learn the hard way on the AHA radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast, Superhuman, documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.

Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.