KSR - 2026-03-04- KSR - Hour 1

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

Matt, Ryan, Drew, and Shannon talk Kentucky's loss to Texas A&M, Mitch Barnhart's retirement, and your calls.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 a cappella 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 podcast. 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 SportsSlice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headlines. 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 Sports Slice on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. 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 I Heart Women's Sports. What's up, guys? This is Clever Taylor the Fourth. And on my podcast, The Clivert Show, I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff. Like being an internet famous referee. We're in the middle of a game. This linebacker, this linebacker walks up to me. He goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her.

What? Time out. Quarterback on office blue with 42. Hey, Rhett, my mama want you to weigh better. What? Hey, Miss Parker. Listen to the Cliverts show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. From Netflix and Hulu, Comedy of Broadway and Lexington, welcomes Ashley Gavin, February 27th and 28th.

Then from TV and the movies, he's one of the kings of comedy. Catch D.L. Hughley, March 6 through the 8th. and from the Nate Land podcast and the Grand Ole Lopery Don't Miss Aaron Weber. March 12th through the 14th, four tickets to all comedy off Broadway shows. Call 859-271 joke or visit Comedy OffBroadway.com. This is Kentucky Sports Radio presented by Stockton Mortgage. Now here's Matt Jones. Welcome, everyone, Kentucky Sports Radio Wednesday, March the 4th.

I'm Matt Jones here at the KS Bar and Grill. You can give us to Clark's Pub and Shop phone line. 859-280-2287. A Vision Auto Glass Text Machine is 772-724-5-254. And this edition is sponsored by the T.J. Smith Law Office. Call T.J. I'll make them pay. We are here. It's Wings Day, dollar wings today. Ryan Lemon and Drew Franklin. A lot going on today. First of all, in about three minutes, they're going to have a tornado drill. I don't like it, but, you know, they still do it. So you'll lose this for like 30 seconds, and then you'll be back. The Kentucky women play at 11 o'clock.

Yes. We'll have it here at the bar. We're going to keep doing the show, but at 1041, you're going to need to switch to a different station. So we'll talk more about that. So be ready to go to a different station at 1041 on your streaming. WSFC. Right. But you're with us until then.

And then the game, and then on podcast, we will have the full show. There is actually a ton to do today. All right. Mitch Barnhart retired. We find out a lot more about his role, which, we will talk about. Kentucky, women start their tournament today. We have a football player with one of the great resumes of all time returning to Kentucky. But I guess we have to start with the game last night, which was a huge bummer, just all the way around. Cats lose up 12 early, somehow

turned a 12-point lead into a 14-point deficit, excuse me, a 13-point deficit at halftime. and then in the second half, never really able to crawl back, and they lose to A&M. Missouri lost, so had we won, we could be looking at the three-seat in the SEC tournament, and now as it stands, we have a chance to get the 10 seed in the SEC tournament. So one loss takes you from potentially three to 10. Playing on Wednesday is now not only possibly on the table. It's probably more likely than not if we lose to Florida. Just a complete devastating collapse.

The game, what are you going to say? I mean, I guess Diabate played pretty well. You know, O'A in Aberdeen had their moments, but in general, just a poor performance. You're right. It was a complete and utter collapse there at the end of the first half and some very critical, in my opinion, coaching mistakes during that run. I mean, I don't know how you can not have Oway, Chandler, Aberdeen.

Two of those three guys have to be on the floor at all time. I'm going to go further. I don't think you can have a moment when O.A. and Aberdeen are both out. Agreed. I just don't think you can. They were both out for combined 71 seconds, and A&M was up 8-0 in those 71 seconds. I just don't – I mean, Chandler – I love Chandler, but Chandler can't handle the ball. No, can't. And so if you don't have O'A. in Aberdeen one of them in, you're asking for destruction.

And then if you are going to take them out, Drew, you cannot have your five worst defenders on the team on the floor at the same time, which is what they did. Our four best defenders are in some order. O.A., Aberdeen, Diabate, and Moreno. All four of them on the bench and just look what happened. Game changes. Yeah, to have that start to get us all excited and then to completely lose it like that,

to go from up 12 to down 12 in eight minutes is really some impressive work. I mean, you've got to tip your cap, but how bad you are at that point. 27 to 3 run in the last 9 minutes the first time. And then you throw in the beginning of the second, 36 to 6 run, a team that has lost 6 out of 8 games. I mean, what are we doing? But it wasn't even the substitutions that made me so mad. Call a damn time out. That's it.

Bucky Ball was flying. The eight people that were at that game found some energy and got behind the team. That's what they do. They get in the roll and they get moving and they put you away like that. Just call a damn time out and try to stop it. You're on the road. Shut them up. And you lose the timeout at half time.

Like he's not saving it for the end of the game. You lose one time out in the first half. You get four for the game, but you have to use one in the first half. So if you don't call it, you lose it, and he didn't call it. And I'll never understand that. I used this analogy last night because somebody called in the postgame show and said, well, are these two years kind of like the last two years of Cal? And it was an interesting question because I hadn't really thought about it like that.

and I think oddly Cal and Patino or Patino, Cal and Pope have the same stubborn issue. Cal's issue was like, old man, this worked for me. I ain't changing er. And I think Pope is like a dude who, I use the analogy of created Chat GPT. And you put something into Chat GPT

and it comes back and you know it's wrong and you go, no, this is Chat GPT. works. It's the truth. And you're like, this is saying Matt Jones is the prime minister of France. Well, he must be. Pope has his analytics and he's like, hey, this is what works. I don't care what you're seeing. And I think both of those, that stubbornness is hurting it. There's got to be analytics that say you can't have a mass substitution like this time after time after time and keep losing the lead. There has to be analytics that say you can't have these two or those three guys on the bench at the same time. there's a smart guy. You know, even Tom Hart and Jimmy Dikes said that Mark Pope told them he was worried about fatigue in this game because they play a lot more back court guys 20 minutes a game.

We play our back court guys 30 minutes a game. What do he say after the game? He said our guys were struggling with the Saturday to Tuesday games. Come on. They've had that. He didn't say that. He said the Saturday. Well, you know, in the NCAA tournament, it's two days, not three.

Saturday. The whole sport does that. No, but Drew, stop. He didn't say that. I'll get the exact. We're the only team that does that? I don't need you lying today. That hurt me almost more than giving up a 36 to 6 run.

I mean, he didn't say that. The practices are cut down like an hour this time of year. There shouldn't be no fatigue whatsoever. You need to keep your best guys on the floor at all times when you're here in March. And it doesn't matter if you're not fatigued if you're down 19. Good point. You can be the healthiest down 19 person in the world. That's not going to matter.

I mean, I don't know. I know this, what they do in those scenarios does not work. And you know, what was funny is when he went through his first set of substitutions, I thought to myself, Mark has finally gotten it. Because when they got to the first substitutions, I watched. They brought Jasper in, and they took O'Way out. And it was Jasper and Aberdeen. And then they go, okay, we need to get Noah in, so they brought O'Way back,

and then took it like they were taking one of them at a time and I was like look he's got and Jasper was playing well right because he he didn't have to bring the ball up every time Aberdeen was and then I don't know all of a sudden he was like you know what let's just see what happens if I take all my good players out that'll work and then I mean this isn't on him but I got that knot in the pit of my stomach when we were up 12 and Noah and Noah had that wide open three, and he missed it. And they came down and immediately hit a three. And I thought, that's going to be a moment we remember.

Could have been 15 cut to nine like that. I was like, and then it was on after that. You around that time, too. I think Brandon Garrison took a three. Oh, the Brandon Garrison heat check three. And he was playing so good. He was. He had been so good.

And then he took, and I was okay. I was like, all right, one heat check three, I'm okay with that, and then he throws it away on the, why does he take the ball out? Can you help me understand why he takes the ball out on the press? Because the guy that takes the ball out may have to help you bring it up. So why do you want him to take it out? Made a bad turnover taking it out at one time. The guy with respectfully probably the lowest basketball IQ on the team,

who we kind of lose in spurts, right? I need a ton of responsibility. I will say in the beginning, though, he and Jasper, looked like an NBA jam two-man combo. They did for a minute, yeah. The bench held their own in the first wave. But when Jasper and Garrison were in, they were playing with three starters. And I kind of count Diabate a little bit as a starter, at least when he's, but when

Jasper came in, he had two other guards with him, but then when you give him no, it's just not the same. It's just not. Theobate is a starter because Yelovich, I understand Diabate is playing great. I know it's hard to slot him in in the second half, but it's like he starts and then just sits down and never comes back again. Yeah, that's true. I don't know what also you mentioned it.

The analytics say you put your four worst defenders on the team on the floor at the same time. That can't be a good idea. And he did it. All our four worst defenders were out there. And we were watching exactly what they do. They get you kind of in some chaos where you're turning it over. They're playing fast, and they just launched those threes. And once you could see that Bucky ball get going, and that was their big run.

And that's why I don't even care who. who's on the floor, call a timeout and regroup and get out of that mess because that's where they want you to play. Well, and then the game was just kind of, I mean, the second half, it was basically an even game back and forth. They'd get up. We cut it a, whoa. It's a massive storm happening right now. Good night. Was that expected? That's what the tornado drill was for.

Yeah, that hit all, that hit immediately. You know, we cut it a couple times to nine, and it felt like, okay, if we could get a stop here and one time, time score and then we just weren't, we just weren't able to do that. It's a missed opportunity because, like you said, you had it with Missouri losing last night. Really, you had a chance to set yourself up for next week in Nashville. Instead, when I were staring and right at the face of playing again on the first day on Wednesday, you had nobody to blame with yourself last night. That was a coaching mistake.

We got out coached. We got out played. We got out hustled. All the outs. We got it last night. Many games, they have these long stretch. They weren't one of 12th in the half. Vandy Saturday, we had a full game.

That was awesome. But it seems like most of the time we have these long stretches where they just can't get a bucket. And that's what keeps them from getting over the hump in the second half as the gap got too big. What do you think? At the end of the day, we got one game left in the regular season. We're just inconsistent, right? That's just what this team is going to be. We're going to be inconsistent, and it is what it is, right?

Yeah, Tom called them the unpredictables a couple times last night, and they are. This has been like a roller coaster season. Coming off, maybe their best game they've played in the entire SEC season against Vanderbilt and come back and throw in that turd last night was awful. Yeah, Florida had, I mean, at one point they were up by like 50 last night. It's looking like a regular season under 20 wins. And with the inconsistency, I know we all have hoped they can string together a run, but I just can't see them playing consecutive games that, you know, getting enough wins,

especially starting on Wednesday in Nashville. Well, yeah, I mean, we're not going to win five straight. games. Saturday Tuesday games are too much of a turnaround more. I've got that exact quote if you wanted here. Yeah, read me the Saturday Tuesday quote. The Saturday Tuesday turnarounds have been a little bit challenging for us with our limited roster size right now.

I can't listen to that's a bad excuse. That's a terrible excuse. Yep. I mean, that is a terrible excuse. You got nine guys. First of all, the roster's not that limited. How many teams are out there playing more than nine guys consistently? How many guys did A&M play?

Just so I can look and see. Well, they have the deepest bench in the country. But how many do they play? I'm sure they do have the deepest bench, but how many do they play? Do they play 10, and we played 9? Probably 9 or 2, yeah. Okay. So they go one deeper than us.

They played, no, they only played nine guys too. They played nine guys, we played nine guys. And they had to do a Saturday, Tuesday turnaround just like we did. The only difference is we played our back court probably five to six minutes more. than they played but they are back court and they played a couple of their bench guys a little bit more than we played on that's it well also people were wearing canvas converse and belts in basketball doing Saturday Tuesday turn arounds that's the sport that's not changing canvas convers well they were also I was trying to look it up on the fly I don't even know

of Oway is top 10 in minutes in the SEC they were they were Aikov plays three more minutes a game than him Florida's uh how Aberdeen got two fouls and they took out. I also was like, you got to put him back in. I don't care if he has two fouls. What's good? I mean, how many, this is something a lot of coaches do. They keep their guy out with two fouls. How many fouls did Aberdeen finish with? Three. You know what? He could have taken another one. Yep. I mean, generally speaking, I think it's good to take your guy out with two fouls, but not if the game's getting away from you, especially if the game's getting away from you

because you don't have a point guard. And then you're playing him in the second half and he's down by 15. Yeah, Aberdeen, I've said this, he's the key to the game. Without him, we just look atrocious most of the time. Like you said, though, when Jasper did come in for him and he gave you some good minutes, but then he didn't surround Jasper with the other guys on the floor that could help him. And also Chandler only took five shots. And a couple of them were, like, I was, that surprise. They did a really good job locking him up and keeping him out of the offense,

but he's got to find a way to get shots. He has to. Yeah. He was a non-factor. Hit that first one, then he was a non-factor. pretty much the rest of the game. 859-280, 2287. Tough loss.

What are you going to do? But we got a lot of stuff to talk about. We will talk about the game. Feel free to give a call. We're going to talk about the Barnhart situation and more. We are here at KS. Bar & Grill. The women tip off at 11 a.m. in the first game. Both the men and the women may be in the nine-seat at 11 a.m.

in the SEC tournament. We'll take a break. Great back. KS. 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 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 Sports Slice on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me,

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Open your free, our heart radio app. Search, learn the hard way, and listen now. 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.

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds.

I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It is Kentucky Sports Radio 859-2802287. Some news coming from Dave, Baker. He says time with the UK Sports Network is coming to an end. Dave Baker has announced that he is no longer going to be part of the JMI broadcast

and that JMI has let him go. Dave Baker has been part of the UK broadcast for 37 years. Yeah, my entire time here in Lexington, that's part of Dave's persona, man. You know, he's going to be doing the game. Did a lot of halftime games during their, you know, their TV broadcasts, did a lot of radio thing broadcasts. So a legend in this town. He's really a broadcasting legend in this town.

He really is. I mean, you know, UK basketball, I mean, Dave Baker, yeah, in 37 years. That's a pretty amazing long run. That's a pretty amazing long run. So salute to our guy, Buzz. He is going to continue doing work at WKYT, but will no longer be after this year on the UK Brock is going to finish the year, it looks like. And he did other sports. He did, you know, soccer, volleyball, baseball, softball.

He did a lot of other play-by-playing stuff for JMI. Who's going to yell with Cameron? I don't know. Andrew Capus? I don't know. Do they yell? I don't think Andrew Capus yells. I feel like Cameron will yell at anybody, though.

I feel like he just barges in last night and just started talking to us during the pregame show. We saw Dave last night. If I had known this was the end, I would have given him a big hug. I didn't realize until I'd gotten home. On a personal level, I just want to say Dave Baker was open and good to us early, early on, when a lot of people were not. And when Bobby left and Billy Gillespie was hired, he put our blog on the TV screen as sort of a, he literally put a video of our blog on the TV.

screen because we were reporting something about Billy Gillespie and I remember thinking it was the coolest thing in the world. They put our blog on the television. You wonder why I say the TV. They put our blog on the TV. And so I will always appreciate Dave in 37 years. That's probably, I would think that's longer than anybody, right? I mean, only Kay Wood and Ralph Packer could be in that vicinity. Yeah, between him and Dick Gabriel, these guys have been involved with the UK sideline gigs and radio gigs forever. So, like I said, he was a, not just a, he was a titan in this town. Yeah.

So, uh, big shit. What about you, boy? I'm Dave Baker. Can you end up? What about you boy? That made Matt jump so much. That was, well, why did you do that? My little tribute to Dave Baker.

That's your tribute? Uh-huh. You know, when they give people tributes, it's usually like heartfelt emotions. It's not. What about you, boy? All right. Well, I'm sure he feels honored. That's our official statement.

from KSR. One person writes on the text machine Matt, I like Mark Pope, but I just don't think he is a great coach. Your caller last night, hit it. He might be good. He might even be

successful, but we need great, and I don't see from him great. Great coaches don't lose by the amounts we sometimes lose to. Last night, maybe in the first time, I really got mad at him. Like Drew mentioned, you didn't call a timeout during that run. You had some erroneous substitution patterns.

Didn't make, you know, find a way to get Chandler of the basketball, get him some shots. Just a couple things happened last time. I'm like, man, what are you doing? You got mad. He almost injured Trent Noah. He did. Oh, man. Took out Trent Noah. And Triv was five, trip finally hits a shot.

Nine straight points. First of all, March is Trent Noah month. February may not be. But March is, and then he gets hurt on, I mean, what, is that not a summary of the season? Trent Noah hits two threes and he turns his ankle on our own coach. I did like, it seemed to be pretty over. I think most of us thought the whole second half it was over. But Trent there for about a minute.

Trent didn't hear no bell. He had nine points in a hurry, drew that foul. He had gotten that four-point play to cut it to seven or whatever it would have been. I might have started thinking some thoughts, but a nice little spurt from him, only to have his breakout moment end on rolling. People, he's all right, though, right? They didn't say anything, but we had Adam Stratt in there with KSR and said he saw Trent walking around the arena.

after it didn't look like he had any problems. You do have to give a shout out to Ramadan Mo. Yes. You know, they used to say in Alabama, when Ramadan hits, Mo Diabate takes it up a notch. And he's kind of done that here, hasn't he? Yeah, sitting over there eating mandarian oranges during the game. What kind of oranges?

Mandarian. Mandarin? You know, it's not. Mandarin. I mean, you are kind of adding syllables to things now. Well, Mandarin. It makes it more special. Mandarian.

When did you even come up with mandarin? I saw the word in my head. It kind of looks like mandarian, mandarin. Okay. But it's not it. But it helped him. I was calling him Fruit Cup Moe, because the moment he got a little fruit in him on the bench, she came in and was unstoppable.

I like Fruit Cup Mo. I do, too. I have to tell you, I got some pride on my drive here from Louisville this morning. I was listening to Bill Simmons podcast, and they were talking about best nicknames in basketball. They brought up Cream Abdul-Jabal. Nice. And I kept waiting for him to say my name, and he didn't.

But nevertheless, he was like, Cream Abdul-Jabbar is a great name. I was like, yes. But you knew he was talking to you. You felt it. Well, I mean, he didn't mention my name. That's okay. But you had that connection. He didn't have to.

It's still the connection. But yes, it's crazy to me. You know, he doesn't get to eat or drink during the day. So they took him out so he could have a meal as Sun comes down on the bench. I do wonder if you get in the SEC and NCAA tournament, if you can't drink water during the game. I mean, I guess he's already done that. He did that in the Vandy game.

He'd been waking up a, what, at 5.30 in the morning to get some breakfast, get something to him, and then nothing until the sun goes down. So that's going to be tough. It is. But he's playing well during it. He played well at the time. Who's up for sure. Andy.

Andy, go ahead, Andy. Hey, what's up, guys? I've got a couple questions. If we lose to Florida Saturday, what would need to happen for us to play on Thursday? So if we lose to Florida, I think the best we lose to Florida, I think the best we, can do absent a crazy set of circumstances is the eight seed there are a crazy set of circumstances where I think we can get to the seven but if we lose to Florida so Texas we need to lose to Arkansas tonight and then we would need Vandy to lose Vandy and Texas to lose next week and

Fannie plays Tennessee so they could lose and Texas I think plays Oklahoma so we need Texas to either to Arkansas or Oklahoma. So basically we need a Texas loss and Vandy to lose to Tennessee. All right. And I just want to touch on what you're talking about just a minute ago about Pope. I agree that Pope can be good and successful, but probably not great. But my question is, how many coaches are out there right now that could be great at coaching here?

Well, I mean, I think there's probably a lot of people that could be great. I'll give you an example. and I appreciate to call. Take Todd Golden, right? I mean, how many people knew who Todd Golden was before he got to Florida? You had to be a big-time college basketball fan and follow San Francisco. And then he goes there and he has a lot of success. So there's a lot of guys like that. We'll just have to see. We'll take a break. Be right back. Remember, you're going to have to change the channel at 1045. We'll be right back. It's KSR. 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.

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It's court.com. P-Rats and court. Now, no more ads the rest of the show. All right. So, well, I mean, we have the commercials. But we switch at 10. We will take a break at 1041, and people switch it to WSFC. Why are you looking at me like that?

You need to know, Mario. For streaming. SFC, okay. WSFC for streaming. A lot of your stations will keep us. If you have the UK basketball network, you'll lose us. Go to SFC to hear the rest of the show. They play Arkansas.

They've already beat Arkansas by 20 this year, so we may be doing the same thing tomorrow. And we'll keep track with the game here. Okay, before we go back to phones, let's talk first thing about Mitch Barnhart. We mentioned yesterday that he retired. We now know a little bit more about what he's going to do. I will tell you, his role will be going forward, head of the, read me the job title again, Drew, because we talked about on the pregame show. It's an amazing job title.

He is the executive and residence for the UK Sport and Workforce Initiative. Lots of words. Executive in residence, as we said on the pregame show, that usually in residence means temporary. So he is an executive that will be in residence. He's not working remote. Okay. It better not for a million. Yeah.

Let's get $950,000 a year for the sports, the UK Sport and Workforce Initiative. We'll call it UKSWI. Uxwe. So a lot of people were worried we talked about on the pregame show. Essentially, are we keeping him around to have his eyes overlooking the new AD? And some people were saying, does this mean they're hiring from within? And basically, Mitch will still control everything. I called the UK spokesman yesterday, Jay Blanton.

Well, excuse me, I texted with him. And I asked him that question. And he said to me, and Jay has always been wonderful in the last, he's been doing this since I've been doing it. If he says it, I believe it. He said that this new initiative is not with athletics. It is to create a organization on campus that helps students get careers in the sports workforce. Okay, he basically is trying to create a way to place UK athletes in the world of sports

and in the fields of NIL, whatever that means. He will not be working in athletics, and his office will not even be in the U.K. athletics building. He's basically moving across campus to the academic side. Okay, so even though I think Mitch best AD may be in the history of UK and has done great things, I believe when it's over, it's over. You don't linger. So good thing is this means the new AD will be in charge, whoever it is. Now, you could argue, does that job of essentially workforce career development?

Is that a million dollar a year job with a country club membership and all that? You know, I don't know, but I guess, as Drew says, that's not my money. And it sounds like it's not UK athletics money. Sounds like it is UK, you know, academic money. So, but I am glad, Ryan, that that means it's not. not, like he's not going to be kind of athletic director, senior athletic director. After hearing what you just said makes me feel a little better about it because, yes, when we talked about it yesterday, if he was in the same building and if somebody that worked under

you and you're right down the hallway, I would think he had a hard time keeping his nose out of the business. You bring in a new somebody, I think he's always looking over your shoulder, what's he thinking about me? So the fact that Mitch's position is not even in the building has nothing new with athletics, makes me feel a little bit better about what they're trying to develop. It's a million-dollar career development placer. It's got to be a lot of careers. Ready to see these numbers. Congratulations to the students of the University of Kentucky.

Everybody's going to be getting jobs. Yeah. I still think it's outrageous. It is a little better that it's not coming out of the UK athletics pot because I think it would be crazy to ask your fans, your blue-collar people, for money. We need every penny we can get to make UK good, and then a million of that is going to him. It's still a crazy amount of money. It's still crazy.

but not being U.K. Athletics is a little. UK, especially on the heels of the contracts they gave to Stoops and to Cal and the buyout and all like. It's a crazy amount of money. UK, in my opinion, completely screwed up this announcement. Like, why didn't they say that? You know, nobody knew that. I had to ask, and I don't think people still know unless you're listening to me,

should have had a press conference? Did not have a press conference. Should have had somebody. answering questions, did not have somebody answering questions, continues what we've talked about, which is I think this, the PR has been so

bad for so long that, you know, your AD of 24 years is retiring and you don't even give the man a press conference? Like you don't even give the man a chance? I mean, to

A, be asked questions about his role, but also to be celebrated. It's like you're giving him a, you didn't even get a cake lunch at the end of a Friday. We've got $9.50 a year. That's why they don't have a press conference. But that looks skeptical to people. I mean, the contracts at $800,000 a year. They just raised it to $9.50. And added more years.

And, yeah. And what is the UK sport? I know there was no mention of that before. I mean, but you have to explain these things. I agree. They don't even tell you what it is. If Jay doesn't answer my question. So, again, congrats to Mitch.

I think he's been a great AD. Once again, UK just, I don't understand how they handled this. But that's the way it is. So then now the question is, who will be the next AD? And you need to turn to WSFC, because we will talk about that after this, and take your calls, and we're 15 minutes away from the UK women's team. We'll take a break and be right back. This is KSR.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back, Techie Sports Radio. Ryan gave, first of all, welcome to everyone at WSFC. I assume we are breaking that Somerset station streaming records. So, and for those of you listening on podcast, hello again. I hope you're enjoying your afternoon. Now, you told me something that I could not believe, Ryan. What happened when C.M. Newton retired?

When C.M. Newton retired, U.K. bought him a beach house in the Bahamas because he wanted to retire there and fish down there. That's crazy to me. They bought him a beach house in the Bahamas. It would cost, what, back the late 90s, 300,000, 400,000 or something? They bought him a beach house for him to go down there and fish in the Bahamas. If there was a KSR then, I would have been like, are you kidding me? I mean, I don't understand the idea of buying people things in retirement.

Get them a watch, right? Whatever happened to that? I thought they were paid for the job while they were there. Yes. You know. People always love. People always love to complain when people don't get things that they work for. And I get that, but giving things for people when they're not even working.

And if he's really doing career development, as one of the people here watching the show said, what do the other career development officers at Kentucky make? I would want to be negotiating if I were a career developer. In fact, guys, I've been thinking, and I think I'm starting the KSW. our sports and workforce initiative. It's been great working with you. I'll be over here on this side of the room, making more money. I like it.

You're going to have to go sit at jalapinos. So there's a separation. All right. Well, let's talk about who's next, okay? Because in terms of AD, I think there's basically three sets of candidates. So let's start with who's going to make the decision. I think the reality is this decision will be made by a handful of people. Eli Capiluto says he's going to go on a listening tour.

That reminds me of something Bill Clinton would say. I feel like that's what politicians say I'm going on a listening tour. I went on a listening tour when I was thinking about running for Senate, and it was mostly me talking, and there wasn't a lot of listening. So I don't know what that means, but Mitch is going to be here until June 30th. So there's not a rush to go and hire someone. I think the people they're going to make this decision basically is the guy that will probably be the next president of the UK is Eric Monday. I think if you talk to anyone around the university, they'll tell you that they think he will be the person that will have the biggest impact on the decision.

There will certainly be some donors handful that will have some impact, and then you have the board of trustees. I made a lot of calls yesterday, and I genuinely don't think they have a decision. I think people who think they already know who it is. I actually don't think that's true. There are three different ways they can go. Way one is they will hire from within UK. If that happens, there are essentially two candidates. Mark Hill is basically been Mitch Smartheart's number two for a number of years.

He's taken a very large role over the years with football. And he is, you know, I think the person that people have thought for a while would be the most likely, candidate. Rachel Baker is kind of right there with him in terms of taking on a role. She has a lot of experience, has worked for other schools, has been in college athletics a lot. I always hear positive things about her. She is, as people know, married to someone at JMI, which I think will be something that people will bring up in that process. So that's group one. group two would be people I think that have been at kentucky and are now somewhere else and i think the head person in there would be jane pv i think jane pv connected to uk's golden age of basketball

he's the ad at de paul probably the best person that has been at kentucky with donors so i think when you're saying what is it that people would really like about jane it would be connection to donors probably the best person at getting donors since I've been doing this, and basketball. He's at DePaul. The negative to him for people would be he's never been in a football school, right? He's never run football. But I think he's the most likely person with Kentucky connection that's somewhere else. You know, you got Rob Mullins in Oregon.

The AD at Wichita State is from there. I would be surprised if Rob Mullins would come. I think Scott Strickland at Florida is. someone that they would at least inquire about. He was the SID here for a while. I like Scott. So that's your outside of UK but connections here. And then number three would be somebody we don't even know,

where they just say, we're going off the board and looking for whoever we think is the best. I would be surprised if you were to ask me in likelihood of it happening. I'm going to make my bet that they get somebody else. in that number two category. I think they get somebody who has a connection here and is somewhere else. I think any, I think Dwayne, Scott, or Rob Mullins could all be great. I don't really know the guy that's at Wichita State, but that would be my guess. But I also could be talked into going off the board to somebody new.

What do you guys think? On your first group, Mark Hill and Rachel Baker, both probably very actively involved with recent coaching hires. I mean, he just hired Mark Pope and Kenny Brooks two years ago. Mark Hill definitely involved a lot in the Will Stein hire. Yep, for sure. That is a Utah guy. I'd be shocked if he would involved in the Pope hire. So I think that's probably right. Yeah, no, that's a good point.

That's a good point. So I think that's a positive when they are involved with the hiring of your most prominent coaches. Negative maybe might be. Neither one have ever been an athletic director before. This is not really an entry-level position. Yeah, I saw some people criticizing Twain for not having run football. Well, some of these people have never been ADs, and this is not, and then this is an entry, it is an entry-level job to be the AD.

So you're right, that's true. I forgot about, you're right about Mark Hill and Mark Pope because Mark Hill is Mormon, and I do think he was heavily involved in that hire. I thought that the moment Pope was announced. I even had my antennas up, like, what does this mean for the future of the athletic department, how involved was Mark Hill? I would call some of that your second group and at least get nose from them. You got Mullins at Oregon with all the Nike.

You just got Will Stein and some Oregon coaches. That should be smooth there. He'd probably say no, but I think you at least got to call him. Even at Alabama, Greg Byrne, I know it's Alabama, but he kind of is not on a hot seat, but he hired Kalin DeBore without really looking around. Well, he and Scott Strickland aren't beloved by their fan bases. If Alabama football doesn't get back to what it was, he might be looking for a reason to get out of Tuscaloosa. So he and Strickland and Mullins, those three, even though they're at better situations right now,

at least make them tell me no. What about Dwayne? Of course, we all love Dwayne. I'd love to have Dwayne. Personally, that'd be great for us because we know him so well. But also, I thought he was great here with U.K., especially on the basketball end, where it's not a big secret, where I'm not exactly killing it in basketball in the last several years. So I think he'd be good for that and for us personally.

And then on our pregame show, I don't know how serious to a candidate he'd be, but I would entertain Martin Newton with the CNN connection. Nike connection. And also connected to the university. It was here. And it's Sanford, you know, not a powerhouse, but he hired Bucky, who we just lost to last night from a high school to coach their basketball program and has some success in other sports there.

Hurtig Nettie, too, right? You know, all those people that we talked about that have, one of the things Mitch has done a really good job is producing ADs at other schools. All those people, to me, are pretty good candidates. That's where I would go. I would go to one of those people, knows the university, but has been out on their own and has enough separation to where they're kind of not under Mitch's thumb. That's what I would do.

I think if they're going to keep Mark Hill or Rachel Baker, they've got to sell those people to the fan base. Because the fan base does not know who those people are. And so that's an issue. I do like that they're going to take time. I think whatever they do, Ryan, they have to interview a lot of people. They cannot let people think this was predetermined. Like they have to actually do the due diligence. You know, when Mitch was AD, he always had a list in his back pocket in case he had to make a move on a coaching change really quick.

Do you think UK at Capiluto and Monday kind of knew this was coming and I've already started the process of venting with some candidates? Vetting? Betting? They're really complaining about everything to all the things. I think I have in my mind what I think the most likely order of likelihood of doing it is, but I will say to you, I'd probably have four people right next to each other. I will be surprised if they go off the board. I'll be surprised if they hire someone that has no connection to this school.

I'm not necessarily against it, but I'll be surprised just with how they're, this school does things. I think the most likely scenario is, if you made me bet, I think they go, you're peevy, you're Strickland, you're that group, then my second most likely would be the people that are here. And then I think the third most likely is they just go elsewhere. But I will say to you, nothing's going to shock me because I don't think there is a, yes, that's who it's going to be.

And it's a weird time. I mean, we all have a pretty good idea of who will be next. But Eli's about to turn 77, and he's involved in this. Is he that old? Yeah. I mean, no matter what, Eli is not going to have a long career with whoever's being hired. Who do you think unifies all the various people in play? Donors, fans, admit.

Who is the person that does what I do think needs to happen, which is bring UK athletics altogether? Who's the person most likely to do that? I think it's Newayne Peevy. I think he was doing that when he was here. Kind of has the bridge between Cal and Mitch back then. The boosters, big boosters and UK. He was in kind of negotiated with all that. I think it's Peevy.

I think you're probably right. I think Scott Strickland could do that. Fans are most familiar with Peev just because he was so out in front when he was here. Yeah. Do you worry about him not having done football? Not that much because, I mean, like said, you promote someone, they haven't done the job at all. I mean, he did just as much football when he was here as the associate or whatever they named him.

I mean, it's a hit compared to some of the other candidates, but I don't think it's like a full stop, no, because he didn't have a football program. Well, we got some time to figure it out. They got to get it right. And I think the fan base will be following this more. You know, what's interesting is we've, this is the only AD we've had since I've been doing this, which is crazy. I mean, 21 years. This is the only idea I've ever done a show about. I was in high school when he was hired.

I mean, that's wild. All right, we'll take a break. Come back. Hour number two, do some fun stuff and then take your calls. 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.

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