KSR - KSR Postgame UK MBB at Vanderbilt 01/25/25

Episode Date: January 26, 2025

Matt and Billy recap the Cats' 74-69 loss at Vanderbilt.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It is the local toy dealers, KSR Post-Game Show. I am Matt Jones. The Cats lose in Nashville, 7469 against Vanderbilt. In a disappointing loss, as the team puts forth 30 minutes. of probably the worst basketball it's played all year. Mixed in with 10 minutes of being really good, but it wasn't enough to get the win on the road. You can give us a shout.

I obviously love to hear from you here on a Saturday night. 859-280-2287. We'll probably go until maybe just right at 7 or a few minutes before. You know, it was the first half was I thought the worst Kentucky's played all year. And maybe the, I mean, certainly the worst performance, we've seen from a Mark Pope team. A lot of things went wrong in the first half. Pretty much everything went wrong, honestly.

I thought the execution was poor. The defense was poor, but the effort was just awful. The worst effort I've seen from Kentucky not only this year, but in a while. I mean, it just looked like guys were not hustling. They were just kind of standing around. All the 50-50 balls went to Vanderbilt. and the cats were down 14. And, you know, we've learned that you can't sort of say these games are over with the way Kentucky can score, but it didn't look good.

Then in the second half, you know, the first 11 minutes in the second half, Kentucky was great. I mean, it's like we've seen in these handful of runs against Florida and against Gonzaga, against Mississippi State, and even some in the Alabama game. Like they just, they hit on all cylinders. A lot of guys made shots. O'A was really good. Almanor hit threes. Brea and Jackson Robinson helped make some plays.

I thought they were excellent, and they went from down 14 to up seven. And, you know, at up seven, that's a game at that point that you need to win. Like, that's a game where you have really done what you're supposed to do to get a victory, and now you need to win the game. And I think at that point, was it, was it 68, 61? Am I right about that? Was that the score when they were up seven? I'll have to look it up.

But they, at that moment, Kentucky was in excellent, excellent shape and felt like they were headed towards getting the big, excuse me, 58, 51. They were at 58, 51. And then back-to-back threes by Vandy. I mean, you know, we can focus a lot and we will talk. a lot about what happened at the end with the execution, but I thought those were the biggest shots of the games. 58, 51, you score, crowds going crazy. They come down and one of their bigs, number 99, hits a three and cuts it to four, and they call time out. And, you know, if they

miss that shot and we get the ball, I think they're in trouble. They make it, come down. We take, I think Jackson Robinson takes a long two. You know what I feel about those shots. and misses. It was contested as well. And then they come down and hit another three. And so now you're in a one-position game. And it basically stayed like that until the Lamont Butler turnover at the end. And you let them back in the game.

You had them at 58-51. Put everything else aside. Put the terrible first half aside. Put the mistakes, the bad defense, the lack of hustle. You're up seven. you know, seven minutes to go. You can win this game. You should win this game.

And then it's a one possession game. Still, though, next few minutes, Oway makes some plays. They kind of go back and forth with baskets. Almanor hits a three, I think, at one point at the corner, after we fell down one to give us the lead again by two. But they just couldn't get a stop. And, you know, then the execution in the last three minutes was just terrible.

I don't know what, you know, Butler, this is two straight games where Butler has been really, really bad. I mean, he was really bad in the Alabama game. I think Kentucky wins that game if he even plays average. Probably same thing tonight, six turnovers. You know, the dribble, you know, we're down one. He has the ball and just loses it. That was bad. And then what was he doing, Billy, with trying to force Ansley Almanor, the ball at the top.

of the key. You know, he tries to force it in, gets knocked away, then gets it and tries to force it in again. I think it was Amari, but point remorse, yeah. Excuse me, Amari. And by the way, I thought Amari was not good. Those were the two guys, I think, really cost Kentucky tonight. We're Butler and Amari. I still don't, I still understand what Amari does on defense when he doesn't, like, contest shots. I mean, I don't get it. You know, at this point, and Mark Pope kind of seemed to suggest this in the last week. Maybe that's what they coach him to do. There was a huge play. Huge play. We're up one. And the guy drives the basket and he like jumps but doesn't raise his arms. And I like, I don't get it. And and poor guy, he has hands of stone. You know, if you go get,

if you take your baby to meet the team, Billy, don't hand them to Marty. Oh, come on. I mean, he just, well, I'm just saying he, like he had that one rebound. So 6864. Actually, I said Robinson missed along too. Actually, at 6864, Butler did a pump fake under the basket. He got under the rim. Look like he was going to finish. He missed it, but it fell right to Amari's hands.

He had an open dunk, and Billy, he just dropped it out of bounds. Yeah, it is puzzling with that guy. He baffles me. I'm not sure there's ever been a Kentucky player that baffles me more. I mean, his numbers suggest that he's not just a good rebounder, that he's an elite rebounder. Like he's like second in the country in rebounding stats. And yet when I watch him,

I feel like he misses so many rebounds. And, you know, on the play where he got hit in the head, like he does, he's got a dunk, and instead he pumps fakes, and he gets hit in the back of the head. And he just perplexes me as a player. He really does. You know, on the one play where the guy drives and he doesn't jump, he gives up a layup.

Then the next play, he gets a huge block. And you go, well, what? It just, he doesn't make sense to me. And Butler just had two games in a row. He keeps playing with his left shoulder, which makes me think maybe that's bothering him. I mean, I think clearly it is bothering him. I don't know if that's having an effect on how he plays. But I thought those two guys just did not play well.

And then you throw him, we don't have Carr. And if you listen to Pope after the game, he didn't say car is out for a bit. But he kind of, it kind of sounded like it. And he said he didn't think he had done right by car, maybe suggesting that he brought him back too soon. You know, that's going to be tough. I mean, Almanor played well tonight. I thought Almanor filled him pretty well for him.

But that'll be a bad loss. In part on defense, but also just as a scoring option, because while Almanor has become a really good three-point shooter, he has not shown the ability yet like Carr does to be able to score inside. And I think they really, I think they missed that when they don't have him. You know, a couple of highlights. Obviously, O'A had that stretch that was really, really good. He kind of looked like a leader getting to the basket.

He had a big turnover there at the end as well, though. But, but, and he missed a three that I think if O'A hits that three, we win the game. It was what, 60, I don't know, 65. 64 or whatever and he gets he shoot we're up one and he has a three i think if he hits it we win i saw some people online didn't like that he took the shot i was fine with it i mean i one of my overall points on offense we've got to shoot more threes like we are not good at going to the basket yet i feel like we tried a lot whereas we are good three point shooting team fire it you know vandy took nine more threes than we did how's that possible like we shouldn't we should be

leading, unless we play Alabama, we should be leading every game in three point attempts. And we still, I mean, we still take it to the basket. And honestly, with the exception to O-A, I'm not sure any of our guys are really good at finishing at the rim, but we just, we insist on it. And I want to see, so I was fine with that O-A-3 because I want those guys shooting more. That's their strength. But he misses it. I thought Trent Noah played really well. I did. I thought there was a period in the first half where I felt like he was the only dude on the team going after loose balls and not being scared of contact. One of the frustrating things, when I played high school basketball, Billy, my friends would sometimes give me a hard time and call me. It wasn't a good nickname to have as a basketball player.

They would call me feathers. Oh, feathers. Because I would shoot like a high arching. and they always were talking about how I wanted to avoid contact. And honestly, they were probably right. I would try to feather the ball in, right? I felt like a lot of our guys were being feathers tonight, especially in the first half, except Trent Noah.

He didn't seem to mind contact, and he would throw himself in there. And this was a game where the rest were just letting them play. And he went out there and did a great job at sort of playing to the contact. I didn't understand at the end when they subject. substitute him in on defense on that play. I don't really know why they did that. He's a freshman and like, you know, and he got taken to the basket, and I don't know what that was. But that's not his fault. He was in the game. He did the best he could. But I thought he played really well in the minutes that he played and really gave an effort when the rest of the team was not.

So it's a disappointing loss. And why it's disappointing is more of a big picture thing. We're three and three in the conference. We play at Tennessee on Tuesday. We can't assume we're going to win that game. Now, we've had these road trips where we lose the first one that we should win and then win the second one. We did it with Clemson and then Gonzaga. We did it with Georgia and the Mississippi State. So maybe we go down in Knoxville and get a victory. I'm not going to predict that. I think Tennessee is for many reasons a really hard matchup for us, maybe the worst matchup for us in the SEC. So you could be three and four with John Calipari and Arkansas coming to town. And you want to look up must win in the dictionary.

That would be there. But just bigger picture, you know, you sit there and you look at schedule and you go, okay, where are these wins coming from? Right. I mean, you, I think, you know, the NCAA tournament, we have what? We have 14 wins right now. We're 14 and 5. I think in this SEC, we're probably in with 18 wins.

Certainly 19, but probably 18. But you sit there and you go, okay, where are these obvious wins? We play LSU at home. All right, I'll give us that one, right? We play South Carolina at home. All right, I'll give us that one. We play Vandy at home. I know we lost tonight.

I don't think we're losing to him at home. All right, so you get that one. But there's probably not another game on the schedule that you would say, Okay, well, we're definitely winning that one. So, I mean, we got to go get some wins. We got to go on the road and get some wins. I mean, right now we're in 10th place in the SEC, right? We're what, a third of the way through the schedule, six games,

and we're in 10th place in the SEC. If the tournament started today, we'd be playing on Wednesday. Now, I think we're better than that. We're going to have to go win these games. We still have four games left to play against Tennessee, Alabama, and all. Auburn, three teams that are great. We still got to go to Oklahoma and to Texas and to Missouri and so got to host Ole Miss. We still got to play Cal.

You know, this is, this is not like gimmie territory. So I think, you know, this game, my expectations got a little bit checked when we lost to, when we lost to Georgia. because I felt like, look, if you're going to have a chance to contend in the SEC, you got to win this one and we lost it. They probably get further checked tonight, okay? So we're not going to win the SEC. I think it's going to be an uphill struggle to come in the top four of the SEC. We still can, but I think it's going to be a struggle.

I think you had to win at least one of these Georgia and baby games to do that. So now it's like, well, you got to come in the top eight. We don't want to play on Wednesday. We got at least play on Thursday. and we also want to have a seed in the NCAA tournament where you can do something right you know I actually think a four five six is not a bad seed that's a seed where you can still make noise when you get down to eight nine that that becomes a lot more difficult and we got to make sure we avoid that I'm I'm concerned because we're I don't think car will play again this year

car may be out for a little bit I mean I don't want to think about the Arkansas game but I think car is important for the matchups in that Arkansas game, so we may not have him. You know, I'm not, I still think this team, this team at its peak is as good as anybody, which is why the NCAA tournament's going to be so weird. There's not going to be one team in that NCAA tournament, Billy, that I don't think Kentucky can beat. You know what I mean? There's not going to be one team.

I don't think they can beat. But they're probably aren't going to be that many teams that I don't think can beat us. They can lose in the first round. No, you're exactly right. Like we could play the overall number one seed in the final four, and I would think we got a really good shot to win. I also think we could play a one seed against any team seated 13th and up, and they can beat us.

So, you know, just going to have to be along for the ride. I'll finish with this. I think defensively we are what we are. We actually held Vandy to 74. That should be enough to win. We didn't. By the way, in every game we've lost, outside of up, we've scored under 70. We're not beating anybody in the 60s.

Nobody. So really, our offense is how we win or lose games. What disappointed me tonight was the effort for 30 of the 40 minutes. I thought for 10 minutes, we not only had great effort, we had great execution. we looked amazing. But in the first 20 minutes, really the last eight, I thought our effort was just poor.

And for a team like this, where execution and crispness and teamwork is how you succeed. We don't have individual superstars. So it's got to be a team collective effort. You have to have effort. If dudes like this don't play with effort, we look like a high school team.

And for about the last eight minutes of the first half, we kind of looked like a high school team. You can't do that. We cannot do that. And we haven't done it much this year, so I'm not, like, worried about it. But tonight, the effort for about 30 minutes of the 40 minutes was really, really poor. 859-280-2287. If you listen to Pope's post-game comments, he sounded pretty downtrodden on it. I think he was, I think that's his version of being angry.

tonight, Billy, you know? He didn't say much. His sentences were short. He was, I want to say he was terse, but he didn't go very long. That was, I think, the closest I've seen to angry Pope. And I can see why, because it was a disappointing effort. All right. We'll take your calls.

859-28027. We'll take a break. I'll be right. It back. It is the local Toyota deer. Look at these people. I give me a hard time. One of my friends listening to call me feathers.

That wasn't very nice. He's surprised I said it on the radio. It's just true. Oh, I'll call you feathers for the rest of my life, I think. It's only when I try to feather the ball in, which is what we were trying to do tonight. This is the local toy dealers, KSR postgame show. Welcome back. It is the local toy dealers KSR postgame show.

859-280-2287. Shout out to eight-year-old Bo who texted the text machine, Billy, and asked what I thought of the game. Eight years old on the text machine. That's a good UK fan right there. Incredible. How about that? One person writes, Matt, I stopped watching the game. As soon as they banked in that three, I knew what was going to happen.

I mean, we have to like, we have to lead the country and banked in threes. I think, I don't know, did they bank in a three against Clemson? Because I know they banked in a three at Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, and now this one. I can't remember if they banked in a three at Clemson. But I kind of think they did. I mean, every loss this year they've hit a banked in three. I'm saying. I don't think there's been,

I bet you if you look at our history, there are very few seasons we have four banked in threes against us. And we've had four in the four of the five losses. I can't remember if there was one against Clemson, but for some reason in my head, I think there might have been.

But I know there was one against Ohio State, Georgia, Alabama, and tonight. I mean, banked in threes are the worst. That means you missed it so badly it went in. there also wasn't a foul called for the first 12 minutes of the game. See, I like that. You know, I saw people complaining on that one that Amari got pulled. People say got pulled down.

But the thing is, I mean, they didn't call it because they didn't call stuff like that the whole game. So I don't know how people expected them to after a whole game of not calling fouls to then call that one. Right? You just got to be tougher. This team is not tough. They are soft. Now, part of that is because they're a jump shooting team. So it's okay.

but like you got to be tougher. All these guys really except O'Way are not, and even O'Way avoids contact sometimes. But, you know, I think O'A's tough. A lot of these other dudes, man, they just don't like to be hit. Any of them. They avoid contact so much.

I mean, obviously, the final telling thing was on that free throw at the end. We got four guys down there, and they didn't even move. and the vandy guy gets it And even though we ended up getting the ball It's like How did you all not move? They didn't move any of them So it is what it is

Who's up first? Jason Jason What's up Jason? Doing well Matt Greetings from Bethlehem Pennsylvania Good friend of Heather from Pikeville Yeah

This game in general Amari Williams Has to be the most frustrating individual I've watched it a long time. Dude has hands. Remember Marvin Stone? Marvin Stone had terrible hands. Marty Williams might be worse than Marvin Stone.

I don't get how the guy just can't hold on to the basketball. He really does have bad. He has bad hands. He has texted this to Drew during the game. And I, you know, he does some things really well. So I'm not, and obviously, I'm missing something because his numbers on rebounding are like through the roof. But I agree with you. He may be the most frustrating player I can remember in a long time.

Because I'm like, just look and go, what are you doing? It's amazing to me because he's a great athlete. But like, you're right, man, and the hands, I feel like we drop a lot. I mean, I think we all, none of our guys have great hands, but he particularly sticks out. Yeah, no doubt. And as far as like 50, 50 balls, we have to be the absolute worst team in the NCAA about picking up 50-50 balls, loose balls, anything. We just can't come up with them.

I can't get it. And there was a bank three in the Clemson game, sir. Oh, see? Look at that. Five of them. I appreciate the call. How is that possible that there are five? I mean, should we just stop watching when someone banks in a three?

That's it. Yeah. End of the game right there. It's unbelievable. And he's right about the loose balls. I mean, we get no loose. Well, I won't say no. But we don't get nearly.

If they're 50, 50, but we lose like 80 to 20 on loose balls. Part of it is just, again, hustle. We reach, we don't go get. These guys reach, they don't go get. You know, they reach, they don't dive. And the other teams do, and they get them. Who's next? Matt.

Matt. Matt, go ahead, Matt. Hey, this is Matt from Brewery, Kentucky. And my dad, Shannon and I, we just have a huge, huge, you know, love for the UK basketball and everything you guys do. But the three-pointer is what wins games. And what we kind of want to know on your all's end and everybody's end is like, how do we defend that?

Because we have to stop the three, not just against Van Dyne tonight or whoever we played against, but the whole season, especially in the NCAA tournament, I mean, we have to defend the three because that's what wins the game. All right. So, first of all, appreciate you, listen. I think that's a great point. I mean, we took 23-3s. They took 33.

So one of the things is, appreciate the call. If they're going to take 10 more than you, you're going to lose. Because we hit 9, they hit 12. We shot from 3, 39%. If we took 33, we hit 13, and all of a sudden take those free throws away at the end. We don't. I mean, no, we hit 13. We win.

We just don't take enough of them. Now, as far as how to defend them, there are teams we play where I understand why we give them the three. I don't understand why we give Vandy the three. Make Vandy beat us off the bouts. You know what I mean, Billy? I want to make them beat us off the bounce. I want to make them beat us at the rim.

Don't let them shoot threes. Pope said after the game that, like, they were worried about getting beat off the bouts, and so they gave up some big man threes, they made five of them. You know what? Make them beat us. I know they will some, but the last time I checked, two is less than three.

And I just, in the first half, some of those threes were, our guys just gave them so much space. You remember the one Amari was 10 feet from him? Yeah, well, part of that I think was such an emphasis on, you know, defending without fouling. I think Jackson said afterwards that they were timid to start the game. Fair enough. But like after they haven't called a foul in four minutes, foul them. Right, they didn't call a foul for the first nine minutes of the game. 12 minutes of the game.

So foul, you know, I mean, like they're not calling anything. Foul. You know, Travis Perry came in there, poor guy, but like, I get he's not good at, I mean, he's, first of all, I think Travis is going to be a good player, but he's not a great defender, but he gave him so much space and that dude hits a three. It's like, Travis, if you're going to get beat off the dribble anyway, don't give him four feet of space at the three point line. You know, you saw what Vandy did to us. They got out on us like Georgia did,

and they started defending us outside half court to try to create steals. I'd like to see us do some of that. Because right now, man, we give them space, and then we still get beat off the dribble. So it's tough. Who's next? Tim. Tim, what's up, Tim.

But with that said, by the way, on defense. I don't think we played great defense, but they only scored 74 points, and that should have been enough to win. 74 is a number. If you told me before the game, we hold them to 74, I'd have taken it. Tim, go ahead, Tim. Me too, Matt Jones. This is Tim C. Tucker from Philpaw, Kentucky.

First off, shout out Matt and Billy, you guys, in the words of the greatest American, y'all are some great Kentucky just so you know. I just wanted to call in and say that was everybody is, you know, a lot of people are frustrated as they should be. But the thing that blows my mind is kind of just like where we're at in the country, I guess. Like, everybody's calling in about the players and everybody's asking questions about the rest and things. But like, if your first question as a media member is not, okay, so Mark Pope, you put Trent Noah in in the second half. I didn't get that.

With two minutes left in the second half. And what was your thinking there? And, you know, and also the thing I don't understand is the game, the way it was banished, why is there not questions about that? Like, I love Markov. I am so happy he's our coach. But at the same time, like, we're allowed to ask, this is the University of Kentucky. Like, that was the one of the weirdest, it looked like a DBT game.

No, no, hang on just a second, because I want to give you a chance, I want to give you a chance to, to respond. I think you make, though, a very good point, which is we're in this weird place in society where you either have to love the person or not like them at all, and you can't go, I like you, but I have some questions, right?

Like, you're not allowed to do that. Like, just think about it. Like, you're not allowed to just go, eh, what about this? I'm with you. I did not understand, and I hate to say this, because I thought Tripp played really well. I didn't understand the decision for a defensive play to put

trend in. But at the end of the first half, if you go back and look at the end of the first half, we had bizarre lineups in there. I mean, we had like lineups. At one point, we had Colin Chandler, Noah, Brea, Allmanor, and Butler. And I was like, what is, what is this lineup? I mean, these dudes have probably never even played together in practice. So, listen, maybe Colin Chandler will be good here one day. I hope he is. I don't think he can play right now. now in the SEC, and we put him in for two different runs, and I don't know what his plus-minus was, but I don't think it was very good. So I'm with you. There was some weird lineup stuff to me tonight. And thank you for saying that. Like, I just summarize, like, I just, I only know I have short

time. Those are exactly what I was wanting to ask, too, about it along with, we just apparently abandoned the whole point guard position today. That was another question I would love to hear Mark Post answer to like, okay, so we're just, we're going to take Butler out and we're just not going to play a point guard. But I know Butler, I mean, I don't think what happened. I was okay with that. I was okay with that because that was when we made our run, honestly. We made our run.

Well, you know, when O.A was running point. Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I appreciate the call. We made our run from, I don't mean to cut you off, but I, but I think you make good points. We made our run from down three to up seven, I believe with Butler on the bench. when it was Oway, I think it was Oway Robinson, Oway Robinson, Braya, Omanor Garrison, maybe, or Almanor Williams. Like that was kind of when we made a run.

He's right, though, with the end of the first half, I mean, I'm not going to go back and watch it because it was so bad. Those last eight minutes of the first half, Billy, it looked like a high school game. 20 to four run by Vandy at the end of the first time. I didn't understand. I mean, we were just kind of running up and down the court. it looked like for eight minutes that's the worst we've looked that's the worst we've looked all year

I don't know what we were doing those last eight minutes the first half but the thing is we still came back we had a seven point lead like you got to win at that point who's next Dave Dave Dave go ahead Dave How you doing Matt Jones? Good how you doing Dave I'm doing great they just a little disappointed we lost but you know what I can't believe people

Nobody says something out and valuable Andrew Carr was because he must miss him in that Zoom action on the five and the four outside and spread it and throw it to the month. That was some, he was really, we missed him a lot tonight. I agree with you. Here's the good thing about one of the things we forget about Carr, and I'm guilty of this too. You mentioned that about the Zoom action. This team really struggles to get easy baskets.

You know what I mean? Like all of our baskets are jump shots. We struggle to get easy baskets. And Andrew Carr gets us three. or four easy baskets a game. And we didn't have those tonight. There's probably four times that he gets a little up and under, or like you said, a little zoom action.

He like gets a little head fakes, gets fouled, makes the free throws. He gets like, he gets us like eight points a game easy, and we just don't, he's like the only one who can get easy points. I'm saying, man. I just can't believe the BBN and talk to them because they're smart. They knew this. We'd have won that game. If he's been there tonight, I 100% agree.

I think we'd have won 1,000 of a thousand months. Yeah, I appreciate the call. That's probably true, but we didn't have him, and we still should have won't. You know, by the way, Vandy, you know, they stormed the court against Tennessee. It cost them $250,000. Right. By SEC rule, the court storm tonight, I think, cost them like $400,000. And it wasn't even that many kids.

You know, I don't know if you saw, they were desperately trying to keep them off. I saw, yeah, they were, the security guards were lining up. I mean, $400,000, a lot of money. For Vandy, though. Especially with this $22 million rev share coming, I mean, all these schools, like, are having to add $22 million to their budget. You know, $400,000, that court store may have cost like one or two people their jobs. Well, and when you're saying like that, yeah. I mean, I'm not kidding.

Like, that's a lot when you just courts. stormed earlier this week. Who's next? Moffat. Moffitt. Go ahead, Moffat. Hey, Matt. All right, so just like all y'all, I did not really enjoy watching that game. You know, it was rough to watch. But I got to think back to earlier this year when Mark Pope got hired,

and I was one of the people that was like, what the heck is going on? Mark Pope, what? We've come a long way since then. I know we've got a couple, you know, bumps in the road. But I don't think when I compare how I feel to this loss compared to the Oakland or St. Peter's loss, it's nowhere near the same. Let's keep our heads up. Mark Pope, I think he's a great coach. He's going to make adjustments.

You know, I don't want to talk about the last coach, but I couldn't. But I couldn't, you know, I wouldn't say that about the last coach. I've got hope for this team. Let's just thank back to where we were when he first got hot. to where we are right now. We probably won't be in the top 10 after this game. I'm with you. There's a difference between, I appreciate the call.

Big picture, I'm still very happy with Mark Popa. I still think he's exactly what the program needs. I still think he's going to long-term be very, very successful. You know, none of this has anything to do with long-term. This is just this season, right? I mean, honestly, if you had told me when the season started, if I had to look at that schedule and say, what would be the record for Kentucky after that game at Vandy? Billy, I probably would have been like, all right, 14 and 5, I'm good.

You know what I mean? Right. The weird thing is just who we're losing to versus who we're beating. Like, we beat the game. Like, I didn't think we were going to win against Duke. I didn't think we were going to win against Gonzaga. You know, I didn't, but I thought we'd win at Georgia. I didn't think we'd win at Mississippi State, but we did.

I thought we were going to win the day. It's just like it hasn't been, the games haven't played out. The record is probably about what we, the record might even be a little better than I thought. I thought we were going to be like 20 and 11 this year. And that may be where we indebted. up. It's just been a weird path. It's just a weird path. But like overall,

this team, I still am a huge Mark Pope fan. I think what's correct is something that, you know, I said a lot this year that a lot of people didn't love. We just don't have a great player. Jackson Robinson is really good. Always

a really good athlete. We just don't have a great player. And it's hard to win when you don't have a great player. We just don't have one, unfortunately. 8-5-9 280, 2287. We're going to take a break. Come back. This is the local Toyota dealers, KSR post game show.

Welcome back. It is the local toy dealers, KSR post game show. Duke is playing Wake Forest. They're up 51-47 with four minutes to go at Wake Forest. You know, it's the kind of game when you're a really good team. You've got to win. You're not playing well. You're on the road.

You're playing a team that's good, but not great. Duke looks like they may win it. We did not. What are you complaining about about the Duke game, Bill? It's like green. Like, they need to be. white balance their cameras, Matt. This is broadcasting 101.

So maybe call somebody up at ESPN, please. I was looking at it. I didn't really see it on mine. You sure it's not just your television? No, I'm not sure because I've only watched one TV. I do have it written down here that Duke would be undefeated in conference play. I told you they're going 20 and up. So we'll see.

And this was the get this in the at North Carolina. Remember what was the bet we made? One and a half. Was that who I bet someone that was that? It wasn't me. I met someone that. I said that, oh, no, no, somebody heard me and then wrote and said they wanted to bet me. I don't think they're going to lose a conference game because the ACC's too bad, and they already beat Louisville.

It was $500,000 that Vandy is going to be fined. And the AD Candace Lee apparently went to the student section during that review, you know, at the end. And they were looking to see and beg the students not to storm the court. There's a picture of her. She was like, I want to use this money for NIL. Please don't storm the court. And then they did it anyway. Wow.

That's funny. I got to see that picture. Yeah, there's a picture of her like going, please don't go. Oh, there it is. She's in prayer. She's literally in prayer. Please don't do it.

And then they did it anyway. See, I told you, I mean, that's not a small amount of money. $500,000. It's a lot of money. Yes, she's literally. She has her hands in prayer going, please don't storm the court. And then they did. All right.

859-280-2287. Who's next? Mike. Mike, go ahead, Mike. Hi, Matt, I like it, but I have some questions. Okay. I do enjoy your post-game analysis at always. But I want to push back on your occasional pushback when people talk about the negative

effects of NIL. And I'm a retired lawyer. You're absolutely right. It's legal. It's just. It's here to stay. There's no point complaining about it. It's just the way it is now.

So I'm not arguing about that. But you've often asked, do you see any reduced effort by players who are making a lot of money? And you look, you have looked to the pros. and then you look at our own team, which displays great effort a lot of times. But then you have games like tonight where you are the first person to observe. There are many lapses in effort. But I would argue with you, but I would go back.

I could go back 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago when they weren't being paid. And there were games where we didn't play with effort. You know, the COVID year. One of my problems with that team was that that team often really didn't play with a hundred percent effort. Well, they weren't being paid, at least, you know, from NIL. So, I mean, I think it's easy to then say, I think there are always teams that struggle with effort. It's easy, though, to go, well, it's cause of NIL. I mean, there's high school teams out there that don't play with effort.

Like, effort, I don't think, is related to money for 95% of these guys or more. We just, we don't know. We don't know. We don't know. I don't know enough to argue with you. That's my point is that when people bring it up as a suggestion, I think the correct answer is, well, we really don't know. But I would say to you, if you're going to say,

if you're going to say, this is just my general overall argument about if you're going to be accusatory to people, you're a lawyer, you know this. If you're going to say a kid is not playing with effort, because he's getting money. You need some proof of that. You need to say some proof of that. You can't just say it. You have to show, like, for instance, the kid at Indiana, the kid at Indiana,

Diallo, who's like going out to bars before the games and like bought this crazy car and all this stuff. If you want to say, this kid got $2 million, put on weight, et cetera, like, okay, I still don't know if I would say that, but at least you have something to put. point to. We don't really have anything to point to, and I don't like when people just say that in the abstract. No, I'm throwing it out there as a possibility. I don't think that I have absolutely no evidence. You're completely right about that. I'm just saying that when people are skeptical, that this might be a situation, that kind of scenario. Yeah. I get it. It's a fair.

They shouldn't be... That's fair. That's totally fair. But I would also say to you that Ohio State just won the national championship in football and had more NIL than any team in the country. So if they didn't care, would they have won the national championship, right? So I mean it's... I can't argue.

Yeah. Well, I appreciate the call. It's a fair point. Maybe I shouldn't be as dismissive. I just... We have a tendency sometimes to say, like, I really, and I've been like this from again, I don't like when kids are playing bad, and we then make it like a reflection on their character. So, like, take Amari Williams.

He frustrates me a lot. I said that. He frustrates me as much as any player I can remember. But I've heard nothing but anyone say anything but that he's a great kid. You can be a terrible basketball player and a wonderful human beat. You know, Billy, hopefully you and I are like that. because we both stink at basketball. I'm assuming you do.

I do. And hopefully we're good people, right? So I just don't like when people use poor play to then reflect on their character. That's my reasoning for when I push back on that. Who's next? Branch. Branch. Go ahead.

Hey, Matt. How are you? Good. Let me ask you this about Mark Pope. Here's my question about him. A lot of our frustrations in recent years have been built around the same things beating us every single game. Yeah.

And obviously the things that are beating us are different now. That's true. But as smart as Mark Pope is and as good as his offensive sets are, it's crazy to me that he can't figure out Amari Williams putting his hand up, you know, defensive effort, effort on the glass, all of those things, you know? Well, yes. I think I understand what you're saying.

I will say this about effort. I don't know how you make somebody go after a 50-50 ball. You know what I mean? Like on some level, the kid just has to do it, right? I'm sure Mark Pope says, go get that ball, right? On some level, I feel like, I mean, I feel like coaches, you know, maybe he coaches Amari not to put his hands up. That would surprise me.

and if he does, I would say that's fair to question. But some of it is like, I know he doesn't coach Amari to drop the ball and just go off his hands out of bounds. Like on some level, I don't know, man. Like what else is he supposed to do? Yeah, for sure. I guess I'm not saying I think he coaches him that way. But, and I'm definitely not saying he should have the attitude of the last guy we had. But Hope himself, I guess, doesn't really seem like a super tough physical guy.

Oh, well, then you don't remember him playing. Like, how old are you? 27. Yeah, I mean, when he played, he was the most physical dude on that team. I mean, if you go back to the 96 team, I appreciate the call, like, they were Uber talent. But you had a lot of these Uber athletes. And then there were two dudes who were like physical knock you guys, Mark Pope and Anthony Epps. Those were the two dudes that were physical.

And then they had all this talent everywhere around it. So, yeah, I wouldn't say that. Now, he plays a system that doesn't emphasize physicality. They're a shooting technique system. So maybe that's something he's going to have to improve on is getting his guys to be physical. Somebody sent me a message on the text machine that I thought was an interesting point. He said, Mark's used to playing in the Big 12, which is a much more finesse league, or it has been much higher scoring.

And maybe he's going to have to adjust his system to a league. that's a lot more physical because the SEC has always, even when it hasn't been talented, it's always been physical. It's an interesting point, Billy. Maybe that will be what he has to do. Yeah, and maybe Amari Williams is used to playing in his conference. And when it comes to the SEC, it's a little different not being defensive player. It may be.

It may be. But that's an interesting point. I mean, he's used in the Big 12, there were a lot of teams that put up points, get up and down the court. Maybe Mark's going to have to get a little bit of an adjustment to get, because like, Even the worst team in the SEC has great athletes. We might be the least athletic team in the SEC. Now, we're one of the most talented, I think, but we might be the least athletic.

And that might be something that has to change. But he's also bringing in three recruits next year that are all great athletes. So, like, you got to do, I do think you have to give him time to go get those guys. Who's next? Stubb. Stub, what's up? Hey, Matt. So people are, you talk about Amari Williams.

and he was two-time defensive player of the year at Drexel, and I know people will say, that's the A-10, but it's still not, you know, like playing trancy. No, you're right. 18 is probably the seventh or eighth best conference in the country. Yeah, so, but talking about tonight, Kentucky outshot them from the field, the three-point line, the free-toe line, and they had a plus-13 rebound margin,

and still lost. Oh, I think what this is, wow. Wow, we had a plus 13 rebound margin and still lost. Wow, that's bad. That's what's turnovers, right? Turnovers 16 to 5. So what's disappointing is I didn't think a team that was experienced like this team is, would lose a game because they would, I mean, they just, they melted and fell apart in the last four minutes.

And I didn't think a team like this would ever lose a game. like that. But which brings me to another point that I'm concerned about, I wonder if they're starting to wear down maybe injuries or just accumulating. Well, injuries are part of it. Injuries are part of it, but you know, they had a week off, right? So, you know, I don't know that I can buy the wear down. They just had a week off.

But that's, you make a good point about the turnovers. I mean, I knew we had a bunch. I don't think I realized they only had five. So, I mean, that's 16 to 5. That's a huge difference. That, I mean, that's that and the threes. If you just didn't know any other stats, then we had 16 tournaments that they had five. They made 13 threes.

We had made nine. Sorry, we're probably losing if those are the stats. I think at this point, and this has been my last thing, is just, you know, hope to finish the middle of the pack and see what happened in March. I agree. Thank you, Matt. Appreciate it. Appreciate the call.

I agree. Because the one thing about this group, I do think they can. can beat anybody in March, but they also can lose to anybody in March. 859-280-2287. We will take a break, have a final segment. It's a local, good calls, by the way, tonight. One of the better, even after a loss, one of the better set of calls, the local toy dealers, KSR post-game show.

Welcome back. It is final segment. Local Toyota dealers, KSR post-game show. Good set of callers tonight. Kentucky loses. I hate when Kentucky plays early in the day and then loses. It feels like it's hard to enjoy the game. that come after.

I've always been like that, even in football. I play a noon game and lose. Now, when you play early and win, you can watch the games and not be nervous. That I like, but I hate when they play early and lose. 859-2-80-2287. Who's up next? Jerry.

Jerry. Go ahead, Jerry. Hey, Matt, thanks for taking my call. I've got two quick things. We was at one point where two minutes and suddenly going to game. And Butler had the ball at the top of the key. Williams at the free throw line He tries to force the ball into him

Yep They steal the ball to score Which I ain't got no problem with that Then the next time down the floor We go inside I'm sorry Vandy got back down the floor Goes up for a shot

Williams goes for the block The kid misses the shot And Butler just stands and watches the ball man and they get to rebound Yeah He was bad the last few minutes He was bad last few minutes He was and then he got his pocket picked

one or two possessions after that. That was, you know, he's a senior. He's been in the national championship game. He's got to be better than that down the stretch. Hey, man, let me say one more thing and I'll leave you alone. And the second half, you have to leave me alone? The Vaynerbner had no more, they had no answer far away.

He should have been, he should have had the ball in his hand a lot more. And at the end of the game, man, I mean, we've been, we're probably not going to beat Tennessee. I hope we do. but if we get on a three-game losing street, we've got to beat Arkansas, man. Oh, dude, I don't even... We got to be Arkansas no matter what.

I mean, I can't imagine... I can't imagine doing this show next week at what time? Midnight, 1230 at night? Is that where when it's going to be? I mean, it's going to be... Because the game's at 9, isn't it? Yeah, with the documentary crew in town, too. Oh, come on now.

If I have to sit in my house and do that in route and do this post-game show when it's 1230 at night... Lones might break. The NFL show the next day and we lose, man, you're going to have to carry me out of it. Who's next? Robert. Robert.

Go ahead, Robert. Hey, Robert from Stanford. The only thing I have is, I think, going back to Coach P, who I had interviewed at a TV station at the men 90s when I worked there, is that the bad thing about it is, Andrew Carr is the straw that stirs the drink. that boy needs to do that. I don't know if I agree with that. I mean, I like Andrew a lot, but, you know, if you go look, I mean, we've won some big games where he really hasn't played great. I mean, the Alabama game, we were right there, and I don't even know. I don't think he played particularly well at all.

I think he's very important, but like he would have gotten us three or four easy baskets, like I said earlier. But I think you can win without him, although it's obviously better to have. having you can and i always go back to it it's better to have them but i have not and if we have him that's true tonight i think we would have been better off i agree i will agree with you there if we had had him tonight i appreciate the call if we'd have had him tonight i think we'd have been a lot better shape i think we would uh i think they could you know if car on the one hand because vandy's so small missing car doesn't kill you on the other hand i still think one of the best versions of Kentucky is car at the five.

And a lot of teams, the sizes so much that you can't do that, you could have done that tonight because Vandy's small. So we could have played Carr at the Five and been difficult to guard. And we just weren't able to do that. Who's next? Lee. Lee. Lee, go ahead, Lee.

Hey, mad, a lot of dissecting going on now. After losing a couple games in two weeks and stuff. But what's wrong with that? Like, what's the, is it? I mean, that's what we're supposed to do, right? Yeah. two shows about. Yeah, I was getting ready to say it's really changed, though, in the way it's gone.

But I do agree with you on a couple of several things. I won't talk about them real quick. One is I agree with you 100%. I don't watch much sports after we lose a Saturday afternoon game. I probably won't watch TV again until the Eagles play tomorrow afternoon, and I'll watch them. So that's one thing. The other thing is I went to about 35 games in 1996, and Mark Pope,

was anything but frail. He was after everything. I agree. He was, well, I mean, it was his effort and energy that made him a player. You know what I mean? I mean, he wasn't gifted with great talent, but he played nine years in the NBA because of his effort, you know? And he wasn't afraid to knock you down.

And I agree with you, too, on this. And then I'm going to say one thing. I am going to do dissecting myself. I want to say this other thing, though. I agree with you what you said, too. This team looked like probably they. look the first week they came to practice like they'd never played together that first half, the whole first half.

And it was just horrible. The one thing I do want to kind of say, I don't know any big mistakes that Pope has made and coached this year. He's done a lot of good things. But if Andrew Carr had been hurt and didn't need to play the last few games, I wish he'd set him out. But if he'd been able to play today, I wish he had played him. And I don't know who will ever know the answer to that.

because I do agree I think we'll win. Last thing and I hang up and I appreciate to listen to me. Just remember this. Regardless what we do, I think we'll end up 9 and 9 in the SEC or 10 and 8 in SEC and get probably a six or seven seat and go to have a chance to win one or two games. But we started out the year. We wanted to beat Arks. We want to beat Louisville.

We've done that. We want to beat Duke. We've done that. We want to beat Gonzago. We've done that. Now we have to beat Arkansas. And I love your program, and God bless and go cat. That is true.

If you had told us before the year started, you get to beat five teams, we would have said Duke, Gonzaga, Louisville, Tennessee, and Arkansas probably. All right. We've done the first three. Now we've got to get the next two. So may not win the next one in Knoxville, but we can still beat them in Rupp. And then we've got to beat Arkansas. Who's next?

we've got three left bones is next bones go ahead bones look at you telling me how we're going about that's what i was going to do was three of them go ahead bones what's going on guys so just a couple of things i got a challenge for corey price since he's the stat guru wonder if there's any way he might be able to figure out out of maybe the last couple years five years or whatever any time a team is banked in a three how many times we've lost because i'd like to say it's probably 75% at least losses and then my other big big concern was, you know, the scouting report on Vanderbilt was there's a leading team about steals and points off of turnovers and they seem to annihilate us on that.

Like, we didn't even know it was coming. And then the last thing is I still not really worried about the season or whatever because I told my friend tonight I'm willing to probably put money on that if the SEC tournament, when it starts, I'd be shocked if there's more than two teams in the SEC that have two losses or less. And I'll just hang up and let guys listen, man, love your show, go catch. I don't even think they'll be two. I think there'll probably only be one team with two losses or less,

and that'll be Auburn. I think Alabama will have more than two losses. Tennessee will have more than two losses. Everybody's going to have more than two losses except Auburn. I think I feel pretty confident about that. Yeah, the turnovers is a big issue tonight. But most of them were in the first half. I really, those last eight minutes of the first half,

Like never show those on television ever again. Because it was real. Who's next? Ian. Ian, go ahead, Ian. Two more. What's up? Hey, Matt.

To add on to what the guy said, a couple of callers go about how, you know, we won against Gonzaga, we won against Duke. We've done all these things. I don't think that Mark Pope is a guy who's just going to roll the dice and be just completely careless. But I think there's a scenario where he knows that this game against

a really decent Vanderbilt team at their house is not really it doesn't matter if we lose their to be perfectly he can do things. Yeah, I disagree with you. You got to, this

is a game. There are so few wins on the schedule that you feel that like you can look at and go like I feel good we're going to beat south carolina at home we're going to beat lSU at home i think we're going to be vandy out but there's not a lot of other games on the schedule that i go well we're definitely going to win that one so like you got to win these i mean i do not you know with two with two minutes to go we're up one like i don't think mark pope was thinking that's not that big a deal if we win this but no i agree with that but my my question honestly

when Noah came out at the very first time he came on the floor, I was like, what is going on? Why is he? And I just wonder if he is adjusting some lineups and doing some things where, like you even said, what are these lineups where he's just saying, I know we're close enough and we can try to figure out what's going on so that we know in March what we have.

Maybe, maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. But I appreciate the call. We're going too long with it then. I mean, we've been down like nine points in almost every game, you know, and we can't just keep doing that.

I mean, if he doesn't go down 14, we win this game easy. Like you just can't. And again, you know, like, again, I'm not trying to be rude or mean, but Colin Chandler, he can't play right now in these games. He just can't. And he doesn't need to. need to go with him twice to find out it's pretty clear no one perry have shown they can in certain parts i don't think tonight was a perry night but it was a noah night so you know i don't mind that but

then you know putting all those guys in at once at the end of the first half that just did not work let's do one more who's next josh josh go ahead josh hey matt thanks for taking my call here in western of North Carolina. Really always appreciate KSR, got me through the floods and everything, always got me to laugh when I was in your show, but I wanted to just make two points. We can't win 17 turnovers, 11 assists. Every game we have to have. And we beat the teams.

Our assist turnover ratio is outstanding, and tonight was home. True. Got to execute, right? Like, this is not a talent team. This is an execution team. And like your point says, if we don't execute, we will lose. And that's what happened tonight. And here's my second point.

Last year you used to say, first of all, totally different team. But we always said we could lose anybody, we could beat anybody. We did, yes. That's how this team filled. That's exactly right. You know what's crazy? And I appreciate the call. I thought about that actually before, like this week when we didn't have a game.

It's crazy to say this, but this is a lot like last year's team, but just a lot less talented. Last year's team had infinite talent, and you just thought, man, if we hit shots and reach our potential, look how good we are. This team, not nearly the same amount of talent, but we just say, man, if we just execute, we're really good. And just as it would be frustrating last year that we couldn't get them to put the lineups on and to get all the talent and make it work, it's a different frustration this year, but it's like, man, if you guys will just hustle an end. execute your execution you can be really good when it happens so they're different teams way different talent levels that team last year was a lot more talented did not play particularly smart this team play smart not particularly talented but it's like if they both would just reach their

full potential they both have the ability to beat anybody but as we saw last year they both could lose to anybody and hopefully we won't have that result this year. All right. Thank you folks very much for listening. Kansas is playing Houston right now. Billy, I know it's part of the KSR parley. How did the rest of our teams do in the parley? Do you know? No, I'm not sure. I'm going to look at this real quick. Did Butler beat DePaul? Yes, it did. There was one. All right. Sorry, I'm making you hear this. Utah and Baylor. Baylor beat Utah. That's two. What were the other two? Kansas. And what was the other one, Billy? Come on. Help me out.

I don't know. I didn't bet it, but I can look it up real quick. Look it up real quick because we're two for four. Kansas is going to win tonight. That's going to be three. Oh, you think Kansas gets it done tonight? Kansas is going to win tonight, yeah. I've almost got it. Oregon State, St. Clan, Santa Clara. I don't know off the top of my head what happened in the Oregon State Santa Clara game.

Here, I'm going to look it up. I think they're in the West Coast Conference now, and Oregon State is up two at halftime. Come on now. There'll be something positive for the night. Thank you, folks, very much for listening. We'll see you on Monday. If you get ready for it tomorrow, listen to the ESPN championship game preview Sunday at 10 a.m.

Thanks to Billy for hanging in. We'll see you later. This has been the local toy dealers, KSR, postgame show. 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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