KSR - KSR Postgame UK MBB vs Iowa State NCAAT 3/22/26

Episode Date: March 22, 2026

Matt, Ryan and Billy recap the Cats' 82-63 loss to Iowa State in the 2nd round of the NCAAT.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We are here. It's me and Ryan and Mario. We are stopped in Mount Vernon, Illinois. We actually took off right as the game ended and heading on our way back. A lot of ways to go about this game. I think what I will do is talk a minute, a couple of minutes about the game, and then kind of overall about the season as a whole. First of all, the game.

Kentucky came out really well, started, led 20 to 8. I felt like for the first time all year, I set directly courtside. And you get kind of a different view when you sit there. You can see the game in a way that I actually think is a lot more helpful in watching. and I thought Kentucky came out defensively and was great in the first half. Intense, got out on the shooters. I was very, very impressed. And offensively, early, they shared the ball.

They passed to the offside, which is what Mark Popat said they wanted to do, kind of make the skip pass across the court. And I thought they looked great. And then all of a sudden, Iowa State changed their defense. And I think this is worth noting. I talked on the pregame show today about how when I talked to Tom Crean and Seth Greenberg said this on TV, that the way Iowa State was going to play is they were going to double everything when people made drives, try to cut off the basket and make Kentucky shoot threes.

And at the start of the game, that's what they did. And then Kentucky made six threes to start the game. And after they did that, timeout was called. and Iowa State switched their defense after having a game plan that clearly the coaches had said to broadcasters, because many broadcasters said it. Right. They came out and completely switched their defense. They made a coaching adjustment.

They did. And they decided to pressure the ball handler at the point of attack, whoever it was, every time. And then when they did, the pressure just wilted Kentucky. The guards couldn't handle it. the bigs really couldn't handle it. And Kentucky ended up with 20 turnovers, 12 in the first half. That's an outrageous amount. I mean, Kentucky only won one game all year where they had more than 11 turnovers,

and we had 20. And that game plan, Kentucky was just not able to adjust to. And when they switched it, when they switched from kind of daring Kentucky to shoot threes to saying, okay, beat our pressure, Kentucky was not able to do it. And offensively then, every shot seemed like it was a miracle to get one off, much less make it. It was wilting. It was one of the best defensive performances after that adjustment. I've seen a team play against Kentucky in a long time.

And then understandably, when the offense suffers, the defense suffered on the other end. Cats were up one at halftime. I thought there were two key sequences in the game. Number one, and we've said this all year, the substitution patterns. Now, this was not a mass substitution because that's been an issue for a lot of the year. But this was a game where I think only three guards could play, Aberdeen O'A. and Chandler. And when they tried, and I understand why Pope did this, when he tried to steal minutes for those guys, it just didn't work. Put in Jasper Johnson, he was minus 9 in a minute and 37 seconds.

And it was a brutal minus 9. Moreno really struggled all game. Shot free throws well, but otherwise really struggled. Couldn't get his hands on the ball, which leads to me the second key sequence. Up seven, great defense on a possession. Missed shot. Diabate taps the rebound. Diabate, I thought, was great hitting the glass. Taps the rebound, taps it into Moreno's hands, who loses it, falls down.

Mamlovick, or whatever his name was, for Iowa State catches it, shoots an open corner, corner three cuts it to four. It could have been a seven with the ball with a minute 15. Instead, it's four. We come down rush a shot, no understanding of time and situation. They get the ball back. We come and rush another shot and give them the final shot, and they hit a three. And we go from up seven to down one.

And I thought that was a crucial little swing. And then the second half was just embarrassing. I mean, they at one point we're down 25. It was just, it was embarrassing, second half. So Kentucky loses. So that's the game. Ryan, thoughts on the game. You nailed it.

Came out, great start. And we said in the pregame show, they're going to have to hit shots. They did. We said Colin Turner's going to have to come out and hit some shots. And he did. He did. You know, the offense looked great. But you nailed it, man.

Iowa State made the adjustment. When they put that trapping defensive pressure on us, Kentucky did not handle it at all. And you saw the weaknesses that the team had. The two biggest weaknesses, in my opinion, maybe three. One, no depth. No depth. Now, some of that is having a couple injuries, but a big part of it is they didn't have a backup point guard. So, I mean, you could not take Aberdeen out.

And when they did, you saw what happened. Even him in there, they pushed our offense out. It was starting nearly at half court line. By the way, we lost by 19, and Aberdeen was minus 5, which means we were minus 14 without him, and he only set out four minutes. Wow. So think about that for a minute. I mean, think about how bad it was when he wasn't on the court.

It was brutal. So that was number one. Pope addressed that after the game, said, well, we thought something was going to happen in our spring situation, and then it fell through. I guess he's referencing the Caden Lewis not coming here. But when a Caden Lewis didn't come, you got to go do something. There's still plenty of time.

There's guys all over the world, right? Yeah. And they didn't do it, and you saw the – And let me say, salute to Aberdeen. for making that, like, I actually think he was great in the second half of the year. And while I'm on that phase, salute to Oway. Yes. One of the best two-year runs as a player in Kentucky history.

He was, you know, well, isn't perfect, but this is a guy who probably on an ideal team is Robin to a Batman, and he had to be Batman, and he was a pretty dagon good Batman. Honestly, he was better than I thought he could be this year. And so, salute to him. He had 30, what is it? How many games we play? We played 36 games this year, 36, and I think he had 33 games in double figures, 34 games in double figures, and I think something like 17 games or 19 games over 20 points.

Wow. Pretty amazing season for him. Now, bigger picture, the season as a whole. And ultimately, this, ultimately, this is the most important thing. The season as a whole was a huge disappointment. I don't know how you can say that the season was anything but a disappointment. Kentucky came in. The own coach said we were a Ferrari.

We had national championship or final four expectations. Yes, we had two major injuries. One was at the point guard, but they did make a voluntary choice to not have a backup. Well, he said, Pope said in the post, game. We knew our weakness was we didn't have a backup point guard. Well, probably should have fixed that. That hurt you. Quaintance, that's a loss, but you know what? I don't find that as much of an excuse as everybody else because you knew he had a torn ACL when you brought him. When you took him. Right. So you made the conscious decision to do that. That wasn't like he got, like, Lowe was a

freak accident. But Quaintance, you knew he was coming off a torn ACL and you just, you decided to do it. while I do give some sympathy for the low thing, ultimately you didn't construct this roster correctly. Even when we were at our best, I will remind you we had three games where we had the whole team. We beat St. John's, but we lost by like 25 to Alabama and lost at home to Missouri. Yes.

People just bring up the, well, if we had our whole team, we were 0 and 2 in the one game where all guys played. right we had one half where we looked good the second half against st johns for the rest of the time we weren't good even with the whole team it was poor roster construction it just was and i will go further i think what we had was poorly coached he did not have a team that fit his philosophy and then in my opinion mark was not able to make it adapt he was not able to take his players adjust how they play and make it work i'll give any example right now St. John's is playing.

Rick has a team of dudes who can't shoot. They can't. And yet he's got them on the way to potentially the Sweet Sixth team. We'll see how the game ends. And they won the Big East because he adjusted to what he had. Play to your strengths. Right? This team actually ended up shooting okay some of the year, but we were not able to adjust.

And it was a very disappointing year. I thought last year was ultimately a kind of success. year. I think this year was a disappointment, which is why I think the third year is going to be what it comes down to for Mark Pope. There was a couple discouraging comments in the post game. I might have to pull this out to read it, but he said he was asked about going forward, and he said, we've got to find guys who want to come here because of what Kentucky is. I hate that philosophy. that philosophy may have been true 10 years ago although I don't think it was maybe 20 years ago we need to get the best players and then teach them to quote Terrence Jones about Kentucky

right yeah then teach them about Kentucky right get the best guys here bring them here and then make them fall in love with it because when you bring guys who this is the peak of what they want, that's nice. It makes our heart feel good, but we lose. Right? Illinois's got a team full of Serbians that probably didn't even know where Illinois was on the map when they came here. And they're in the Sweet 16. Right? Right. So teach them about Kentucky. I don't, I'm worried. I'm worried about the building of the offseason. We'll talk more about later this week, but Eli Capiluto made a video yesterday. The basics of it were, we got to cut expenses.

We got to cut expenses. Jack Given said on the post game, I don't know if they're going to have as much money for NIL next year. That's a little concerned. Ouch. Jack would know. Yes, he would. That's a little concerning. And then when you hear Mark say, well, we got to start getting people who want to be here for what Kentucky is,

that sounds like it's saying we may not be able to get these guys that cost a lot of money. All of those things are things that make it hard for me to feel confidence about, next year. Now we'll see. There's a big portal season. We'll see who comes back. But you have to call a spade a spade. And this was a disappointing year. And it wasn't a we didn't reach our goals. We were 22 and 14. We lost 14 games. The second round, you know, it's not a disaster, but it's also not great. But the bigger issue is that we lost 14 games. We were a non-seed in the SEC tournament. We played the first

game of the SEC tournament. Right. We were non-competitive in many games this year. Many games. Many games. This wasn't like bad luck. We got our ass kicked in a lot of games this year. Now, we do have some good wins.

A positive. Two good wins over Tennessee. One at Arkansas. Biggest win of the year. That was a great win. Yep. Right. won a game against Vandy at home that was nice, beat St. John's. Yes. But we also lost at home to Georgia, and we lost it home to Missouri, right? We got embarrassed at Texas A&M.

We got embarrassed at Vanderbilt. We lost by 40 to Gonzaga in Nashville. We had embarrassment that we should not have at this school. And so people asked me once, how do I grade a team? Regular season, number one. A D. We were the ninth seed in the SEC. D.

SEC tournament. C. Right? They won a couple games, but we only made it to the quarterfinal. Right. It still didn't make it to the weekend. And then NCAA tournament, C, but we have a great moment we'll always remember with the O-way shot. So that's nice.

But overall, just a really, really disappointing season that I think sets it up where, if we are objective, Mark Pope's future at Kentucky is about next season. It will be defined next season. It will be defined by next season. There are people I see them online who want to make a change now. That's not going to happen. It's also not what I think should happen. But I also don't think this baby should be behind me screaming.

I don't get to choose everything. So I next year will define what Mark Pope is or isn't at Kentucky. I agree with you. I think last year's team kind of overachieved. This year's team definitely underachieved. And this team was way too good to lose 14 games. Way too good. Way too good.

I don't care what you think about talent. Go look at that team Iowa State put on the floor. go look at the pedigrees of that team where they were ranked in high school yeah and then look at forget about low inquantence look at who we put on the floor this as well uh-huh look at our pedigrees our nil there's no reason for us to lose by 20 points points we lost by 20 points because they ran a better defense they ran a better offense they were better coached They were better connected. They had a better identity than our guys. Period. End of story.

If we had lost to Duke and that talent, then I might accept your argument of, not yours, but an argument of, well, our guys were hurt. But we lost to a team of guys that on paper shouldn't be any better than our guys. And the one guy they had that is better was out. True. Didn't even play. We can't complain.

Their best player got hurt in the last game, and they found a way to make it work. And beat us by 19. Second worst, ties, second worst loss in the UK. Second worst loss in the NCAA tournament ever, ever. It could have been worse. Felt like it was worse. So it is disappointing. I know fans are disappointed.

I know Mark is disappointed. I'm sure everyone is. But there needs to be a fundamental. reset and evaluation of everything involved with how UK athletics and UK basketball has been run the last six years. Yeah. That starts at the top where we're making a change. It goes down through NILGM. It goes down through media relations, fan relations, coaching.

everything, in my opinion, has been off the tracks a little bit. And it is steamrolled to get worse and worse with everyone instead of trying to figure out how to make it better, pointing fingers at other people. If we're honest with each other, behind the scenes, they all point fingers at each other. And you all are shaking your heads because you know it's true. Or they point fingers at the media or the fans or the fans or. expectations. No one takes accountability and looks in the mirror and says, when are we going to reset this? Now's the opportunity. Because if you don't reset it right now, in one year we're going to be looking for something to do. That's just the reality. They better do it. And what makes me

nervous is I still hear people pointing fingers instead of looking in the mirror and going, what can I do that might be different than what I'm doing? And on a weekend when I see a president come on and go, we're going to have to cut expenses. And now we're going to focus on how we make money as a university, which is what he said. Yes. And I see a coach who says,

we need to get guys who play for the name on the front of the jersey. And I see that performance on the court. There's a part of me that goes, you know, is someone going to lead here and make a job? change that this basketball program can get back to the elite status where it needs to be. That playing for the front of the jersey, that's old school basketball. Like you said, that may have been something you could do 10 years ago, definitely 15 years, 20 years ago. Modern basketball is not that way anymore.

There was a lot of things, especially towards the end about Cal, that I grew sour on. But one thing I always did believe him about was if you get the talent, they'll fall in love with the universe. Right? I believe that. Yes. Because this place is special. Mark loves this place. He'll get him to fall in love with the university.

Sure he will. But I don't need somebody who's in love with us immediately. I need guys who can go ball, who fit your system, and who won't lose by 20 to Iowa State. And I need a coach who can take his roster, adjust, motivate and not have zero answer when a coach makes one change and the team looks completely lost. Zero offense looks like after that changed. Zero.

Iowa State clearly came in with one game plan and we, to our credit, shot them out of that game plan. Correct. But then they changed and we did not. We couldn't punch back. And that's why we're sitting here today with a 20 point loss. 859-28027 we will take your calls we are we just had some Kentucky fans walk in nice to see the Kentucky fans their heads are down I'm not waving at that family with the children the one that's screaming back there we're not we can move closer if you want to

no this is a massive restaurant and they had to sit right there want to hear your postgame show by me self we'll take a break and be right back it's a local Toyota dealers KSR post game Welcome back. It is the local toy dealers KSR postgame show. I just want to go on record just to end the day. While I was doing that monologue with Ryan, Mario ate all our food. The good ones. Mario while we were started, the food came right before it started.

And Mario ate all, there were three different kinds of wings. He took the good kind and ate them all while we were on the air. Every single one of them ate them. I think I did have one. Yeah. Well done. Thank you for that. Way to go. He did save you one.

Thank you. 859, it was grizzle. 859-28027. One person writes, Matt, okay, is there anything that you can say that is positive to be about the off-season? Yes. What I can say is the good thing about all of this is if you have a good portal season, you can fix all of these things. Sure. Right?

So whatever weaknesses are on your roster are, fixable. Whereas 15 years ago, you might not be able to fix it. You can fix it. Now you can. Quickly. And I think the question, and I'm sure we'll do a lot of this tomorrow, is who's back. I can tell you that for my purposes, I'm not going to say there's anybody that I don't want back.

I don't think that's fair to do to a kid. I mean, I know there are fans that think like that. And I'm sure, like, I, in private, have my own thoughts. But I can tell you three people. that I want to be back. I definitely want Moreno back. He's got to spend all off-season working on his strength in his hands because I think that's what's keeping him from being a good player.

He is a good player, but keeping him from me a great player. He loses the ball too much, and he gets it taken from him. And you saw those were men on the other side of the court. Yeah. Right. And Yelovich and Moreno, they don't play like that. and Moreno's got to get better. But if he does, I think there's a lot of potential there.

He took a big jump. Took a big leap. But when the physicality came, he retreated a little bit. So I want to see him do that. Yes, I would definitely want him back. I definitely want Colin Chandler back. He needs to work on the offseason. What do you do when they take your shot away from you?

You've got to create your own shot. Whether it's that you can't hit it or whatever. You got to be able to beat your man off the dribble. He couldn't do that this year. O'Away in Aberdeen could, he really couldn't. But the athleticism is there. That block he got was like a holy, like, it'll get forgotten. But that block was one of the most athletic things I've ever seen up close.

He started like on the other side of the free throw lane and blocked that dude's shot. From the angle you and I were at, that was one of the most amazing plays I've ever seen. It's like Go Go Gadget Arms. I don't know how he did it. So he's got the athleticism to do. Absolutely. So I want him back. And then I think I would like Cam Williams back.

I think there's more there. And I think when he gets in a rhythm, he can really shoot and he can guard multiple positions, which I really like. Other guys. Billy, do you hear that? Oh, yeah, I definitely hear that. They're just agreeing with what you were saying. Please, youngster. Other guys, if they come back, I'm good with it.

But like, we got to get some growth. I think a lot of the year I was kind of ready for a new maybe maybe don't need Diabate I actually kind of would like him again he started to have toughness that we didn't have and I thought the last eight or ten games the year he was really good this year I think that six-man aggressive like physical role is actually a really good role for him when he's settled into that role he was very productive off the bench for us so so that's my feelings on the roster and then everything else than I you know know, we'll see. We'll see what Pope wants to do and how everything fits. You're going to have to go get, whether you think it's Jalen Lowe, you're going to have to get a point guard. Right. And at this point, and at this point, I need two point guards. Even if the second one's not a star, I still need two,

because we can't go into these years with one and hope. Because Dengel Averdine was not a point guard. Which is why I'm so, which is why I will think of him very fond. Absolutely. He was not a point guard. And in the second half of that year, he was a good point. He really grew on me. I think I even sit on the show one time. He's one of my least favorite players. He grew on me. He grew on me.

He grew on me. He grew on me. Go look at the plus minus for this game. When he was out, we fell apart. Yeah. The whole game. All right, Billy, who's up first? John is up first.

John. John, go ahead, John. Oh, I can't hear you, my man. So put the phone up to your mouth and, like, talk into it. We need to back. We can not go back. We can not just ditch it right now. Everyone wants to talk.

They say, we push Calgary out for this. We push Calgary up to that. Billy, is that just going in and out or is that just on my end? What? It's him. It's him. I appreciate the call. Your phone is going in and out, so I can't hear what you're saying.

Go ahead. Who's next? Don is up next. Don, go ahead, Don. Yeah, hi, Matt. Thank you for taking my. call. I'm 77 years old. I've been listening to

UK basketball since I was a 12 or 13 year old boy on a little transistor radio. I remember Adolph Ruff. I remember Kaywood Ledford very well, and I don't even know where to start. I mean, I really don't. I'm so disgusted.

We shouldn't have even been playing Iowa State today. That lucky shot got us there. We shouldn't even even been there. I don't even know what to say about the team, about Mark Polk. I like Mark. I'm just not sure he's the fit. I really don't know, Matt.

I just, I'm so upset about the style of play. I wish we had two good guards. Guards are what makes college teams work. And we still have them. I would disagree with you that we didn't have guards. I mean, I think our two best players were guards. You know, we may not have had enough of them, and we didn't necessarily have great shooters,

but I think our guards, especially O'A. in Aberdeen, became the least of our problems. But in general, I agree with you, and your point is, like, is Pope the guy? You know, I don't know the answer to that question. Like, I would have said going into this year, yes. Now I'm kind of in the, I don't know, to be honest with you, I don't know. I love the guy.

I just am not positive that he's the fit that we need, Matt. I just don't think he is. I wish, you know, I mean, other teams get good coaches, and they rebuild the program, they find good players. Why can't we? I mean, we used to be crim-la-crim. U.K. basketball was the top. And now, where are we?

I don't even think. We're not even in the top 30 or 40, I don't believe. And it just bugs the peanuts out of me. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I understand what you're saying. I appreciate the call. I mean, I think if you were to rank, where are we right now? It all depends on what you mean.

If you mean performance, we're not in the top 15 of the programs in recent years. If you're talking about sort of prestige, that's a little different. I think we still are. But, you know, as far as Mark, I'm going to say, I thought a lot of this between the SEC tournament and the NCAA tournament. But I really value, Ryan, people that I can think are good people, good hearts, good humans, treat each other well. I think in our current society where that happens less and less, I value it more and more.

Okay. But I don't know if college sports is like, there's value in being a good person. Be kind to people. But you also got to push the envelope in college sports. Right, like you can't, you don't get any rewards in college sports for, for like, best sportsmanship. You get rewards in life, but in college sports, you've got to go win, right? And in college basketball, especially, especially until we have set in stone rules that, like, Congress passes, which is going to happen sometime, but it may not happen for the next couple years. You got to push the envelope.

What's my, what's the, what's the thing I say a lot? ask for forgiveness excuse me beg for forgiveness don't ask for permission right let's start doing some stuff that will ask us to beg for forgiveness and let's stop waiting for permission yeah

nobody else is nobody are not and they're winning and maybe one of the things with the change of leadership is there'll be a change of thoughts on that but that also means hey mark pope go you know

whatever it is like do what you whatever push the envelope and let's stop going well can we do this do it and then we'll deal with it on the back end you know Alabama played a player that was not the court Alabama played a player that they specifically said they cannot and you know what they didn't count they didn't punish them nope none at all they're still in the term they have the same seed they would have had in the yep didn't matter so go for it I'm in the boat I'll I want it to work for Mark Pope I do too everybody does I want it to happen for him but I think he's got like

You said, look in the mirror. He's got to make some changes. He's got to adapt to some things in modern basketball. And to hear his comments today makes me kind of still scratch my head about where he's thinking. I think there's a lot of different ways to relate to modern athletes. You can be like John Shire and be their friend. You can be like one of the boys maybe. Or you can be a disciplinarian still maybe if they respect you, like Rick Petino or Tom Izzo.

I don't know if you can be like. Golly G, guys, let's go. I don't know. Maybe you can. Last year it worked. I'm not sure that it worked this year. Didn't work with this group. With this group.

Last year I think it kind of did, so maybe it's who you get. Right. Yeah. But I think, you know, maybe there was a more mature group last year. Maybe. But I don't think it really worked with this group. It didn't. So who's next?

Nathan. Nathan. Go ahead, Nathan. Hey Matt, I am 24 years old. I just wanted to call in, give my thoughts. So when Mark Pope was hired, I was really mad at my dad, his friend. Everybody that thought Mark Pope was a good hire was, I thought older. And I wanted Cal gone. So I will say that. So did all my friends. Maybe unique for me at my age, I thought Cal should be gone. But I had an idea that we were going to get a good hire. And when he was hired, I said, this guy's won zero tournament games. He coached at BYU while also winning zero games in the tournament. And I was upset.

And I got all my dad, my dad's friends, my family that's older that loved UK, got to witness him play at UK. I understood why they loved him. The press conference won everyone over. it was really cool. I loved, and it even won me over a little bit. But we're here now, and you're seeing the results, when you hire a guy that has not won zero, when you hire a guy that has won zero tournament games before he came to Kentucky,

if anybody else was hired that has won zero tournament games before they came to Kentucky, this fan base would have been in shambles. And they were in shambles when we hired Mark Pope. And guess what? Listen, I'm going to have to cut you off, but I want to say that's a great call, and there's a lot of great points there. Again, I thought about this between the SEC and the NCAA tournament. I violated some of my rules of coaching to get really excited about Mark Pope. What are some rules you've heard me say over the years about coaching?

Don't hire a former player. Don't hire a player who played there, unless they've killed it, a la Roy Williams somewhere else. Sure. The biggest mistake people make is hiring a former player. Carolina is about to fire another one. Yep. Right? We've seen it over and over and over, and it rarely works.

It might work with John Shire. We'll see. But it rarely works. More times than not, it does not. So my rule has always been, don't do that. And my initial reaction was don't do that. Right. But then.

I like the caller. Talked myself into it. The second rule I always have. For Kentucky basketball. Now, this may not be true at other schools. But for Kentucky basketball, I need you to have won somewhere. Preferably in a really good school. But I need you to have won big somewhere.

Mark Hadn't. Okay. He won some, but he never won a tournament game. He won some at Utah Valley. state. But if he didn't play here, that wasn't the resume. Right. So, now, I still hope it works.

I do too. I still think it can. But maybe the lesson is don't violate your rules just because you want it to work. What can you say to all the people like on my timeline that want him gone now? Well, what I would say is, I think. think coaches need three years to see if it's, unless it's just a disaster. You need three years and he needs a third year. The other thing is it's not going to happen.

Right. So you can say it and be angry or you can just say, well, okay, it's not going to happen. So what do we do for next year? If I was in charge, I would not fire Mark. First of all, we owe people too much money as it is. We owe Mark Stoops $35 million. dollars. We now owe Mitch Barnhart money. Yes.

We're going to be paying money out the wazoo. You know, it's not going to happen, and I wouldn't do it. But I will say, for me, next year will be determined. We talked about, you know, Mark's story's article. His legacy starts on March 1st. Well, we've had step 1, step 2. We're getting ready to go to step 3 about the roster for next season. Step 1 was a...

Yeah. Yeah. Wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great. This next month is the month. It is. How they build this roster. Yep. What they do is the AD.

They're about to restructure things in athletics in a way that I don't think people realize and how that works. I think it's going to be crucial. We will come back July 1st, August 1st, and it will be a different thing. And what that looks like, we'll see. Who's next? Stubb. Stubb. Go ahead, stub. Matt, I don't understand how

you can watch a film of Iowa State and not understand that Marino, Yellowbich, Chandler, are going to get their lunch taken from them. Yeah.

You know, it's one thing, it's one thing to have a misconstructed roster. It's another thing to totally, mismanaged that roster. Like, today should have been, from the get-go, it should have been Oway, Aberdeen, Wittles, Diabate, Garrison, and then a couple of guys off the bench.

That's it. I kind of agree with you. I mean, I think you had to play Chandler, because you have to have that threat. But I would just alter it and say it's Aberdeen-O-A-Chandler Diabate Garrison, Yelovich and Moreno spot minutes. That's what I, and Williams, Williams is a six-man. Yeah. But you're right.

I was shocked how Little Garrison played in important moments, because even though, like, this is his kind of game, right? Also, I mean, Chandler was no threat with this matchup. He was totally outmatched, so he was not a threat. The three they made early in the game were Fools Gold, and I called at the halftime. I said, I was facing to win by 17. and they won by 19.

But, and we just need to throw Tyron Stokes, whatever money he wants. But at the end of the day, he'll probably come and he'll get like an impacted tooth or something, and he'll be injured all the year and won't play. Well, that's a danger. And I appreciate the call. I mean, that's a danger of getting him. You know, you look at these great freshmen, they've gone a couple different paths. Cameron Boozer may take his team to have a shot at the national title.

Darius A. Cuff has done good stuff at Arkansas. Kingston Fleming's has been really good at Houston. The kid at Illinois has been really good. Caleb Wilson was good before he got hurt. And then you have, and Jay DeMontz was good. Then you have Darren Peterson, on again, off again. McHale Brown at Louisville, on again, off again. So there is a risk when you get one of those guys.

There is, and I think we're all just a little gun-shy about what happened with Quatance this year. Paying a lot of money, didn't even get to play. But that's our own fault. I mean, I was for him doing it, but if they genuinely were building around the team around Clayton's playing, that's on them. Yeah, right. I always considered Quentin's a bonus. If they really thought he was going to be

like their best player, then that's on them. You're taking a guy who just, he just tore his ACL last season. They were telling us, you remember like in August, September, you know, he's on the court now. He's running up and down the floor. Guy bled and leading us to believe he was going to play. That's why I wonder if he re-injured it when those three games he played

in. I think that's the most likely scenario. Is it something to happen? There's no way he doesn't play the rest of the year. I agree. Unless he may be re-injured it. Who's next? Luke. Luke. Go ahead, Luke. Hey, guys. I know Pope's not going to get fired because, frankly, we don't have the fact to do it. Or maybe the money as well. That's part of it. But I was going to make the case for why you should. It's pretty simple. One, you shouldn't have hired him in the first place, and when you have a massive reach hire,

why would you have a long leash with that guy? I mean, why? Why would you do that? It doesn't make any sense. number two he's seven feet tall there are no seven foot tall coaches in the hall of fame john thompson at six ten is the tallest and it takes a hall of fame coach for it to work here it does or very close to a hall of fame coach at the very least and you think it's cause of height you think it's cause of height yes yes i'm serious i think height plays a serious factor in being a good basketball coach okay how many good coaches do you know that disagree with him ron well there's not well first of there's not a lot of seven foot people in the the world. So like your, your sample size is, is pretty small. I mean, John Thompson was a really

good coach. But there's, I mean, how many seven, they're not a lot of seven footers in the world, period. And none of them have been Hall of Fame coaches, none of them. You wouldn't think that there would be one that would be a Hall of Famer? Okay. That's what I'm saying. Okay. And not to mention, here's another thing. Go look at, I encourage everybody to go do this. Go to basketball reference.com and pull up Mark Pope's, Mark Pope's coaching record. and tell me if that's the guy that should be lead in Kentucky. If you come away with a yes, then you're looking at a different page than I am. Because the guy has lost double-digit games almost every single season of his coaching career.

The two seasons he didn't, one of them was the COVID-shortened season, which they would have had a conference tournament and an NCAA tournament where he would have lost two games. That was his first year at BYU, and his second year at BYU. With another year that they didn't win, that they didn't lose double-digit games. And that's when they were in the West Coast Conference. They weren't even in the Big 12. This guy has no business being a coach in Lexington. I think we've got to get rid of them.

And if we don't, we're just wasting the year. Appreciate the call. So that's the case on the other side. Man, there's people like that. A lot of our fan bases on that side. They just don't think he's the right guy to handle this job. Well, I don't have confidence he's the right guy. Let me be clear.

I think everybody wants him to be the right. Yeah. But, yeah. It's a no win. I mean, it's a no-win situation. This whole season, going back from how he hands. handle whatever happened at the Louisville game, to talking with the media, to substitution patterns. The whole season has just been odd.

I would just counsel people. Go watch videos of him talking to the media last year versus talking to the media this year. Yeah. Just watch how different he is. And I don't know why. Like, I don't know. I don't think it has anything to do with the media. It's just that's the only time we hear him talk, really.

go just the difference between how he talks to Tom Leach after games last year versus this year. It's just different. And so we're not the only ones thinking it. I mean, you can see it if you go look at just the difference. Who's next? Michael. Michael, go ahead, Michael.

Hey, I think your grades are very generous. And I think your comments about, oh, it's risky to get, I think it speaks to a drop-in standard here. You know, your grades are acceptable from 2020 on, but the reality is this has been a complete embarrassment since 2020, and this is an F season for Kentucky. It is ridiculous to lose like we lost today. Of all the bad stats of Pope's time here,

two blowout losses in the NCAA tournament. Last year, we were non-competitive. against Tennessee, and we were non-competitive this year. And people glossed over that non-competitive loss last year. But that was embarrassing, and it was embarrassing today. And I understand that, you know, you guys can't just sit here and be like, it's an F and this is miserable. But the reality is that it is.

Well, let me just say about the grades for me, like, for me, just so you know, and this may be because I'm a d. Like, I think a D is unacceptable. And I think at Kentucky, a D is really unacceptable. I think an F is like, like the COVID year to me is an F. But I still think you don't. I mean, you get a coach that gives you consistent C's, then you got to replace them at Kentucky.

This is a place that needs A's, right? So don't get me wrong. It may just be the difference in the way you and I look at grades, but I don't think that like, I'm not saying like a C or a C minus is because like that's good. If a coach at Kentucky continues to get C's, then you go get a new coach. Yeah, yeah, and I liked what Drew said all year. I mean, that's how, you know, I don't think we're Indiana, but that's how you become Indiana is you drop that.

That is true. No, that is true. And you accept stuff like this. And that's why, you know, I just want to know from your perspective, because this is where I'm at, we talk about year three. To me, we have to be a contender in year three, or we have to move on from him because we cannot continue this run since 2020 of this performance.

So if we are not a contender next year, do you think Kentucky should move on from him or keep it? Yeah, that's a good question. I think, so let me put it like this. I think we need to be a team next year that is the, like I'm watching St. John's in Kansas. That's a four and a five seed. That's to some extent haven't quite been like they wanted,

but both of those teams could make a final four. they both have the makeup of a team. Like Duke's not going to play either one of these teams in the next ring. True. Right? We've got at least be that. We're a long way from that, it feels like. I agree.

But we got at least be that. Okay? I don't know if we can be Duke or Michigan or Arizona next year. Well, we've got to at least be that. We've got to at least be what I'm sitting here and watching right now. Yeah. And if we're not, then yeah, I think you have to move on. 859-280-22-87.

We'll take a break. Be right back. It's a local toy dealers KSR post game show. Welcome back. It is a local toy dealers, KSR post game show. Looks like my tweet has kind of gone viral that I was talking about, that I came close to talking trash to a referee on Press Row, so I decided it was my time to leave the building.

I think Kentucky fans understand what I mean about that. The other fan bases don't really get the history, like, you know, I mean, it's kind of a cheeky reference to the, to the, referee a decade ago. And then it's also that I leave the building during games. It's not like I was leaving. But I did. Ryan knows I was about to talk trash to that guy.

Like I was very close to doing it. And then I was like, I'm sitting on press row. I will certainly get in trouble if I talk trash to this room. But I was close. I wanted to. We were so close you could have reached out and tapped him on the shoulder. Excuse me, sir. But it was after he called like 5,000, 4 minutes.

You're leading over to me. He goes, nobody's calling anything but that guy. He called every foul. And I was like, I felt myself like wanting to make fun of how he wore his pants and stuff. And then I was like, all right, I just need to go outside. You did make a good joke about his pants to me. His pants.

I just, you know. Somebody looked it up. We were like five and two in games he had refereed for us. Yeah, I mean, listen, we didn't lose because the refs. That was just, I mean, I just. I probably needed to leave anyway. because I was getting nervous, but I was like legitimately thinking, should I say something to this referee?

Then I was like, you know what, I just need to go outside. You made it through the whole first half, made it to the first TV timeout of the second half. That's when things started going to go south. But I could just feel it. I could feel it slipping away from it. Honestly, when we were up 20-day, I looked at you and said, we're up 20-day, but we can't keep playing like this. I could tell that we, not that we were lucky,

but that we were, the moment they changed defenses, I knew we were in trouble. Well, the end of the first half, we had that seven-point leaving a minute and a half to go, and things were falling apart. They're down two. With a couple seconds left, you said, they're going to hit a three, go up by one at halftime. And it's exactly what happens. Well, you can feel it. You can feel it.

Sometimes you can just feel what's going to happen. They hit that three when the locker room up one and a half time. And we, our time and clock was so bad during that period. Like you want, you have to go into halftime leading, and they did everything possible to not lead. I do think the most important play of the game was Moreno dropping that rebound and the guy hit the corner three. Because I think if he keeps that and then we run all 30 seconds, we're going into halftime with at least a six or seven point league. Yeah. And instead we went down one. Who's next? Aaron. Aaron. Go ahead, Aaron. Hey, Matt. Thanks for taking the call. I just want to say

Pope doesn't have the demeanor or the attitude to co-to Kentucky, in my opinion. I'm watching the game today. Otto Burger screaming at his team, screaming his head off. Meanwhile, we're down 13, and I see Martin Pope clapping his hands, let's go. Seen it all season. It's just that attitude. He's the guy to coach him.

Yeah, you know, I've said that you're right, that is what he does. He thinks that sort of positive motivation works, and I think that can work. Again, I bring up John Shire. Like, he doesn't scream at people. You know, he just kind of talks to them. It works.

So I think there's many different ways to do it. But does Mark's form of it works, sir, as to your point, and I'm not sure if it does. I don't think you have to scream. I think there are guys there that scream and succeed, and there are guys that aren't. I mean, Kelvin Sampson isn't really a screamer, right? But I do think, though, for whatever reason, sir, it's not working right now. All right, thanks, Jake, and call, man. Appreciate the call.

No, but like Dan Hurley and Todd Golden and Tom Izzo and Rick Petino, they scream and it's working. So, you know, I think everybody's got different ways of doing it. They're valid criticism. I think you can have a coach Pope. My biggest concern is just there was no offensive identity at all whatsoever, like all season long. I don't know. I still don't know what kind of offensive team we were supposed to be other than Otega. They never had an offense.

Go beat your guy, Otega. That was like our only offense. I mean, imagine if Otega and Aberdeen, like, Yeah, I mean, the only identity was Otega, take your guy. That was it. Aberdeen try to dribble and find somebody. Seriously? Like, that was, it really wasn't a lot of identity.

And when we were sitting, man, you got to see Iowa State what they were doing offensively and cut and passing. Even at the beginning, when we were playing really good defense, they still moved the ball so well. We played well on them, but they moved the ball great. Who's next? On that note, let's give our Johnny Rocker personal injury attorney money. maker of the game, Matt. Injured, get small-town compassion with big city results when you call the Rocker at 270321-4429. And while it was O-Way on Friday, today's is Danzel Aberdeen. He led the team with 20 points. He was four of nine from three and four of five from the free throw line. In 37

minutes, he was minus five. And he is our Johnny Rocker personal injury attorney moneymaker of the game, Ryan Lemon's favorite player. Let me read that. I want to read that stat again. Played 37 minutes in a game we lost by 19, and he was minus 5, which means the three minutes he was out was minus 14. Ouch. If you don't think that kid, like everybody's going to love O.A. I hope people have a good spot in their heart for Aberdeen. Yes. Because for 37 minutes he was on the court and we were minus 5, and for three he was off and we were minus 14.

That's not coincidence That's crazy And I'll say this I think Billy said it was four of nine or threes He took two at the shot clock buzzer Because he had to We couldn't get a shot off That's right

Who's next? DC DC, what's up DC? Hey Matt, I think we could have played that game 10 out of 10 times And we were lost every time I think you're right Their best player was hurt

And we started the game great And we still ended up losing it Chandler turns into a ghost tool often and did you see Tyler or Tyrese Halliburton's tweet about he wants to talk stuff to old UK players but they're Arkansas fans now

thank you. Yeah I saw that and look you know that video that happened with Shea and in case of Wallace is why he says that and of course Halliburton played them in the championship series last year which is probably where that comes from as well

Halliburton played at Iowa State. The deal you make with the devil with Cal is is you will have success, but it is about him. And so we see the counter to that. And it'll be that way about Arkansas. Like those guys that play in Arkansas will be loyal to him. It won't be because they're loyal to Arkansas. Yeah.

Right. That's just what you get. And I appreciate the call. And, you know, is it worth it? Yeah, it's worth it because you had a lot of success with him. But the counter to that is you get situations where, When he left, he said, well, when he left, you get people going, I'm big in Arkansas. By the way, though, I don't think that's many.

And I don't even really blame Case and Wallace. They just got, they came up to him. I think it's a very small number of guys that actually feel that way. Do you? They kind of lean towards it. I don't think there's anybody that played here that in seven years is going to be rooting for Arkansas. I agree. Not one.

When Cal leaves, they're not going to be rooting for Arkansas. Now, will they come back here? Maybe a couple guys won't, but there will be guys that come here. Yes. And a lot of times, the guys that feel that way are dudes that didn't have success here. Right. Shea had success here, but, you know, Case Mawas, unfortunately, was on a disappointing team. I don't blame him.

Right. But, like, he didn't get to experience. And that was a tumultuous year in terms of what the internal dynamics of that team were like. Yep. That was an odd year. And so, you know, you had half the team that was Oscar, half the team that was severe. Kaysen was kind of in the middle. He really wasn't on either side of it.

It was just a weird year. I feel like this year was just as weird. It just kind of felt weird. Now it's all over we can talk about it. The whole season just felt odd. It did, although I think that got better. I think the team was a lot more connected at the end than they were. I think they were too.

I think when you had, we're like mid-season, the team was all over the place. Yes. And I do think they kind of came together at the end. So I think some of that weirdness went away as the season went on. Who's next? Michael. Michael. Go ahead, Michael.

Hey, man. Thanks for taking my call. Glad to. I ain't the most educated. I ain't the most educated guy in the world, but when Pope made that substitution in the first half, I've been watching them all year. Am I the only one that thinks that the team just don't? I mean, they fall apart.

I mean, when he put Johnson, in there and he turned the ball over, I think, back-to-back possessions. I mean, I don't mean to bash a kid, but I mean, he could barely draw, he could barely dribble the ball up the court, and he fell over, and it just, when he made that mass substitution, I think Iowa State went on a nine or 11-0 run, and I think that's when we lost the game right there. Well, there's no doubt. That sequence, that minute and a half, was a point.

bad sequels. I appreciate the call. I'm not going to say that's when we lost the game because we didn't play a lot. In the second half, the game was essentially tied. You had a chance to still, but there's no doubt that that sequence where they took Aberdeen out and they put Jasper in. We had six or seven empty possessions in a row. I mean, it was a nine-point swing in a minute and 30 seconds. Quick.

That was quick. You take that nine-point swing, and then you take the eight-old run in the last minute and a half of the first half. That's 17 points, which was the difference in the game. There you go. Those two swings. You know, that's big. It's big. We should have gone into half up eight or ten. I felt like we had that. And we were down one. Just somehow it slipped away. And how in the world did they just turn that Kansas game off? Fliped over to Florida, Iowa. They flipped over to Florida, Iowa. We're in Illinois, right? We're in Illinois.

All right. Well, okay. Mount Vernon, Illinois. Let's take a break. 8-5-9, 2.5.5.2. We will come back for the final segment of the 2025-2020s season. This is the local toy dealers KSR Post-Game Show. Welcome back. It is the local toy dealers KSR Post-Game Show. St. John's up seven with four minutes to go. You rooting for Rick and the Johnny's here? I actually am.

I don't know why, but I have found myself rooting for him ever since we beat him. Why would they say that was out on St. John's? Anyway, yes, I am too. kind of want him to win. That's, I don't know if you had told me that a few years ago, I would have never imagine. I'm not going to read them on the air just for, I'm just not going to do it. But Oscar Combs choosing violence online. What?

Oscar Combs? He's probably the strongest shots I've ever seen Oscar Combs taking about UK athletics. It's not a fake Oscar Combs. No, it's the real Oscar Combs. So I'll let you all, you can look up on Twitter. I need to look it up. It includes the sentence they're fleecing Kentuckyans from Paducah to Virgie. Why do they got to throw Virgie under the bus?

No, he's saying Virgie's being fleeced. Oh, okay. Well, because they don't like the folks. Really, it should be from Fulton to Vergie. Because Pikeville to Paduca leaves out the little tip of both states. It does. Yes. So it should be Fulton to Vergey.

Fulton to Vergy. He makes sure to put Vergy in there. But he's choosing violence. Bill, you're reading this? I'm surprised to see that. Oh, I'm reading it. I'm surprised it too. Oh, wow.

I'll let you read it. Oscar Combs. Well, there you go. Who's next? Wes. Wes. Go ahead, Wes. Hey, Matt.

First time, long time. Who I? What's up? I want to say, hey, is a tough, disappointing loss for us. And Mark Pope, he's a momentum killer. Can you please enlighten him, Matt, on Mark Pope's substitution patterns? I mean, they've kind of plagued this all. year but you know not playing mo there at the first half i just don't understand where mark's head is

with the substitution patterns because it's killed her momentum i didn't understand either i i i don't have an explanation because i i think his substitution patterns early in the year were just hideous um and then today it it was for me a matter of timing so so i'm just pulling up the box square here to minutes played. So Yellovich played 14 minutes. Moreno played 18. Garrison played 22 and Diabate 18. I don't know how you look at this matchup and you see how physical Iowa State is and you say Mo Diabate needs to play 18 minutes. To me, this is a game Mo Diabate plays 33 minutes. Absolutely. Right? I mean, he had one foul. So he wasn't in foul trouble. My man was two for three from the field. and he only got three rebounds,

but I can think of three or four plays myself where he tipped the rebound to somebody that got it. I don't know what world you play Diabate 18 minutes in Yellovich, 14, against this team. Now, there are other games where maybe you don't play Diabate as much, a team that's, you know, shoots threes and this game. In Garrison, you know, Garrison has his ups and downs,

but if there's a Garrison game, this is the game, right? This is the game. I watched when we were sitting up close. Garrison can switch on perimeter defenders probably as good as any of the bigs we have. Right? Well, I think so. Probably the best. Probably the best.

So to me, those two guys should play a lot. And then, you know, I mean, the 9-0 run in the first half is the 9-0 run. You cannot take Aberdeen. Here's the thing. If you think that people have fatigue issues, how much rest is Aberdeen getting in 40, 37 minutes versus 40. If you're going to play him 37, then just playing 40. Especially if in those three minutes we're going to be minus 14.

Just playing 40, okay? Like, how much rest did he really get? I know what happened. We lost 14 points while he said. How much more tired could he possibly have been? So I appreciate the call. Aberdeen today was you just could not take him out, but they still did. With their guards that they had, Aberdeen was the only guy that could kind of handle that pressure they were putting on him.

Yeah, even O-Way tries to dribble through pressure. He does. Which he will lose the ball when he does that. Colin tried the same thing a couple of times. Aberdeen's the only guy that for whatever reason seems to have the presence of mind to jump and pass. And those other guys, O'Ey tries to fight through it. Diabate tries to dribble through it. Garrison just hands him the ball.

Yilovitch gets it taken from him. Like, Aberdeen's the one guy who can handle it. And they were putting on all kind of pressure on him. They got to him a little bit, but at least he's the one guy that handled it the best. Yeah. Now a three-point game here. Kansas is coming back. Who's next?

Chris. Chris. Chris. Yeah, hey, this is Chris. Hey, Matt, I'm making this call in honor of Coach Larry Sturgel from Boone's Camp, Kentucky, and Paintsville. He's retired now. But you made the point about the substitution pattern by Chris. coach pope and coach sturgeon and i had talked about this when abradine hit two threes early in

that game and was on fire and when pope substituted him out he totally took the momentum away from that team aberdeen came back in the game three minutes later and missed his next three shots now the point that coach sturgeonel and i have seen and what he has made is when he lost those players. He still had the players to have an excellent team this year. He should have gone to a triangle and put Elevich at the

foul line and put two big men at the baseline down on the post and then he could play the rest of his players, but he could have crafted an offense that would have been, I mean, my goodness, Garrison and Moreno can score the ball in the

paint. And And he's running those two centers out there. I hate him. This was not, in my opinion. Yeah, in my opinion, we got spoiled last year with Amari. Yep. And that we think all these bigs can handle the ball at the top of the key. And I know Pope's system, he needs guys that do that.

He wants them. But this ain't the group of guys. I mean, no. No, it ain't. Amari was the guy. And I appreciate the call. And I was skeptical of that. And then I got convinced as year went on.

Amari's special at this. But the garrison and the, like, that's not them. No. That garrison turnover at the top of the key. Like that system, it feels like to me Pope was trying to force these guys into a system that they did not have the talent for. It would work once in a while. They would hit a backdoor pass or something. Harrison's a pretty good passer.

So he could throw like a back door pass or a bounce pass. But in general. In general. In general, it's just not what he's good at. And I, you know, I mean, I'm not an offensive genius. but. And today they were pushing. I would have kept Aberdeenia, and I'm enough to do that.

Today they were pushing our big guys so far out of, almost like I can say, to half court. They were just lost. I didn't initiate the offense out way out there. I just cannot get over it. It was minus 14 in the three minutes he was out. That's almost unbelievable. It's like an unbelievable stat. It's just giving them layups.

Say John's now a one-point game. Who's next? Rooney. Rooney. Go ahead, Rooney. Hey Matt. Not overly disappointed about the loss tonight because I feel like probably should have lost the first game. We got beat tonight.

Probably won the next game. But my question is, if we next year have the exact same season as we did this year, do you think, Pope's gone. And I know you probably want to answer this. But how do you feel about Jay Lucas? That's all I got. That's a great question. If we had the exact same season next year, I think they'd probably make a change.

But I don't know that that's certain. I think it would depend on who the new athletic director is, what their philosophy is. I think if Mitch Barnhart were the coach, then they probably wouldn't. But he won't be the AD. So I don't know what they're going to hire. Yeah, 14 losses and a first round or a second round exit in the entity in the, in the NCAA tournament may not be acceptable next year. Yeah.

Bryce Hopkins just hit a big three. That was Bryce Hopkins that three? That was Bryce Hopkins. Wow. By the way, lots of former cats still in it. Bryce Hopkins. Cameron Fletcher. DJ Wagner.

Just played last night for. Hugo is playing right now. Yeah. Jordan Berks was playing for South Florida or Central Florida. All right. Kansas got the ball down two with the chance to tie or take the lead, and they're going to play it out. 859.

No, they're going to talk them out. 859. 280-2287. Who's next? We'll do four more. Cat Head. Cat Head. Go ahead, Cat Head.

Hey, guys. How's it going, man? This is old cat-head sitting up here in Georgetown. Look, it might sound like a rinse and repeat, but I agree with everybody else. Like, the substitution pattern and all this stuff, like, you know, we're up 10. You take Aberdeen out and you put JJ in. Like, he just weak with the ball, you know, and I hate to talk about these kids because they are kids, but they make money now, right? I mean, they make money, so, you know, we should be able to, you know, say what's wrong, you know.

And then, you know, you touched on Petino and St. John's, yeah, I think I am. I'm rooting for them. I hated him when he went to Louisville. Me too. He's probably the best coach. And he's probably the best coach of college basketball. I mean, honestly. But we need somebody of that stature.

I know he will never come back. never get him come back. But, you know, he always talks about Camlock because this is, this is basketball. This BBN place, man, everybody talks about it. Even on CBS Day, they're talking about, oh, they have the greatest fans, big blue nice and this and that. Everybody knows it, right? Yeah.

But we're just putting that. We're putting out a subpar team, some part, you know, and then the analytics. I know, I know Pope is big on analytics. You know, play this guy so many minutes, play this. got some many minutes. But look, sometimes you've got to coach with your eyes. I don't disagree with you about that. I don't disagree with you about that.

The way I look at analytics is like this. I think they're a hugely useful tool. But just think about life. You can make all the best decisions in the world, and you can read all the books, and you can do all the study and I enjoy doing. But sometimes the difference between success and not success is just how you relate to another person, right?

Do they like you or not? And sometimes all the numbers can. Go ahead. Go ahead, Matt. I'm sorry. I was going to say all the numbers in the world can tell you to do this or that. But I'm not a basketball genius, and I set on that court. And the moment Aberdeen went out, I looked at mine and goes, uh-oh.

You know, so there should be a part where people just kind of go, I don't know if this is going to work. Yes, me and my buddy was sitting here, and as soon as that happened, I'm like, oh, this is, and then Jasper, you know, he gets the ball just taken from him. Like, he falls down, you know, here's the ball or whatever. Apparently that dude's like third in the Big 12 conference history and steals. I played sports my whole life. I played sports my whole life, and like you said, I'm not a genius or whatever, but you have to coach with your eyes sometimes. Like you said, Garrison, why don't we go big sometimes? Once you put Garrison and Moreno in there.

I mean, I love Moreno. I watch him come up through middle school, high school. I mean, he's a great player. He needs a little meat on his bones, but, you know, he's a great player. But why don't you go big sometimes? You know, Garrison right now, this game was Garrisonal game. I agree. I agree.

I agree with you. This was a Garrison Diabate game. It was. To me. Games tied now. And Diabate was fighting his butt off all day. And I watched Diabate on the bench. when he was on the bench

he was sitting there his leg was tapping like he was like give me back in like you could just see it like his leg was just sitting there tapping going like give me back in give me back in give me back in and then of course they didn't so he did he played his butt off one time he's in there fought fought down the post

Garrison I think also did a good job he only didn't score a lot of points but he didn't have to let me give me an example of a coach doing something really good Kansas is tied they only had two team fouls 13 seconds left. They are sitting there and slowly having St. John's bring up the court and then foul them.

And self-told, I watched him tell the Kansas player, fouling before he crosses half court, so then they have to imbound it going the full length of the court, and now they're doing it again before he goes across half court. So now once again they're going to have to imbound it before half court. That is, it's a little thing. It ran off like eight seconds. But Bill Self just ran off 10 seconds,

and by fouling them before they crossed half court, every time St. John's never got to cross half court, and look how far away they are now with 3.9 seconds left. And St. John's is driving, and the guy hits a layup at the buzzer. So you know what? It didn't matter. Wow. Rick Petino. Wow. Ricky Pee with the layup at the buzzer. All that good coaching and you know what? It didn't matter. That little dude beat his man on the dribble.

He didn't call a timeout. That was hilarious. Here I am praising him, because I do think that was smart play. And then that little kid just takes, who even made that shot? Who was that guy? Their little point guard, their little white point guard? Yeah. Wow, look at that. Well, there's another buzzer-beater.

Look at Ricky, look at it. He's like, yeah, I knew it. Unbelievable. Three more is next. Dwayne. Dwayne, go ahead, Dwayne. How did he let him get to the rim like that? How did they let him get to the rim?

How did they let him get to the rim? All right, go ahead. he just went to the rack i just i'm just watching it right now he just took it to the rack and laid it straight in unbelievable right go ahead yeah i'm rooting for patino the rest of the rest of the tournament i hope they hope they make a run um as in freddie mager would say an after action review we didn't play very good this game and when you like you say it's about jimmies and joes and when you took out our jimmies and our joes can't play you see what happened we had 10 point we had a 10 point lead go to nothing quick we're going to have to have more players if we're going to have substitution patterns like this and the last thing

i got to say is everybody says the last game was the otega oway game the only thing i'm going to say it was the billy flu game have a good night appreciate the call i don't get that the billy Our Billy. Flu game. Billy, Flew game. He did go through the flu. Well done, Billy. You feeling better? I am. I am. Thank you, guys. You sound a lot better. You sound a lot better.

I can't believe they just let him get to that right. Can't either. Duke St. John's in Washington, D.C. Friday night. Oh, my goodness. That's going to be great. Right. Let's go. Although we're going to see a lot of Leitner shot. We will.

A lot of Leightner shot. I cannot believe Kansas. Just let that dude get to the rim. Like I said, I hope we see a lot of the Boozer brother commercials, I really enjoy those boosier brothers. You're going to get a bunch of them. Two more. Who's next?

Steve. Steve, go ahead, Steve. First time, long time. Whoa? What's up? What's up? Hey, why don't we reach out to Pat Riley to get a GM in here that he knows that's young and up and coming to fix a lot of these problems,

so in two years, whether Mark Povey's coach or whoever's coach, that we're ready to rope? Well, I mean, I don't think it has to be Pat Riley. Like, I want you to go read. During this off week, I want you to go read. Let me give me, let me, I want you to go read, and I hate to say this because it's Duke. I want you to go read about how Duke runs their athletic department now. Just take, just, there was an article. I don't remember what public, I think it was in New York Times.

They have a woman running their athletic department who came from the world of business. She just went from business to running the athletic department. department. And then they hired this, so it's two women. They hired this woman from Nike to come be the NIL person, right? Two women, neither of which had a background in basketball. Okay. They were just smart people. And they have created the infrastructure that every team in the country is now copy. And they just went and got two smart minds who were innovative, not stuck in their ways, and they did it. There's no reason we can't do something like that. There's no reason. They went and they were innovative. They didn't sit there and go, well, what's the way we do this? Let's keep it, let's keep it in

the family. Let's find someone who was groomed under RAD. They just went out and said, who are the two smart people that we can find and they got them. It reminds me of, I've told this story before, but we decided we needed a new CEO of KSR many years ago. and I hired Maria who was answering the phone with us. And I said, I want you to be our CEO. And she goes, well, what do you do? And I said, I don't really know. You're going to kind of figure it out.

But I know you're smart. And I can tell you got your stuff together. And I'm going to give you this, and you're going to figure it out because you're smart. Fast forward, she's an executive now at all in three. Put her on the fast track. And how did she get the job? She was answering the phone. And I was like, but she's smart.

I know she is. She'll figure it out. right there is somebody out there that we can give this stuff to and we shouldn't give it to them because they happen to be in the room and they're like hey how you doing buddy

like it needs to be somebody who's an innovative thinker on all this and then I think a lot of the problems take care of themselves the big question is if that's the way modern basketball is why are we so slow to adapt to it I don't know

I thought Mark what I'm describing I kind of thought Mark was that I did too. But I think he's kind of stuck in his ways, oddly, for a relatively young man. So I don't know. History has shown these other schools. These other schools have adapted.

If you right now go look at, go look at how Duke runs their athletic department, Florida, go look at what Tommy Lloyd's doing in Arizona. Go look at what Dusty May is doing at Michigan. All four of them took the modern system. and said, how do we make this work? And we're still sitting there going, how do we maximize profit while bringing down cost

and protecting our trademark against the copyright of that, like, what are you talking about? Go win. Who's next? Last one. Chris. Chris, go ahead, Chris. Hey, Matt, hey, guys.

One thing that I want to talk about is obviously, you know, you want to get as much talent but I think one of the glaring things this season is basketball IQ, right? As smart as Mark Pope is, he was going to be a surgeon, as smart as he is with the analytics. How can you be an evaluator of players to build your roster and you can't see that basketball IQ is not part of their game and you let the talent that you thought you evaluated circumvent that? So I think there's a sweet spot between talent and basketball IQ.

But we're not very talented. Like I feel like sometimes this year we didn't have great basketball IQ, but we also weren't talented. Like I agree with you, you need a balance, but we didn't seem at times to have either. The crazy thing is I think last year's team was less talented but had the better basketball IQ. Totally agree. No doubt. Totally agree.

And that's why we had better results. Last year's team was a team that whatever their ability was, they each maximize their ability. You saw Kobe Brea be the best version of Kobe Brea, and Amari Williams and Andrew Carr, Jackson Robinson, and Lamont Butler, like, all those guys. And O way, played, like, to the best of what they were. Yep. Sometimes this year, I have to be honest, if you said to me, who played to the best of their ability? this year. O.A. Aberdeen.

Is there anybody else? Maybe half the year Diabate and maybe half the year Chandler. But really just away in Aberdeen. And I think that's kind of a problem. Yep, 100%. I just hope

that they think about basketball IQ in a maybe a little bit different lens than what they did in the previous year and the transfer portal. I think it goes a long way. I agree, and I appreciate the call. We went long today, but there was a lot to talk about.

Last show of the year. Last post-game show of the year. Yes, but we'll be back on the air tomorrow. We're right back to it. Let me say a couple things real quick. We'll take a check, by the way, whenever you get a check. I can't mean to say that on the air. You know what?

It's the last show of the year. What are we going to do? A couple things. First of all, thank all of you for listening. again this year. Even when other parts of UK athletics disappoint us, performance, the one

thing that never fails is there's no fan base like this and you guys are, we saw it again in St. Louis, like how kind and just great fans people are. We deserve success, meaning Kentucky,

because you all deserve success. Also, I want to thank everybody that's on been on this show going back to fall this is really the end for of us of a seven month sprint that starts in september ryan lemon's been with me forever and is awesome as a person and uh a great host and great co-hosting is why this show works drew obviously about to have a baby who i've been with even longer than ron billy comes in with the flu still gives it is all all the time Shannon and I solved every relationship problem this weekend.

Then, of course, Mario, who has been a great addition and has made it to where we are close to being in the modern era of athletics. They could use him over there at the institution we're talking about, but we're not going to let him go. All of you guys, thank you all. Thank all of you that listen. We'll have a great spring, a great summer, and Will Stein's first game is five months from now. He'll go by fast, ready to go. That's exactly right. Thank you guys very much.

Cats, end the season on a disappointment. Losing by 19 to Iowa State. See you later. This has been the local toy dealers, KSR, post-game 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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