The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Are Ron Sanchez & UVA Turning The Corner; Duke Pounds UVA, But Signs Of Life Are Present

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

The Jerry & Jerry Show headlines: Are Ron Sanchez & UVA Turning The Corner Duke Pounds UVA, But Signs Of Life Are Present Cavaliers Have Won 5 Of Their Last 8 Games Is Redshirt Freshman Robinson An Emerging Star? What’s The Best UVA Starting Lineup Right Now? New Coach Or Does Ron Sanchez Get 2nd Year? UVA (13-13, 6-9) at UNC, 4 PM, Saturday, ESPN Can Hoos Get Hot Come ACC Tourney Time? Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air Jerry Ratcliffe & Jerry Miller were live on The Jerry & Jerry Show! The Jerry & Jerry Show airs live Tuesday from 10:15 am – 11:15 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The Jerry & Jerry Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible and iLoveCVille.com.

Good Tuesday morning, guys. My name is Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on the Jerry and Jerry Show. We are less than two miles from the John Paul Jones Arena, the home of Virginia basketball, a setting last night where, frankly, the Duke Blue Devils overpowered, outmatched, and were farly superior in talent against a Ron Sanchez program that is still seeming to turn the corner and improving every day. I understand it was a nearly 30-point shellacking at the John Paul Jones Arena on national television, but there were some signs of positivity for Virginia.

Andrew Rohde continues to be a scrapper. He had 15 points. He had five assists. He had five rebounds. Anthony Robinson looks like a physical presence that could be a star in the front court making for Virginia basketball. And Day Day Ames and McNeely,

when they're clicking, this offense can get going. So I want to talk with Hootie Ratcliffe, the Virginia Sports Hall of Famer, what Virginia needs to do with five ACC games left, including a matchup against North Carolina in Chapel Hill on national TV on Saturday, what the Hoos need to do to continue moving forward in the right direction. We're also going to talk on today's program, Ron Sanchez, what's his future? Does the embattled interim head coach get an opportunity at keeping this job? We'll talk Anthony Robinson.

Do we have a star in the making, and should Anthony Robinson be inserted into the starting lineup? He's certainly cutting Blake Buchanan's minutes, and he's certainly eating into Elijah Saunders' minutes. We'll talk Day-Day Aims, Isaac McNeely, and Andrew Rohde. This is a three-headed guard monster that's pretty damn dynamic for this Virginia basketball team. And then I'm going to ask Hootie Ratcliffe this question.

What do the Hoos need to do to catch some heat and some fire come ACC tournament time? Judah Wickhauer, studio camera, then a two-shot to welcome the Virginia Sports Hall of Famer, a man who needs no introduction. 51 straight ACC tournaments on the near horizon for the always distinguished and dapper Jerry Hootie Ratcliffe. My friend, good morning to you. Good morning to you. Late night.

He was at the game. Yeah. We saw a very visible fan ejected from the game. You know, in my career, I have never seen a fan ejected during a game. Really? And I've covered programs all over the ACC and elsewhere, and I've never seen a fan thrown out of a game until last night. That was mind-boggling to me.

They caught the fan on camera. I'm watching it at home with the family. They caught the fan on camera on national TV, makes his way basically to courtside, points his finger. I'm not going to say it on a family show what he said to the referees. I'm glad somebody heard that. We were in the press box wondering what in the world he said. It was a four-letter

expletive cuss word. Roger Ayers is a pretty good official. Great official. It's hard to he's got a pretty thick skin. One of the best officials in the conference. He didn't hesitate to give

him the hook. He did not hesitate to give him the hook. He did not hesitate to give him the hook. All right, I start open-ended for the scatter shooting portion of the show. Hootie Ratcliffe, what did you see last night? Well, you know, we saw that Duke is everything that they were supposed to be. And it was like playing an NBA all-rookie team. Their first seven players on their roster are all projected as potential top 50 draft choices. I mean, how many times have we seen that in the ACC in good years or down years?

And granted, the conference is not what it has been, but... This team certainly is not down. Yeah, I mean, it's like, I think it was Rhodey that said it last night after the game. He says, you can prepare all you want, practice all you want, but there's no way to simulate their athleticism and their other assets. Virginia was just simply overwhelmed by an incredibly talented team that could end up in the Final Four.

I was asking myself this question, these questions. Renee Pettiford, we're going to get to your comments in a matter of moments. We've got local TV and local print media watching us on the broadcast now. Man, if Knipple was in a Virginia uniform, how this team could have looked so different this year. And Knipple had Virginia on a short, short list before he surprised many, including me, by picking Duke. Knipple's mom, who was shown on the broadcast throughout the game, the all-time leading scorer at the same university where Tony Bennett had tremendous basketball success.

And, in fact, Knipple's mom, Knipple's uncle, played college basketball. I talked to him extensively during the recruiting. With Tony Bennett. And he was hoping that Knel would come to Virginia. I you know if serve not worth much but you know if this team had a Knieppel in a in a Virginia uniform and and the Florida State transfer and Tony Bennett on the sidelines this program and this season would have looked vastly different. Now, granted, that is not what's happened, and we have the hand that we've been dealt with, and that hand seems to be turning the corner, Hootie. We've seen signs of improvement.

No question. I mean, you go back over the last three weeks and you look at the analytics and you look at what they've done on the floor, there's no denying that this team has made some vast improvements, particularly on the individual levels. You mentioned Anthony Robinson. He's got a load of potential.

Day-Day Ames, they've finally turned him loose and let him go. And I think McNeely told us after the game, he says, Coach Sanchez has let us loose, turned us loose, let us play a little bit. So that's bringing out the best in some of these guys, including Rhodey, who we've been raving about him for a couple weeks now. His numbers are off the chart um some of the other guys i thought hit a wall last night they were just overwhelmed but kofi looked overwhelmed buchanan looked overwhelmed saunders looked overwhelmed the only players that showed up and seemed unafraid to play to me roadie day-day aimsDay Ames, Isaac McNeely, and Anthony Robinson.

Everybody else that looked like a varsity team against a JV team. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, Saunders, I don't think he's quite back from his injury. He was one of eight last night shooting way off his game and had three rebounds. Kofie was 0 for 2, had no rebounds. Buchanan was 1 for 3, shooting and had three rebounds. You can't have those guys having those kind of performances and expect to stay in a game, particularly against a powerhouse like Duke.

And, yeah, you know, it is interesting. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Knipple had stuck with Virginia. A lot of rumors out there flying that Duke doubled his NIL offer that Virginia was going to give him, and that we're talking some serious money there. I mean, can you imagine, viewers and listeners, if Knipple's on this roster with Jalen Worley,

the Florida State 6'7 point guard, defensive stalwart, and probably Tony Bennett stays and coaches another year? Probably. Probably so. I think Knipple was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. People close to Tony said that Tony's never gone after a player as hard as he went after him and thought he had him until the bitter end. And then Duke slips in the back door and throws money on the pile,

and he's a blue devil. So that had been a real gut punch for Tony Bennett, I think. Can you imagine him and McNeely on the same team firing away? I mean, how do you stop that? I don't think you do. What does the starting lineup look like with Worley and Knipple on the roster? Wow. I mean, at that point, Day-Day is maybe coming off the bench. up look like with Worley and Knipple on the roster? Wow. That's a nice problem to have.

At that point, Day-Day is maybe coming off the bench. At that point, Roadies might be coming off the bench. You're probably starting the 6-7 point guard Florida State transfer, Jalen Worley at one, McNeely at two, Knipple at three, and then your four

is a combo of Robinson, Saunders, Kofi Buchanan. And speaking of Robinson, the guy is an animal out there. He just keeps getting better and better. I was disappointed. I thought they should have given him more minutes last night, particularly when they were just getting slaughtered on the boards in the first half. He has a lot of fight in him. I think he deserved at least 10 more minutes of playing time

when it was obvious that the other guys couldn't handle Duke's size. 100%. And who do you hit? I mean, for me, the game's determined, and this particular game determined on the glass. Virginia finishes with 17 rebounds. Duke finishes with 31, nearly 2x the output, and maybe the most damning of all the rebounds.

41. Yeah, 41, excuse me. And maybe the most damning of all the rebounds, the offensive rebounds. Yeah. That Duke, I mean, Duke, there were possessions where they had second and third looks time after time and last night's outing. Yeah, they could rebound and kick it back outside for a three-pointer.

And they only made nine, but they didn't need to make any more than that because they were so dominant in the paint where they outscored Virginia 42-18, which is a massive number. Second chance points, 16-7. But, you know, they dominated every aspect of the game. It was just overwhelming, really, just overwhelming. And correction to the numbers I put out there, Hootie's exactly right. 41 rebounds for Duke, 31 on the defensive side, 10 on the offensive side. Virginia had 21 rebounds, including 17 on the defensive side,

four on the offensive side. Anthony Robinson had 19 minutes. I'd love to highlight him again. And maybe this is a segue to the next question. What's the best starting lineup right now for Virginia? Wow. Does Robinson figure into that starting lineup? I think maybe going forward they might have to start him because, you know,

they go to Carolinaolina on saturday and carolina is really struggling in the front court so that might be a an advantage for virginia if they can start him and get him kick-started early to where they can uh be somewhat dominant inside. And maybe Buchanan and Saunders and Kofi will follow suit, particularly if they see the redshirt freshmen starting in front of them. And I just think that would be a good way to go, just having to maybe replace Kofi or Buchanan one in that starting lineup. Kofi seems like he's regressed a bit. Well, he's a freshman, and I think maybe he's hit a wall.

I don't know. A lot of freshmen do that, and they're not used to playing this many games over this extended period of time. These guys have been going since essentially July, I guess, June or July. They come in, take summer classes, and get some personal instruction from the coaches and play pickup against each other. It's been a long grind for especially a freshman who's not used to that.

We got it all over the feed. Ron Sanchez in the future, Hootie Ratcliffe. Only time will tell. But it's the talk. It's the top talk of conversation here for Wahoo Nation. Well, it certainly is. And it's top talk for everybody. I mean, I spent last night

deep into the night talking to sources trying to find out what's going on and probably learned some things that I can't report yet. That's what's on everyone's minds. Will Ron Sanchez get a chance to coach a second year, or will they pluck somebody out of the coaching ranks? I don't think anybody knows that right now. I don't even know if Carla Williams has her mind made up at this point.

She may want to wait and see what happens for the rest of the season. Like you said, they've made strides, and if they can continue to make strides, he's building a case for himself. You look at their numbers, their analytics, they've improved greatly in the past three weeks. One of the most efficient offenses in the country, one of the top 13 offenses in the country over the past three weeks. Or, you know, maybe they're talking to some people.

Well, I know they're talking to some people, but maybe they go ahead and decide that they need to make a change in negotiations that nobody knows about at this point. We just don't know. We'll just have to wait and see. Carla Williams in attendance last night at the ball game

sitting in a box. Tony Bennett right next to her. They clearly were deep in conversation as the national ESPN cameras caught both talking it was a a ball game that started with significant energy but from the onset you had the feeling it was going to be an uphill climb for virginia as they missed some some some bunnies at the rim

yeah they missed a couple of dunks and and some drives and some straight line drives to the basket. You can't do that against a team like Duke. You've got to get every point you can. And, you know, they battled for about ten minutes and were scoring, keeping up pace. And then all of a sudden Duke's rebounding kicked in. And like you said, Virginia missed some easy shots. And then Duke scores three straight three-pointers, five three-pointers in just a short span,

and essentially it's a ball game with plenty of time left in the first half. Viewers and listeners, let us know your thoughts. I see the comments coming on the feed. This is from Eastern Tennessee on our IP heat map. And this Wahoo fan asked you, Hootie, Andrew Rohde's turn this season. What does he attribute that improved play to? I think just hard work.

He was really disappointed with how he played last year. Didn't make the transition as easily as most people expected he would. And he just went to work in the offseason and worked on every aspect of his game. And you've got to understand, he's a really fiery competitor. Oh, my God. We saw it against the Virginia Tech as he's leaving the court at halftime. Yeah, no question.

I mean, he and Day-Day are probably the two most fierce competitors on the team, although I wouldn't take anything away from McNeely. But it's just old-fashioned hard work. That's all it was. He spent tons of time in the gym working on his shot, working on his handle, and pretty much just rededicated himself. And we're seeing the fruits of his labor.

I mean, he's been as solid the past three or four weeks as you could expect any point guard in the country to be. You know, he's got good size. He's always played pretty good defense, and he's always been a really good passer. And that's part of why he has so many assists. And he's not turning the ball over. Last night he had two turnovers and played 34 minutes

and had five assists, I think. But it's just good old-fashioned hard work. That's all it is. It's all you can attribute it to. The finale of the season, viewers and listeners, is important for a number of reasons. It's important for Ron Sanchez perhaps saving his job. It's important for us as fans to have a rally that we can then utilize to get us through the offseason. There's five ACC games left before the ACC tournament.

Virginia is firmly right now in the ACC tournament. Remember, the bottom three teams in the regular season do not make the ACC tournament. But it's also important from a transfer portal standpoint. And there's a number of guys on Virginia's roster. From my standpoint, Hootie's the Virginia Sports Hall of Famer and the gentleman who's about to attend his 51st straight ACC tournament, so I'll ask him this question. From my standpoint, it seems like Isaac McNeely would be coveted

by any program in the nation. From my standpoint, it looks like Anthony Robinson has significant portal upside here. Oh, yeah. I'm sure that there's going to be some people coming after a lot of these players, actually. I've talked to a lot of Virginia fans, and there's quite a few of them that would love to see this team stick together somehow because they believe that next year they can be a force to be reckoned with if they add a couple pieces.

Yeah, they'd have to add pieces. Yeah, they'd have to add a couple pieces. But they only lose one guy, so you're not going to add many pieces. So you're saying Tane? Yeah, Tane Murray is the only player that's running out of eligibility. All these other guys could come back if they so desire. And I'm sure Virginia will try to keep them, unless there is a coaching change.

And, you know, who knows what that might bring. Players might not like the coach. The coach might not like the players. And so, but I think there's money there. I think there's NIL money there to keep these guys in the program if Virginia wants to keep them. Here's a follow-up question for you. If Sanchez stays and gets a second year,

is the likelihood of keeping the roster intact amplified or more likely the players will return? If Sanchez is not given a second chance and a new coach comes in, is the likelihood of players leaving and entering the portal greater in that scenario? Yeah, I think probably so. A lot of it would be depending upon who they would bring in as the coach. Some people might like it. Some people may not feel like they fit in that coach's system.

And that's one of the big things that Carla has to weigh, really, is the gamble that if you bring in somebody new, you might lose some of these players or quite a few. You may not lose any of them, but it depends on who they bring in. And I think should they elect to bring Sanchez back another year, I think there's a higher opportunity to keep the roster pretty much intact. It's awfully hard these days to keep that many people happy, but some of them may decide they want to play somewhere else where they can get more minutes.

Viewers and listeners, let us know your thoughts. We'll relay them live on air. We've got questions coming in. This is from Ms. Pettiford, who is a diehard Wahoo fan. What needs to happen for Virginia to beat North Carolina on Saturday? I think they just have to keep playing the way they have been the past couple of weeks, two or three weeks. Just kind of put Duke in the rearview mirror. You're not going to get anything by beating yourself up for getting clobbered by Duke.

I mean, you're one of many who have suffered that fate, and a lot more are going to suffer that fate, probably. I mean, folks, Duke might be the best basketball team in the country. It certainly has. They could be. It certainly has, at this point, the consensus top pick in the NBA draft on its roster. Yeah.

And Cooper Flagg looked like an NBA player last night. He sure did. Especially as he was finishing with the off hand around the rim. I mean, he made it look effortless. Yeah, he did. And, I mean, how many other look effortless. Yeah, he did. I mean, how many other rosters in the country have six or seven NBA draft choices on it?

And a lot of these guys are freshmen. And the crazy thing is Cooper Flagg reclassified. Yeah. Some people said he would like to come back for another year. He mentioned to the media that he used cuss word, but said, F, I love it here.

I would absolutely love to come back. Now, the question is, once you get dangled the shoe endorsement money and you're the top pick in the draft and the NBA contract, do you resist temptation? But I would imagine Duke is going to roll out a compensation package for Cooper that's going to be millions and millions of dollars to come back. Oh, no question. And he may not like where it looks like he could be possibly going if he goes into the draft.

There might be some teams that he's not too crazy about becoming a part of. But, yeah, I think everything's off the table with them because, again, the money that Duke can raise and give him is nothing to sneeze at. I'd be curious to see what Cooper's earning in total compensation. I would, too. With base pay from Duke, with NIL pay from Duke, and then the endorsement money, the car, the additional perks that he's getting.

I would not be surprised if it's flirting with $10 million. I wouldn't be surprised either. And we'll never know, I guess, unless he decides to tell us. But it's got to be a huge number. There's no question about it. I think Knipple's making pretty good hay, too. Yeah, Knipple. I mean, there was times where Knipple was the best player on the floor.

Yeah, yeah, no question about it. And Knipple was Tony Bennett's prize recruit. Viewers and listeners that are just tuning in, Logan Wells-Khalilo, welcome to the broadcast. This question's coming from Georgia. Why is Anthony Robinson not getting more playing time? I can't answer that because if I were the coach of that team, if he's not starting, he would certainly be the first guy off the bench and he would be in the game a lot more than what he is.

We mentioned earlier in the show, I don't know if this viewer was listening or not, but I thought he deserved a lot more than the 18 minutes he got last night, especially when it was obvious that they were getting killed on the boards and that Buchanan and Covey and Saunders weren't doing much in that aspect. So why not just put him in and let him learn on-the-job training and let him mix it up with the Duke bigs and see what happens. Former Virginia football great Antonio Appleby with the retweet on Hootie Rackless's page. Now a Forex and crypto trader.

I wonder what happened to him. He's watching the program right now. Hey, Antonio. How are you doing? Thank you for watching the show. The questions continue to come in about Sanchez and the staff. Viewers and listeners, we just don't know. One thing we can say that if Sanchez and the team continue to win, the case for Sanchez returning is a more significant case. A victory against the Virginia Tech Hokies in Blacksburg certainly was an arrow in the quiver for Ron Sanchez, Hootie. That was a must-win, I thought. The timing and the fact that they've got so many winnable and big road games coming up. They go to Chapel Hill on Saturday. Then they turn around and have to go to Wake Forest and both of those teams are ranked

higher than Virginia in the ACC standings but they're both winnable games particularly Chapel Hill. You don't want to go into Chapel Hill and say you've lost to the worst Carolina team in 20 years, particularly if you have an advantage in the front court, which I think Virginia does. And I thought the first step in maybe winning one or two of those games on the road was to beating Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. That's a tough place to play. It was a madhouse down there in Castle Coliseum.

The Tech fans and student body hate Virginia with a passion. A hostile environment. That's two teams that are pretty evenly matched. And I thought Virginia just did everything it had to do to win that game. And they played well. They played really well. And I was impressed with what Mike Young said about them after the game.

He said they're playing like Virginia now. I know. And that's about the highest compliment that you could give Ron Sanchez, I believe, is that it looked like a Tony Bennett team out there. What happened at halftime, viewers and listeners are asking? Saunders and Rohde get technicals. Was it squabbling with tech players, squabbling with fans? Yeah, with tech players.

I think there was a little bit of pushing and shoving going on. Both teams had to go out the same. There's only one entrance onto the floor at Castle Coliseum. It's an old arena. It was built back in the 60s. And that's the way it used to be. It was one way in and one way out. Both teams have to go in and out of that same exit at pretty much the same time.

So, you know, a heated rivalry like that, some words can be exchanged and some little pushing and shoving can break out pretty easily. Viewers and listeners watching the program, including Ken of the star of the show, Hootie Ratcliffe, your daughter watching the show. Oh, which one?

Wendy. Hey, Wendy. Wendy shares the show. Thank you, Wendy, for doing that. We have one of the top FedEx drivers in the business watching the program, and Hugh Haynes. Thank you kindly for watching the show. Thank you, Wendy, for doing that. We have one of the top FedEx drivers in the business watching the program and Hugh Haynes. Thank you kindly for watching the program. We will talk some football. We will talk some spring sports as comments are coming on the feed right now for spring sports. We got to continue the basketball chatter. We'll give you a little bit of the breakdown, folks. Five ACC games left for Virginia. They have North Carolina Saturday nationally televised ball game.

And what is, I would say, I mean, frankly speaking, they're all must win from here on out. Yeah, I mean. North Carolina at North Carolina, at Wake, host the Clemson Tigers, host Florida State, close at Syracuse. Yeah, and those are winnable games. Clemson, I'm sure, is certainly the one game they'll be an underdog in, maybe Wake Forest. But I would think they've got to be on par with Carolina and Florida State and Syracuse.

If they can go 3-2 or 4-1 that would be a fabulous finish to this season give them some momentum going into the tournament I dare not say that they could win the ACC tournament even though we saw NC State make that run almost an impossible run last year. But if they can go in and win one or two games, who knows, they may be looking at the NIT,

and that would be a big bonus, I think, for this team. NIT would be a dream, especially with how the season started. Exactly. And viewers and listeners, again, this is one of those ifs and coulda, shoulda, woulda. This team was two points away from beating SMU. Should have beaten SMU probably. This team was two points away from beating a top 25 Memphis Tigers team. It probably should have beaten the Virginia Tech Hokies at the John Paul Jones Arena.

It was a one-point loss to the Hokies. It was a game they should have beaten the Virginia Tech Hokies at the John Paul Jones Arena. I mean, it was a one-point loss to the Hokies. It was a game they should have won. A terrible loss to Notre Dame. A game if played today, the fighting Irish would have, on paper, had no chance today. I don't know what happened in that one. And Virginia right now finds itself at.500, an overall record, and 6-9 in conference one. And Virginia right now finds itself at 500, an overall record, and 6-9 in conference play. So you have an opportunity with five games left to maybe flirt with 500 in conference play.

And if you do that, it would be hard not to offer Sanchez a second shot here. Yeah, I mean, it's a tough decision. I'm glad I'm not the AD that I had to make that call and I assume it's her call. Maybe it goes above her with some of the heavy hitters. I don't know. Yeah, that's going to be a tough call, especially if they finish the season strong.

Viewers and listeners, let us know your thoughts. You're going completely if you do pull the trigger, you're going completely away from Tony Bennett basketball and getting rid of

some former players from Virginia. On the coaching staff? Who were on the staff. Almost all former players from Virginia. On the coaching staff? Who were on the staff. A lot of, almost all former players. Yeah, quite a few. I mean, Jason Williford, Coleman.

Isaiah. Isaiah. Kyle Guy. I mean, basically the whole staff. Quite a few. And so, you know, it's a big decision. It's a heavy decision you have to make. Virginia, this has come in the feed, and we talked about this briefly last week,

and this is, I think, commentary that you're going to start seeing gaining momentum. Miami's got to replace its head coach. Yep. Notre Dame's head coach. Did you see the press conference? I heard he lost it. Dude, he went ballistic. He walked out of the press conference after swatting the microphone down,

basically verbally assaulting the Notre Dame fan base for quitting on the team. That doesn't go over well at Notre Dame. And wearing the Notre Dame logo with the Notre Dame banner directly behind him. He looks like he's halfway out the door already. You're looking at four or five coaching – Florida State? Florida State with Leonard retiring. NC State looks like they are going to be making a replacement. North Carolina, Hubert Davis is halfway out the door.

Yeah, they've already decided to hire a general manager for that program, regardless of what happens. I mean, Boston College is horrendous. Yes. Syracuse is horrendous, a shadow of its former self. I mean, that storyline, how does that play out, so many new faces in the coaching ranks in the Atlantic Coast Conference? Well, right now I was talking to somebody I have a lot of respect for last night, who's a former coach. And I told him, I said, you know, the ACC right now is up for grabs, except for, I mean, Duke has grabbed it by the throat and not going to let go anytime soon.

But the rest of the league is up for grabs. And, you know, if you have the right coach and the right NIL money and the right people who can evaluate talent and essentially turn your program completely around overnight, you know, it's not that hard. Look what Louisville did in just one year. Because we got the money now. Got the money.

So it just depends on whether you have faith in Sanchez and his staff and can keep players in and bring in a couple pieces, or if you want to start all over again with a new coach and a new system. But whatever direction you decide to go, if you want to grab the ACC by the throat, it's there for the taking. And it's going to be interesting to see how many of these programs decide to go in that direction. Viewers and listeners, let us know your thoughts. Renee Pettiford says, I want Ron Sanchez to be the head coach. This question comes in from North Carolina.

So Jerry, addressing me here for some clarity. And my job here is to be a pace setter and to showcase Hootie Ratcliffe., addressing me here for some clarity and, and my job here is to be a pace setter and to showcase Hootie Ratcliffe, but he's asking for some clarity on what I just said with all the coaching hires that potentially are on the horizon in the ACC. He wants to know, are you saying that they could be competing for the same guys? And I said, absolutely. I mean, when you're in the ACC, each year there's a handful of, what do you call them, creme de la creme or A-list guys. We're not the only people that find Ryan Odom attractive. If Virginia fans want Ryan Odom, I can assure you other programs want Ryan Odom. Yeah, no question about it.

He would be a great fit at NC State probably with his dad's roots in the state of North Carolina. Florida State. Anywhere. Yeah, there's a lot of people who would be interested in him. He's ready I think for a job on that level.

And it goes the same for a lot of other people whose names have popped up on Virginia's list. There's going to be a lot of hustling and bustling going on. Right. Well, there is right now, I'm sure. There's a lot of ADs in the same situation as Carla Williams, and they've got to make some decisions and decide if they want to make a change. And some of them probably have already made that decision and are talking to people.

So, yeah, you're right. There's a handful of people that a lot of people are going to be going after. And that's just the ACC. Bingo. There are going to be going after and that's just the acc there's changes around the country too yeah and and it's it's the programs like virginia that are in transition or purgatory are all looking at the same half a dozen or dozen coaches that are up in commerce that are looking to do what louisville did with its program the money i'm not going to say the money is the easy part, but in a lot of ways the money is the easy part. The hard part is to get the North Star to guide the roster

and put the money in play with the right talent. Yeah. And I think it's important, too, you've got to find a guy who can put together a really good coaching staff if you make a change. It's not all about the head coach. He can't do it by himself. He's got to have really good staff, support staff and assistant coaches.

A good example of this is what BYU is trying to do in the Big 12. BYU has, in a lot of ways, its basketball program, the most NIL money out there because Brigham Young University, this Mormon fan base, is passionate of this program. And they got a guy that's their head coach that's got NBA talent, and he's got a roster of coaches that are NBA guys. He's got an analytics guy. He's basically assembled an NBA coaching staff at BYU. And now they're trying to make the push in the Big 12, and they're doing a pretty good job of it here. And they have their own TV network.

Have their own TV network. They just attracted the best recruit in the country to BYU. He's not even Mormon. Yeah. But they rolled out that kind of red carpet for him. So, I mean, you've got models out there where you can flip the switch and turn it around. The question is, does Ron Sanchez, does the hiring committee have the confidence in Sanchez to make him the architect of this new era of college basketball?

And that's out of my pay grade. Yeah, well, out of mine too. Because I don't know what, sometimes you can guess what an AD is thinking, sometimes you can't. And this time, I don't know. We don't know what she's thinking. I do know that they have talked to other people, but we don't know how serious it is from either side.

And we still don't know if they've decided to pull the switch or if they're just going to ride out the storm and see what happens. It's going to be a lot of drama over the next few weeks. It's going to be a lot of fantastic content on jerryracliff.com, ladies and gentlemen. They have North Carolina on the docket Saturday, ESPN, and a must-win game in Chapel Hill. Give us the keys to victory there, Hootie Racliff. I think just continue to play like they have. Throw the Duke game out the window.

It doesn't matter. Just continue to pick up where you left off in Blacksburg the other day with a very efficient offense, a little better defense than they were playing before. Taking care of the basketball, rebounding. Sanchez said last night, we'll take the things that we did well and focus on doing that even better and take the things that we didn't do well and attack those

and try to solve those problems. And so I think they have an opportunity with their bigs to make a difference in Chapel Hill if they can rebound and play some decent defense against Carolina. There we go. National TV, guys. North Carolina. Baseball, fans are asking for it.

Puerto Rico, tough loss to start, but still the upside significant for Brian O'Connor's team. Yeah, I mean, two and one, and lost the other game in extra innings, so not a bad start all things considered and certainly found a potential pitching star in the freshman from the Baylor school down in Chattanooga he was outstanding this is gonna be a really good baseball team I don't I haven't seen if they've called off tomorrow's game yet or not. There's certainly snow in the forecast.

They have to turn around and fly down to Texas for another tournament, I guess, this weekend. We'll talk lacrosse, too. Lacrosse, a tough loss to Richmond. Shocked many in the lacrosse community. It's all early. Saw some meltdown city with some of the fans with the loss to, was it Michigan, with the baseball team. Guys, this is, we're playing baseball in February where the temperatures in Charlottesville are in their 20s tomorrow,

and there's projected. How about the job of being a weatherman? When you initially start with the 22-inch forecast of snow, and now the forecast, depending on where you get your weather, is a light dusting. Yeah. It's meteorologists and baseball players that can be right 30% of the time and keep their job. I'm not trying to throw shade on our local weather guys, but it was 22 inches over the weekend. Yeah, exactly.

I never believe it until I see it. I was going to hop in the Radcliffe vehicle and head down to Atlanta with you and your beautiful girlfriend if we were going to get 22 inches, Hootie. Yeah, I may go down south and stay. We're going to get that kind of snowfall, that's for sure, because I don't like it. But, yeah, it's nuts and you know it's it's early in the season goodness gracious uh you can't get too upset over one loss when they play what close to 60 games or something so

a month from now that game won't matter at all. They got George Washington, weather permitting, on Wednesday at the Dish, 3 p.m. first pitch. Then Oregon State on Friday in a tournament in Round Rock, Texas, where Brian O'Connor's bunch is going to play. Oregon State, number seven in the nation. Minnesota and Oklahoma. Virginia, three and one with victories against Villanova and Rice and a loss that lost in extra innings to the Michigan Wolverines. How does your content coverage navigate basketball, the ACC tournament,

and a coaching search with talent all over the spring sport docket? Well, you just do the best you can. You can't stretch yourself out so far, so you have to focus on one thing at a time. Spring football is right around the corner too. We'll focus hard on basketball until it's over. You stay in touch with all your sources in terms of the coaching search and try to find out all you can uh sometimes like i said you find out things that you can't write because uh the source tells you i can give you this information but you can't

report it it's just for your general background so you'll know what's what's going on here a little bit so um you just gotta put your ear to the grindstone and and uh talk to as many people as you can and uh try to keep pace with what's going on as best you can. And still no guarantee that you'll end up getting a scoop or not. Sometimes I have and sometimes I haven't. And sometimes you get some raw information that's wrong. That's happened a couple of times. This comment comes in from Michael Murphy in Baltimore.

UVA coach Ron Sanchez comes back, but as an assistant coach, and Tony Bennett returns as the head coach at Virginia. Could that ever happen? I don't think so. I don't think that's going to happen, Mr. Murphy. We can wish. Not unless Congress comes out tomorrow and passes an NIL bill that conforms and makes it a consistent thing, and they make some sort of a rule with the transfer portal where you can transfer once with no penalty,

and then after that you have to sit out a year. They should do that. They should do that. They should do that. They should do both of those things. Yeah, they should do both of those things. If they want to fix college sports, and right now it's just nothing but a big mess. There should be, in an ideal scenario, the salary cap is coming. That's coming in play this coming season.

Basically, it's a salary cap of what a program can allocate NIL-wise. It should be transparent of what players are earning. We should know how much players are getting. Yeah, this other secrecy stuff is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. I completely love what he said. You give them an opportunity to transfer once and play. If they choose to transfer again after that, you have to sit out

because that's going to keep players from doing that. Yeah, it's only fair. And, you know, I saw my friend Dick Vitale tweeted last night that if Tony Bennett was considering coming back to basketball, he ought to take the Indiana job. I think the Virginia job right now is better than the Indiana job. The red sweater is gone in Bloomington and he ain't coming back. I just don't think Indiana is that great a job

anymore. I don't think Indiana is that great a job. I think Tony Bennett's...not to say that he might, after a few years, get bored and decide to coach again, but I don't think he's going to. I don't think he will either. I don't think his coaching philosophy is suited for today's player, and it's sad to say. Today's player is a transient player. What have you done for me lately player?

A player that is opposed to managing and fighting through adversity. And the whole pack line defense is about consistency and struggling through adversity until you get it. Yeah. It's not an easy defense to pick up. No, not at all. And we saw it this year. We've seen that.

Yeah. Every time they take the floor. I mean, it's a shadow of the former pack line defense. Yeah. Not even close. Now, he is playing a more free-flowing offense, which is easy on the eyes. How about some football chatter for the fans that are asking about football? Well, you know, it's not really high on my radar right

now, but I will be doing a story this week. Since there's no games until Saturday, we'll be doing a story on the new quarterback, Morris from North Texas State. I talked to him a couple weeks ago and I was surprised. He's not much bigger than Calandria was. I was a little surprised. I thought he might be a little bigger than that. He's a kid who has thrown for a lot of yardage in some pretty good programs and has a quick release. I don't know that he would want to run the ball as much as Calandria,

but he may be forced to. But I'm anxious to see him throw the football. And he seems to have quite a few good targets on the roster, some new, some coming back from last year. Might be a fun spring game for the fans to see him and some of the other quarterbacks, new quarterbacks, throw it around the yard a little bit. Here's the interesting wrinkle for Tony Elliott.

He's got a much improved roster. He's got talent everywhere. We saw with the basketball team, despite having talent, it takes time for talent to assimilate itself with the coaching staff and with its peers, with its fellow players. Is Tony Elliott going to be able to do that in a must-win year? I mean, that looks like the key to me for this football program.

Yeah. Certainly, that is the key because he told us in his press conference on the National Signing Day that how grateful he was for the NIL money that allowed them to be competitive for players.

And now it's up to him and his staff to put those guys on the same page and see if they can win. Certainly the schedule is more in their favor than it has been the last couple of years. I think they only play one team this coming season that was in the upper echelon of the ACC last year, and that would be Louisville. I'm not crazy about them playing NC State in a non-conference game on the road. I think you could have done better

than playing NC State and Washington State as non-conference games. I think at this stage of rebuilding Virginia football, you should have found two lighter opponents to come in. I don't know about sure wins, but it certainly wouldn't be bad to get sure wins. That means you only have to get four other wins to be bowl eligible. Is bowl eligible enough for him to save his job?

I don't know. Some people think he's got to win seven games instead of six, but again, you and I don't make good decisions. For me, it's more than bowl eligible for me, but like you said, we don't make those decisions.

This team has struggled. I'd love to see a little bit of production from an extremely well-compensated coaching staff. Especially with the money that they have at their disposal. That's just a guy with a microphone. All right, we'll close with some final thoughts, as we got a key email sent to us that we've got to discuss post-show here.

So maybe some final thoughts for you, Hootie Rockliffe, on the Jerry and Jerry show. Well, you know, the next few weeks should be fun as we see if this team can finish strong and maybe get in the NIT. I don't know. I would hope they wouldn't play in one of these cheaper tournaments, the CBI or whatever those things are. But I thought that was one of the worst things I've ever covered in my career.

The NIT would be a nice accomplishment for this team if they can get to that point. Again, there's going to be a lot of drama around the program as to whether Sanchez keeps his job or if they go in a different direction. With the hunt on, who knows if it'll be dragged out or if it'll be something that will be all but said and done by the end of the regular season. It's a lot of question marks out there

in the little clouds above our heads. Question marks, great for great, great content, guys. And the place for content, JerryRackliff.com. He's about to attend his 51st straight ACC tournament. We're on the website every day. We were on there this morning, JerryRackliff.com. Judah Wickauer is behind the camera. We appreciate the director and producer of the show, Judah Wickauer.

Our MVP, our glue guy. The I Love Seville Show, guys, is up at 1230. And we appreciate you watching and listening to the Jerry and Jerry Show. So long, everybody. I love the show. And once the mics go off, the cameras go off.