The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Hoos Will Host Kentucky In ACC/SEC Challenge; Loyola Combo Guard Commits To UVA In Portal

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

The Jerry & Jerry Show headlines: Hoos Will Host Kentucky In ACC/SEC Challenge Loyola Combo Guard Commits To UVA In Portal UVA Hoops: What Does 2026-27 Roster Look Like? UVA Football Earns O-Line Committ For 2027 Class UVA Promotes Speros To Football General Manager Cassese Adds Chris Feifs As Associate Lax Coach College Sports Notebook: Good, Great, Bad & Ugly 50 Stories Per Month For Only $8 At JerryRatcliffe.com 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. A pleasure to connect with you guys through the I Love Seville Network on the water cooler of everything and anything and everything UVA sports related. We try to, you know, crowdsource content. We try to feature content we think is important to you on our network across the board. And I think what's going on with the Jerry and Jerry show with Jerry Rackliff has just been awesome. Jerry Rackleff.com, you're looking at, goodness gracious, 50, 60 pieces of content a month for $8 a month, the price of a cup of coffee, 50 to 60 pieces of UVA sports content for $8 a month, and a new journalist is in the fold,

a new content creator in Scott German, who's a pro when it comes to anything and everything, UVA sports content. We'll talk football today, an offensive lineman commit for the 2027 season. We'll talk football, a general manager promoted to a very important role, GM. We'll talk basketball. Kentucky in Charlottesville for the SEC, ACC challenge, the Wildcats in Charlottesville. That's a blue blood program.

We will talk a combo guard committing to Ryan Odom's team. hard to argue that Ryan Odom's team is not significantly better right now than they were last season at this time. Heck, I would even venture to say that Ryan Odom's program is better right now than they were in March of this year. And that's a team that made a run to the what, the Sweet 16. Lofston, Round of 32. A round of 32, round of 32. Tennessee, a good Tennessee team. We'll talk our college sports notebook today.

How about a quarterback in the transatlantic. portal, the top quarterback in the transfer portal, one of the top players in the portal, getting a green light from a judge in Lubbock, Texas to play for the hometown team, the Texas Tech Red Raiders, despite a history of gambling, including gambling on his own team. I mean, this is just a banana story here. Somewhere Pete Rose is just... Yeah. What's Pete Rose doing right now? He's spinning.

He's absolutely spinning, right? Yeah. He's cussing, too. Undoubtedly cussing. Yeah, absolutely. Judah Wickhauer behind the camera, the Elmer's glue of the team. If we can go to the studio camera and the two-shot and welcome our superstar, Jerry Hootie Rackleff, who's never worn the green master shirt on the Jerry and Jerry show. I like that one.

Yeah, thank you. It's one of the fond memories at golf course. How many times you've been to Augusta? Just a few. Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. If you're a golf fan, you've got to go once. just to see what it's like.

You can't, even though it's beautiful on television, there's nothing like seeing it in person. It's a different world. What's the... Maybe the only place on earth where they still treat the print media like they did. Yeah, like royalty. Yeah.

They did for decades everywhere else. What is the Cathedral of Golf? I think it probably still has to be St. Andrews, which was the birthplace of golf, obviously and so much history and all that. But Augusta's probably the American version of that. Augusta, the mecca of golf in the United States. Yeah. St. Andrews, the Cathedral of Golf Globally, the home of the British Open. When it's at St. Andrews, maybe my favorite golf tournament, the early morning wake up. Oh, yeah. The gust of wind, the terrible weather.

The sand traps that literally if you go inside, you're like, you can't see the golfer. The sand trap lip is feet over the golfer's head. I mean, it's, it's awesome. Shinnecock and South, in Southampton, the home of the U.S. Open. Pass along, what you passed along to me before the show, qualifying for the U.S. Open. Oh, yeah. Ben Coles played for Virginia and Bowling Sergeant. Wonderful guy.

He and the well, anyways, he's just a guy who's worked so hard. He's bounced back and forth between the tour and the corn fairy tour. And this past weekend he won the Corn Ferry Tour event. I think it's a BMW event. I can't remember.

city was in but after he accepted the trophy and all that kissed the wife and the kids who I think I think it was in Jacksonville and I think I think they drove

seven hours to to see him on Sunday to see him win and as soon as he did all the formalities he sprinted to his car drove to Charlotte I think and caught a plane

to deep I think it was to D.C. to Woodmont, the annual qualifying site in this region, and played 36 holes yesterday to qualify for the open. That's, that's desire and passion beyond belief. That's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. The, you know, top 50, the top 100 of the world, it seems like champagne and caviar professional golf, but for the large majority of, golfers out there, it's far from it. And those that are on the cut line or qualifying or fighting for their tour card, it's work. And it's, you know, there's documentaries out there of the tennis players that are outside the top 100 and golfers that are fighting for tour cards.

And how break even at the end of the year is sometimes the best that they can do. A lot of them are losing thousands of dollars from travel and hotel and plane tickets. and it's a brutal business hooty yeah i've known and interviewed some guys on some of the lesser tours that have sometimes they'll sleep in their car yeah uh they'll travel from event to event put in on incredible mileage on their vehicles and um one one time out at uh kesswick believe it or many years ago they had a pro event there i think it was a teardrop tour event and Bobby McIver

who used to be the pro at Farmington was back visiting from Tennessee and he pointed out, he said, now there's that guy over there in a white cap, he's a good story, go talk to him. I can't remember the guy's name, but I went over and introduced myself and talked to him and he had driven from Oklahoma

to Charlottesville to play in that event and he told me he had like 400,000 miles on his truck. He left Oklahoma, I think, with $11 in his bank account. I don't know how he got here, but I guess somebody helped him out. The year before, he led the first round of the U.S. Open. I think it was at Pebble Beach, maybe. And he was, it was a glorious day for him

because every time they showed him on camera, he'd get X amount of money from his sponsors just for seeing their logo on his hat and his shirt. And he was talking about what a thrill that was. But anyway, he won, I can't remember if he won the event at Keswick or finished really high, but he won a few thousand dollars, I think, and was able to keep him going for a little while longer.

But some of those guys, really, their dedication and drive to not give up. It's unbelievable. Dale Thompson watching the morning at the show. He says, good morning, you too. Good to see you guys again. Renee Pettiford's excited to talk basketball on the program. Maybe the biggest basketball fan. I know he's always excited about basketball.

Maybe the biggest basketball fan we know. We're going to talk basketball here at a matter of moments. Got viewers and listeners that are watching in Buffalo, New York today. Got viewers and listeners in eastern Tennessee today. Viewers and listeners that are watching in Western North Carolina and the triangle of North Carolina all over Central Virginia, Northern Virginia and Southwestern Virginia on the show. If you have questions, put them in the feed. I'll relay. I'm live on air. William McChesney is right here in Charlottesville.

Vanessa Park Hill is in Earleysville watching the program. I don't think we've ever had somebody from Buffalo. Never Buffalo. First time I've mentioned Buffalo on the program. Welcome Buffalo. Do we want to talk the Sorsby, the Brendan Sorsby? This is more of a college national storyline here. I was taken aback by this and we'll relay it.

We'll try to relate it to UVA sports fans. Here's a star quarterback, Brennan Sorsby, who's been granted a temporary injunction against the NCAA that could clear the way for him to play for the Texas Tech Red Raiders this season, even after the fact that this quarterback was declared ineligible for gambling, 40 times he had gambled at least on his former team, literally 40 bets involving the Indiana Hoosiers team when he was a freshman on the Hoosers roster in 2022.

I was astonished by this. I'm curious of your take on it. I'm also curious of this as a follow-up. If a judge can grant in an injunction against the NCAA, basically leaving the NCAA powerless, what actually is the value of the NCAA now? Well, there isn't a lot of value in the NCAA, and that's why the SEC and the Big Ten are discussing the notion

of possibly breaking away from the NCAA and playing by their own rules. And I can't blame any conference for that because you're right. Anytime the NCAA does anything, they're paralyzed in the courts. Yeah. And they don't have the money to win those battles,

or at least they claim they don't. That's hard to believe with the money they rake in. But I was, along with you, astonished as a good word for that ruling. It goes against everything that sports is about, and this guy should not be participating in college football. Well, the natural tie is the Chandler Morris court decision. Yeah.

Where Chandler was not granted a seventh year of eligibility. And Chandler is honest as the day is long. Oh, he's a great kid. Yeah. Where here's a guy who's not just linked to gambling, proven to have gambled on his previous team 40 times. And his defense, props to his defense team, said if you don't allow this guy to play college football,

it's going to impact his mental health. Chandler Morris, same argument. I mean, impact his mental health, his earnings, everything else. And he, a Charlottesville judge, Judge Worrell, Worrell, says, no way, Jose. Yeah, it just goes to show you, if you get the right judge, you can get anything passed. And if you get the wrong judge, you're up the creek. And it's outrageous. I think that, well, it's sent tremors through the college.

athletic world yesterday because the Big Ten is discussing not scheduling any events against Texas Tech in any sport boycotting. Yeah, boycotting Texas Tech. And I would encourage every conference to do that. And something has to stop.

This stuff is totally out of control. It's ridiculous. And I mean, it was bad. what they're doing to college athletics in the first place, but when you go to these means to restore a guy's eligibility when he should be banned from college football, it's laughable.

90 grand, he's wagered approximately on professional in college sports over four years, including, again, 40 bets on the Indiana football team when he was a rostered freshman on the Hoosiers' roster in 2022. Wild story. Incredibly talented. Some services had him the number one player in the portal. Many had him as the number one quarterback in the portal, floored with turning pro. He's six foot three. He's 235 pounds, 27 touchdowns, five picks and 2800 yards through the air last year for the Cincinnati Bearcats?

Well, I mean, I know that I'm pretty confident it's this way everywhere. I know Virginia goes out of its way to explain the hazards of sports gambling to its athletes. And I would imagine most universities do. So this guy knew right from wrong. He just defied it. He actually blamed it on his defense. His defense blamed it on the addictive nature of the gambling apps on phones, saying it made it so easy. You don't have to call those up.

100%. I got them on my phone. Yeah. The draft kings, the Fandals said it made it so easy to gamble that because of the ease or approachability of gambling on your phone, that it then became an addiction that he could not stop. Well, I can believe that it became an addiction. but you don't go there in the first place. You know the hazards of repercussions if you get caught.

And I'm sure he's not the only college athlete out there doing that, but he's a high-profile guy, and that kind of stuff's going to leak out at some point. Gambling can be addictive. There's no question about that. But he crossed the line and he knew he was crossing the line to become addicted to it. I don't think you just automatically become addicted to it. Cliff Daisy's watching the program on the eastern shore.

He says, good morning, gentlemen. It's warm and steamy here. Good. About that time, right? About that time. He says, it's time for another peanut drop off. We love those peanuts. Thank you.

And I don't want to speak for my colleague, Jerry Rackleff at all, but I'm sure he loved the peanuts as well. Oh, they were awesome. The Virginia peanuts are the best. One of my... I did the thing that my dad taught me when I was a little kid back in the South. I don't know if you did it growing up in Norfolk, but you pour some peanuts into a bottle of pop, and they called it Goobers, and you would drink the soda and eat the peanuts at the same time. I didn't do that. Next time I will do that.

do that. I had to do that this time just for old time's sake. Cliff, if when you drop off the peanuts next time, I will do that as well. I will do that as well. He says, what are your thoughts, Jerry, on the $75 million donation Virginia Tech received recently? Wow, it's mind-blowing. It was great for tech. Should help their football program for sure. They had, I know they had lagged behind in funding and they're going through all sorts of reorganization down there and

I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of Virginia Tech athletics, particularly their football program, but it's found to energize the heck out of what they're trying to do and desperately need it.

They'll put them back on a level playing field with some of the upper echelon of the ACC. $75 million donation made anonymously. That's when you have the real wealth. It's when you're making the donations anonymously. That's serious money. That's serious money.

The real wealth I find is the money that comes from people, men and women, that do not want their name anywhere associated with the money. Because they want the ability to still walk around, live their lives, without security details. Right. So 75 million anonymously by a four-generation Hokey family. The large majority was allocated to Virginia Tech Athletics. This is a much-needed infusion of capital for Virginia Tech, who was, I mean,

Whit Bapcock told its Board of Visitors that if we don't raise $250 million in like yesterday, we're going to be an afterthought in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Yeah, and they're probably like everybody else. They're looking ahead as to what might happen down the road if everything blows up like it's predicted to. And the SEC and Big Ten gobble up the teams they want from the Big 12 and the ACC, and then everybody else is left blowing in the wind. And who knows what the ACC would look like with. some of its major players gone.

I imagine JMU, East Carolina, some of those teams would be candidates to fill the spots and it won't be your father's or your grandfather's ACC anymore. James Madison is watching

in Mineral, Virginia. He says, what does Houdie think of getting moved to the end zone at Scott Stadium next year? You want to put that in perspective for the viewers and listeners? Yeah, sure. I mean, I can't say that I'm shocked. This sort of thing has been going on for several years now, not just in the ACC, but in other places, the NFL. I used to cover the Redskins for 16 years, and they once had the largest press box in the NFL. And then when Dan Snyder came in, he turned it into a cigar bar for his buddies.

and moved the media, the press box, into a corner of the stadium. And the overhang above the press box was so low that when people kicked off or punted, you couldn't even see the flight of the ball from the press box. And it's been going on. I mean, Virginia Tech moved their press box when they redid their stadium

and it's sort of in a well it's not quite as far in the corner as Virginia's is going to be it's not dead not going to be dead in the end zone but it's going to be an extension to that side of the Scott Stadium now

and I imagine it will shrink in size because the size of the media has shrunk there's only two newspapers in the state or two sports rights representing newspapers from the state that even cover the program anymore. And a lot of them are dot-comers and stuff to that nature like myself. And which is probably where people get most of their news now.

Well, not probably it is. We have a larger readership than the local newspaper. There's no question about it. Probably 10 times larger. Easily. Easily, 10 times larger. So it's happened in basketball. I imagine something's going to happen in JPJ to the press area too.

I thought it happened. Did it not? Not yet. Okay. I imagine it will. I mean, I remember sitting in the, we've been moved all over the place at the Dean Dome over the years. I remember the last time we were setting up above the end zone,

just a few rows up behind the end zone. And their SID, Steve Kirshner, who's been there forever, came up to us and said, don't get used to this guys, because we can sell these seats for $175,000 a season. You're going to be moved after a year or two. And they did. They moved the press.

boxing the dingh dome up near the top of the arena. Same thing at Virginia Tech, same thing at Clemson, a couple of other schools. So it's a trend. The media is not valued the way it used to be taken for granted in a lot of ways. That's why I mentioned the Masters, because they still treat the print media like we're golden. I think they recognize what that's done for that turn.

tournament over the decades. Almost marginalized the media. Pretty much. Why do you think that's... I think they would like to eliminate the media and control the narrative. The narrative through their own PR people. Yeah. So is that why you think that's happening?

Well, I don't know that. No, no, but I trust your judgment. You've been doing this for 50 years. Yeah. I've heard people say that, you know, they may take... And I, again, I was told this by a former... associate AD over there a long time ago that they'll probably eventually get off the radio stations and move out their radio, what is now the radio broadcast to in-house and put it on their own

their own network. I have no doubt that's going to happen. We should talk about that. So they may do the same thing with, you know, certainly they're going to shrink presence of the media, even though it's, it has shrunk. itself. But, you know, they may want people to direct people to directly to their site where you get a one-sided prejudice look at UVA athletics and no criticism whatsoever, which I'm sure they

would love. Well, imagine, imagine this. If I'm a fan, I wouldn't want that to everything's... And a silo. Strawberries and roses. Yeah, 100%. I mean, there's... Or not a silo, in an echo chamber.

Yeah. is what you're saying. I 100% 100% see the athletic department in Virginia, is it Virginia Sports Properties? Yes. Virginia Sports Properties

eventually going to their radio partners and they may not want to, they definitely do not want to hear this because the Virginia Sports Properties contract is keeping legacy media radio, AM, FM,

radio in business in a lot of ways. Don't doubt that at all. Virginia Sports Properties goes to their radio partners. When the contract is up, we're not going to renew. Then Virginia Sports Properties creates a streaming platform like we're doing right now. Yeah. And says that we have total control of streaming. There's going to be no revenue share in any capacity.

They could even put like a, uh, uh, a paywall to access the stream. They could. If you want to listen to the show, listen to Game Day, for this particular game, it's $2. $3 a game. 100,000 people listen to the game statewide? 250,000 people?

I mean, how many people do you think? We have no idea. Would it be safe to say that across the network, 250,000 people listen to a game on the radio? Yeah, I have no clue. I have no clue. Say it's $5. We're talking $5 to access each game.

That's $2.5 million a game. They have 13. 30 games. How many football games do they have? Oh, 12. 12 football games. How many basketball games? At least 30.

So let's call that 42. And then let's say they pick up another 30 games across the board for the other ones. And we're just doing back of the napkins. Let's say you have 250, let's just say a conservative number, 250,000 people times $5 per contest, times 45 games that they would pay. You just figured out a way to make $50 million. And as money hungry as universities are now.

Desperate. Yeah. Desperate. It's an easy revenue stream. Easy revenue stream that people would pay. And people would pay $4 to $5 to stream a contest from start to finish, pregame, post-game, in-game, analysis, and coverage, especially if the team that's playing the game limits that content from being anywhere else.

Yeah, and they benefit from all the advertising as well. And then they keep all the advertising. And then what happens is the sport, the athletic department, becomes less about sports and more about media, branding, content, and advertising. Right. and then the sport is the content that's the driver of their media business. And then you could sell the obvious advertising placements within the stream. You would sell the advertising placements on the jersey, on the field, all over the stadium.

And, you know, that's wild. I think that is a world that's going to happen. A lot of people watching the program. They might hire you to come over there and direct that after all your ideas. I think we could put something like that together. John Blair is watching in Stanton. He said that he and his dad, he's a Virginia boy, John Blair.

He's a diehard football fan. He's a son's football team. His son's a fantastic squash player. Actually ran into his son yesterday, Marshall. He says, Hootie, the peanuts in the pot. Yeah. He goes, that was the poor man's lunch when he was growing up. According to my father, a bag of Lance peanuts,

dumped into a bottle of cold, Coca-Cola, when I was a boy, he and I would have that every now and again. Absolutely. I think if you grew up in the South and... He grew up there. In Virginia, it used to be part of the South. I don't know if it is anymore or not, but it used to be. And that was something that happened throughout the South.

I've met people from all over the place that used to do the same thing. Yeah, I mean, you get your protein, you get your sugar kick. It's an energy kick, 100%. Now, go back at this. is resonating with the viewers and listeners to changing media landscape. I think this is also opportunistic for your business, for Jerry Ratcliffe.com. Yeah. Because there's two legacy media platforms that have allocated human capital. There's what? Greg at the Daily Progress. And then what? Do we say Mike at Sevo right now? Are the only ones left covering it?

Well, David, the North, Dave Teal still doing? Newport News will send a stringer, and sometimes David Thiel will show up and write a column or something, or do a game story. Okay. But he bounces back between Tech and UBA and all that. And Barbara is covering like 10 beats right now. Yeah, I think he freelances for various organizations. and that's it, newspaper-wise. So I think the...

One of them is not even newspaper, but... I think the upside for Jerry Rackleft.com, Father's Day is coming. This is a fantastic Father's Day gift. I mean, it's $8 a month to subscribe to Jerry Rackleft.com, and you're getting 50 pieces of fresh, unique, specific content that's UVA sports-related, folks. There's no media platform that's churning content like this,

and you just added a new writer to the stable. Yeah, our team continues to grow. We added Greg Waters back during baseball season, who turned out some nice pieces for us, analytical, really in-depth stuff. And Scott German, who's a veteran, has been doing this about as long as I have.

And he just joined the team as well. My son, who has 20 years of experience and myself, you and Judah, and John Golden, who is a world-renowned photographer, shoots basketball for us. We may have to find somebody to shoot football for us this fall, but we have a pretty nice team going here. Scott German was a great addition. He put out his first piece this week, and there'll be many more coming.

And he writes some interesting stuff. You've been doing this for how long, 50 years? Yes. 50? You first hired me almost 25 years ago. I'm going to do this 25. I'm going to add Judah. We've been doing this year.

You don't look old enough to have been working for me 25 years ago. Thank you. But when I wake up after my kids not sleeping. Judah, I'm going to give them three. How long for Greg? How many years for Greg? In the business? Yeah.

Wow. I don't know. He did stuff before I ever met him. So I would say at least 20, 25. Say 25 from Greg. Scott, 20, your son. How many for German? I would say close to 40.

40 for Scott German. And then the photographer? I knew him when I came to town in 1982, so he was doing it before I got here. So it's over 40 years. Yes. So I'm going to go for you. And he shoots stuff all over the world. That's a combined collective more than 200 years of experience.

Yeah. So that's what you get at Jerry Rackleff.com. More than 200 years of experience. 200 years of my collective experience. We could almost go back to the signing of the Declaration. I think I just saw Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble go by. The comments coming in. I don't want, this one, this one is from Richmond, Virginia.

I don't want a world where all the sports content and sports coverage and analysis is coming from UVA itself. I don't think most fans do because you get a one view of everything. And plus they're not even allowed to write about recruiting unless it's something officially announced by the school, which presently NCAA rules prohibits schools from doing that. And you're certainly not going to get anything critical about anything or anybody from a university publication. So it's vital to keep people like myself going so we can try to give you both sides of the equation. And we praise them when they deserve it, and we criticize them when they deserve it,

and we try to be fair. That's one thing I've prided myself on throughout my career is just about every coach I've ever covered, not just here, but other universities, as always told me, we appreciate you because you're fair. And that's what I strive to be. I think you're absolutely fair. I think you're more than fair.

Sometimes, yeah, I probably lean toward that. Yeah, more than fair. I think there's others out there that are the opposite end of the spectrum, which I don't understand that one as well. There's no question about that. Now, comments are coming in. This is Renee wants to talk some basketball. Yeah, let's talk some hoops.

How about the Loyola transfer? I mean, look at this roster right now. This men's basketball roster is loaded. It's splendid. Jan Vide, 6-6-6-guard, combo guard. He can shoot it. He can ball handle. So that's solved a problem there,

that now they have an experienced guy behind Chance Mallory. V-Day is from Slovenia and was really highly thought of when he came to UCLA from. Slovenia. He was behind a bunch of veteran players, got frustrated, transferred to Loyola, Merrimount. And

he really started to come on, particularly toward the end of last season. He scored in double figures in 18 out of 27 games, including the seven final games of the season. He

averaged 12, points a game, four assists, three rebounds. Played about 29 minutes a game. Shot 45% from the field, 32% from threes, 75% from the free throw line. He started 27 games. He scored a career high, 28 points against Washington State. You know, when he came out of,

Slovenia, he was rated a four-star player as a prep and number 68 overall in his class of that recruiting class. So he was easily a top 75 player. He's a big combo guard.

He's a solid ball handler. He's good at getting into the lane. He's a bit of a streak shooter. But he solves a lot of problems on that roster. I'm not really problems, but I guess answer some of the questions that were lingering

from building that roster now it appears to be complete. This is a better Dalyland Hall. Could be. I still think Dallon Hall was underappreciated for some of the things he did, but this guy could

be... He could score. He can score. Yeah, he could score. He offers the the backup option to chance. He can play two positions in the backcourt. He can defend bigger guards when needed. Yeah, that's important. That's 6-6. Yeah, especially when you have a 5-8 starting point card. Yeah, it gives you some length. Gives you some length. The back court is loaded. The team is loaded. Yeah, I mean, you look at this and you got, I'm going to write something about this this afternoon, I believe. At center, you've got Grunlow. You got eBay.

I think I'm pronouncing that right, a seven-foot freshman. Barksdale, I think, can slide into that spot if he has to. I'm starting to wonder if there's even minutes for Barksdale. Well, you know, at Power Forward, you got DeRitter, you got Anya, you got Barksdale, you got Lang, you got Carrera, at the wing, you got Lewis, backed by Harmon, at Tugard, you got Dixon and Gertrude,

and the point guard you got mallory and v day and again v day can and and gertruder i guess kind of interchangeable it's one and two spots so again they got depth playable depth playable depth that was one of the huge differences in last year's team they just kept coming at you and most people don't have that kind of depth um looks like you can go easily eight to ten at any given day. That's Odom's style of play on how he likes to play. Chance you've got to expect it's going to be have even more upside. Absolutely. With a year of college athletics under his bout. I can't wait to see what happens with Grunlow after an offseason with Curtis in the weight room with some strength training. De Ritter looks like he's working on a lot of aspects of

his game. Absolutely. We stay with confidence and conviction this team is better? Yes. Do we say with confidence? I can't predict that the record is going to be better. Sure, of course not. But on paper. I think on paper this is a better team than it was in March. And better than March. I completely agree.

Better than March. Sam Lewis is going to have a lot to play for his final season. Yes. De Ritter certainly will have a lot to play for. He's got to prove himself as a first round draft choice. He's got a season left to say, can I get into the first round? Yeah. And I think he's going to work to do that.

he's working his butt off I guarantee you right now. It seems like he certainly is for what he's posted on social media. I mean, Odom looks like he's done it again, Hoots. Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of people were concerned about things going slow,

but it did the first year around. Sometimes it takes a while to get the guys you want to fit your system and your style of play, and this is not his first rodeo. I mean, he's this man's been in the business for a long time and has grown up in major college basketball

from being a kid hanging around his dad Dave at UVA in Wake Forest it's in his blood and he surrounded himself with a good staff solid staff and he has incredible contacts overseas as does his new assistant head coach red autry and i mean these guys are thick into it they they know what they're doing and anybody that says they don't is i can't understand that um comments continue to come in here this is an interesting one of the new players which has the biggest impact on this team oh wow that may be uh something that we'll have to wait and see um i'm just looking over the the list here.

I'm guessing maybe Dixon because he'll probably be a starter and the only starter of the new group. So I would say, yeah, it would be Dixon. Although I think V-Day, if he's as good as

advertised, could make a big impact as well. Jury and Dixon, with the UC Irvine. Yeah. He, at least on paper, I'm not going to pretend to be a UC Irvine basketball affisciano here. You know more about

this than I do. But, you know, 6 foot 4, 195 pound does a lot with the basketball. Yeah, he does. He's a three-level score. And he averaged 16 points of contest. And really, it was a stat. It was a stat stuff for four boards, a couple

of dimes, a couple of steals, 40% from long range. I mean, this guy looks like he is a player. He looks, look at what from what I'm seeing on the paper, it looks like across the board that they have upgraded. Malik Thomas had upside San Francisco transfer.

Malik Thomas went missing a lot of times last season. He did. Dalen Hall, great defender, great leader, reluctant shooter sometimes. Such a reluncted shooter. To the point where defenses were daring him to shoot to basketball. And he

at times was liability-esque on the floor when he was reluctant to shoot. This kid from Loyola is a better score than him. Yeah. Dixon, it looks like he's better on paper than Thomas. Inside, Devintillis, knee issues, rugged, not the best leaper, weight issues from time to time. Interior looks like it's an upgrade. You got to think that Barksdale's going to play. The only one that potentially is not an upgrade is the U-Go comparison to the freshman.

Yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, it's hard to find an Ugo. That was, that was, that was, an incredible recruiting job that they did and scouting him out and looking at his potential. And I assumed that they went back or had memories of him when he played for Calipari, Kentucky. And even though he didn't score a lot, he was an incredibly efficient shot blocker and a good rebounder for the Wildcats for two years. And I mean, what Kansas State did with him was almost a sin because they had no idea what they had with Ugo and they really suppressed him.

But give credit to Ryan and his staff for uncovering him and giving him confidence to become more of a score. And at times, there were a few games where he was almost unstoppable when they got him to the ball down in the right spot. Yeah, he will be really hard to replace. And, I mean, he keeps climbing up the draft boards, and I've seen him as high as 32, 33, 34. That's pretty darn good.

Incredibly good. I think you and I have said on this show the entire time on last season's roster that Hugo had the most pro-up side. Yeah. Limited basketball play, picked it up very late, ran the floor incredibly well. I mean, I just watched game three of the NBA finals last night. Right. The Knicks and the Spurs.

The Knicks have on their roster a guy named Mitch Robinson, who comes off the bench. he's a 35% free throw shooter in the playoffs. 35%. All he's expected to do is sit solid picks, roll to the basket for an oop, offensive and defensive rebound, and protect the rim. Yugo can do that all day. Oh, absolutely.

And he has a nice free throw. Great free throw, yeah, yeah. And a much better shooter than him. I mean, this is a guy that could be a 10-year, 12-year NBA pro, Hugo. Comments continue to come in here. This is an interesting one. It seems like Ryan Odom has got a pipeline to international players.

Grunlow, Derritter, Yugo, the Loyola Kid. Carrera. Carrera. Is that something that we should expect as fans? Yeah, I take advantage of that. I think the NCAA is trying to crack down a little bit on some of the European pros coming to America to play college basketball to enhance their chance of getting in the NBA. And I don't know what kind of action is going on there.

I think they're trying to not make it quite an easy pathway as it is right now. But, yeah, I think, Ryan, I think Griff, who is now at Pepperdine, and then Red Autry. and then I don't know a lot of his, the other Virginia basketball staff. We haven't gotten to know those guys as much. Back in the day, you used to be able to talk to, maybe you still can, I don't know, but used to be able to talk to assistant coaches all the time.

It's not so easy nowadays, but so I don't know what kind of connections they may have overseas, but Ryan has incredible internet, contact, as did his dad. I mean, just look at this kid. Let me get my note here. Mohamedo Landur, class of 27, from the NBA Academy in Africa,

6-11 center I scored 56 points and had 33 rebounds and five blocks in one game when he was 13 years old for Real Madrid and even got Shaquille O'Neal, his hero's attention with that game. Shaquille O'Neal went crazy on social media

with that. He's coming down the road from Molly just another another guy who you know some people are saying he'll be the Lakers first round draft choice in

29. Yeah. I mean just look at the international contacts that they have and if you've got them use them right? Everybody else is I think the game is international now.

It is. it is. I mean, the world of American basketball, this is unfortunate, is now so money-driven with AAU basketball that a lot of the athletes coming through middle school, high school basketball have been forced into tournament and game settings. Look at probably most of your top five or ten players in the NBA or international players. 100%. Yeah. I mean, the, the, international players, it's an international game. Yeah.

The international players are the ones that are three-level scorers. The international players are there ones that are the stretch fours and the stretch five. Look at Luca Donich. Yeah. I mean, he's one of my favorite players, what that guy can do with the basketball. I mean, that's what the game is. And I think Odom, if he has the connections to becoming the UN of college basketball, I'm all for it.

You know, the top 50, top 30 high school players are all. are going to look at the blue bloods first. And fans may not want to hear this. Virginia is not a blue blood. No. So if you're not going to be able to go after the top 30 to the top 50 because you're not a blue blood, go after the best of the rest that are international

and put a phenomenal team together, and that's what they're doing. What do you make at the Kentucky UVA news in the ACC-S-EC challenge? I think it's great. I've been waiting for Virginia and Kentucky to play maybe a home-and-home for forever. They played them in a tournament in 2002 somewhere

that I didn't get to go to. Probably was in Hawaii or somewhere and beat Kentucky back then. But other than that, they haven't played since University Hall opened. Adolf Rupp brought his Wildcats here in 1965 to open U. Hall. I have a game program from that game that somebody gave me

one of my readers from the former newspaper. But one of the my friends, Tom Paine, and Scott German, believe it or not, Scott German was just a kid. His dad took him to that game, but Tom Paine was a student at UVA, I believe. And he remembers that game so well that he, they introduced the teams and turned out the lights in University Hall, I guess, to put a spotlight on the teams. And then when they tried to turn the lights back on, they wouldn't come back on for like 10 minutes because they were mercury vapor lamps or something.

They had to reach a certain degree of heat before they could come on. So the start of the game was delayed by like 10 minutes before they could even play. Pat Riley was on that Kentucky team. So I think it's great that they're playing A Blue Blood. Kentucky is not your fathers or your grandfathers or even your great-grandfathers' wildcats. They're vulnerable now. I think they're going to be ranked in the summer between 20 and 25 in the preseason polls. And I think they lost their five top scores from last season.

So they're rebuilding through the portal as well. I'm excited about that. coming to you all. It's, it'll be fun. I'm the same way. I think it's going to be a hell of a matchup to have the Wildcats in Charlottesville. I expect, I expect the turnout to be significant. You don't sell that game out. There's no hope for you. I have a feeling the basketball team is going to be selling out. Kentucky will probably bring as many people as they can. They travel well. UVA basketball is in a very good position. I'm wondering if UVA football is going to sell out, frankly, because you've got a 60,000-foot-seat arena, and I haven't seen that stadium sold out since

what Notre Dame or Southern Cal was here. A lot of those were Notre Dame and Southern Cal fans. We're visiting. Visiting fans. Yeah. Comments continue to come in. Jeremy Wilson is in eastern Tennessee. He says peanuts in a Coca-Cola is about as Appalachian as it gets. Appalachian to the core. Amen, brother. Yes, it is. Yeah, it's awesome. This one. It tastes good, too. Maybe it's an acquired taste. I'm going to try it. I'm going to try it. I have no doubt it tastes good.

This one on football, offers some perspective from Jerry Rackleaf.com. You got an O-line commitment for the 2027 class UVA football. You've got a new general manager with the football team. Yeah. Let's see. Where's my football notes? Yeah, they got a new commitment this week.

The seventh commitment for the 20th. 27 class. The first commitment outside of the state of Virginia. The first six guys are all Virginians, which is highly unusual in this program over the last more

than a decade. And they're just getting started. So, this kid, Marino Fisher, 6-7-270, I imagine he's got the kind of body that he'll become 673-10.

That's a big dude. Without a big dude. Without a whole love. Just hanging out with some of the offensive linemen I know from over there. I sat down recently at a place with a couple of players. Three offensive linemen ran into them and they invited me over to their table. And just sitting there watching them eat blew my mind. They just kept ordering burgers and talking.

hot dogs and french fries and onion rings just it was i couldn't eat that much food if you put a gun to my head but so this guy is six seven two 70 he won't be 270 much longer i mean six seven two 70 for a high school kid's still a good boy it's huge yeah i mean what did the briggishaw ferguson come in at oh not not anywhere close to like 230 pounds yeah um and this kid uh he's he's an offensive tackle. UVA just offered him early in the month, and he came and visited over the weekend and committed. He had previously planned visits to Pitt and JMU,

but he canceled those immediately. He also had offers from Carolina. It's hard to get a guy out of Carolina. although, you know, well, things are kind of up in the ear down there right now, but still with that Belichick recruiting machine, I would think it would be hard to say no to Carolina if you grew up in that state. He had offers from Belichick and Coastal and Liberty to go along with JMU and Pitts. So number 34 prospect in the state of North Carolina,

number 85 tackle in the country for his class. So a good addition to an ever-growing 27 football recruiting class. And then Justin Sparrow's named the new GM to take Taylor's place who went out to Stanford. Justin is brilliant. Just talking to those guys a couple of times in the past year is mind-blowing how much time they put in with a very small staff. And pouring over film of prospects, not only of Virginia opponents, but other schools, talking to agents, I mean, I can't imagine how much time they're.

spend on the phone and in the film room, not just when the portal opens, they're doing their homework before all that. They're doing their scouting and preliminary evaluations and things like that, but those guys deserve some kind of a medal for the hours they put in. And I can't imagine the studying they do. The brutal, that's a brutal job. Yeah. And then, you know, constant communication with Tony Elliott and his staff about what do you think of this guy. Is this what you think you like? And we like this guy, see if you like him, that sort of stuff. It's mind-boggling the effort they put in.

A couple other news and notes here. Kevin Cassice has filled out his men's lacrosse coaching roster. Yeah, I didn't read a lot about that, but I'm sure that the guy is top-notch. I think he was a former head coach at Vermont. Is that correct? I believe that's correct. Ten seasons at Vermont, where he became the programs winning his head coach. Yeah.

So that's kind of following in the footsteps of Cassis, who did the same thing in Lehigh. And I'm sure this guy is solid and will be a good lieutenant for Coach Cassice going forward. I think the lacrosse program's in good shape. I think the lacrosse program is a good shape. Basketball, football's in good shape. Everything is a pretty good shape. I mean, dude, it's an abundance of riches.

It's an abundance of riches here. And these teams are on the stick here, grinding to endow their programs. I'm excited for Virginia Athletics. I'm excited for you. I'm excited for Jerry Rackleft.com for the team. What do you have in the hopper at Jerry Rackleft.com? Well, this afternoon, again, I think I'm going to break down the basketball team and just, you know, so people, a lot of people probably, the Transport Portal thing is dragged out for so long. They might have lost track of who's actually on the roster.

And so I'm going to give them an update about who's who and where and what they bring to the program. Really, only the sports that's still alive right now is Virginia's track and field. field. And there's, I don't know how much impact it will have, but the last time I looked, Virginia was number four in the Directors Cup standings, which is pretty nice, considering Stanford was number one. Carolina was number two, I think, was it Southern Cal? Let's see if I could find that.

It was number three or Ohio State's Way. I like that. I think it was a big 10 school, but three of your top four were ACC schools. which is pretty nice. So we'll just be, we've been brainstorming a little bit on some projects we can work on to peak people's interest

in this quiet time of the athletic season. As of April 7th, Carolina 1, Stanford 2, Virginia 3, Princeton 4, Ohio State 5, Penn State 6, Notre Dame 7, Duke 8, Michigan 9, Texas 10. Yeah, pretty good. That's as of the April, so it's extremely good. Yeah.

And the gap between Virginia, the gap is large with Virginia and Stanford and the two slot is about 55 points. So, 53 points. It would be hard to overcome that. Hard to overcome that. Jerry Ratcliffe.com is $8 a month, guys. It's $8 a month, and you're getting 50 pieces of fresh content that are UVA sports-related. There's no media platform that is pumping more UVA content than Jerry racklop.com, period. Facts on facts on facts.

And even though the seasons are over, there's never a slowdown. There's always news coming out of all the programs. Yeah. Just look at the past week. Yeah. There's no games of any kind, but there's news all over the place. It's well worth the price of a cup of coffee. Judah Wickauer is behind the camera.

Jerry Rackleff is a Virginia Sports Hall of Famer. I enjoy sitting across from him. The I Love Seville show is up at 1230. We encourage you guys to follow Jerry Rackleff on Twitter where he has, what are you flirting? Are you at 25,000? 20-some thousand? Somewhere in there.

I'll lose track of it. The guy's got 23,000 plus Twitter followers. Follow them on Twitter where you get an array of content, puppies and pooches. and ACC and pro sports and some funny content. I like how you mix it up over there. I'll try to keep it interesting. We'll put out that Goober's alert for people.

Never tried that before. Would resonate with the beer. Peanuts and soda. Soda Pop. For Jerry Rackleff and for Judah Wickcower, my name is Jerry Miller. Thank you kindly for watching The Jerry and Jerry Show. Sula.