The Josh Innes Show - Houston Heartbreak

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

Damn...I can't think of a worse way for UH to lose the national championship game. I really feel bad for Kelvin...the look on his face as the game ended was so sad. I watched "One Shining Moment" and it feels different in the NIL era. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The following was recorded from inside an ice plunge. Ah! Woo! Okay. All right. When a Coors Light is cold enough, the mountains on the can turn blue. So the next time you want a cold lager, cold filter, cold package Coors Light, just wait until those glorious mountains on the can turn blue.

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Yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. See app for details. So that U of H game last night was a real dick punch, huh? At no point as that game was going on did I feel like U of H was going to lose. I felt like they were in control.

I thought the tempo benefited them. The pace benefited them. I mean, that's a Florida team that likes to score 85 points, can score 90, 95 points. You got them in the 60s same way it was with Duke now the Duke win was a miracle right so maybe you you got your miracle there and then you know Angels in the outfield style it just kind of ran out on you I don't know but you know you got the miracle against Duke your style of play was able to keep Duke in the 60s I mean think about how remarkable what they did defensively is even though they didn't end up winning that game and they melted down in the

last six, seven minutes of the game. And I guess you could call it a meltdown. It's not, you know, a dude shooting a 15 on the last hole of the Masters or anything like that, but it was a meltdown in the way they had two possessions at the end of the game and didn't get one damn shot from those two possessions and the same dude made two mistakes in that stretch but think about what they were able to do defensively against two really good offenses Duke has the number one player in the country and yeah he got his but you held them in the 60s and then you held Florida in the 60s, and then you held Florida in the 60s. Those are two high-scoring electric offensive teams, teams that you expect to score 85-90. You kept them to about 20 points lower than what a lot of people had.

So the defense worked for Kelvin, and then you got the miracle against Duke. You earned the miracle against Duke, but it was a miracle given where you were in that game and given what had to happen down the stretch. It was miraculous that you were able to win it but you did it with your defense and you fucked them up and you made the plays when you had to this time it didn't happen that way but credit to them for what they were able to do defensively in those two games but you know you go back and you think about the last couple of possessions of the game and you feel bad for the kid for turning the ball over i say kid i shouldn't say kid he's grown man. It's funny how we do that,

right? Like if we'd like the guy and we hate that he made a mistake or made two mistakes, we call him a kid. If we think he's a dipshit, he's not. You know, it's hypocritical. I get it. But I do feel bad for him. I feel bad in that spot. But these are, and this is where it's interesting, and we talk about this a lot. You don't view college athletes the same way you used to view them. When guys would be there for two, three, four years, whatever it was, when guys were not getting paid six-figure deals to hop from school to school, you view them differently, right? I don't view college athletes as children. I don't view them as kids. I don't view them as student athletes, which is the biggest farce.

And that's something that a lot of people who try to sell that narrative to you, they still love to say that when you're critical of college players. It's, these are just student athletes. Bullshit. They're not. They're hired guns. And more and more of them are becoming hired guns. And they're going to bounce from school to school.

Walter Clayton Jr. was at Iona. Now he's at Florida. These guys are all going to bounce around from place to place. That's why it just feels different in that way when you watch these dudes play. Let me play a few commercials, and we'll continue. All right, if you're ready to win some real cash during the basketball playoffs, you've got to check out Pick six from DraftKings. When it comes to basketball payouts, DraftKings pick six posterizes the competition, including

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Like I'm watching One Shining Moment last night, and I've always loved One Shining Moment because I'm a sap, I'm a softy, I fucking love it. I was, you know, Jilly loves it too, but I'm like, here's how this is going to play out. You know, actually we played a too, but I'm like, here's how this is going to play out. You know, we actually, we played a one shining moment drinking game and the one shining moment drinking game is anytime they show a white guy pounding his chest or slapping the floor, you take a drink and you get a lot of white dudes pounding their chest. You get a lot of

white dudes slapping the floor. You know, the NCAA tournament is still a time where white basketball players can get their shine, particularly in one shining moment. It is a glorious moment for all of us whites when we get to see some white trash looking hillbilly from Florida, or at least playing for Florida with a mullet and a mustache make a play, and then he can pound his chest and make one shining moment. But I'm watching one shining moment last night, and I know it's not fair to say that everybody that's in the NCAA tournament is making six figures and jumping from school to school because it's not true.

There are still haves and have-nots in all of college athletics, but particularly the have-nots are going to be these smaller schools. You would argue that these schools are now less of a – they are more of a have not, if that's a double negative, they are more of a have not than they were before because now guys are just going to leave your program and go from Iona to somewhere else and make money like Walter Clayton. So you're going to get more of that, even more so than you used to. Now, again, not everybody is someone that Kentucky wants. You'll probably be able to keep some, but now that money is a big factor in it,

you're going to have a hard time finding money at Iona or at Coastal Carolina or insert whatever small school from the SWAC, the MEAC, the Conference USA. That's not even a thing anymore, is it, or is it? The American, all of these conferences that aren't as big as some of these other places, the bigger conferences, the power conferences, you're actually going to have a harder time keeping these guys now. It used to be that a Wichita State or a Butler or a school like that would keep dudes for three or four years,

and that's where their true advantage came from because by the time you had a core group of dudes that were in their third year together, fourth year together, they may not have been superstar dudes but together they formed a fucking team that could go out and beat a team full of Kentucky one and dunners and that's the advantage they had well now they lose that advantage because now teams can just openly recruit whoever the hell they want to openly recruit and even though they're not supposed to be paying them money or recruiting them with money they are recruiting them with money and they're getting them there. So it's going to be harder and harder for, you know, those kinds of Cinderella's that used to be like a Butler

who became a monster as a mid-major or a Wichita state or a Creighton, even though Creighton's in the big East. So maybe that's not as fair now, but it's still fucking Creighton. I don't care that you're in the big East. The big East ain't what it used to be. The Big East used to be the big dog, and now it's got fucking Creighton in it. You can help me a big dog conference and be like, hey, Creighton's in our conference. It just doesn't work that way. So it's a different world. But that's why when I'm watching One Shining Moment last night, it doesn't feel the same way to me anymore.

I'm watching it, and maybe it's because I'm a pessimist and I just have a negative outlook on things, and that's very possible. But I'm watching this and I'm like, part of what made one shining moment awesome and part of what makes the tournament awesome is you're watching dudes who presumably, we know we're being kind of presumptuous here, but we're thinking about guys that are at a place because they want to be at a place because they care about that place and it's not about a dollar sign. That's for the pros. That's why you don't see a one shining moment whenever the NBA finals is over, right?

You don't get one shining moment. You don't have Luther Vandross, the ball is tipped. You don't get that because we know that these guys are hired people and they make a fuck ton of money. What made the college basketball thing great and what made the tournament great and what made one shining moment great is you didn't feel like these guys were at their school because of what the school could offer them financially.

They weren't pros. They were being exploited, but they weren't pros, right? Now you watch it and it's just like, eh, eh. Like I just didn't feel the same way. I didn't get that same like like, jazzed up feeling. Like, the NIL era just kind of dampens that. You know what I'm saying? I'm not against them getting paid.

I know that that's usually the argument. If you're someone like me who's like, ah, it just feels different. It's, oh, you don't want them to get paid, you racist son of a bitch. Like, that ain't it. Get paid. I want you to get paid. Go make your money. You deserve to make that money

but they've somehow successfully taken a scummy business and made it even fucking scummier despite the fact that they're pulling the paying the players so now you watch one shining moment and just like yeah one shiny moment like yeah you lost you know what's gonna happen now you're gonna go on to some other school and do whatever now Now, with the Houston guys, we talked about it yesterday. While they have transfer portal dudes, there are dudes that have been committed to that school and played there for multiple years. And one thing that stood out to me was the reaction

that a lot of the players had for Kelvin Sampson. You want to talk about a dick punch. That shot of Kelvin Sampson at the end of the game where he's just like, Jesus, like, what do I have to do do I'm in my late 60s I'd like to win a championship this might be my last best chance and um and he's just watching this play not even get a shot off and it's like and then it's miserable because he can't touch the ball after he head fakes and he didn't really head fake he jumped so like once he came down and dropped the ball like nobody he couldn't touch it somebody else had to fucking touch it and it's

just ticking away like no one's touching the ball three two dive one it's over and you're watching Kelvin and he's such a likable guy and he's a guy that I think we'd all agree based on what dudes are allowed to do now got totally railroaded, got just shit on in Indiana, had his reputation destroyed in Indiana over impermissible fucking phone calls. And now everybody's doing this shit and there's agents and everything else. And you're like, wow, we shit on that guy for that. And you're watching and everything about him rules. Like the fact that he's out there wearing like wind breaker pants and a tucked in pole, the guy's walking around looking like an AAU coach. You know, like that's how my basketball coach used to dress when I was in high school.

You'd have old school windbreaker type pants and a tucked in polo shirt. And that's how you fucking coach. And you watch Kelvin doing that. It's not the days of when he was in Oklahoma and had like the kind of almost denim looking shirts that he would always wear with a tie. My man's out there looking like a high school AAU coach. He's out there grinding with these guys. And then you see the look on his face whenever the ball's just bouncing and the clock ticks away and it's the last best chance he may ever have.

And it's like, fuck. And you knew you had it because you had the lead the whole game. You were dominating the game. And then you let down. And again, this is kind of what kills them. And this is where, like, if you want to be skeptical of what U of H does, you know, at the end of the day, dudes who are scorers have to make plays. Walter Clayton, who was held in check for the majority of the game,

made huge shots when he had to make huge shots. What happened down the stretch for the defensive-minded Houston team? They couldn't hit big shots. Turned it over twice down the stretch, the game you know sucks but watching the way like and maybe this is me being unfair and biased to a degree not that I'm some diehard U of H fan but because I'm a Houston fan and care about the city and care about people in the city and want them to have success. I felt like that loss hit that team harder than I think it would have maybe hit Florida or if it even hit like Duke. When Duke lost, I'm watching Duke and it's like, the fuck does Cooper Flagg care?

Dude's about to go on and make a billion dollars and the NBA be the number one overall pick. The fuck does he care? But I'm watching the dudes at U of H and I'm watching their reactions and their reactions are that of dudes who really really gave a shit about that moment gave a shit about that coach gave a shit about you know that I'm not gonna say they gave a shit about the school per se I mean the school is just where they went to play with the coach, but they're committed to the coach. They're committed to wanting to win. Like, I didn't feel like I was watching a bunch of dudes who were just like,

no big deal. You know, I'm onto the next one. Like Cooper flag. Did he want to lose? No, but like, even like, and it's not just because it was Duke. Because I watched when LSU went to the final four back in oh six. That was the first year. What year did they go?

They went to 06 because that was the first year that Florida won the national championship. So LSU went to the Final Four. LSU played UCLA in the Final Four that year. And I watched LSU beat Duke in the Sweet 16. And that's J.J. Redick, Duke. That's Sheldon Williams, Duke. Both of those dudes went on to become NBA players and rather successful high draft picks. And you're watching even those guys and like JJ Redick looked just fucking despondent when Duke lost. And remember, that's JJ Redick, player of the year type of guy. It was him and Adam Morrison back and forth. And you watch JJ

Redick and even JJ Redick, you you could tell it meant something to him. When I watch the dudes on Duke now, it's just kind of like, no, this is just a means to an end. When I watched U of H last night, that's not the vibe I got from those dudes. I got the vibe that that's something that's going to haunt them forever. I don't know that Cooper Flagg losing in the Elite Eight after he's about to be the number one overall draft pick and make a billion dollars. I don't know if 20 years from now he's going to go, shit, I can't believe we blew that game to U of H.

Maybe he will. I don't know the guy. But I feel like those dudes playing for U of H, like they're going to look back on that and they're going to celebrate the final four team. And in 10 years, five years from now, they'll have a celebration. 10 years from now, they'll have a celebration. 20 years from now, they'll have a celebration and people will remember how awesome that run was. And they'll remember how incredible, like just the type of basketball they played was because it was different than what you're used to seeing now. And they're going to talk so well about Kelvin Sampson, who may or not even be alive at some of these things. You know, they're going to talk about how great it was. They're going to remember the coach. They're

going to love the coach. Might put his fucking name on the court somewhere. Who knows? But they love all this. And I think it's going to haunt those guys. Not to say that those guys can't go on to be professional ballplayers. I'm sure they can. But there's not a Cooper flag there. There's not a guy that you look at and go, those guys are surefire slam dunk number one overall pick, right? They got some guys on there that are solid players. There are going to be some guys that might be some grinders at the next level, whatever.

I don't follow the NBA draft, so I don't know. But I know who Cooper flag is, and I know where he's supposed to be drafted, number one. I think this just, not to sound trite but I think it mattered more to them because I think that that group of guys cared more about what happened at the college level as opposed to being concerned about what happens at the pro level and I think they truly did care about their coach I was reading quotes about how they felt and most of them are just fucking heartbroken that they didn't win it for the coach. And that's the ultimate compliment, isn't it? Like, and maybe it's

because Kelvin's an old school guy and maybe it's because, you know, he's not like a young, hot shot, 37 year old dude, like Todd, Todd Golden, you know? So like, like, it's just weird because you watch a guy like Todd Golden, who I'm sure has had his ascent and all that, but you watch Todd Golden win and you're like, dude's fucking 30 years younger than fucking Kelvin. Kelvin's put in all this fucking work grinding from job to job, doing it back when it was harder. You could argue that it was harder to get players. I guess you could debate one way or the other if it was more difficult to get players in 1998 versus in 2015 or 2025. You could debate that but like Florida was really kind of nothing and then boom they're in the national championship game too late two years later and

they won it so like you watch it and no I don't know anything about fucking Todd I know that there aren't a lot of adult men named Todd anymore it's not a common name that people have not a lot of 38 year old dudes have the name Todd anymore but But you look at Todd, and then you look at Kelvin, and maybe this is totally unfair to Todd, but I'm watching it, and I'm like, I wanted that other dude to win because I feel like that dude's been a lifer. He's been dragged through the mud. He's been down. He's risen.

He's taken a dead program that hadn't done shit in 30 years and turned it into a school that's going to consistent Final Fours again. I just wanted that guy to win. And then to lose it in such a shitty way. It'd be one thing if you lost by 10. It'd be one thing if you even got the fucking shot off and it rattled in 10 times and came out, you know, like a dramatic movie ending when you watch it, boom, boom, boom, and it falls off the rim. It's another thing to lose with two possessions at the

end of the game. One that results in a turnover. Well, both that resulted in a turnover, but one is off the knee of the player, and then you have the last shot. Decent looking play, although I will be critical to one degree here, is I felt when watching that, if you've got 20 seconds, you've called a timeout, you're advancing the ball up the floor. Also, I think it's stupid that in the women's game, they advanced the ball to half court after a timeout into the front court after a timeout. Yet in the men's game, they still have to carry it the length of the floor. I think that's stupid. But I feel like they started things too late in that and they were counting on one shot. One shot was either going to win it or lose it. a two-point game like that I think you need to give yourself an opportunity at two scores now the

argument would be you need a two to tie a three to win you hold your destiny in your own hands you don't want to give the ball back to the other guys that's true but what is the likelihood the ball goes into the basket particularly when you run that play which seemed to take forever to get into to me I want to shoot with closer to maybe eight seconds seven seconds if you're shooting in that situation you want a chance to do something you've been good at which is get offensive rebounds and get another shot or if you don't you want an opportunity to foul put them at the line put the pressure on them and give yourself one last chance to do it I think that whole thing played out poorly. I think defensively, Florida obviously played it really well. That sucked. But to lose the game like that also for

Kelvin is terrible. Like again, if you get the shot off, at least you had a shot. They didn't even get a shot in the last two possessions of the national championship game for a basketball fucking lifer who's been raked over the coals he's been left for dead he's come back he's resurrected this program and then for it to go down that way i thought really fucking sucked i felt terrible for the dude watching that like and then you they showed the shot of him on the sideline and i felt bad for us as viewers because we've invested in this entire game in this entire tournament and it comes down to two turnovers a turnover a foul free throws and then another turnover it's like you watched a great fucking movie and then the

end was terrible you know everything else about the movie was great and then you end up with a bad ending and that's kind of what you got there it sucked so i feel bad for kelvin uh i feel bad for the fans on that one and uh it sucked that there was a crappy way for it to end for such a likable guy and i think there's a bias in it too because you just got this older older black coach that you watch and you know that guy's seen some shit and you know that guy's lived some shit and you know that that guys had to climb and you just watch it then you just see this fucking young dude win and you're like it's sports is not fair you know like if it were fair kelvin wins that game and they get the shot off and they drill the three and they're celebrating today and planning parades in houston as is, same devastating shit that always happens to Houston when they've made a Final Four. So, anyway, more to come.